Birthday
bash!
On 'Our Brothers
in the Camps'
Inside: Special edition
commemorates 90 years
of 'The General'
Essay from famed Cottage Grove author
details her love and respect for her roots,
page 6A
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2016
SOUTH LANE AND NORTH DOUGLAS COUNTY'S MOST AWARD-WINNING NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1889
VOLUME 129 • NUMBER 6
Annexation
approved
BUSTER
KEATON DAY
SCHEDULE:
Saturday, Aug. 13
City annexes Cottage
Grove Airport
S
Upcoming train
show should be
County's largest
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
photo by Jon Stinnett
Lee Keller checks out his new airplane at the Cottage Grove Airport. Keller said
he'll wait and see how annexation by the City could affect operations there.
Many area pilots own the hangars that
house their airplanes but not the land under
them, and the number of parties that would
be affected by annexation has been a factor
in the timeline of the process.
The Kelleys say that many aspects of air-
port operations would be better handled by
the City of Cottage Grove.
“Putting a hangar up in Lane County takes
an act of God,” Shawn Kelley said. “We’re
hoping that working with the City is a lot
ballot measure that would
double the amount of lo-
cal tax that fuel customers pay
at the pump will go before vot-
ers in the Nov. 8 election.
The Cottage Grove City
Council unanimously approved
a resolution that will refer a
three-cent hike in the City’s
motor vehicle fuels tax to vot-
ers in the upcoming election. If
approved, customers would pay
a total of six cents per gallon in
local taxes.
The vote to refer the tax to
voters could have been expect-
ed; the Council voted to direct
city staff to create a resolution
for the ballot measure at its July
25 meeting after a lengthy dis-
cussion of how best the City
might tackle the $9 million or
so in deferred maintenance proj-
ects necessary to rebuild dilapi-
dated city streets. At that meet-
ing, Councilor Garland Burback
voted against referring the tax
to voters, preferring instead to
pursue a bond levy to tackle
specifi c road projects.
On Monday, Burback said he
would reluctantly support send-
ing the tax to voters.
“I think there should be a
vents surrounding the
90th anniversary of the
fi lming of Buster Keaton’s clas-
sic “The General” won’t be the
only train-themed celebrations
this weekend.
Lee Temple, President of
the Willamette Cascade Model
Railroad Club, said the organi-
zation and many of its 60-plus
members will bring the “larg-
est operating model train show
in Lane County” to Cottage
Grove’s Armory beginning Fri-
day morning.
Temple said the group, which
has operated locally for about
50 years, will bring layouts in
various scales to the Armory,
and all-told, he expects the dis-
play to be larger than that which
recently broke the record for
largest-ever layout at the Lane
County Fair.
Included in the setup will be
a Lionel train layout in 1/48
scale, an American Flyer layout
in 1/64 scale and a layout fea-
turing television’s Thomas the
Tank Engine that comprises fi ve
concentric circles. In addition,
representatives from Operation
Lifesaver, an effort dedicated to
easier.”
On Sept. 9, 2015, the State Aviation Board
passed a motion to request that the City an-
nex the Airport. The City Council examined
the request last January and directed City
Manager Richard Meyers to initiate the an-
nexation application. The City subsequently
hired a surveyor to map out the Airport’s
Please see AIRPORT, Page 11A
bonding measure to tag in with
this,” he said. “This is like buy-
ing blacktop and using it to
patch up holes. And it’s going to
take a lot more than a few hun-
dred thousand.”
Burback
referenced
the
$300,000 or so that the City
receives in fuel tax each year,
a number that City Manager
Richard Meyers pointed out
would essentially double if the
tax were raised to six cents per
gallon. And while acknowledg-
ing that such revenue was not
going to repair all the City’s
streets, Meyers stated that it
Roa found guilty of
attempted murder
S
entencing was expected
on Tuesday for a 39-
year old Cottage Grove man
convicted of attempted murder
and other charges following a
shootout with Lane County
Sheriff’s Deputies last Sep-
tember.
It took a jury in a Lane
County courtroom less than
three hours of deliberation
on Tuesday, Aug. 2 to convict
Carlos Roa of the three counts
of aggravated attempted mur-
der, two counts of reckless
endangerment and one count
of fi rst-degree assault that
followed an encounter with
deputies on the night of Sept.
25, 2015 at a home on London
Road near Cottage Grove Res-
ervoir. Police alleged that Roa
had fi red more than two dozen
R
“would help,” adding that the
City pays for maintenance such
as street striping and lighting
that could be addressed with tax
funding.
“The tax will have to increase,
because it doesn’t keep up with
infl ation,” he said. tCouncilor
Mike Fleck said that complaints
about city streets are the most
common type he hears from the
public.
“I don’t see a downside to
supporting this,” Fleck said.
“Folks know the condition of
our streets.”
Airplane striking wire blamed
for Saturday power outage
shots from an AK-47 rifl e at
the home following a dispute
at a Cottage Grove restaurant
earlier that day related to the
ownership of a rifl e scope.
They say Roa began fi ring
on deputies as soon as they
reached the residence; Deputy
Todd Olson was wounded in
the incident.
