Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Spears sentenced to 90 months
Illinois Valley resident Ronald Spears
was sentenced March 17 to a minimum of 90
months in prison for first-degree assault and
unlawful use of a firearm in the shooting of
Gregory Graybill in April 2009.
The sentencing comes after a jury found
Spears guilty on Feb. 11 of shooting Graybill in
the arm after a confrontation between the two
men.
Graybill and several others had driven
off-road vehicles on a mining claim near Kerby
where Spears was living. Spears, who was
carrying a gun at the time, told Graybill and the
others to get off the property.
The off-road drivers drove off the
property, but Spears and Graybill continued
arguing until Spears reportedly pushed his gun
into Graybill’s stomach, which Graybill swiped
Page A-7
Lorna Byrne students hold fund-raiser
away with his arm. The gun went off and a
round hit Graybill’s arm, which later had to
be amputated.
Under Measure 11, the first-degree
assault charge required a 90-month mandatory
minimum sentence. Spears was credited
with the two years he already served in the
Josephine County Jail as time served.
Spears was also sentenced to five years
for unlawful use of a deadly weapon, which he
is serving jointly with the assault sentence.
Spears had said in police reports that
Graybill had grabbed the gun and that he did
not mean to shoot Graybill. During the trial,
Judge Lindi Baker did not allow evidence or
testimony on whether mining laws allowed
someone to remove others from their claim.
By Darcy Wallace
IVN Staff Writer
Band and choir students at Lorna Byrne
Middle School are hard at work raising funds
and preparing for the Heritage Festival in
Disneyland in mid-April.
Starting Saturday morning, March 19,
students, parents and other volunteers held a
rummage sale in the parking lot of Sterling
Bank until about 3 p.m.
Anna Ortiz has been actively involved
in helping out Lorna Byrne music students,
volunteering at several fund-raisers. She said
she was pleased with the support she has seen
so far from parents.
“Anything we can do to help our
children, I’m there,” Ortiz said. “When it comes
to kids there are some really caring people in
the Valley.”
Selma Center member Linda Meier said
the Illinois Valley Grange donated tents for
them to use during the fund-raiser. Volunteers
also sold baked goods at a “pay what you can”
rate.
Lorna Byrne students have a few more
fund-raisers remaining in the hopes of raising a
little under $5,000 left for the trip. Band director
Brice Cloyd said the school choir, bands and the
marimba group will perform a benefit concert at
2 p.m. on April 3 at the Selma Center. They’re
also planning to hold another pancake breakfast
at the Illinois Valley Grange on April 17.
Herbicide opponents rally at Lake Selmac
Continued from A-1
For several weeks now area
residents have disagreed over the
safety of herbicide use, which is
regulated by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). Many
residents opposed to the spray say
these chemicals were never fully
tested by impartial sources and that
potential health problems, even if not
confirmed, are not worth the risk.
Jennifer Phillippi, Perpetua
president and ODF board member,
said the company would take
precautions to apply chemicals
according to strict EPA guidelines
with a 100-foot buffer on a windless
day, to protect against runoff or any
other spread into sensitive areas.
Phillippi had said herbicides
were needed to control competing
grasses that would crowd out newly
planted seedlings on the property for
sun and moisture.
Residents have taken their
concerns to the board of county
commissioners for their input.
Commissioner Simon Hare said the
use of chemicals concerned him and
he planned to attend the town hall. But
he was not convinced the herbicides
posed a threat to Lake Selmac as
proposed.
“It’s regulated by the Dept. of
Agriculture and they do not have
anything on the books that says
[Perpetua Forests Co.] can’t do it,”
Hare said.
According to Hare, the spray
was not likely to run off into the lake
or other bodies of water because of
where the property was located. He
also said fish in Lake Selmac are
mostly trout and do not lay eggs, so
herbicides were unlikely to transfer
to fish eggs.
Others are not convinced there
is enough information backing up the
safety of herbicides and pesticides.
Barbara Powell, a physician
working in homeopathy, naturopathy
and other areas, was the featured
guest speaker during the March 9
community meeting.
According to Powell,
80,000 chemicals have been
approved for use by the
Environmental
Protection
Agency (EPA) in controlled
amounts
by
trained
professionals. But she says
only 200 or fewer have
actually been tested.
“There is such an
informational deficit,” Powell
said. “We need to insist on
complete disclosure of every
ingredient that’s going to be
used.”
Powell
said
the
EPA requested detailed
information about chemicals used
by Monsanto, a major chemical
company, but that the company
would not disclose most ingredients
due to conflicts of interest. She said
some former Monsanto employees
now work for the EPA or the Food
and Drug Administration (EPA).
“Just because something is
listed in ‘inert’ ingredients does not
mean it’s nontoxic or inert,” Powell
said. “There is a problem with the
legal system that has allowed these
corporate laws to be passed…how
did [these chemicals] get introduced
in our country with no information
and deemed safe?”
Nona Clark, one of the owners of
Lake Selmac Resort, sees more than
one side of the issue. She said she’s
caught in a difficult situation where
she wants to preserve the lake, but
also believes competing vegetation
herbicide has been deemed safe.”
Clark said she has been in
similar situations before, but that it
hasn’t always turned out the way she
expected.
“I’m not sure what we should
do,” Clark said. “We’ve had a real
issue with the bark beetle situation.
