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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2015)
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL April 29, 2015 Four fi le for Fire Board election Eckstine ready to relax Firefi ghter, fi re marshal retires after 30-year career BY JON STINNETT The Cottage Grove Sentinel I n the wake of his retirement from South Lane County Fire and Rescue, Paul Eckstine is reevaluating at least one long-standing relationship. “For 27 years, this phone has dictated my life,” he said. “It will be nice not hav- ing it go off all the time, not missing so many things, but I’ve got enough friends to stay busy.” Eckstine said the cell phone and what it represents — calls for help by a rain- soaked highway in the wee hours of the morning, calls that interrupt birthday and anniversary celebrations or time with the grandkids — will now give way to a new set of priorities. “There comes a time when a guy’s got to relax a little,” he said. On Tuesday, supporters at South Lane Fire commemorated the nearly 30-year ca- reer Eckstine has compiled as a fi refi ghter, paramedic, division chief and fi re marshal. In that time, he’s assisted total strangers and close friends in some of their darkest hours, raising seven kids along the way. “It’s a great job,” he said. “You get to help people. They’re usually happy to see you and you know that when you get there, you’re going to make a difference. The ca- maraderie that exists with the entire town is a great feeling.” Despite the ease with which Eckstine seems to go about his business, he said he didn’t harbor the fi refi ghter’s dream at an early age. “I never had an interest in it as a child,” he said, recounting his upbringing in Dorena and a job at Bohemia Lumber Co. as a young man. “There was a structure fi re when I lived on Main Street, and I didn’t know what to do. I called 911, but I remember that feeling of helplessness that really bugged me, and I thought, ‘maybe they need help.’” Eckstine said he learned a lot from New board will look to maintain district’s positive momentum BY MATT HOLLANDER The Cottage Grove Sentinel W photo by Mary Ellen "Angel Scribe" Paul Eckstine was recognized for his work with South Lane Fire and Rescue on Tuesday. Please see ECKSTINE, Page 6A PERS, insurance changes aid SLSD budget committee Budget cuts should be manageable, Supt. says BY MATT HOLLANDER The Cottage Grove Sentinel T he state’s $7.255 billion K-12 education funding plan, signed by Governor Kate Brown on April 9, is still $250 million short of what many Or- egon educators had hoped. But South Lane School District Su- perintendent Krista Parent told the District’s budget committee on April 20 that, thanks to some good decisions, the District is well positioned to make do. While many other school dis- tricts will need to make chal- lenging cuts in the near future, South Lane is a mere $112,000 away from balancing its $30 million budget, Parent said. In recent years, the district refi nanced its obligation to the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) at a much lower rate, and reduced spending on health insurance. While premi- ums are not going down, the dis- trict has made a more concerted effort to educate employees on the different package options, and many have elected more af- fordable coverage. If not for these factors, the budget committee could be looking at a defi cit of $800,000, Parent added. The budget committee will 3A meet for the fi rst time on May 11. There is a second meeting scheduled for May 14 if mem- bers need more time to approve a budget; however, Parent said that the second meeting has not typically been needed. And as the Oregon legisla- ture approved the state’s public schools budget much earlier than usual, the South Lane bud- get committee faces less uncer- tainty than in past years. The district budget committee consists of Robert Ball, Keith Folkman, Judy Cunningham, Faye Stewart, Ben Price, Jenni- fer Perini and Tracy Durfee. While the state has built a 50/50 split into the upcoming biennium budget, a 49/51 ratio has been standard because costs typically rise from the fi rst year to the second. Parent proposed to correct that split internally to refl ect this historical norm. The basis for the state’s de- viation, according to Parent, is to provide schools with more money upfront for large expen- ditures and keep the door open for additional, unexpected funds in the second year. However, she recalled that in the only other instance of a 50/50 split, the budget was cut, rather than expanded, in the second year. After the presentation, bud- get committee members offered their support for the internally adjusted 49/51 split. The differ- Please see BUDGET, Page 12A ith four candidates and three open positions, there isn’t much uncertainty heading into next month’s South Lane Fire and Rescue Board elections. Adam Pelatt and Jen- nifer Radcliffe are running un- opposed, while Dan Duffy has challenged incumbent board president Mike Caven. Caven has served on the board since 2011, and he was elected president in 2013. He currently works as an engineer and para- medic in the City of Eugene Fire Department’s Training Di- vision. He previously served as a fi refi ghter with South Lane for fi ve years. When Caven was fi rst re- cruited to the board, he recalls that it was a desperate time for the District, which was still sta- bilizing from the merger of the Cottage Grove, Creswell and South Lane Rural fi re districts in 2003. “At that time, my plan was to either dissolve the district or see it to maturity,” said Caven, who has lived in Cottage Grove since 2002. “The biggest problem was that the district lacked a master plan.” Since then, the fi re district has added personnel, shored up its operating budget, found stable leadership in Chief John Woo- ten and drastically cut emergen- cy response times. “In Creswell, response times have dropped from 12 minutes to fi ve minutes,” Caven said. “When you consider that a fi re will double in size every minute until it reaches a free-burning state, seven minutes is huge. And that time means even more for the survivability of cardiac arrest.” Caven, 34, is also in the pro- cess of completing his bachelors in fi re service administration. “My experience on the board is part of what led me back to school,” he said. “And now I have the opportunity to apply the things that I’ve learned, and to educate other board mem- bers.” With a second term, Caven said his objectives would be to stabilize the district’s funding, and modernize its aging equip- ment. According to Caven, the av- erage lifespan of an engine is 15 years, and every engine in the district is older than that. He estimated it would cost $2 million to purchase several new vehicles. “When people see a shiny, red engine they typically don’t think that it needs to be replaced, but it’s what’s on the inside that matters, and the maintenance costs for our older engines have certainly gone up,” he said. While the district is in a bet- ter place fi nancially than in the past, it has not yet established a long-term funding plan, and one of the obstacles to that is a per- manently low tax rate, Caven said. He said that the current board has discussed a bond levy, which could be on the Novem- ber ballot: “Two million would take up half of SLFR’s annual operating budget. We’ve been looking at different options, but ultimately we think it will be a good idea Please see BOARD, Page 12A All of these pets are looking for their forever home... 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