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About Illinois Valley news. (Cave City, Oregon) 1937-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 7, 2016)
YOUR HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER SINCE 1937 Illinois Valley News Wednesday, December 7, 2016, 1 Section, Volume LXXIX No. 38 $1.00 Published weekly for the residents of the Illinois Valley Council Pat Dees calls it a day attempts to solve Marijuana puzzle Caroline Griffith IVN Contributing Writer The Cave Junction City Council held a public workshop, Wednesday, Nov. 30 to discuss how to move forward with regulating cannabis businesses within city limits. Though recreational marijuana has been legal in Oregon for nearly two years, the city of Cave Junction had enacted a moratorium on marijuana related businesses pending the outcome of litigation seeking clarification on state versus federal law. Last month, the council voted to withdraw from said litigation. This workshop, which was open to the public, gave the council the opportunity to discuss how to best regulate the time, place and manner of cannabis businesses, while hearing comments from the public. No votes are taken at council workshops; they are for informational purposes only. In addition to sitting council members, councilors-elect Lindsey Gillette and Mark Dillinger were present. Mayor-elect Daniel Dalegowski began the workshop by asking all members of the council how they felt about moving forward with allowing cannabis businesses in the city. Though Dillinger stated that he would prefer not to see cannabis grows within city limits, everyone agreed that marijuana is here to stay. As mayor Carl Jacobsen said, “If we’re going to have it, we need to control it.” Cannabis businesses within city limits would be subject to the zoning laws that apply to all other businesses and would be limited to properties zoned commercial or light industrial, depending on whether the business is a retail or a processing facility. Currently, there are no properties within city limits that are zoned for commercial agriculture, so there are no commercial cannabis grows within the city. However, property owners can apply to the city for a conditional-use permit, allowing them to use their property for a commercial application. City nuisance codes pertaining to fences, excessive noise and odor would all apply to cannabis businesses, as would city building codes. The council discussed the possibility of charging a special business fee for cannabis businesses. According to city recorder Ryan Nolan, cities are allowed to charge special fees to certain businesses, if the actual fees are tied to the costs of administering to those businesses. “You can assess a fee that will cover administrative costs that you actually incur,” he said. Nolan suggested that the council work on figuring out an estimate of what those costs would actually be, and then come up with a specific fee that would cover those costs. SEE POT ON A-10 (Photo by Dan Mancuso, Illinois Valley News) Umpqua Bank branch manger Pat Dees is on the outside looking in on her last day of work Friday, Dec. 2. School. She fondly recalled Lorna Byrne, fraud, it’s a person asking them to do By Dan Mancuso “Don’t mess with Lorna Byrne, she was a something,” said Dees. IVN Staff “It’s not the bank you bank with, you bank with people,” said Pat Dees. That fact was evident judging by the steady stream of people coming in and out of Umpqua Bank Dec. 2 to wish Dees congratulations on her retirement. While the name of the bank has changed often, the smiling face of Dees has been constant. Dees, a transplant of Long Island, New York moved to Selma when she was 10 years old. Her father up and moved the family to Oregon to forge out a better life for them. Dees said she remembers being excited about the move, “I thought I would see cowboys and Indians, I was extremely disappointed that I didn’t see any.” Dees attended the Selma school, Kerby Union and Illinois Valley High tough one, we were not afraid of her, we respected her.” After completing high school, her suitor Rick Dees joined the U.S. Navy. “I had to set three wedding dates because Rick was deployed and could not make it home for the first two,” Dees said. Being a housewife to a man often out of town, Dees went down to the workforce center in San Diego where Dees was stationed, after reviewing her test scores they decided she would be a good fit as a banker. “And here I am all these years later,” Dees said. After moving back to the Illinois Valley, Pat continued in banking. Banking has changed a lot due mostly to government regulation and technology. Fraud is a big issue and according to Dees, Umpqua has a great security department and considers her and the bank’s clients lucky. “It’s not the person in front of you that’s committing the Her career has not always been cheery, Dees has been through two robberies, “It was the same guy both times; it