The trees just get devastated because
there are too many trees on the
properties. [Environmental] groups
said no, you can’t cut down the trees,
and we lost many acres of forest
because there was no water to sustain
them.”
But the safety of chemicals
still leaves Clark
with doubts. She
said that after
Internet research
and conversations
with
ODF
officials, evidence
on both sides is
contradictory.
“I just want
to make sure
all the facts are
right,”
Clark
said. “If these
chemicals
are
really dangerous
we’ll be behind
this [protest] 100 percent.”
In conversations with Bureau
of Land Management (BLM) and
Forest Service employees, Hare
said alternatives to a helicopter
spray, such as handheld application,
would be more expensive and still
“There is nothing we care about
more than that lake,” “We’ve been
working for years to clean up the
lake. I contacted the Department of
Forestry…they say this herbicide has
been deemed safe.”
Nona Clark
Lake Selmac Resort,
and bark beetle infestations might
warrant the careful use of pesticides.
“There is nothing we care about
more than that lake,” Clark said.
“We’ve been working for years to
clean up the lake. I contacted the
Department of Forestry…they say this
require trained people to apply the
chemicals.
“The alternatives are not quite
as simple as people would make
them out to be,” Hare said. “I feel
Jennifer [Phillippi] and owners of
Perpetua are pretty environmentally-
conscious people; they’ve weighed
their options. I want [chemicals] to
be applied as safely as can possibly
be done, that’s my concern.”
Hare said he strongly supports
private property rights and disclosure,
but wondered at what point to draw
the line.
“If people are interested [in
private property spraying] there
should be some responsibility for
their buying into it,” Hare said. “If a
thousand people are saying, ‘Every
time you do something, I want to
know’ — there has to be bounds. I’m
not sure if this is out of bounds. I
think it’s not as easy as it sounds.”
But for Powell, the issue is less
about the spray itself, but the lack
of complete information about the
chemicals used.
“This is part of our constitutional
right for the pursuit of health, wealth
and happiness.
“We’ve got people passing laws
that these are legal to use when there’s
no information,” Powell said. “The
excuses are, ‘We don’t have anything
negative on them.’ But we do not exist
to make them a job. They’re there to
preserve our freedoms and our safety.
We’re certainly paying for it.”
Senator to hold town hall meeting
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden plans to meet with Josephine
County residents in Grants Pass at 2 p.m. Thursday, March 24,
Wyden will be in the Rogue Community College audito-
rium to take questions from residents in a town hall format, ac-
cording to press release from Tom Towslee, Wyden’s state com-
munications director.
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Illinois Valley News
541-592-2541
Sudoku #5
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InteRIoRS
541-592-2413
FRIDAY,
March 25
Fruit & yogurt parfait
NO
w/ graham
crackers,
turkey
&
cheese
wrap,
OOL
SCH
3 cheese vegetable
Y
A
D
O
T totally teriyaki
lasagna,
ng pilaf,
dippers Sp
w/ ri rice
reak on a
cheesy B burger
multigrain
bun s
Continue
Classic chef salad,
O sub
very N
veggie
OL
sandwich,
beefy
SCHO big
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bowl,
Y
DA cheesy
T
breadsticks
w/ mari-
Spring
nara sauce,
hot ham
ak
Bre sandwich
& cheese
Continues
MONDAY,
March 28
TUESDAY,
March 29
WEDNESDAY,
March 30
Citrus spinach salad,
totally turkey sand-
wich on whole wheat,
cheesy burger on a
multigrain bun, been
& cheese enchilada,
teriyaki beef & broccoli
over seasoned rice
Hearty garden
salad, tuna torpedo
sandwich, big beefy
potato bowl, freshly
baked cheese or
pepperoni pizza,
RibBQ sandwich
Southwestern taco
salad, very veggie
wrap, hot ham &
cheese melt, home-
made vegetable chili
w/ corn bread, whole
grain corn dog w/
fresh vegetables
© 2010 KrazyDad.com
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Mac, did you have
Send your
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Friday at
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philly cheese steak
last week?
It was to-die-for!
Kim, I overslept last
week. But this
Sunday, you better
make sure I wake up
on time for
DAVE’S BBQ ON SUNDAY
FROM 12 TO 4PM
145 S. Redwood Hwy
541-592-6663
145 S. Redwood Hwy
541-592-6663
present
The
Hansen
Brothers
Every Wed - Open Mic Night
from 6-8pm with Jim Nolan
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THURSDAY,
March 24
Solution on page A-4
ALA UNIT #70
PRESENTS
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APRIL 2, 2011
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PRIZE: SPIRAL HAMS
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AMERICAN LEGION #70
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Saturday, March 26th
5:00pm to 8:00pm
1 6
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Elementary School
5 4
1867 Williams Hwy., Suite 209
Grants Pass, OR 97527
541-244-2609
fa.smithbarney.com/nelsonmaler
nelson.r.maler@mssb.com
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MorganStanley
SmithBarney
“We’ll talk about whatever the people of Josephine County
want to talk about,” Towslee said. “We let them set the agenda.”
Towslee said Wyden holds town hall meetings in each Or-
egon county every year and that he has held about 575 of them
so far. Meetings generally run for about an hour and a half, but
can run longer.
Friday, March 25th
5:30pm at Taylor’s Country Store
To add an event to this calendar call 541-592-2541
It’s oNly $5!
Dave’s BBQ
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