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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.