was terrible, not the greatest experience; I don’t recommend it,” Dees said. Now that Dees will have more time on her hands, she plans on attending basketball games with her husband Rick, a high school basketball referee. I love all kinds of basketball- from the little kids up to college.” Also, Dees enjoys being outdoors. In an effort to protect her tomatoes and flowers she spends time chasing turkeys out of her garden. Outside of that, Dees seems to be at a loss as to what her future holds but she knows you have to say active. However, a moist eyed Dees was sure of what she will miss the most, “We have such good people here, that’s what I am going to miss the most.” Pot businesses address growing pains and mold Jason McMillen IVN Contributing Writer Business is good around the Illinois Valley for stores that deal either directly or indirectly with the marijuana industry. Now that the growing season is over, Mike Clemenson, operations manager of PAPA’s dispensary, gives the latest on how the season went on their end. “The dollar amount has definitely increased,” Clemenson said of their business since taking part in early retail recreational cannabis sales before continuing on to his concerns, “I think that the OMMP (Oregon Medical Marijuana Program), the medical side of it, isn’t working directly with the recreational side, in compliance, so it’s making it really difficult to continue on doing recreational.” Unfortunately, Clemenson stated that the problems arising around getting licensed may be too difficult for the near future and PAPA may be forced to go back to only selling medical marijuana until further notice. “Our main focus is trying to obtain a recreational license,” Clemenson remarked about their plans for next year. He continued on by saying that everything else regarding the expansion of their business was of little concern until they can get the bureaucracy in order. “The only problem we ran into as growers was getting all the testing facilities on the same page with the state to be able to test our products that we grow,” Clemenson said, speaking on behalf of their grow operations before continuing on with an example, “Today, I got product that I wanted to get tested and I can’t even get in to have it tested until Jan. 4. Over a month out. Then you have a three week wait time after that.” Lisa Mack of The Good Earth Organics garden center, reported a similar boom in business. “We’ve had to increase production and we were really lucky that we were able to keep up with the demand this year and because of that we’ve now doubled the size of our mixing deck and taken on a whole second location out in Murphy.” Fertile soil is now a hot commodity because “ I can’t even get in to have it tested until Jan. 4. Over a month out. Mike Clemenson, operations manager PAPA’s dispensary even though the marijuana growing business has been around in the area for a decade or more, depending on who you ask, the size of the industry has exploded after marijuana was made recreational. As far as their product model is concerned, Mack stated, “Our recipes have been holding strong,” and that business is as it was before just at a higher rate of sale. Furthermore, Mack added that recently they had a couple recreational farms do some testing in which the growers compared Good Earth Organics soil to a few others and said that they came out on top. “A lot of our customers are seasoned growers so they know what to look for and they know what to watch out for,” Mack stated, when asked about problems that faced growers this year. “I kind of thought there was less overwatering this year. Overwatering’s a common problem when people get into this industry they don’t necessarily know the signs to watch out for. There’s often a droop or a wilt that comes with an overwatered plant and it gives the gardener the impression that their plant is thirsty.” Continuing on the subject, Mack also added that growers were much more aware of russet mites which caused serious problems for the last two years. However, the biggest problem this year, at least as far as Mack knows, was mold. “Mold definitely caught a lot of my customers off guard. There’s nothing you can do when you start getting used to the Indian summers that we’ve had the last couple years. Some customers had some pretty heavy mold loss.” In regard to their recent and ongoing business expansions Mack said that they are currently working toward quadrupling their total soil output. “We were producing at our maximum capacity. Even after adding a second soil mixing deck with a local excavation company.” Admittedly, soil production wasn’t nearly as much of a bottleneck for Good Earth Organics as transportation and the only slowdown to their sales was because of it. Getting enough trucks to make deliveries to keep up with demand was difficult but they are doing everything within their power to expand upon the fleet that delivers their products.
