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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (June 29, 2016)
10A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL June 29, 2016 BMX Rotary welcomes new president, honors outstanding efforts Continued from page 1A of RC car enthusiasts envisioned using the track be- fore constructing an indoor facility elsewhere. A donor who sought to put money into the track also couldn’t fi nd a group to see to its upkeep, Wellman said. “The buildings had started to fall down, and there were weeds and garbage everywhere,” he said. “The bleach- ers were a safety hazard, but there were other dangerous buildings, too.” In the City’s Friday Update bulletin, Meyers wrote that “the City is currently exploring the possibility with the Cottage Grove High School Mountain Bike Club and other interested riders” of creating a ‘pump track,’” a continuous loop of dirt berms and “rollers” (smooth dirt mounds) that can be ridden without pedaling. The name “pump track” comes from the pumping motion used by the rider’s upper and lower body as they ride around the track. Wellman said that Rex Basting, CGHS counselor and supervisor of the mountain bike club, told the City that the club could build the pump track by hand, though Basting could not be contacted by Sentinel press time Sentinel fi le photo Monday to elaborate on those plans. Once a thriving hub of activity, the BMX track had fallen into disre- pair in recent years. M ARIJUANA Continued from page 1A a driver’s system cannot be determined at the time of a traf- fi c stop and does not fi gure into potential enforcement action. Whether a driver is impaired to a perceptible degree is the only requirement for a DUI, he said, and the three-part test to deter- mine a DUI in those suspected of consuming alcohol — test- ing a person’s gaze, their abil- ity to walk a straight line and turn around and ability to stand on one leg — is still the go-to method for judging impairment, despite the fact that marijuana doesn’t cause the effect mea- sured by the gaze nystagmus test, which attempts to detect a jerking or bouncing of the eyeball caused by alcohol con- sumption. “Nothing’s changed in that regard,” Gagner said. “Even before legalization, there was no way to test the amount of THC in a driver’s system. The enforcement of drivers isn’t any more diffi cult. Are more people driving under the infl uence of marijuana now? Maybe, but it’s not a huge number.” Gagner said that police are not noticing a measurable in- crease in marijuana use here in general. “It seems strange to a lot of people because it’s new, but eventually seeing dispensaries or other retail outlets will be as benign as driving past a liquor store,” he said. Alcohol, Gagner added, remains the most heavily abused drug in Cottage Grove despite a marked rise in the use of heroin. means that most small farm- ers must receive income from outside sources, and most local farmers in fact do just that, the downfall of which is that these farmers are away from home more and can produce less. The average age of America’s farmers now stands at 58, she pointed out, with many over 65 years of age, and the diffi culty with making farming profi table, coupled with the lack of access to quality farmland, are the two biggest obstacles to emerging farmers. Still, Reynolds said there are opportunities to foster a more local food system, including the ability of institutions such as South Lane School District to procure more locally sourced food. “Institutional purchasing of- fers an opportunity to strengthen those bonds,” she said. “When the School District buys local food, it offers the chance to get that food to a wider audience.” Still, she said that institutions have needs for consistency, quantity of products and distri- bution networks that local small farmers may not be able or even willing to meet. “Some small farmers do not want to be tied to larger institu- tions,” she said. “They like the concept of a ‘small farm.’ But it’s what the community needs going forward, and we’re asking local institutions to prioritize lo- cal purchasing.” In studying north Douglas County, Reynolds said she dis- covered an area that is still very much mired in the recession that urban areas have largely put behind them. Those who live in these areas fi nd few options for quality groceries, with the Ray’s Food Place in Drain the only option for many. Still, she added that Ray’s offers products that are too expensive for many. As such, driving to the grocery store becomes a necessity for many, though the cost of that drive compounds the problem of affordability. Ride sharing or produce delivery programs could foster greater access to food, Reynolds said. Reynolds said her report will be online at oregonfoodbank.org in July, and another presentation of its contents is scheduled for Tuesday, July 19 at 6:30 p.m. at the Healing Matrix. F OOD Continued from page 3A systems through South Lane School District’s procurement and use of funding through the Farm to School grant. Small-scale farms dominate the southern Willamette Valley, Reynolds said. “Farmers here really care about local systems,” she said, adding that the challenge for those working on a small scale as opposed to a larger, more in- dustrial setting centers around profi tability. “The current system rewards larger-scale operations,” she said. “Local farmers are going against the grain in ways that af- fect all aspects of production.” The inability to make a small farm profi table, Reynolds said, R uth Linoz, who served as President of Cottage Grove Rotary Club in 2015- 16, handed the gavel to in- coming president John Woo- ten on Thursday. Linoz also honored Carol Kuhn-Simons (right) as Rotarian of the Year in reconition of her efforts as treasurer, on the membership committee and working with Interact Club students. PeaceHealth receives award P eaceHealth Cottage Grove Community Medical Cen- ter has been recognized with the 2016 QUEST® Award for High- value Healthcare from Premier Inc. for providing outstanding patient care. Only fi ve hospitals received the award for achieving top per- formance in all six of the areas measured in Premier’s nation- ally acclaimed QUEST collab- orative, including cost and effi - ciency, inpatient and outpatient evidence-based care, mortality, safety, patient experience and appropriate hospital use. Pre- mier Inc. is one of our nation’s leading healthcare performance improvement alliances of more than 3,600 hospitals and 120,000 additional providers. Honored during Premier’s annual Breakthroughs Confer- ence and Exhibition on June 21, 2016, PeaceHealth Cottage Grove was the only hospital in Oregon to receive the award. PeaceHealth Cottage Grove is being recognized for excellence in six categories including: Obtaining a mortality rate at least 15 percent less than ex- pected; Reducing the average cost of care to at least less than $6,870 per discharge; Reliably delivering inpatient and outpatient evidence-based care measures in the areas of heart attack, heart failure, pneu- monia and surgical care at least 96 percent of the time; Improving the hospital expe- rience so that patients and fami- lies favorably rate their stay and would recommend the facility to others at least 76 percent of the time; Reducing preventable harm events; and Obtaining a readmissions rate at least 11 percent less than ex- pected. Located across the street from Koffee Kup at 1220 N. Highway 99 Cottage Grove, OR 541-942-0480 (Formally Toad’s Market)
