COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL January 21, 2015
Cottage Grove Retrospective
Last year was Oregon's
second-warmest on record
A look back at Sentinel stories from 30 years ago
Jan. 23, 1985
McDonald’s chain
ponders site in
CG
The fast food mogul McDon-
ald’s is considering signing and
option agreement on a 4 ½-acre
parcel of undeveloped land
near the Cottage Grove I-5 exit,
according to a high-ranking
offi cial at the restaurant chain’s
regional headquarters in Bel-
levue, Wash.
McDonald’s real estate man-
ager Mel Brook said Monday it
may take up to 30 days before
an agreement is signed, but that
a restaurant could be opened
here by late summer.
“We really don’t know what
we’re going to do with it,”
Brooks said of the property.
“We want to put a McDonald’s
there, but we really need time
to study it.”
Cottage Grove attorney Ron Ir-
vine, who represents the owners
of the Cottage Grove property,
confi rmed McDonald’s is in-
terested in purchasing the land.
“We are now in the process of
negotiating an option on the
property with McDonald’s,” he
said. “We’re waiting for them
to return the documents.”
Brook said while “we’re close
to a fi rm agreement with the
landowners,” Cottage Grove
residents should realize a series
of hurdles need to be cleared
before the golden arches are
raised here.
POLICE BLOTTER
Jan. 12
A reporting person requested
a follow-up on a case regarding
a pair of underwear found on
her ceiling fan; she has identi-
fi ed a possible suspect.
Criminal mischief,
E Quincy Ave
A caller reported damage to a
rear fence that occurred some-
time Friday night. There was no
suspect info, and the estimated
damage was $20.
Shoplift, Walmart
Complainant reported that
a theft occurred at 11:30 p.m.
the night before and that he has
video of the incident. The stolen
Though the McDonald’s restau-
rant here would primarily draw
local customers, it would likely
need to pull from freeway
traffi c to succeed, Brook said.
The heavy tourist trade found
in the summer months could
prompt quicker action on the
restaurant, he hinted. “I would
say we would be pushing to
open a store by mid-summer”
assuming everything proceeds
smoothly, Brook said.
If all does proceed smoothly,
the McDonald’s franchise for
Cottage Grove will likely be
awarded to a Eugene man who
is already operating McDon-
ald’s restaurants in Eugene,
Lebanon and Albany.
Cottage Grove Police Department 24-Hour Anonymous Tip Line: 767-0504
property is approximately 120
pieces of silver and stainless
steel jewelry valued at $2,404.
Follow-up, N 9th St
He explained that even if an
option agreement is signed,
McDonald’s will need up to
four months for engineering
work and to study the feasibil-
ity of opening a restaurant in
Cottage Grove.
Even then, McDonald’s may
elect to pass up the land — al-
though Brook considers that
doubtful.
If the nationwide fast-food
corporation decides to purchase
the land, Brook explained,
McDonald’s will apply for the
necessary building permits
from the city. Upon approval
from the city, construction on
a restaurant could commence.
Brook said it usually takes
about 110 days to build one of
these restaurants once ground
is broken.
Criminal mischief, S 6th St
Caller reported three broken
windows on the south side of
the building. There was no sus-
pect, and the estimated damage
was $900-$1000.
Jan. 13
Burglary, Harvey Rd
Caller said she had just re-
turned home from a trip and
found her residence burglarized.
Numerous items had been tak-
en, including an iMac computer
valued at $1500.
Jan. 16
Suspicious condition, Dari
Mart
Reporting person said that a
young boy came into the busi-
ness asking for directions to the
coast, saying that he was going
to walk there. The reporting
person was concerned for the
child’s welfare.
Jan. 17
5A
Unlawful entry into motor
vehicle, Blue Sky Dr.
Caller reported multiple
things missing from his vehicle,
including a Sony digital camera
($900), a Compaq Presario lap-
top ($100), an Acer Aspire lap-
top ($500) and miscellaneous
clothing ($100). There was no
suspect info.
Jan. 18
Follow-up, Police Station
Animal injured, S 6th St
and Lincoln
Complainant brought a small,
plastic baggie containing two
hairs he found in his vehicle
that do not belong to him. It was
determined that the hairs had no
evidentiary value and were dis-
posed of.
A reporting person said that
there was a possibly dead ani-
mal in the intersection at the
location. The offi cer contacted
the owner at the scene, who
then removed the animal from
the roadway.
Portland, they discovered some-
one had stolen 800 more than
pounds of opium from a gang
member’s house. Apparently the
word was out on the street.
A little later, 1400 pounds
of dope were chucked off the
Wilmington and successfully
retrieved and hauled to a gang
member’s house, as they of-
ten did, in the middle of the
night. This evening was special,
though, because the gang mem-
ber’s wife had gotten into a feud
with one of the neighbors, who
had been just waiting for them
to bring in another big load so
she could call the cops on them.
Luckily, when she did, she
got hold of a friend of Blum’s
at the police station. So Blum
ran down and introduced him-
self as a detective, took her in-
formation, thanked her and told
her authorities were on the job.
While he kept her busy telling
him all about what his gang
members had been up to, the
gang members themselves were
busy loading up a ton and a half
of dope and hauling it off to
someone else’s house.
BY MARK FLOYD
For the Sentinel
T
he year 2014 was the hot-
test on Earth in 134 years
of record-keeping, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-
ministration (NOAA) reported
on Friday, continuing a pattern
of global warming that is attrib-
uted primarily to rising levels of
greenhouse gases.
