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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (May 11, 2016)
Park concert lineup — 3A Sky-Em fi ght intensifi es Mental Health Awareness — 4A Showdown with Elmira will help decide league champ, page 1B Same ole sandwiches— 6A $ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2016 SOUTH LANE AND NORTH DOUGLAS COUNTY'S MOST AWARD-WINNING NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1889 SLSD budget approved, but questions remain VOLUME 128 • NUMBER 46 E VERY 15 MINUTES Also inside: Amount of carryover for the following year as-yet undetermined BY JON STINNETT The Cottage Grove Sentinel A committee dedicated to examining South Lane School District’s budget for the 2016-17 school year unani- mously passed a balanced bud- get Monday night, though it re- mains to be seen how ongoing negotiations with the District’s teachers may affect the bud- get carryover for the following year. In her message to the Budget Committee, South Lane Super- intendent Krista Parent outlined the factors that have led to a lesser-than-anticipated contribu- tion to the District’s budget from Oregon’s State School Fund, including declining enrollment and adjustments to the way the state calculates the number of students living in poverty and reimburses the District for the experience level of its teachers. Parent said South Lane’s en- rollment has decreased by 140 students in a two-year time pe- riod, and since the state funds education on a per-student ba- sis, the decline means less fund- ing for the District, to the tune of about $525,000. “The loss of enrollment is oc- curring as 12th-grade classes leave the system with more than 200 students per class and in- coming kindergarten replaces those classes with enrollments of 160 students,” Parent said. The state’s new method for “calculating poverty” has also caused a nearly $200,000 re- duction from last year, and the reduction in the District’s aver- age experience level among its teachers as older teachers retire has led to another decrease. Presentation from head of HIV Alliance fails to persuade O n Monday, the Cottage Grove City Council lis- tened to a presentation from Renee Yandel, the Program Director of the HIV Alliance supporting the proposal for a ‘needle exchange’ program in the city. This was a second meeting be- tween the City Council and The HIV Alliance on the proposed needle exchange program. Pre- viously, the Council listened to Jim Tandrow, a physician who spoke on behalf of the HIV Alli- ance but was unable to convince them. By the end of Jim Tandrow’s presentation, Mayor Tom Mun- roe said the Council should have a second meeting before voting; hence the decision to have Yan- del join a worksession and make a presentation that would help the Council decide. The HIV Alliance is a non- profi t organization formed in 1994 to support individuals liv- ing with HIV/AIDS and work to prevent new HIV infections. In her presentation, Yandel said the program is all about public safety and health and suggested that the City Council should support it. She went ahead to indicate that last year alone, The HIV Birds blamed for power outages relocate, page 3A photo by Sam Wright Students gathered around the mock police scene as real coroners carried off a student playing dead as a result of the crash. ‘Emotionally charged’ mock car crash gives students unique perspective BY SAM WRIGHT The Cottage Grove Sentinel Please see SLSD, Page 9A Council passes on needle exchange program BY GORDON OKUMU For the Sentinel No vacancy Alliance exchanged 150,000 used needles for clean ones while acknowledging that there has been a “public objection” to such programs in many areas. From the previous presenta- tion, Tandrow indicated that City Manager Richard Meyers and the police chief had men- tioned incidents where city workers and police offi cers re- ceived inadvertent needle sticks from contaminated syringes, and it was agreed there’s a prob- lem with them being left in pub- lic spaces. However, this alone seems not to have convinced anyone at the Council, and Yandel tried to bring it forward again. When asked by Interim Po- lice Chief Scott Shepherd how their program would help re- duce drug use, which the police chief indicated that has been in the rise since he started his ca- reer in 1995, Yandel said, “It’s not really a choice between hav- ing people stop the use of drugs; we’re looking how to avoid the spread of Hepatitis C and HIV through the needles used in in- jecting drugs.” Yandel asked the Council to consider potential locations where an exchange could be set up or a mobile van could be lo- cated for an exchange, or at the Please see EXCHANGE, Page 9A T he rushing sounds of sirens and horns from emergency vehicles could be heard from Cottage Grove High School — always an ominous thing to hear about. But last week’s sirens left a positive impression on CGHS students, as they were part of a mock drunk driving ac- cident