Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Page A-9
Valley vintners pleased with harvest
COUNTY . . .
Continued from A-5
Candidates were asked
if they would be willing to
use Economic Development
money to promote cannabis
tourism. Morgan said yes, and
brought up the example of
cannabis bed and breakfasts.
“It could be an industry that
people come here for. I just
want them to keep going,
though,” she said. “I want
tourism to be tourism, and
don’t want to be just this place
where people come and don’t
work.” Hunker referenced the
example of Napa Valley and
the tourism that comes from
a boutique industry. “I think
it’s a little early to go for the
tourism, but to study it and
look at it and say, ‘Hey, what
could we do?’ I support that,”
he said.
Mancuso then asked
the candidates their thoughts
on the upcoming public
safety levy. Morgan, who has
worked in law enforcement
for 16 years, is very aware of
the impact the lack of police
presence has had on our
county. She acknowledged
that the levy will not solve
all of our law enforcement
problems, “But without
it,” she said, “we are going
to be in a world of hurt. If
this passes, we all still need
to come to the table and
figure out how to keep our
rural areas safe. It’s going
to require us all to work
together, even if the levy
passes.”
Hunker responded to
the question by saying that
the failure of previous levies
had been positive for the
county. By not receiving tax
funding, he said, people had
to come up with other options
for public safety. He also
suggested that if the people
who had voted “yes” on the
last levy had sent their money
into the sheriff’s department,
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A Response to Mr.
Sitton’s fabricated story
May I cast light on the fabricated
story brought out by Mr. Sitton which
was posted in Facebook. According to
him, he has worked with me in the same
building and there were two occasions
that I did not cooperate in getting spe-
cialized jobs done. He also added that
he found out that it is “usual” that
I lack the ability to work with
others.
First of all, he was probably
referring to the 16-acre building
of United Airlines which there
were over 5,000 employees. My
department there is highly com-
plex with robotics and crew that
are highly specialized in their
field. Computers control the
dismantling and assembly track-
ing process and I know that some
were having a hard time and
didn’t understand the processes
on how to upgrade parts status correctly.
Anyone who could not distinguish a bus
from a van could not have understood
the complexity of the work. Neverthe-
less do not remember any occasion that
a certain Michael Sitton came to me for
any work assistance. If I knew him back
then, why would he introduce himself to
me when he came and bought a property
here in Cave Junction? Why would he
bother to inform me that he had also
worked in United Airlines if I have a
personal encounter with him at work
before?
Second, I think Mr. Sitton has con-
fused my company with another because
I don’t own buses. Modesty aside, I only
own 38 fleet high luxury Dodge Vans
(each unit has 14 high back seat) which
then the department would
have $5 million. “I am not
going to vote for the levy,” he
said. “But I’ll pay the $400
that is my dues. I believe in
our community, that we are
willing to step up.” He said
that voters have not been
willing to vote for the levies
because they are not willing
to put their homes at risk for
county commissioners that
they don’t trust. “We are
fixing a 30-year-old problem,”
Hunker said. “They saw this
coming years and years and
years ago, and they never did
anything in this county. There
has never been anybody who
has said, ‘How are we going
to do this on our own without
federal and state welfare?’
because we should have been
weaning ourselves for thirty
Two new wines will be on
the shelves of Foris when they are
deemed fit to sell. These two wines
are a 2006 cabernet sauvignon tawny
port to be released “soon” and a
sweet gewürztraminer which, due to
a trick used this year for higher sugar
content, finally had success after a
few attempts and will be available
after the aging process is complete.
John Bryan, owner of Deer
Creek, stated that the year went
smoothly overall and everything
appears, as of now, to be coming out
well. In total, 3,000 cases of craft
wine were put into production but
140 tons were harvested and the
majority of that has been sold to
Californian winemakers who will
press and sell the product under their
own brand.
years, but we didn’t.” He then
stated that he is confident that
Secure Rural Schools Act
money will come through.
Morgan, who works for
the county, assured attendees
that the county works hard
to make sure that no one,
especially elderly people,
loses their home due to back-
taxes.
She agreed that the
failure of past levies had led
to innovation and mentioned
other programs that have been
implemented to help with
the public safety issue, such
as the new sobering center
in Grants Pass. “There have
been other things that have
been looked at, but they don’t
just happen over night,” she
said. “Our community is very
resilient.”
Rene Eichmann, winemaker
of 15 years at Bridgeview, stated
that there was a point of contention
earlier in the year with sugar
contents being a little high but it
was resolved as they caught up
with nature and by harvest time the
numbers were all nominal.
“The first day I call this a
job, I’d move on and do something
different,” Eichmann remarked about
the frantic workload winemakers
have to endure when it’s crunch
time. In total, Bridgeview produced
450 tons of wine and all of their
grapes go toward the production of
their brand. Despite this, nearly 120
tons of grapes had to be imported
from other sources to keep up with
growing demand.
In closing, Hunker
said, “We are at a crossroads.
Either we start solving the
problems we have today, or
we can put them off, but we
have put them off for years
because we had funding
and it was easy to do.” He
wants to explore the option
of partnering the sheriff’s
department with private
security companies. “There
are things that we have
never explored because we
didn’t have to. We have to
start sweeping the corners
of the room, gathering it all
up, seeing what we can do,
and start doing it on our own
instead of waiting for the
magic to happen.”
Morgan closed by
saying, “I think that we are
at a point that if we don’t do
something soon, there are
parts that won’t recover. We
are at a point where we have
to say that it’s worth fighting
for and that we have to do
something different out here. I
believe it means us coming to
the table to figure out what we
do next.”