Oregon was not exempt from
the warming and logged the sec-
ond hottest year since records
were kept beginning in 1895,
according to researchers with
the Oregon Climate Change Re-
search Institute at Oregon State
University.
“We had a warm summer, and
now a warm winter and that’s
where we got our warm year,”
said Kathie Dello, deputy di-
rector of the center. “We are
looking at our future right now
– warm winters and low snow-
packs.”
The average statewide tem-
perature in Oregon in 2014
was 49.5 degrees, which is 3.0
degrees above the average for
the 20th century. The only hot-
ter year on record was 1934 –
when the United States suffered
through the Dust Bowl. The
average temperature in Oregon
that year was 49.9.
Low snowpacks are of par-
ticular concern later in the year
when less water is available,
Dello pointed out.
“Drought continues to be a
concern in southern and eastern
Oregon, as well as in Califor-
nia,” she said. “The tempera-
ture outlook for the next three
months is pointing toward con-
tinued warm temperatures for
the western United States.”
According to NOAA, the av-
erage 2014 temperature across
both land and ocean surfaces
globally was 1.24 degrees above
the 20th-century average. This
was the highest among all years
on record dating back to 1880,
the agency noted.
Regions that were considered
the warmest last year, according
to NOAA, included eastern Rus-
sia, the western United States,
portions of Australia, much of
the northeastern Pacifi c Ocean,
segments of the equatorial Pa-
cifi c, large swaths of the Atlan-
tic Ocean, most of the Norwe-
gian Sea, and parts of the central
to southern Indian Ocean.
Philip Mote, director of the
Oregon Climate Change Re-
search Institute, said the sub-
tlety of rising temperatures on
a global scale can be hard to
comprehend, since people tend
to view climate based on their
personal experiences.
“Most of us relate to climate
through what we remember and
the week-long spell of near-
record cold, snow and ice last
February may seem more per-
tinent or convincing than global
mean temperature,” Mote said.
“But from a physics perspec-
tive, global mean temperature
represents lots of interesting
processes – rising greenhouse
gases among them.
“Setting a record like this
means those processes lined up
this year,” Mote added. “On av-
erage, greenhouse gas increases
make each year roughly .04
degrees warmer than the last –
which may not sound like much,
but really adds up over time.”
At that rate, the temperature
would increase one degree ev-
ery 25 years, and four degrees
each century – an alarming rate
of increase, scientists say. “And
unless emissions of greenhouse
gases are curbed,” Mote said,
“the warming is likely to be
faster than that in the future.”
O FFBEAT
Continued from page 4A
did not work out and Blum’s
runner had to bribe suspicious
farmers and curious riverboat
pilots to retrieve it.
That summer, Blum tried to
smuggle some dope into San
Francisco in two big steamer
Matt Bjornn ChFC, Agent
1481 Gateway Blvd
Cottage Grove, OR 97424
Bus: 541-942-2623
matt@bjornninsurance.com
trunks but lost the claim check
to one of the trunks. He was
followed by two accomplices,
one of whom got busted with
a full 250 pounds. By the time
the thumbfi ngered drug-runners
fi nally straggled back home to
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Busted
This sort of thing, of course,
couldn’t go on forever. In De-
cember 1893, a grand jury
handed
down
indictments
against everyone … including
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State Farm, Home Office, Bloomington, IL
Jim Lotan. The charges involved
smuggling more than two tons
of opium and running a human-
traffi cking operation smuggling
undocumented Chinese laborers
into Portland. Also indicted was
Seid Back, the most prominent
and successful Chinese mer-
chant in the Northwest. Hoping
to catch a break, Blum turned
state’s evidence, was placed on
the stand and started singing.
The trial held the city spell-
bound. But Lotan and Back
hadn’t much need to worry. The
roster of court offi cers at this
trial reads like an excerpt from
the Arlington Club directory.
Lotan was represented by fu-
ture Senator Charles W. Fulton.
Former and future state Senate
President Joseph Simon repre-
sented another defendant. Per-
haps most outrageously, federal
prosecutor John Gearin — who
had just been appointed by Pres-
ident Grover Cleveland as spe-
cial prosecutor for opium frauds
— was, in the case of this par-
ticular opium fraud, on the side
of the defense. The judge was
one of Simon’s former law part-
ners, and the jury foreman was
fellow Arlington Club member
Charles Ladd.
The smugglers go
free
So the trial ended with a hung
jury. The word on the street was
that the vote was 11 to 1; jury
foreman Ladd had refused to
vote to convict his friend. A new
trial would have to be sched-
uled.
But one never was. Before a
new trial could be scheduled,
Mr. Blum … disappeared. Odd
coincidence, yes?
As for Lotan, the resulting
bad publicity does seem to have
hurt him … but not much. The
following year, the city relented
and bought the aging, decrep-
it, increasingly unseaworthy
Stark Street Ferry from him
for $40,000 — which was still
an overpayment on the order of
2,000 percent.
(Sources: MacColl, E. Kim-
bark. Merchants, Money and
Power: The Portland Estab-
lishment 1843-1913. Portland:
Georgian Press, 1988; Port-
land Daily Telegraph, 11/27-
12/24/1893; Portland Orego-
nian, 11/29/1893)
Finn J.D. John, an instruc-
tor at Oregon State University,
writes about unusual and little-
known aspects of Oregon his-
tory. To contact him or suggest a
topic: fi nn@offbeatoregon.com,
@OffbeatOregon (on Twitter),
or 541-357-2222.
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