NEWS
Join the Eugene SLUG Queens as they
slime around downtown Eugene visiting
local businesses. The SLUG Crawl departs
Kesey Square at 4 pm, but you can stop by
participating businesses any time on Aug. 23
and use the secret code “SLUG Queen” to enjoy
a special discount. Participating businesses
include: Townshend’s Tea, MECCA, Harlequin
Beads, Heritage Drygoods, Party Downtown,
Out on a Limb Gallery and more.
Applications are now being taken for the
daytime or evening option of the OSU Extension
Service Master Gardener Program in Lane
County, one of the most popular volunteer
programs in Oregon. The evening term option
will be on Thursday nights starting Sept. 11
and again Jan. 15. The daytime option will meet
Wednesdays starting Jan. 7. Applications and
more information are at the OSU Extension
Service, 996 Jefferson St., or online at wkly.
ws/2m.
ChickTech will be hosting a workshop Aug.
23-24 at OSU to encourage high school girls
to enter computing and technical fields. The
nonprofit based in Portland fosters a more
inviting culture for women in technology. The
workshops culminate with a free show from
4:30 to 5:45 pm Sunday, Aug. 24, at the Kelley
Engineering Center on the OSU campus.
The Active 20-30 Club of Eugene, a
charitable organization serving underprivileged
children, has partnered with Valley River
Center on a school supply drive for students
in need. The club is collecting new school
supplies, including backpacks for elementary
school students, through Friday, Aug. 22.
The items can be dropped off at Valley River
Center customer service booth outside of the
JCPenney’s mall entrance. Donations will be
distributed Aug. 23.
LANDWATCH OPPOSES
NEW HOUSES
ON FORESTLANDS
FUNDING FOR
FULL-DAY KINDERGARTEN
STILL UNCERTAIN
Weyerhaeuser is a name long associated with timber,
but back in 2010 the company became a REIT — real estate
investment trust. Local land-preservation advocates from
LandWatch Lane County say that Weyerhaeuser is one of
the many landowners in the region moving property lines
around on forestland to allow more houses to be built on
what’s called an “impacted forest zone” on the edges of
towns in Oregon.
Pointing to a document that was filed with the Lane
County Land Management Division, Lauri Segel of
LandWatch shows how one tax lot may consist of several
deeds. One deed might be for a tiny bit of land, not large
enough for a home. Another bit of land is nowhere near a
driveway. Some of the deeds date back to the 1800s, she
says. Landowners then apply to move property lines and
build more homes — basically building a small subdivision
in an otherwise rural area.
Landowners in the area who have applied to move
property lines include Weyerhaeuser’s subsidiary
WREDCo. (Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Development
Company) and local developer Greg Demers, according to
the documents LandWatch has obtained. The landowners
ask the county to let them move property lines and
build more homes on the tax lot while maintaining the
property’s forest tax deferral. One application proposed
to change 48.17 acres to a 5-acre property and a .55-acre
property to 31.46 acres. “If it’s legal, I don’t think the
Oregon land use system had this in mind,” Bob Emmons
of LandWatch says.
Emmons adds, “What we are opposing now is
Weyerhaeuser as a real estate company. We lose the [forest]
resource, but they don’t lose the forest deferral.”
Matt Laird and Keir Miller of the Land Management
Division say moving the property lines is indeed legal
under Oregon state law. Impacted forestland is land that
is closer to developed areas, Miller says, and consists of a
smaller parcel size (80 acres or less) than the nonimpacted
forestland that makes up most of Lane County.
Laird says most of the forestland in the county is
protected from development under Oregon’s zoning laws.
And he says that while moving the property lines on the
impacted forestlands “might allow some rural home sites,”
it “doesn’t allow you to extend out into deep rural areas.”
He says the template for building homes on the impacted
forestland forces clustering when new homes are built.
Segel says, “Lane County forestland is being parcelized
without using subdivision and partitioning procedures.”
