Page A-8
Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020
LETTERS
...
Continued from A-2
Past mayor warns of
misinformation
How do you work with someone who
makes up their own set of facts and
delivers misinformation? Mr. Hall has
these inclinations.
For example, he has said the
city’s budget is fat and yet he has
never attended a budget meeting. At
the candidates forum he actually said
that he has no idea how the budget
works. The fact is the Cave Junction
city auditor has continued to praise
the city for its attention to detail and
lawful use of public funds.
Mr. Hall’s signs say, “Honesty,
Integrity, Trust, Respect and Honor.”
Where is the “Honesty” when you
refer to the city having fines from the
state of Oregon when there have been
none?
Hall has stated that the city does
not have a licensed sewage treatment
plant operator; this is another lie.
Steve Bethke has a Water Level 3
certification. Steve also has a Level 2
certification in Wastewater Treatment;
Eric Larsen has a Level 3 and is the
Certified Systems Operator. Bethke
as the Public Works Coordinator
is a cost savings measure that Hall
doesn’t know or care about. He only
wants to create chaos and distrust.
Where is the “Respect” and
“Trust” when you say you will
“Privatize” the city’s water and
sewer plants when this will create
higher fees in the long run? Hall
has been getting his information
about the internal workings from
a disgruntled ex-employee who is
giving him wrong information. This
previous employee now contracts out
to small cities running their water/
sewer plants. Hall is suggesting that
the city would be better served by
contracting out this service. Is there
a connection there? What incentive
would there be to keep the city out of
trouble once the contract is awarded?
I have a suggestion; if you want real
information ask at City Hall not Chris
Hall!
There is so much
misinformation in Chris’ diatribe
about the golf course, but I’ll keep
it short. He should know that the
effluent is not discharged into the
river because of water temperature,
not because the city’s effluent is
icky! The effluent is often times
cleaner than the river water. The CJ
Wastewater Treatment Facility was
upgraded in 1992 and brought up to
“snuff” by replacing the UV System
and Digesters after the previous
operator left employment with the
city.
Where is the “Decency” when
you talk about firing the city recorder
when you are quoted as saying you
will pay for the “New Position” by
firing the city recorder? As a union
member there may be a problem there
with a possible lawsuit to the city,
costing taxpayer’s money.
Where is the “Honor” when we
cannot believe what he tells us? He
seems to think if you lie loud enough,
long enough and keep repeating the
lie people believe you. Don’t be
fooled by him.
These are my opinions as a
former mayor and councilor of Cave
Junction for almost 20 years.
Rita Dyer
Cave Junction
Christopher Hall for Mayor, Jason
Gill for City Council position#2,
and Joel Dierkes for City Council,
position #4. In particular, former
Mayor, Daniel Dalegowski, wrote in
the October 14 edition of this paper
stridently criticizing the idea, as did
Jesse Dugas, an opposing candidate
for City Council, position #4, in the
entirety of his two-minute closing
statement in the IV News/ IVCDO
Candidates’ Forum held on Zoom
October 15.
I’m not sure why. I researched
all the available data from the City
Council Meeting Minutes from
2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019,
and 2020, and I counted up every
single vote, excluding votes on the
minutes and consent agenda (which
are almost always unanimous in any
organization).
This is what I found:
In the six years, there were 254
action item votes taken for which data
was available (the city did not publish
minutes for 14% of the meetings
during this time period for unknown
reasons). 92% of all the votes on
ordinances, resolutions, and motions
were unanimous. 6.5% had one
dissenting vote, and 1.5% had two
dissenting votes. The data from which
these totals are derived has been
provided to the IV News publishers
as an attachment to this letter.
It appears from the voting
record over the years that there
already has been a team in place, and
we’re just running to replace them.
Sincerely,
Christopher Hall
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cave Junction
Reader asks what’s the
issue?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recently there has been quite
a kerfuffle over the idea that three
candidates for local office in Cave
Junction are running as a team:
Here is why I support
Meadow Martell
Meadow has been a resident
of the Illinois Valley for almost 30
years and is well aware of our culture
here. Meadow had over 40 years
experience working in nonprofits
and government agencies. The
reason I bring this up is that it helps
if you know how the system works
before you start to make changes or
improvements to the system.
Meadow has the knowhow to
acquire both federal and state grants
for projects here in Cave Junction.
The city council has already approved
an intergovernmental agreement with
Josephine County for a Community
Development Block Grant for a zero
interest, no monthly payment loans
for housing repairs and rehabilitation
for low-income families. The city
has not heard the results of this
application yet but on the other hand
Meadow’s opponent has written
over 500 emails to State of Oregon
Agency Managers to undermine our
applications for various project grant
funding. Most of the time these
Agency Managers know our city and
therefore call us to ask what is going
on and who is this guy. We have
been lucky so far in that none of our
projects have been scrapped due to
this deception and subterfuge. Who
knows what will happen if Hall is
selected mayor.
