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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (July 16, 2016)
4 A ❘ SATURDAY EDITION ❘ JULY 16, 2016 RYAN CRONK , EDITOR Siuslaw News ❘ 541-902-3520 ❘ Opinion P.O. Box 10 Florence, OR 97439 Septic ordinance marks compromise D unes City has marked a profound milestone regard- ing the newly adopted Septic Ordinance No. 228. The city council received a letter from the Woahink Lake Association stating that they were ready, willing and able to assist the city in achieving compliance with the new ordinance. This is an event that marks the compromise of opinion by citizens who want to move for- ward in peace, and I am optimistic that we can close that tumultuous chapter in our history. Land use ordinances are widely known to be contentious at best under any circum- stances, largely in part because there are strict Oregon statutes that must be met, and land use ordinances are appealable before the Oregon GUEST VIEWPOINT B Y R EBECCA R UEDE Dunes City Mayor Land Use Board of Appeals. Even though the council was confident that all requirements had been satisfied, it was expected that a small group of citizens would indeed appeal and the ordi- nance would be remanded back to the city. With this expectation a consideration, sev- eral councilors voiced an opinion publicly that the Dunes City budget is small and they could not in good governance authorize more spend- ing for attorney fees to respond to any appeal that was handed down. That, coupled with the fact that a number of vocal citizens, who had previously been opposed, voiced opinion in favor of the new Ordinance 228, I believe con- tributed to this effort for solidarity. Finally, I want to publicly thank the Dunes City Planning Commission for the many volun- teer hours they put into Ordinance 228, and all citizens of Dunes City that gave of their time to be involved by offering testi- mony both written and oral. Further, I want to thank the Woahink Lake Association for reaching out to the council with their support of a very good septic ordi- nance. LETTERS Caroline’s Cart Imagine, if you would, being the parent/caregiver of a severely dis- abled young adult or the child/care- giver of a disabled senior parent. The daily care is done with love, but is time consuming at best. The last thing on your “To Do” list is grocery shopping, although it is a necessity of life. You watch the sales. You go through your coupons. You wait until another family member can stay with your disabled child or parent. You make a list and ask someone to do it for you. Or, out of necessity, you take him or her with you. You find yourself pushing both a grocery cart and a special wheel- chair so he or she is strapped safely in. It is a daunting enterprise any way you look at it. Our local Fred Meyer now has Caroline’s Cart. I recently saw a sign at the Service Desk and asked about it. The manager of CCK and customer service took the time to explain. It is a special cart that you can safely use for your child or parent, depending of course on the person’s size. He or she can be safely strapped in, and it has a bas- ket for groceries. Right now only a few cus- tomers use it, but Fred Meyer believes that it will catch on as more people learn of it. Kudos to Fred Meyer for pro- viding a slightly easier way to shop for caregivers. If you know someone who might benefit from the use of Caroline’s Cart, encourage them to ask about it the next time they shop. It allows for a more enjoyable shopping experience for the caregiver, an opportunity to get the sales wanted and use of the coupons set aside for the shopping. There is no more “mystery bag” brought in with things the caregiver didn’t really ask for, but the helpful shopper thought they might need. Marny Melino Florence Take the initiative Why should it be such an uphill process to get people-friendly poli- cies enacted? Pundits are seeing the rise of people power in the presi- dential field where unrest about business-as-usual is manifesting unpredictably. Leaders and their corporate funders are losing con- trol. People don’t see why they shouldn’t make their voices heard for the common good. That process is currently playing out right here in our county. Community Rights Lane County has won a court ruling that its ini- tiative should go forward. Its aim is to protect the health and safety of county citizens by elevating the constitutional right of our commu- nity to write and pass laws, free from corporate interference. The majority of Lane County commissioners has decided it must put an end to such thinking by seek- ing the right to vet and nullify peo- ple-powered initiatives such as this before they get on the ballot. How this ends up will be deter- mined by you in November. In the meantime, get involved. Gather signatures. Write your