in the school’s back parking lot. The mock accident is part of a program called “Every 15 Minutes,” which was or- ganized in coordination with the Lane County Sheriff’s Offi ce and aimed to show the devastation caused by drunk driving. The program also imple- ments a simulation of losing students. Leading up to the crash, someone dressed as the grim reaper would walk into any given classroom and pick a student to be essentially de- ceased. A police offi cer would then present an obituary writ- ten by that student’s parents to the class that they were in. “It’s an attempt to give stu- dents a simulated experience of what it could be like,” re- tired Sergeant Kevin Wood- worth said. Woodworth acted as one of the leading coordi- nators of the entire event. Before the crash, the whole student body assembled in the main gym to hear a few words from Woodworth and Princi- pal Iton Udosenata. “Outside you’ll see exactly how emergency personnel respond to these situations,” Woodworth explained. Wood- worth also acknowledged the students who had been “cho- sen” by the grim reaper, who were dressed in black cloaks, represented the real amount of people that died around the country in the time leading up to the mock crash. Fire-fi ghting Steps toward disaster preparedness, page 8A Please see CRASH, Page 9A Briggs named new District Ranger BY JON STINNETT The Cottage Grove Sentinel T he new District Ranger for the Cottage Grove Ranger District will have a lot on her plate when she shows up for work on June 13, though she’s also looking forward to a little exploration of what this area has to offer. Alice Carlton, supervisor of the Umpqua National Forest, announced last week that K.C. Briggs has been named the new District Ranger for Cottage Grove. Briggs, 43, comes to the Umpqua from the Okano- gan-Wenatchee National Forest in Washington, where she cur- rently serves as the Fisheries Bi- ologist for the Cle Elum Ranger District. She replaces Joe Linn, who retired last December after three years as District Ranger. Briggs will be responsible for managing resources on the 87,038-acre Cottage Grove Dis- trict, a job that she said repre- sents the “right fi t” for her and her family. Grove so far have involved visits to Territorial Seed, but I know the area is beautiful and I’m ex- cited to explore. I’ve been doing my homework about the trails nearby and the City of Cottage Grove.” “K.C. places a high value on building and maintaining strong relationships to fi nd solutions through working together,” said Carlton. “She is excited about meeting and working with com- munity partners and employees of the Umpqua National For- est.” Briggs began her Forest Ser- vice career on the Mt. Hood Na- tional Forest in 2003 while si- multaneously earning her degree in aquatics and fi sheries biology from University of Washington. In 2005 she began working on the Willamette National Forest in fi sheries. She then accepted the fi sheries biologist position on the Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest in 2011. She has experience through temporary assignments as a dis- trict ranger and in the civil rights “I had been looking at Ranger positions for a while,” she said, “but I hadn’t applied to the oth- ers because the ‘right fi t’ was important. There are neat as- pects of the Ranger District in Cottage Grove that are ap- pealing, and I’ve heard that the group of folks I’ll get to work with there are fantastic.” Briggs said she’s aware of the complexity of many of the is- sues faced by the District. “There is a rich history of mining there, and I’m excited to learn about some of the changes in policy that will affect things there,” she said. “The Forest Service is working to implement certain projects surrounding is- sues that are challenging, but when everyone works together, we can fi nd creative solutions and make progress.” In the meantime, Briggs said she’s studying up on the area that she will now call her home and offi ce. “I’m a little bit familiar with the Willamette Valley,” she said. “Most of my trips to Cottage K .C. Briggs will assume the duties of CG's Dis- trict Ranger on June 13. arena. Briggs has served as both a steward and president of a lo- cal U.S. Forest Service union. She is looking forward to re- turning to Oregon with her wife, Heather, and their young child, Ollie. In addition to her work, Briggs enjoys hiking, camping, fl y-fi shing and spending time with her family. Rain Country Realty Inc. 1330 Merrill 3 bedroom 2 bath and Double car garage PR ED! C U D E R ICE WEATHER Teresa Abbott ..................221-1735 Frank Brazell....................953-2407 Lane Hillendahl ................942-6838 Broker Valerie Nash ....................521-1618 Licensed in the State of Oregon CONTENTS HIGH LOW 84 51 Sunny 3 bedroom 1 bath CONTACT US www.cgsentinel.com On the Internet (541) 942-3325 By telephone (541) 942-3328 By fax cgnews@cgsentinel.com By e-mail P.O. 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