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
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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