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was night picking.
This ensures that the raw
grapes are cool when transferred
over to the winemakers for pressing
and can result in a better quality
wine.
“It’s taken a long time to figure
out who we are,” Gruber stated
when asked about how many grapes
they had to import this year. Some
types of grapes just aren’t fit to
grow well in the Southern Oregon
climate and this is amended, by
buying grapes from out of the Valley.
The knowledge and acceptance of
geographical shortcomings took
many years to pinpoint but the
results of this experimentation have
become apparent as the quality and
popularity of Southern Oregon wine
surges.
LL
B A
220 Watkins St. Cave Junction
is the biggest privately owned Vanpool
transportation that transports 500 em-
ployees to and from in the San Francisco
Bay area. As a matter of fact, because of
my service and contribution to transport
500 employees a day, the Air Quality
Control Board gave me an award for my
contribution. These vans were leased to
FAA, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and
by United Airlines. I also have my own
service facility for all my transport units.
and the complaints about the houses
we built. Let me say it straight to him
because he seems confused again.
Adair Homes built those homes and
they would not have passed inspections
and would have been shut down by
both State and Federal agencies if they
were not in compliance with standards.
The State and Federal regulations are
strict on issuances of building permits
and licenses, so I hope you realize that
you are undermining the people
who implement these laws and
their agencies. And, if the renters
were complaining about the qual-
ity of the homes they rent, how
come there were no complaints
to Adair Homes from the owners
themselves? There should have
been filed complaints so that they
could be properly addressed. But
I guarantee you, that if the renters
of those homes would leave, those
homes will be rented the next day.
For your information Mr.
Sitton, the former Mayor Tony
I do not wish to brag about my
Paulson benefited from the “quality” of
honest business and diligence with work construction by Adair Homes when he
These are personal qualities that make
lost his house because of foreclosure.
up my backbone. But when somebody
He came to us for help and we had to go
makes aspersions like “lining my pock-
out of our way to talk to one owner so
ets” with no tangible evidence, not even he can rent his home to him.
a credible story, causes anyone to think
You seem to have a penchant for
of the accuser’s motive and integrity.
interviewing people for stories about me
Mr. Sitton please do your home-
and convoluting them all. You are get-
work well. Do these look like busses to
ting confused by your own doing! My
you? (see photos) These are the kind of
intelligent constituents know that legiti-
transportation I own. If you truly had
mate issues are not based on hearsays
given my drivers and my riders free ride and speculations.
for a number of times because my ve-
Fourth, you claim that you have
hicles had broken down, then you could lived here since the time I was Mayor
have seen the difference. Any grader can and you didn’t see changes that mat-
distinguish a bus from a van, unless, you tered. Well, it’s because you didn’t
are plucking your story from grapevine. attend council meetings and didn’t
Third, he mentioned my wife
bother to know what goes on then. You
Paid for by the committee to elect Don Moore
♥
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E A T F O O D
C
The Illinois Valley grape
harvest of 2016 seems to be, by
reports from Foris, Deer Creek and
Bridgeview, a resounding success.
Due to early rains in the north end of
the state, which resulted in watered
down sugar contents, Southern
Oregon may be ready for another
round of awards when this year’s
wine is put to the test. The grapes are
now in production and will be aged
in barrels as they await the right
moment to transfer the wine into
individual bottles.
Ted Gruber, owner of Foris
with 42 years of experience under
his belt, remarked during the
interview that it was a “hot vintage”
this time around. Further explicating
he noted that the climate was a little
warmer on average than usual but he
is confident that this small problem
will not greatly affect the quality of
the Valley’s wine when it hits the
shelves.
In all, Foris harvested about
500 tons of grapes which was
facilitated by dedicated teams of
laborers that unfortunately had to be
outsourced because of the vacuum
created by marijuana trimming,
which is harvested around the
same time. Fortunately, Foris has
infrastructure set up to support these
migratory workers so their labor
strength did not fall short of demand.
A new trick that was attempted
this year at Foris, to great success,
SI
Jason McMillen
IVN Contributing Writer
♥ L
IV
E M
U
were living peacefully and comfortably
because the law and order that I worked
hard for, prevailed those days.
So Mr. Sitton, I am not sorry that I
did not meet your expectations because
you do not represent the people of Cave
Junction. You are just one individual
who would like to impose your will to
the people by maligning a candidate that
you do not support. For that alone, I feel
sorry for you because it is obvious that
this is an orchestrated attack by your
group and my opponet!
You ask about my voluntary con-
tribution to my community? FYI again,
I have served in Josephine County’s
various committees and donated gas
money for our CJ Patrol to whom I am
very grateful for the job they do. How
about you? What have you done to help
this city???
I was also told that our incumbent
mayor was spreading rumors that he
does not want me to be mayor because
I will terminate all employees. That’s
outrageously ridiculous! I think that our
sitting mayor has confused me for Tony
Paulson who terminated an employee
and the city paid $50,000 for the wrong-
ful discharge.
Lastly, I am running again for may-
or to help fix the problems and do the
best for our city. I am concerned about
law and order because when I decided
not to seek re-election we have depu-
ties. I was able to eliminate transients
with open container on the streets but
now we are back to the same problems:
burglaries of residences and businesses,
drugs and auto theft.
Mr. Sitton I don’t need to line my
pockets, I have enough. Maybe it is your
pockets that are empty!
Don Moore