commissioner. Contact Community Rights Lane County at 541-357- 8137 or go to CommunityRights LaneCounty.org. Stuart Henderson Florence What matters W ESLEY V OTH For the Siuslaw News –––––––––––– T range. From the age of 8, I worked on and became familiar with small Oregon farms. The farms I worked on had a variety of crops, most grown on a rotational basis. All the small farms I knew had fencerows, shade trees, wild places, ponds and creeks with natural vegetation; these abounded in wildlife — foxes, squirrels, hawks, waterfowl, deer, insects and rabbits. It was not until I was in my early teens and traveled to Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska that I saw large-scale monoculture farming. I remember a place where there were soybean fields from horizon to horizon. It was a uni- form green, but there was nothing but soy- bean plants — no hawks, no trees, no rabbits, no bees, no dragonflies, no swallows. For me, it was like suddenly being on the moon. The emptiness, the sameness, the wrongness of that picture bothered me deeply. Back in Oregon, I began to understand what felt wrong about what was happening here. That the Douglas-fir plantations created after clear-cutting forests was pretty much the same thing as those soybean fields. Nothing but one species of tree planted; nothing else allowed to live. Not only no alder, huckleber- ry, salmonberry or dogwood (suppressed along with all other plants with herbicides), but also no bears, mountain beaver, mice or voles (targeted with specific poisons, trapping YESTERDAY’S NEWS MOMENTS IN TIME The History Channel On July 21, 1775, Patriot minutemen in whaleboats raid Little Brewster Island, in Boston Harbor. The raiders temporarily drove off the island’s British guard before burning the wooden parts of the point’s lighthouse. Ten days later, 300 minutemen returned to the island to prevent the British from making repairs. On July 19, 1799, a French soldier discov- ers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the Egyptian town of Rosetta. The Rosetta Stone contained passages written in three different scripts — Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic — provid- ing the key to deciphering hieroglyphic lan- guage. On July 24, 1911, American archeologist Hiram Bingham gets his first look at Machu Picchu, an ancient Inca settlement in Peru. The site itself stretches for 5 miles, with over 3,000 stone steps linking its many levels. Today, more than 300,000 people visit every year. On July 22, 1923, John Dillinger joins the Navy in order to avoid charges of auto theft. A decade later, Dillinger’s reputation was forged in a single 12-month period, during which he robbed more banks than Jesse James did in 15 years. On July 18, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt is nominated for an unprecedented third term. In 1947, Congress passed the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which stated that no person could be elected to the office of president more than twice. On July 20, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. As he stepped from the lunar lander, Armstrong say: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” VIEW FROM UPRIVER he cold objective conclusion from recent events in Baton Rouge, St. Paul and Dallas? Guns matter. Power mat- ters. Big money and lobbying clout matter. Sane policy and the lives of people? Not so much. Yet, the loving and reasoned response from so many to this combination of tragedy has been very heartening. People finding the situation unacceptable. Finding ways to respond that avoid making things even worse. Maybe, even some ways forward. But I am not going to be deterred from the subject that I planned to talk about in this col- umn: our forests, why they matter so much and what is at stake in the rapid conversion from forests to monoculture tree farms. Readers of this column know I tend to notice what is miss- ing in the natural world. It is a lifelong practice — looking, noticing. Kind of like returning to school in the fall and noticing which of your friends aren’t there anymore. From birth, I have been in and around Oregon forests, those of the western slope of the Cascades, and the north and central coast EDITOR @ THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM and hunts because they will eat young Douglas-fir). By the time these closely plant- ed trees begin to shade out the ground, not much of anything else grows there. When I use the term forest, I’m talking about the community of hundreds of species of plants and animals living in co-depend- ence. When I use the term clear-cut, I mean the permanent and intentional destruction of that community. Forests have persisted here through fire, flood and volcanic eruption, but they are destroyed completely by conversion to Douglas-fir tree farms. It