— Camilla Mortensen
The data is in: Kids benefit academically when they
attend kindergarten all day instead of half the day. An
Oregon bill mandating that the state must pay for full-day
kindergarten goes into effect in the 2015-2016 school year,
and while the Oregon Department of Education (ODE)
says it will fund the transition, some worry the funds won’t
cover the full cost of implementation when districts switch
from half-day to full-day.
According to Karen Twain, ODE’s director of literacy
development, schools are not mandated to switch to full-
day kindergarten next year, but if they do, they must offer it
for free, with each kindergartner receiving added funding
from the state.
The Eugene, Bethel and Springfield districts currently
offer half-day kindergarten, and the latter two districts
plan to switch to full-day next school year. Although 4J
communications coordinator Kerry Delf says that while it
is the district’s desire to offer full-day kindergarten, it is
highly dependent on funding from the state and available
classroom space.
Similarly, Springfield School District communications
specialist Devon Ashbridge says via email that “it is
too costly to offer full-day kindergarten without state
reimbursement, and many of our families would be unable
to shoulder the cost themselves.”
Bethel Community Relations Director Pat McGillivray
says Bethel has some funds set aside for the switch, but the
district is “working with legislators to see if the state can
fund this mandate.”
“I think everybody on the board is tremendously sup-
portive of having full-day kindergarten,” 4J board member
Jim Torrey says. The problem is in funding: School districts
receive a certain amount of funds per student, and currently,
each kindergartener is only getting funding for half a day.
Next year, ODE will fund kindergarteners for a full
day of school, but according to Torrey, “We’re hearing that
the state may not have funds to provide enough dollars to
the statewide pool, and as a result, the pool will have a
reduced amount of funds for not only our students but all
the students in the state.”
He says members of the 4J school board are reaching
out to members of the Oregon Legislature and Chief
Education Officer Nancy Golden to make sure the overall
dollar amount per student does not decrease.
Last school year, about 38 percent of Oregon public
school kindergartners attended full-day kindergarten, and
Twain says that schools funded those programs in a variety
of ways, from charging parents to cover the additional cost
to using district general funds.
Torrey says full-day kindergarten is key in helping kids
read by third grade, which he notes as the “single highest
predictor of success in students.” — Amy Schneider
LANE COUNTY SPRAY SCHEDULE
WTF
Darcie Herbert sent us this photo of a fire
hydrant outside the buy2 convenience store
downtown. Funny? Or another slap in the face
to homeless folks who have no place to go?
8
A ugust 21, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com
• Coast Range Conifers, 335-1472, plans to hire Western Helicopter Services, Inc., (503) 538-9469, to aerially spray
Escort, Oust, Oust Extra and/or Surfactant L-11 or LI-700 on 60 acres near Swartz Creek, using a helicopter landing pad
on BLM land. See ODF notification 2014-781-00754, call Robin L. Biesecker at 935-2283 with questions.
• Roseburg Resources Co., 935-2507, plans to spray 3,000 feet of its roadsides with aminopyralid, glyphosate,
imazapyr, triclopyr amine and/or triclopyr ester and surfactants. See ODF notice 2014-781-00811, call Jim Hall at 997-
8713 with questions.
• Weyerhaeuser Springfield Operations, 988-7502, plans to aerially spray 45 acres near Mohawk River tributaries
with a long list of chemicals which includes aminopyralid, glyphosate, imazapyr, metsulfuron methyl, sulfometuron
methyl, triclopyr, Climb-Water Conditioner, Odor Mask odor neutralizer, Firezone, drift control agent, surfactants and
defoamers. See ODF notice 2041-771-00660, call Nikolai Hall at 726-3588 with questions.
• Weyerhaeuser , 744-4600, plans to ground spray 29 acres near Congdon Creek in the Coast Range with Accord XRT
II, Polaris SP, Rotary 2 SL, Sulfomet Extra, Metcel VMF, Foam Buster, Induce, Insist and/or MSO. Call Robin L. Biesecker at
935-2283 with questions.
Compiled by Jan Wroncy and Gary Hale, Forestland Dwellers: 342-8332, forestlanddwellers.org.