YOUR FAMILY. YOUR FRIENDS. YOUR NEWS.
Illinois Valley News
Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 1 Section, Volume LXXXV No. 37
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Published Weekly for the residents of the Illinois Valley
City approves RV park in city limits
Gwen Barringer
IVN Contributing Writer
The Cave Junction City Council
held its first meeting of the month
Sept. 12, and while it was a lengthy
one that included two public hearings,
things progressed smoothly. The
council was able to tentatively give
the green light to the previously
discussed RV park, and renewed the
expired approval for the construction
of the Lil’ Pantry that is going to be
built near the Dollar General.
Unlike the last meeting,
Mayor Meadow Martell was present
alongside all four council members:
Ethan Lane, Tina Casey Jones,
Jean Ann Miles, and Jesse Dugas.
The liaison updates that they gave
were brief, though there was some
excitement when Councilor Casey
Jones mentioned that the Parks &
Recreation Commission expects
the new playground equipment to
be delivered Sept. 29. This means
that a groundbreaking ceremony
is just around the corner, and local
children will soon be able to enjoy the
playground upgrade.
Public Works Director Alex
Ponder gave his regular update,
integrating a piece of galvanized pipe
for council members to pass around
as an example of the materials his
team has been slowly working to
upgrade around town.
When the floor was opened
for public comments, Lindsey B.
Jones spoke on behalf of RiverStars
Performing Arts regarding a planned
pavilion use permit they will be filing
in the future for the yearly class
that they hold for interested youth.
Jones urged the council to consider
reducing or waiving the required
fee for use of the pavilion kitchens
so that the attached bathrooms can
be used by the children who will be
participating, rather than the park
bathrooms, which are a significant
distance away from the pavilion.
The council also approved
an OLCC license for local eatery
The Replay, and declared several
unoccupied properties on Wells Drive
to be a nuisance. This latter decision
was due to the extreme overgrowth
on these properties presenting an
obvious fire hazard. The property
owner will be fined $500 per day per
property, backdated from Aug. 27
until the problem is fixed.
After all of this, the third public
hearing surrounding the planned RV
park near Laurel Rd commenced.
In the time since the last hearing,
council members had been given a
tour of the property so that they could
get a clearer idea of what was being
proposed. Lane recounted that he had
researched the definition of “sight
obscuring fencing,” and after visiting
the site had been able to determine
that the existing vegetation, plus
whatever the applicant chose to add
to it, should meet that definition. He
also felt as though the phased five-
year paving plan was appropriate.
Similarly, he stated that if the fire
district were to sign off on the access
point and propane storage, his
concerns would be assauged.
SEE RV ON A-8
Takilma grooves
(Photo by Laura Mancuso, Illinois Valley News)
Mike B along with the rest of the Takilma Band entertain the crowd during a show at Lost Camp Bar & Grill in Kerby Saturday, Sept. 17.
Burglars nab historic
cemetery plats
By Laura Mancuso
IVN Editor
The Illinois
Valley Historic Laurel
Cemetery was hit
hard with a burglary
Saturday, Sept. 17.
Thieves broke two
windows to the chapel
and stole the security
cameras mounted on the
outside of the building
after allegedly driving
around the locked
cable entrance through
a wooded area with a
tombstone.
IVHLC board
treasurer Sandy Upton,
along with her husband
Pat, met the Illinois
Valley News at the
cemetery Monday with
sadness to show all the
damage and reported
the list of stolen items.
The missing items
that really upset Upton
were the deeds – old
and new - that proved
ownership to plats.
“Those files were
irreplaceable,” said
Upton. “We are pretty
much back to square
one now. Who would
be low enough to steal
from a cemetery?”
“The cemetery has
been here since 1862,”
said Pat Upton.
SEE PLAT ON A-6
$1 billion timber suit dies at top court
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The
Oregon Supreme Court has declined
to hear an appeal from 13 counties in
a long-running $1 billion lawsuit over
timber revenue and what constitutes
“the greatest permanent value” when it
comes to forest management.
The denial ends a six-year
legal battle over logging practices
on 700,000 acres and is a victory for
the state Department of Forestry and
environmental groups. The decision
leaves in place a lower court ruling
saying that Oregon can manage forests
for a range of values that include
recreation, water quality and wildlife
habitat — not just logging revenue.
“It’s the end of the road for what
has been a false narrative for far too
long … that it’s the public forestland’s
obligation to provide the bulk of the
revenues for local communities,” Ralph
Bloemers, who represented fishing and
conservation groups in the case, told
Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The counties gave forestland to the
state decades ago and Oregon manages
the land and funnels timber revenue to
the counties.
But 13 counties took Oregon
to court, alleging the state was not
maximizing logging on the forests. A
Linn County jury found in the counties’
favor in 2019 and awarded more than $1
billion in damages, but an appeals court
struck down the verdict earlier this year.
A representative for the counties
called the high court’s inaction
“disappointing.”
“The underlying issue of
forest practices on public lands
is left unresolved,” Linn County
Commissioner Roger Nyquist said in a
statement.
Linn is one of several Oregon
counties and special taxing districts that
receive a cut of logging profits from
forestland they gave to the state in the
1930s and 1940s. Oregon agreed to
manage those lands, which were mostly
burned and logged over at the time of
donation, “so as to secure the greatest
permanent value of those lands to the
state.”
Oregon has sent millions of
dollars to the counties over the years,
bolstering local budgets. But 13 counties
took the state to court, saying “greatest
permanent value” meant managing
forests for maximum timber revenue.
The Oregon Department of
Justice, which represented the state
government in the case, issued a written
statement Friday calling the Supreme
Court’s decision a “victory for Oregon’s
environment and for sound forest
management in general.”
“Our forests serve a range of
environmental, recreational, and
economic purposes,” the statement
reads. “By allowing what we argued
was the correct decision of the Court
of Appeals to stand, we have a swifter
resolution and finality after a six-year
dispute.”