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About Illinois Valley news. (Cave City, Oregon) 1937-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 26, 2003)
Page 16 Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, OR Wednesday, November 26, 2003 First Oregon Counties receive ‘Rural Schools’ funding den said. lar amount for rural Oregon counties will industrial land The county payments schools and counties by more than $110 council forms receive averaging the three highest legislation directs $1.3 bil- million through the first Lynn Boucher Coordinator of Cave Junction Cares Program Resident Manager of A+ Mini Storage Lived in Illinois Valley: 14 years How long have you been involved in the Cave Junc- tion Cares Program? Since 1989. We thought up the name the first year we did it. I used to serve food on Thanksgiving and Christ- mas at the mission in Union Station in California. When I got here they didn’t have a program like that so we started that. What exactly does Cave Junction Cares do? We secure the pavilion at Jubilee Park and solicit dona- tions. On Thanksgiving Day we serve about 300 people an all you can eat complete Thanksgiving dinner. Meals on Wheels does not deliver on holidays so we get their list and deliver Thanksgiving dinners to those homes. On Christmas we do the same thing with breakfast. We have a Santa Claus on Christmas that passes out more than $1,000 worth of toys. Where do the Christmas toys come from? Everybody in the valley donates them. It’s wonderful. I already have 12 brand new bikes and I haven’t even started Christmas. We have one Santa that delivers to people that can’t make it to our Christmas event. Churches and the welfare office lets us know who is down and out. We don’t want last names. We just want the children’s name and age. Santa delivers their gifts and a hot breakfast. My other Santa sits on a stage in the pavilion and hands out gifts. Do other service clubs besides Cave Junction Cares help with the holiday events? I’m totally involved with all the service clubs: The Vet- eran’s of Foreign Wars, I.V. Bikers, Cave Junction and Illinois Valley Lions and they support me too. We all help each other. Whatever toys I have left after Christ- mas I donate back to the Lions and they give them out at the Easter egg hunt. How long does it take to get this all together? We work all the time. We have donation cans around town. When I find a sale I buy all the paper plates and things. Most of the food is donated. Is it heartbreaking for you to see people in need every year? No. We’ve seen kids that never even knew of Santa Claus. One year we had a 9-year-old boy that had never even received Christmas presents. All the volunteers were crying because it was just so neat. Everybody that has ever volunteered with me comes back and usually they bring somebody new with them. It’s heart warm- ing. What drives you to give up your family holiday to do this? This is not a very wealthy valley. By the grace of God It could be me in that line. It’s just an automatic thing. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Pistachio. — Interview by Steve Fairchild To strengthen Ore- gon’s competitive environ- ment for economic devel- opment and job creation, business professionals, community leaders, and development experts from throughout the state will join together to establish Oregon’s first Industrial Lands Advisory Commit- tee. The advisory commit- tee, created pursuant to House Bill 2011, adopted by Oregon’s 72nd Legisla- tive Assembly, has the mandate of identifying 25 industrial sites of “statewide significance” that offer in particular a high potential for job crea- tion. These premium “opportunity sites” will be chosen from an inventory of identified locations pre- pared by regional develop- ment offers with Oregon Economic and Community Development Dept. (OECDD). “Communities with assets in place like “shovel-ready” industrial sites have strategic edge when it comes to attracting and retaining business,” said Marty Brantley, OECDD director. “The advisory committee has deep expertise and experi- ence in economic develop- ment, which will guide them in selecting Oregon’s most advantageous busi- ness sites of the future.” Members of the task force represent all parts of the state and include city and county leaders. They are: Lindsay Berryman, mayor of Med- ford; Greg Specht, presi- dent of Specht Properties of Portland; Tom Zelenka, vice president for environ- mental and public affairs with The Schnitzer Group in Portland; Mike McArthur, Sherman County Judge; Jean Wood, vice president Mhi Real Estate Development and Asset Management in Red- mond; Steve Clark, presi- dent and publisher of Community Newspapers in Beaverton; Jim Mark, CEO of Melvin Mark Companies in Portland; Dick Sheehy, Manager of Site Selection with IDC- CH2MHill in Portland and Chuck Rouse, formerly of Pioneer Bank in Baker City. Please all and you will please none. - Aesop - Support the merchants who advertise in the ‘Illinois Valley News’ installment of the 2003 county payments funds provided by The Secure Rural Schools and Com- munity Self-Determination