Because Meadow has worked
in the Illinois Valley community on
economic development as part of the
Community 2010 Committee she
has first hand contacts throughout
the state of Oregon. I can tell you
from experience how beneficial it is
to be able to pick up the phone and
talk to both elected state officials and
counterparts within other Oregon
cities about projects and policies
effecting Cave Junction. Projects
that Meadow worked on with the
Illinois Valley 2010 Committee were
successful in obtaining a $3 million
grant that funded jobs and projects
here in Cave Junction including
matching funds for the city water
expansion plant, and the Illinois
Valley Family Coalition Building on
River St.
Meadow Martell is the clear
choice for Cave Junction Mayor!
Lastly please vote and drop your
ballots off at the official white ballot
box in Cave Junction at City Hall
before 8 p.m. November 3 to let your
vote count.
Wes Dyer
Cave Junction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reader says Smith
is his guy
I am voting for Ron Smith for
county commissioner and urge all
those who voted for me in the May
primary to vote for Ron as well.
Several years ago voters
rejected the “nuisance ordinances” by
an overwhelming margin.
This ordinance allowed county
officials to come into your private
property to look for violations
Deyoung is supporting the
new 2020 version of these illegal
ordinances
Your property is your castle
do not allow Deyoung and county
officials to violate your rights.
This will not even be on the
ballot.
Deyoung unlike Ron Smith
supports a gas tax a lodging tax a
sales tax as well as higher property
taxes
Please don’t be fooled just
because Deyoung was born and
raised here.
Protect your rights and your
hard earned money.
Vote Ron Smith
Sincerely
Mark Seligman
Selma
Nifty Tidbits: by Chuck Rigby
Originally printed in
Illinois Valley News Oct.
11, 2000
Why doesn’t Eight
Dollar Mountain get as much
rain as the rest of the Illinois
Valley ? This is a question that
has been asked of me many
times at IVHS or as a summer
naturalist at the Oregon Caves
National Monument. I tried
to explain that Eight Dollar
probably gets about the same
amount of rain but it looks
drier because of the plant
differences created by the soil.
Serpentine is a
metamorphic rock that is
referred to as ultramafic.
Mafic means that it is high
in magnesium and iron
and “ultra” means that it
is almost all magnesium
and iron, or full of ferro
magnesium minerals. This
causes the rock to be dark
and sometimes a green color.
Someone thought it looked
like a snake, therefore, the
name serpentine. The result
of the high percentage of
magnesium and iron is a
percentage of calcium and
silicon minerals.
When this rock is broken
down into sediments, the
soil is high in magnesium
and iron , but deficient in
calcium, which is needed
by most plants. The entire
west side of Illinois Valley,
from Selma past O’Brien has
serpentine soil. Most plants
can not tolerate this and
therefore do not grow well in
this type of soil. Gardeners,
in this area, know that lime
must be added to grow good
gardens. There are some
plants, however, that can
tolerate this condition and will
grow with little competition
from more common plants.
Darlingtonia, Jeffrey Pine
and most manzanita are some
examples.
At least two of the
rare serpentine plants of the
Siskiyou Forest have Howell’s
name. Howell’s Mariposa
Lily, Calochortus howellii, is
a form of cats-ear. It’s name
is derived from “calo or kalo”
which means beautiful, and
“chortus” which means grass.
Another plant is Howell’s
Manzanita, Arctostaphylos
hispidula, other manzanita
species are very common.
This name comes from
“arcto” meaning bear,
“staphyl” meaning bunch
of grapes, and “hispidula”
meaning hairy or bristly.
These two plants are found in
the Siskiyou Mountains and
nowhere else in the world.
Thomas Jefferson
Howell was born Oct 9, 1842
in Missouri. In 1850 his
father, a physician, brought
the family to Oregon by
wagon train and settled in the
Portland area. By the 1880s,
Thomas and his brother
Joseph were operating a fruit
farm on Sauvie Island, just
north of Portland.
Thomas decided to
collect and identify the native
plants of Oregon. He had
only a few months of formal
schooling, but was still able
to correspond with leading
botanists back East and
learned the basic principles
of plant identification. In
1884 he was collecting in the
Siskiyou Mountains. Brewer’s
Spruce, the last official tree
species to be discovered in
North America, was one of his
finds. Howell, from 1897 to
1903, published the first guide
to Oregon plants, “A Flora
of Northwest America.” He
learned the printing process
and then did the typesetting
himself a few pages at a time.
The serpentine soil and
glacial relics are only two
reasons for the large variety
of endemic plants found here.
Truly, this is a region of the
country that is rich in plant as
well as animal diversity.