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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 2015)
10A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL January 21, 2015 C HAMBER B URGLARIES Continued from page 1A Continued from page 1A next year’s scholarships, making it likely that additional scholarships will be awarded. Fonda Norris and Carolyn Jenkins were honored as the Classifi ed Employee and Teacher of the Year, respectively. Norris serves as the food service manager at Bo- hemia, and Jenkins is a special education teacher at Harrison. Ruth Linoz was recognized as the First Citizen in part for her work as the Execu- tive Director of South Lane Wheels. Other nominees included former city attorney Gary Ackley and former city councilor Lind- sey Haskell. Haskell was presented with the President’s Award for Community Service. The award for Business of the Year was presented to Aaron Shumway and Debbie Chalmers of Edward Jones. Also nominated were Buster’s Main Street Café, Common- wealth Financial, KNND Radio and South Lane Fire and Rescue. “All of the nominees this year were incred- ibly well deserving,” Palmer said. “Generally people tend to take things that are somewhat alike because they either know how to get rid of it quickly or know someone who wants it,” he said. “The name of the burglary game is to get the property and turn it into cash or drugs ASAP.” Shepherd encouraged the victims of a home invasion to report the incident to police, then check with local pawn and secondhand shops for unique items that can be identifi ed. Any specifi c information on the items could potentially be useful. He said police have already alerted such shops in this area of the recent rise in burglaries, which he said is certainly alarming by Cottage Grove standards. “Is seven incidents a task-force issue? No, be- cause we’re a small enough department that we can still investigate each incident,” he said. “But it is concerning — I hate it.” With regard to prevention of such crimes, Shep- herd said modern security and lighting systems are certainly helpful, but there are no guarantees. “Do what you can to make it hard to get into your home,” he said. “Lock up everything you can, because you just never know.” photo by Greg Lee Honorees at Saturday's Chamber of Commerce Banquet included, from left: President's Award for Community Service winner Lindsey Haskell; Teacher of the Year Carolyn Jen- kins; Classifi ed School District Employee of the Year Fonda Norris; Debbie Chalmers and Aaron Shumway of Edward Jones, CG's Business of the Year; Junior First Citizen runner- up Jarett Raade and winner Justin Bennett; First Citizen Ruth Linoz and Distinguished Service Award winner Gene O'Neill. S TREETS Continued from page 1A could receive from the regis- tration fee would barely touch the backlog of maintenance projects needed in the City, ac- cording to Meyers. “The Council will be looking in the near future at fi nancing road improvements,” Meyers said, adding that the City’s roads “desperately need attention.” “Our revenues don’t take care of our needs, and if we try to save money to get something done for four years, we can manage a $600,000 project. But that doesn’t get us anywhere near completing the $9 million in projects we need to do,” he said. Cottage Grove Public Works Director Jan Wellman agreed. “Anything will help, but the fee won’t make a major dif- ference,” Wellman said. “Pav- ing roads has just gotten very expensive over the years, due to the cost of prevailing wages and the cost of asphalt being so high.” Wellman said it can easily cost $3-4 million to repair three to four blocks of road, particu- larly when the cost of needed repairs to the sewer and other systems under the road are tak- en into consideration. (The City has a policy not to conduct road repairs unless it has the funds to repair the water, sewer and storm systems under the roads, Wellman said.) Meyers said revenues from the tax on fuel that serves as Cot- tage Grove’s primary source of road funding can only lawfully be saved for three years, which hampers the City’s ability to save money for major projects. He added that gas tax revenues have been declining as vehicles become more fuel-effi cient. “It’s how things were funded in the past, but it’s not working anymore,” he said. About fi ve years ago, the City Council, with the help of a paid consultant, developed a fi ve-year plan to address a simi- lar backlog in the City’s water, sewer and stormwater systems. Fees for water usage were sub- sequently raised for most of the City’s water customers, and the City’s systems development charges were raised to help fund capital projects. But it’s more diffi cult to iden- tify a possible revenue source to fi x city streets, and Cottage Grove is certainly not alone among municipalities that may seek to fi nd new ways to charge for their use. In the meantime, a map devel- oped by the City showcasing the condition of Cottage Grove’s streets indicates that about 2.86 miles of streets in very poor condition could be upgraded to good condition at a cost of $3,221,600; 6.32 miles of streets need an upgrade from “poor” to “good” condition; 17.21 miles of roads could be upgraded from “fair” to “good” and 1.51 miles of gravel road need to be paved at a cost of $2,599,300. The map showcases roads in mostly “fair” condition in many of Cottage Grove’s residential areas, and Meyers said residen- tial streets such as Bryant are in desperate need of repair. But with limited funding, the City must concentrate on the arterials and connectors that draw the most traffi c, and as such Meyers and Wellman both pointed to sections of South Sixth St. and South 16th Street as two of the worst stretches of road in town. Without funding to fi nance major repairs, Wellman said Public Works has adopted a maintenance and preservation approach, fi lling potholes and spot-patching trouble spots before they get much worse. He said heavy trucks mov- ing through town do much to damage road surfaces, though state law prevents assessing big trucks for that damage. Creating local improvement districts could fi nance repairs in certain areas, Meyers said, and a local bond levy for street repairs could be a possibility for fund- ing repairs in the future. Mey- ers expects the City Council to schedule a worksession dealing with street repairs in the coming months. Councilor Jake Boone said on Monday that he’s unsure which tact the Council may take to ad- dress the problem. “Our roads are in terrible condition,” Boone said. “But we don’t have the money to fi x them as fast as they’re falling apart. I don’t know the solution, but it may be a matter of choos- ing the least worst option at this point.” always dreamed of making a fea- ture together,” he said. “We’ve had a few stories kicking around, and this one is loosely based on our co-director’s grandfather. Both of our families grew up on Christmas tree farms, and we thought a farm would be a nice setting for a dramatic fi lm about loss and grief, about a man who isolates himself in grief.” According to its synopsis, “Noble Fir” “follows Henry Dean, a man not given to emo- tion, who is struggling to main- tain control over his life during the busiest part of the Christ- mas-tree harvesting season. Like his body, Hank’s wounded spirit limps along; he’s ‘out in the trees’ and it’s ultimately his choice whether or not to walk out. ‘Noble Fir’ is the patiently unfolding story of a strong man who has strung himself up from circumstance. As the fi lm navi- gates the shaky curves of grief, it is held together with a tense and, at times, hopeful score. Like a devastated soul, the fi lm feels as full as it does hollow— with gaps in time and words— while showcasing a quiet truth: loss can be hard to live with, and even more diffi cult to watch someone try to survive.” A large group came up from Southern California to help Last Light shoot the fi lm, and Graham said the local fi lmmak- ers had a lot of fun introducing them to the area they grew up in. Finding locations to shoot the movie was easy, he said, and much of it was shot at Pleasant Hill’s Northern Lights Christ- mas Tree Farm. “The community was very ac- commodating,” he said. “People were loaning us their properties to shoot on, which is so refresh- ing after all the red tape we dealt with in Southern California.” To come up with cast mem- bers for the fi lm, Graham and Holbrook contacted the latter’s father, Hal Holbrook, a fi xture in the local theater community, who introduced them to most of the fi lm’s eventual cast. “An awesome group of peo- ple came to audition, and I’d say that about 60 percent of them were eventually cast in the movie.” Graham said that his group’s main focus is trying to get the fi lm purchased so it can be dis- tributed to a wider audience. “Noble Fir” has found itself in good company in several fi lm festivals, and Graham is also working on a documentary pro- duced by Sharon Stone. Graham had great things to say about fi lming in his home- town. “It’s rich material in a rich en- vironment,” he said. “This is a beautiful place to fi lm, and we hope to use what we’ve done here to draw more fi lmmakers to the area. It’s something we’ve always wanted to do.” Tickets for the premier of “Noble Fir” are $10, and the fi lm will be playing this Friday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at Bijou Art Cinemas, 492 E. 13th Ave. in Eugene. F ILM Continued from page 3A it was shot.” For someone who’s spent much time in the area, even lo- cations shown in the trailer for “Noble Fir” may look familiar, as the movie was fi lmed in the spring of 2012 and shot entire- ly in locations around Cottage Grove, Creswell and Pleasant Hill. And the setting isn’t all that’s local about this movie, as Gra- ham, his co-director for “Noble Fir,” Joseph Arney, cinema- tographer Justin Holbrook and audio expert Chad Sanders are all graduates of Cottage Grove, Marist and South Lane Chris- tian high schools. After graduation, Graham said, each member of the team went their separate ways, but each pursued their dream at dif- ferent fi lm schools throughout the nation. They began collabo- rating again about 12 years ago. “I’ve been doing professional videos and commercials, but we GRAND OPENING FALLING LIMBS? YARD OUT OF CONTROL? Little Free Libraries of South Lane County “Fostering a lifelong love of reading,one little library at a time” P UBLIC CELEBRATION & L ITTLE F REE L IBRARY G RAND O PENING FOOD - DRINK – FUN - FREE Saturday January 24 th 10am – 11:30am 11:30am – 1:00pm Stewart Orchard Park Whiteman Community Park S. 8 th St. & Johnson Ave. 207 N. 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