Act. U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho) wrote the law in 2000 to secure a stable source of funding for rural schools and counties. “For many of our rural communities, this money helps preserve jobs and build roads and infrastruc- ture, as well as funding education statewide,” Wy- lion over six years from the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Man- agement (BLM) to Oregon counties for education, roads and county services. Today’s $110 million is only the BLM portion of the funding and represents a more than 65 percent increase in BLM monies from before Wyden’s bill was enacted; the forest service portion of the pay- ments will be released to counties later this year. The Wyden-Craig bill establishes a locked-in dol- receipt producing years between Fiscal Years 1986 and 1999. Under this proposal, 80-85 percent of funding will be reserved for tradi- tional county schools and services supported by fed- eral revenues, and 15-20 percent of monies will be set aside for national forest land or forest-related coop- erative projects. Josephine County will receive $13.39 million. The county payments will provide funds through 2006. Rules set protecting nation’s food supply By Dec. 12 more than 1,000 licensed food proc- essors and 50 animal feed producers in Oregon must register with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And those importing food products will need to give prior notice as part of the effort to safeguard the nation’s food supply. In the next few weeks, officials will try to make those affected aware of the new requirements. “The Bioterrorism Act of 2002 is designed to bol- ster the safety and security of America’s food supply by enabling more targeted efforts to inspect imported foods and by allowing the quick identification of food processors and other estab- lishments in the even of deliberate or accidental contamination of specific items of food,” said Alan Bennett, public affairs spe- cialist at FDA’s Portland office. Two provisions of the act -- the registration re- quirement and prior notice of imported food -- have an immediate impact of food facilities in Oregon and the rest of the nation. Registration pertains to facilities that process, pack, or hold food for con- sumption in the U.S. Each registration must include the name, address, phone number, and related information. The registration infor- mation will not be avail- able to the public. After Dec. 12, all firms receiving imported foods are required to notify FDA no more than five days and no less than two hours prior to its arrival if it is arriving by road, four hours by rail or air, and eight hours if it is arriving by water transportation. The prior notice will allow FDA to inspect product if it needs to be- fore it moves on to proc- essing or directly to the consumer. Americans 45 and over were judged average, with potential for improvement, when it comes to consumer issues based on findings from AARP’s new 2003 Consumer Experiences Survey that examined indi- viduals’ experiences with financial products and ser- vices. The survey looked at credit behavior, fraud and financial planning. These consumers are attempting to protect their financial security, however, their lack of basic financial knowledge can make their planning more difficult. Although consumers age 45+ are lacking knowl- edge of basic financial and investment terms, they do understand some aspects of personal credit, including such things as how failing to make timely credit card payments can impact their credit rating. While ac- knowledging room for im- provement, 45+ consumers also report managing their debt levels well, with only 7 percent saying that they have more debt than they can financially handle. There is good news in this report. Ninety-eight percent of all 45+ consum- ers surveyed have taken steps to protect their iden- tity and credit situation. Some of these steps in- clude ordering a copy of their credit report and lim- iting the number of identi- fication cards they carry. Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the U.S. today and AARP encourages older consum- ers to protect themselves from this invasive crime. The percentage of 45+ consumers reporting bad purchasing experiences in the past year has increased over the past four years. And while more consum- ers took some type of ac- tion, including complaints to the Better Business Bu- reau, in 2003 compared with 1999, overall respon- dents are slightly less satis- fied in 2003 with the ac- tion they took. Of those people who say they had a bad experience in the past year, 37 percent say they were victims of a major swindle or fraud. Other key findings include: * Sixty percent of con- sumers own a 401(k) re- tirement plan; * Thirty-nine percent invest through a mutual fund account; * Thirty-six percent own individual stock; * 45+ consumers are least prepared for future expenses; * Thirty-eight percent report having enough set aside for retirement; * Twenty-four percent report having enough set aside for long-term care expenses; * Fifteen percent have “none at all” set aside for retirement. (DBR Media) (c) 2003 DBR Media,