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Wednesday, April 30, 2014, 1 Section, 14 Pages, Volume 77 No. 8 Published Weekly Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
Tour Season Opens
and free community
day at Oregon Caves
The National Park Staff
at Oregon Caves National
Monument is gearing up for
another season of cave tours,
school programs, children’s
activities, and adventure! Cave
tours resumed Saturday, April
26th and will continue through
November 2nd. If you plan to
visit the caves this spring, tours
will be offered from 10:00 a.m.
to 4:00 p.m. through May 24th
when summer hours go into
effect.
Also, be sure to mark your
calendar for Saturday, May
10th to attend the Monument’s
13th annual Community Open
House. Free cave tours will
be offered from 10:00 a.m. to
4:00 p.m. We request only that
you bring a non-perishable
food item to donate. Take ad-
vantage of this opportunity to
explore and enjoy the caves,
bend and squeeze through nar-
row marble passageways, and
experience what early cavers
discovered – free of charge!
Rangers will share stories
about what modern scientific
exploration is revealing about
this dark and mysterious place.
The Historic Chateau at Ore-
gon Caves will open on Thurs-
day, May 8th so there will be
lodging and dining available.
The Chateau will also have
live music for Mother’s Day
weekend, so don’t miss all of
the festivities!
Oregon Caves is located
about 20 miles from Cave
Junction. The last eight miles
of the highway are steep and
winding – a leisurely drive
to the Monument from Cave
Junction will take about 45
minutes.
See Caves on A-9
(Photo by Dale Sandberg, IVFD Media Dept)
A single vehicle incident sent one person to a Medford hospital via Mercy Flight, Monday April 28 near the I.V. Airport.
Highway 199 improvements in the works for 2015 in Cave Junction
By
Annette McGee Rasch
IVN Senior Contributing Writer
Cave Junction is updating its Transportation
System Plan and big changes are coming in 2015. Of-
ficials are currently determining what road improve-
ments are needed, where sidewalks should be located
and more.
“Cave Junction is updating this plan at a great
time,” said Oregon Department of Transportation
(ODOT) spokesman Gary Leaming. “ODOT has also
green-lighted a paving project on Highway 199, from
Slate Creek (near the Applegate River bridge) all the
way through to Rockydale, just south of Cave Junc-
tion, so these projects will dove-tail together nicely.”
“The biggest issues we’re addressing pertain to
traffic and pedestrian safety,” said Cave Junction City
Recorder Ryan Nolan. “Too many people drive way
too fast on Highway 199 through town.”
The current four lanes of traffic moving through
Cave Junction will be eliminated, leaving only one
northbound lane and one southbound lane, with a ref-
uge lane in the middle for left turns.
County’s at-risk youth
are being underserved
By
Annette McGee Rasch
IVN Senior Contributing Writer
Deep budget cuts have devastated the
Juvenile Justice Department, causing numer-
ous negative impacts on Josephine County
youth, at a time when they often need support
the most. Children removed from their homes
due to abuse or neglect no longer have a local
shelter designed to help them get though their
difficulties.
“Kids in trouble aren’t entering the system
like they used to,” said Juvenile Justice Depart-
ment Director Jim Goodwin. “So they’re still in
the community, potentially stuck in awful situ-
ations, and those that do enter the system could
be placed anywhere in the state and sometimes
end up in very sterile, confining and rigid situ-
ations. It’s like they’re being punished and this
could potentially criminalize them. Also, some
of these kids are getting mixed in with older
youths who’ve gotten into legal trouble, and
that’s not good for them either.”
Josephine County’s two closed juvenile
facilities, the Juvenile Shelter and the Secure
Detention Program had shared staff, which
provided continuity. When a police officer
brought a juvenile into the system, the contin-
uum of care between the two programs meant
some of these kids could be transitioned back
into their communities more smoothly.
“This is the first time in over 30 years
that these critical services have not been avail-
able to the children and families of Josephine
County,” said retired Juvenile Justice Depart-
ment Director Terry Soeteber, who was the
original architect of the county’s state-of-the-
art juvenile program and facilities that several
other counties in Oregon modeled their own
programs after.
“Right now, we rent three beds from
Jackson County’s juvenile detention center,
but that’s not enough,” Goodwin said. “We had
12 beds in the shelter and 14 in the detention
center. If the levy passes both facilities will be
re-opened.”
The five year Public Safety Levy to fund
Juvenile Justice programs and the Adult Jail
on May’s ballot would raise taxes at a rate of
$1.19 per $1,000 of assessed property value.
This translates to about $14 a month for a home
valued at $140,000.
“A key component of the proposed public
safety levy that’s often overshadowed by the
debate over the sheriff’s office and the jail, is
to restore staff and funding to both juvenile
shelter care and detention care services,” said
County Commissioner candidate Mark Gatlin.
