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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 23, 2017)
$1.00 al C ottage G rove S entinel Speci PERSONAL i BUSINESS i BENEFITS i SURETY (541) 942-0555 PayneWest.com/Cottage-Grove Section Inside! SOUTH LANE AND DOUGLAS COUNTY'S MOST AWARD-WINNING NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1889 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2017 FACEBOOK.COM/CGSENTINEL • TWITTER.COM/CGSENTINEL ODOT funds possible for Gateway By Zach SIlva zsilva@cgsentinel.com With a group of supporters, donors and interested citizens gathered around, the Cottage Grove Airport Welcome Center offi cially opened its doors last Tuesday. The center, which cost just over $100,000 and was all funded through local donations is a small building that features a bathroom, a mini fridge with water and a couch for pilots who fl y into the Cottage Grove airport and need a place where they can relax. The project, that was spear- headed by Nadine Kelly and her husband began, as anyone who was part of the planning process will tell you, “three years and eight months ago.” “We were at a… tourism meeting, back in January of 2014 and I just turned to my husband and said we need a bathroom [at the airport] and that’s exactly how it started. We need a bathroom and now here, By Caitlyn May cmay@cgsentinel.com Please see AIRPORT PG. A8 More than a dozen wildfi res are currently burning in Oregon and Washington, causing poor air quality and evacuation or- ders in Douglas County. As of Friday, August 18, the closest wildfi re to Cottage Grove was burning in Lowell, just over 27 miles north of the city. South Lane Fire and Rescue (SLFR) has sent an ambulance there as part of a contract with the federal government, accord- ing to SLFR Division Chief Joe Raade. Lightning is said to be the cause of the fi re which was de- tected August 10 and has burned over 2,000 acres. The Milli fi re in Sisters, Ore- gon has burned 3,000 acres thus far and crews there are expected to be joined by SLFR personnel Please see FIRES PG. A9 PHOTO BY GREG LEE The sun eclipsed by the moon for just over one minute at 98 percent in Cottage Grove on Monday, August 21. The event drew in tourists to the state but failed to deliver on traffi c jams and crowded to capacity cities. The last national total solar eclipse fell over the U.S. in 1918. There goes the sun After a year of hype, the total solar eclipse hits Oregon By Caitlyn May cmay@cgsentinel.com By 9 a.m., people began to trickle into the Best West- ern parking lot on Gateway Blvd. They were some of the hundreds of patrons who had bought rooms around Cottage Grove, creating booked hotels. Hours before, Dutch Bros. had recalled the eclipse glasses it had given out the sat before. Along Interstate-5, cars pulled to the side of the road de- spite warnings from state agen- cies, roadside stops fi lled up and campsites that had been booked for months hadn't quite found capacity but were buzzing none- theless. Businesses along Main St. emptied, bank tellers took to parking lots and folks strolling down the road paused as the temperature dropped, darkness fell and the sun vanished from the sky. It was the moment the nation had been waiting for after near- ly a year of hype and media cov- erage: the total solar eclipse. The moon's shadow passed over the sun, blocking it out completely in Salem and other cities in the path of totality. For Cottage Grove, approximately 98 percent of the sun vanished and the phenomenon hit its peak COMMUNITY EDUCATION Welcome! Back to school Airport welcome center is open for business. PAGE A8 All the news for a new school year at South Lane. PAGE B1 INDEX By Caitlyn May cmay@cgsentinel.com For a complete six- day forecast please see page A5. CGSENTINEL.COM Airport welcome center opens Wildfi res creep closer WED 85º/54º around 10:17 a.m. The event had been long tout- ed as the greatest tourism event to hit Oregon--the fi rst state to be touched by the nation-span- ning eclipse--this summer. However, despite the hype, traffi c jams and gas shortage did not begin last Friday as expect- ed. Traffi c kept an even fl ow and some campsites went un- fi lled despite reservations that showed a booked space. While gas stations in Prineville and north of Cottage Grove reported gas shortages by Sunday, the gaggle of tourists did not seem to hit the city as of noon on Monday. The reason, according to traf- fi c reports around the state may have been that eclipse chasers left the state shortly after the sun emerged from the moon's Calendar ...................................... B11 Channel Guide ............................... B5 Classifieds ...................................... B7 Obituaries ...................................... A2 Opinion ......................................... A4 Sports ............................................ B1 AD 6x2 shadow. Traffi c reports had the Inter- state-5 backed up with red traf- fi c alerts by 11 a.m. on Monday with authorities asking the trav- elers to exercise patience with the clogged roads on their ride home. The last solar eclipse to sweep across the entire nation occurred in 1918. The next total solar eclipse is set to hit on July 2, 2019--if you happen to be in Chile or Argentina. For the next chance to spot the phenomenon in the United States, eclipse lovers will have to wait until 2024. By chance you miss that eclipse, the fol- lowing years will allow the chance to see a total eclipse in the U.S.: 2045, 2052, 2078 and in 2079 there will be a total solar eclipse over the state of Maine. cgnews@cgsentinel.com (541) 942-3325 ph • (541) 942-3328 fax P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424 Corner of Sixth and Whiteaker, Cottage Grove _______________ VOLUME 129 • NUMBER 57 During the Monday, August 14 Cottage Grove City Council meeting, Cottage Grove Mayor Jeff Gowing had to get some- thing off his chest. "If you're going to be on your phone the whole time, don't waste your city's money," he said in a message to city offi - cials across the state he wit- nessed on their phones during break-out sessions at workshops and conferences meant to share information among public offi - cials. Luckily, for Cottage Grove, Gowing put his phone down at the most recent mayors' confer- ence and looked up. He man- aged to connect with Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) offi cials about the con- dition of the city's roads around popular tourist and, more no- ticeably, semi-truck traffi c spot Gateway Blvd. The stop is lo- cated just off Interstate-5 and generates lunch-time rush hour traffi c but it's the damage those semi-trucks cause that was at the heart of the conversation Gowing had. Gowing noted that he has ap- proached ODOT offi cials and they were receptive to the idea of joining the city to fund the repair of the road. "It's somewhere between a meeting at a conference and a defi nite thing," Cottage Grove City Manager Richard Meyers said. ODOT and city offi cials are set to meet this week. If the opportunity falls through, Meyers said the city will move forward with plans to go to bid on repairs for Gateway as well as Mosby Creek Rd. The projects are far from the complete list of repairs needed throughout the city but after voters denied a gas tax increase ballot measure in November, city funds for such projects are low.
