Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Page A-5
County approves digitization project
Jason McMillen
IVN Contributing Writer
Funding has been approved by the county
commissioners to comprehensively digitize
land use files that have been piling up in eight
different locations since 1973. Scanning these
files into a database will streamline the process
of applying for building permits and inquiring
into the history of a given property. This will
save both party’s time, and therefore money,
since manually searching through 44 years of
files is enormously time consuming.
The project will be funded via the
Economic Strategic Development Plan which
accrues its money wholly through lottery
dollars. “There wasn’t enough money set aside
to do a big infrastructure project but there
was enough to at least address this,” Julie
Schmelzer, community development director,
said.
The primary beneficiary of these papers
being digitized is the private individual
because, according to Schmelzer, “They
tend to do more projects on their property.”
However, contractors of all types will
reportedly benefit from this digitization
because the amount of time spent waiting on
the county before starting a project will be
substantially reduced.
Although the planning department
put out bid requests to every Oregon
scanning company that they could find they
unfortunately, and for reasons unknown,
didn’t receive a single reply. As a result, they
were forced to choose a Washington based
company. The usage of local temp workers
to complete the project was discussed but it
was determined that this would be a more
costly and less effective option because of the
jobs’ high turnover rate. Using a third party
company will also allow the county to hold
someone accountable if there are errors in the
scanning process.
According to Schmelzer, the county
has allocated money for the first phase of
the project in the past. It was used for online
permitting software. The county is now
following through with funding the second part
of the process. This second part, the scanning
of documents, has been approved for two
fiscal years. The first year’s budget is $35,500
and the second has been allocated $12,000.
Schmelzer hopes that the project will be
completed by fall.
Ideally, the updated system will help
Josephine County compete with Jackson
County as far as efficiency and development
is concerned. Josephine County suffers
from a serious lack of both commercially
and industrially zoned land with only about
5 percent of the county’s total falling in
those two categories. “We barely have
any commercial and we barely have any
industrial,” Schmelzer summarized, “Years
ago, our forefathers had to cut the county into
zoning districts and they left very little for
commercial.” Schmelzer believes that this
is because at the time, forestry was such a
booming industry that they didn’t see the need
for other types of economic development.
As it stands right now, Jackson County
has more industrial space available as well
as having shorter time lines to process
applications. However, the county is working
toward increasing commercially available land
and the completion of this project will give
business owners more incentive to set up shop.
Fire District and local businessman at impasse over equipment
Jason McMillen
IVN Contributing Writer
Gary Seitz, owner of Seitz
Restoration & Collision, has been
given his 30 days’ notice to cease
operations. The notice, served after
years of heated legal controversy,
has already, according to Fire Chief
Dennis Hoke, expired a few weeks
ago. Seitz is still operating despite
this and feels strongly that he is
receiving unfair treatment.
The controversy surrounds
Seitz’s spray booth or, more
specifically, its fire suppression
system. The spray booth model is
no longer being made and therefore,
in the eyes of the law, nobody can
technically be certified to inspect
it. When the I.V. Fire District found
out that the licensed and bonded
serviceman inspecting Seitz’s system
every six months, as required by law,
is technically not certified with the
brand, they pressed the issue.
“Essentially he has a fire
suppression system from a company
that no longer is in business,” Hoke
said, “The code requires that a
fire suppression system has to be
serviced and certified by a private
manufacturer or a company that has
been certified by that manufacturer
for that system.”
In summary, Seitz said that he
is being forced to buy and install
another $10,000 system despite
the current one being perfectly
functional and effective at its task.
The counter argument that
Seitz brings to the table is that his
equipment is almost completely
identical to another certifiable
system on the market which the
serviceman is legally allowed
to inspect. In Seitz’s view, there
is no question about the fire
suppression system’s serviceability
as far as replacement parts are
concerned. Since it is functional,
and replacement parts can be found,
Seitz refuses to pay for a new one.
“He’s done everything he can
do not to comply with the code that
he’s known about now for three plus
years,” Hoke said, summarizing
his view of the situation before
continuing, “We want businesses
to thrive in Cave Junction. It’s not
the fire districts role to shut people
down.”
(Photo by Laura Mancuso, Illinois Valley News)
Gary Seitz standing with his paint booth April 11 that is at the center of a dispute with I.V. Fire
District at Seitz Restoration & Collision.
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