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.
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