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...
To fi nd our more about adopting
these pets contact
the Greenhill Humane Society, SPCA
at 541-689-1503
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