“With the levy, all the budget money freed up
by funding juvenile programs and the jail will
go directly to the sheriff’s office and will not
be split between the sheriff and the DA’s office.
There’s been some misinformation about this,
and we’d like to clear that up.”
Another underserved segment of the
youth population is runaways since law en-
forcement officers have no place to bring them
where they’ll receive the support and counsel-
ing they need to resolve their domestic situa-
tions. Instead, the police are dealing with a per-
petual cycle where these runaways invariably
lose out, Goodwin said.
“Our facilities were the point-of-contact
for the non-criminal kids coming into the sys-
tem,” Goodwin explained. “Previously, kids
brought in were assessed, and if they needed
to stay, they could, or sometimes they’d be
sent onto a different parent or another family
member. Now, they’re shipped out of the area
or don’t make it into the system at all. The situ-
ation is not as user friendly for these kids.”
At-risk kids are also losing out on contact
with dedicated staff members as well as many
volunteer mentors and counselors that came in
and worked with youth housed at the shelter
and detention center.
Gatlin, who volunteered for five years at
these facilities, said he’s gratified to see how
well some of the kids he has previously worked
with are doing when he runs into them in the
community, but that he worries about those
currently not receiving the help they need.
See Juvenile on A-11
“We’ve had complaints of people passing on the
right at over 50 miles an hour,” said ODOT District
Traffic Operations Engineer Dan Dorrell. “Drivers
don’t need to be passing inside city limits and this
project will slow the traffic where a lot of the bikes
and pedestrians are. There’s plenty of opportunities
to pass just north and south of town.”
“These improvements will also be better for
businesses, by allowing traffic to make left turns to
gain easier access,” Dorrell said. “And, the project
adds more parking spots and six-foot bicycle lanes on
both sides of 199.”
See 199 on A-11
Court is in session
By
Judy Hoyle
IVN Contributing Writer
Many Valley residents would be surprised to learn that the City of Cave Junction holds
Municipal Court sessions once a month in the Council Chambers of City Hall.
Mayor Jacobson, City Recorder Ryan Nolan, City Councilors Daniel Dalegowski, John
Gardiner and “Jim” Polk, and contract law enforcement officer, Deputy Joel Heller, met there for
an hour on April 16 to discuss whether this court should continue to exist. Municipal Court Judge
J.E. Davis and Court Clerk Rebecca Patton were also there following a routinely scheduled court
session where “…nobody showed up,” according to Davis.
Municipal Court handles non-criminal offenses which violate city or traffic ordinances. Due
to a variety of circumstances, the level of court activity has dropped over the past year, leading to
Davis questioning whether it was still worthwhile.
To assist in evaluating the situation, Nolan provided charts and graphs comparing activity
over the past five years, indicating the dollar amount of tickets in 2010 was $40,500 and impounds
generated $6,400 in fines. By fiscal year 2013 those figures had dropped to $18,300 and $1,000
respectively. Now, with three quarters of the year past, only $4,354 in tickets have been written
and only $100 in impound fees have been collected.
See Court on A-9
City stands firm on
sticky cannabis issue
By
Judy Hoyle
IVN Contributing Writer
Despite additional dis-
cussion in an extra session last
week, the Cave Junction City
Council voted on Monday to
stay the course regarding how
to proceed with the thorny is-
sue of allowing medical mari-
juana dispensaries within city
limits.
In a vote identical to that
cast at the April 14 meeting,
council members Margaret
Miller, Jim Polk and Mayor
Carl Jacobson voted to con-
tinue with their plan to request
injunctive relief through a
Declaratory Judgment, while
council members Daniel Da-
legowski and John Gardiner
voted against that course of
action.
The city will now ask
the U.S. Court, 9th Circuit
to decide whether the federal
“Controlled Substances Act”
or the new Oregon law allow-
ing dispensaries is the correct
law to follow.
In August 2013, Gover-
nor Kitzhaber signed House
Bill 3460 into law. This bill
created new provisions allow-
ing for medical marijuana dis-
pensaries in Oregon. This bill
then became state law ORS
475.300.
City councilors met in a
special April 23 workshop to
receive additional information
and opinions about allowing
dispensaries. State Repre-
sentative Peter Buckley (D-
Ashland), the author of HB
3460, and State Senator Floyd
Prozanski (D-South Lane and
Douglas County) gave their
comments via telephone at the
April 23 workshop.
Asked by Gardiner what
the city’s liability would be if
they went ahead with allow-
ing dispensaries, Buckley re-
plied, “There’s no liability for
the city or county. There are
eight states with active mari-
juana dispensary systems and
no elected official has ever re-
ceived action against them.”
Dalegowski asked what
liability city employees might
face if the city allowed dispen-
saries and Buckley explained
that they would also be pro-
tected “under color of law.”
“When you look at pre-
cedence, the federal govern-
ment has not gone after any
state, county or city,” Buckley
said.
See City on A-10