doesn’t have to be such an either/or pic- ture. It wasn’t so drastic in the early days here of timber harvest, when the most prof- itable and largest wood was taken and every- thing else left. A couple of weeks ago I toured some of the property of Shady Creek Forest Products, here in our watershed not far from Walton. We looked at some remnant large trees left from an earlier kind of harvest and compared it to a nearby stand that had been clear-cut 30 years ago and planted as a tree farm in the typical fashion. These contrasts, and what the protections of Oregon’s weak forest practice laws look like as practiced, can be seen in a four-and-a- half minute video filmed here in our water- shed titled “Timber’s Cover-up” (viewable with other information at www.OregonForest Voices.org or by searching by its title). I plan to discuss some of Oregon’s forest statistics in my next column, but you can’t drive far in this area right now without seeing clear-cut logging in progress. On July 23, 1984, Vanessa Williams gives up her Miss America title, the first resignation in the pageant’s history, after Penthouse maga- zine announces plans to publish nude photos of the beauty queen. (c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc. L ETTERS TO THE E DITOR P OLICY The Siuslaw News welcomes letters to the editor concerning issues affecting the Florence area and Lane County. Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters must be signed. All letters should be limited to about 300 words and must include the writer’s full name, address and phone number for verification. Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the volume of letters received. Libelous and anonymous letters as well as poetry will not be published. All submissions become the property of Siuslaw News and will not be returned. Write to: Editor@TheSiuslawNews.com USPS# 497-660 Copyright 2016 © Siuslaw News John Bartlett Jenna Bartlett Ryan Cronk Susan Gutierrez Cathy Dietz Ron Annis Jeremy Gentry Publisher, ext. 327 General Manager, ext. 318 Editor, ext. 313 Advertising Director, ext. 326 Office Supervisor, ext. 312 Production Supervisor Press Manager DEADLINES: Wednesday Issue—General news, Monday noon; Budgets, four days prior to publication; Regular classified ads, Monday 1 p.m.; Display ads, Monday noon; Boxed and display classified ads, Friday 5 p.m. Saturday Issue—General news, Thursday noon; Budgets, two days prior to publication; Regular classified ads, Thursday 1 p.m.; Display ads, Thursday noon; Boxed and display classified ads, Wednesday 5 p.m. Soundings, Tuesday 5 p.m. NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In Lane County — 1-year subscription, $71; 10-weeks subscription, $18; Out of Lane County — 1-year subscription, $94; 10-weeks subscription, $24; Out of State — 1-year subscription, $120; Out of United States — 1-year subscription, $200; E-Edition Online Only (Anywhere) — 1-year subscription, $65. Mail subscription includes E-Edition. Website and E-Edition: www.TheSiuslawNews.com WHERE TO WRITE Published every Wednesday and Saturday at 148 Maple St. in Florence, Lane County, Oregon. A member of the National Newspaper Association and Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. Periodicals postage paid at Florence, Ore. Postmaster, send address changes to: Siuslaw News, P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439; phone 541-997-3441; fax 541-997-7979. All press releases may be sent to PressReleases@TheSiuslawNews.com. Pres. Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, D.C. 20500 Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX: 202-456-2461 TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213 www.whitehouse.gov Gov. Kate Brown 160 State Capitol 900 Court St. Salem, OR 97301-4047 Governor’s Citizens’ Rep. Message Line 503-378-4582 www.oregon.gov/gov U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden 221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg Washington, DC 20510 202-224-5244 541-431-0229 www.wyden.senate.gov FAX: 503-986-1080 Email: Sen.ArnieRoblan@state.or.us U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley 313 Hart Senate Office Bldg Washington, DC 20510 202-224-3753/FAX: 202-228-3997 541-465-6750 State Rep. Caddy McKeown (Dist. 9) 900 Court St. NE Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1409 Email: rep.caddymckeown@state.or.us U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (4th Dist.) 2134 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515 202-225-6416/ 800-944-9603 541-269-2609/ 541-465-6732 www.defazio.house.gov State Sen. Arnie Roblan (Dist. 5) 900 Court St. NE - S-417 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1705 West Lane County Commissioner Jay Bozievich 125 E. Eighth St. Eugene, OR 97401 541-682-4203 FAX: 541-682-4616 Email: Jay.Bozievich@co.lane.or.us