Roa had testifi ed in his own
defense that he had only one
drink on the night in question
but had blacked out prior to
the incident, coming to with
a police dog biting him af-
ter eluding police for several
hours following the encoun-
ter. Roa also sustained a bul-
let wound in his right buttock
from Deputy Richard Glessner
during the incident.
Roa could be sentenced to
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
An airplane clipping a power
line at the Cottage Grove Airport
is believed to be to blame for a
power outage Saturday that af-
fected thousands of customers
of two area electrical utilities.
An entry in the Cottage Grove
Police Department’s activities
log for Saturday indicated that a
plane had “struck a high voltage
line” and knocked down a power
line just after 2:30 p.m. Saturday
afternoon. Tom Gauntt, spokes-
person for Pacifi c Power, said
that he had received information
indicating that the plane had
sheared off the wire near a pow-
er pole, cutting off power to “as
Carlos Roa was found
guilty last week of
charges related to a
Sept., 2015 shooting.
decades in prison on Tuesday.
A former fi rearms dealer, he
operated West Coast Machine
Guns in downtown Cottage
Grove until the shop closed
in 2012. That year, Roa was
sentenced to jail time and pro-
bation for theft related to mer-
chandise that was never deliv-
ered to a customer in 2012.
C
R
many as 5500” Pacifi c Power
customers in the area around the
airport, in addition to areas in
Creswell and Goshen. The bulk
of those customers had power
restored within about an hour,
Gauntt said, though about 1590
customers reportedly had to wait
a bit longer.
“Having something strike the
wire would cause the system
to need to reset itself,” he said.
“Rather than risk damage, the
system would shut itself down.
Power for our customers came
back on as soon as we were done
switching power sources.”
A spokesperson for the Em-
erald Peoples Utilities District,
however, said that many of that
utility’s customers had to wait
a bit longer to have their power
restored. Public Relations Co-
ordinator Patty Jo Angelini said
that the Pacifi c Power line that
was sheared fell onto an EPUD
line. As such, EPUD crews
waited about six hours for Pa-
cifi c Power crews to repair their
line, after which EPUD needed
about 30 minutes with the help
of four linemen and three trucks
to repair its own line and restore
power for its customers. A total
of 4352 EPUD customers lost
power as a result of the incident,
Angelini said, with 618 Cottage
Grove customers as the last to
have their power restored just
before 10:30 p.m. Saturday.
.
Principal Brokers
Teresa Abbott ..................221-1735
Frank Brazell....................953-2407
Broker
CONTACT US
www.cgsentinel.com
On the Internet
(541) 942-3325
By telephone
(541) 942-3328
By fax
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By mail
Corner of Sixth and Whiteaker, Cottage Grove
In person
increasing awareness and safety
at railroad crossings, will also
be on hand to promote pedes-
trian and driver safety at cross-
ings.
“We’re not going to fi ll up
every inch of the Armory’s drill
fl oor, but it’s going to be close,”
Temple said. “This is a very big
deal for us, and we hope the citi-
zens of Cottage Grove like it.”
Members of the group will
start showing up Wednesday for
the nearly two days of setup that
will be required for the show,
though the event itself has been
in the works for quite a while
longer. Temple said that Cottage
Grove Chamber of Commerce
Director Travis Palmer ap-
proached the Club after seeing
one of its displays in Drain, and
the Cottage Grove appearance
has been in planning stages for
about nine months. If all goes
well, he said the Club hopes to
host a regularly occurring train
show that can be visited by area
schoolchildren in the fall of
2017.
Hours for this weekend’s train
show will be: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday and Saturday and 10 a.m.
to 5 p.m. Sunday. The event is
free and open to the public.
E
Council votes to refer gas tax hike to voters
A
9-10:15 p.m. "The Gener-
al," Starring Buster Keaton,
with Mark Orton and his
ensemble orchestra playing
Orton's new musical score
7:30-8:30 p.m. Music In
Silent Films (Live musical
performance by Blaine Gale,
Hunter Hale and Richard
Hale)
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
hawn and Nadine Kelley say they
moved to Cottage Grove in part be-
cause the community boasted its own air-
port, and ever since they arrived, there’s
been talk of the Airport’s possible annexa-
tion by the City of Cottage Grove.
“It’s been in the works at least since we
moved here,” Nadine Kelley said. “Since
2007, the talk has been, ‘It’s going to hap-
pen next year.’ It’s kind of like a running
joke among the pilots. Is it going to happen?
We just don’t know.”
After Monday night’s City Council meet-
ing, however — during which the Council
voted unanimously in favor of annexing the
Airport into the City — we all know that
annexation is coming.
The Cottage Grove Airport sits on land
managed by Lane County, though it is op-
erated by the Oregon Department of Avia-
tion. On Monday, Councilor Jake Boone
only sought to point out that the Airport will
still be managed by the state Department of
Aviation and not the City before the vote
was tallied.
8:30-9 p.m. A Snap-
shot In Time
(A look at
Cottage Grove just prior to
World War II, presented by
the Cottage Grove Historical
Society)
WEATHER
Valerie Nash ....................521-1618
Licensed in the
State of Oregon
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Calendar....................................... 11B
Channel Guide ............................... 4B
Classified ads................................. 6B
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Opinion .......................................... 4A
Public Safety .................................. 5A
Sports ............................................ 1B
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