COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL JANUARY 10, 2018
7A
Panic over gas law City Continued from A1
Grovers still can't own pump gas
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
A slight amendment to a seemingly obscure Oregon law that went
into effect on Jan. 1 made national headlines last week.
Oregon’s House Bill 2482, which allows individuals in counties
of 40,000 or less to pump their own gas at any time of the day, was
an amendment to ORS 480.341 which said individuals could pump
their own gas in these same rural counties after 6 p.m. and before
6 a.m. The “sun-up to sun-down” rule as one local gas attendant
put it.
This law impacts half of the counties in Oregon but only seven
percent of all residents. While this small change to a small law that
effects counties of small populations did not drastically change any-
thing, it made big waves across social media in the opening days of
the year.
After KTVL, a CBS affi liate in Medford, shared an article about
the change on their Facebook page, the story took off. Their post
received over 61,000 shares and 54,000 comments and was refer-
enced in stories by new outlets across the country including The
Seattle Times, The Washington Post and USA Today.
The headlines that accompanied these articles used words and
phrases such as ‘panic’ and ‘Oregonians losing their minds.’
While there was a sense of joy from people outside of Oregon in
seeing Oregonians online go into a brief hysteria about the prospect
and nuance of having to pump their own gas, the reality is that just
a small portion of individuals will be impacted. Amidst the hubbub,
there were individuals in Cottage Grove who were also perplexed
by the change.
“There’s been a lot confusion. There’s been a lot of questions,
people showing up not knowing what to do. Just hanging around,
‘do we do it, do you do it?’ kind of thing.” said gas attendant Dalton
Pardun who works at the Chevron in town that is just off of I-5.
“And especially the out-of-staters are even worse because they
catch word that hey, we can do it and then it becomes a stand-off
thing. [They’re] like, ‘why are you here, what are you doing?’”
Attendants from other gas stations around the city also noted an
uptick in questions from customers about who should be fi lling up
their car.
Lane County's population was last marked at over 300,000 resi-
dents, making it exempt from the new law and requiring the contin-
ued use of gas attendents.
improving water service to
Taylor, Parks, Red Hill and
Cottage Heights homeowners.
Installed 6 crosswalks on south
10t h along Bohemia Park and
added cross hatching to cross-
walks at 10th and Main. Grind
and repaving of South 6th Street
and Mosby Creek projects were
completed.
Utility Division, Supervisor
Tony Kirk retired after 40 years
of service and Mike O'Reilly
was promoted to Utilities Su-
pervisor. The department has
also been repainting striping
throughout town as well as
maintaining and repairing the
sewer and water main lines in
town.
Maintenance Division, Com-
bined the Building Mainte-
nance Department and Parks
Department which allows for
fl exibility with staffi ng during
the spring and early summer for
park maintenance. Installed new
lighting along Row River Trail
starting at Trail Head and con-
tinuing east to 16 th Street. In-
stalled irrigation at Lulu's Dog
Park.
Building Division had 148
commercial permits issued with
a total value of $26.SM, 489
Residential permits issued with
a total value of $7.SM and 46
new home permits issued.
Planning Division started the
housing needs analysis. Also
a full time Planning Tech was
added, this position will handle
land use compliance violations
and assist the City Planner in
processing planning applica-
tions. FEMA rating of level 7
saving homeowners in the fl ood
plain 15% on their fl ood insur-
ance. Third annual Emergency
Preparedness Fair at Cottage
Theater. Repainted Opal Whit-
ley Mural and 98 planning per-
mits processed.
Water Treatment Plant, New
emergency generators were in-
stalled at the Holly pump station
and Reservoirs site. Cleaned the
inside of the water reservoirs
and high service booster pump
station at the water treatment
plant. Installed scada at all pump
stations and reservoirs connecting
them electronically to the water
treatment plant.
Waste Treatment,
Erich
Schroeder was promoted to
Waste Treatment Superinten-
dent. Purchased 2 portable wa-
ter samplers, installed a secu-
rity camera system. Hosted the
Pacifi c Northwest Clean Water
Association September Board
meeting and rebuilt Effl uent fi l-
ters with a staff saving of over
$20,000.
Armory, Lead removal of the
exterior staircases and thorough
cleaning resulted in a no lead
detected in test. Upgraded the
power breaker box on stage
and lighting. Completed win-
dow restoration and awarded
bid for construction documents.
37 events were hosted at the
Armory in 2017, and 21 are al-
ready booked for 2018 .
2017 Safety Record, Admin-
istration, public works and de-
velopment, and fi nance depart-
ments worked 51,586.23 hours
without a loss time accident.
Library is the hardest to cover
because so much goes on there.
Like hosting "A Place For All
People" from the Smithsonian
Exhibit or "Bridging Cultures"
a display of Islamic and Muslim
books, art, fi lm and music. Pete
Barrell, Community Services
Director, received the Movers
and Shakers award from the
Library Journal Magazine and
honored at the American Li-
brary Association annual con-
ference. Each week during the
summer the library took forty
kids on Outdoor Adventure
fi eld trips. They hosted 44 sum-
mer programs for all ages. Over
1400 children attended summer
reading program special events,
220 children read books in the
summer reading program. The
Community Center was home
for almost 40 groups or organi-
zations for meetings or events.
Finance Department prepared
a $33M budget that the budget
committee and city council ad-
opted. Over 23% of utility bills
are being paid on line. They
also participated in the purchase
of the police radio upgrades.
The fi nance staff was involved
with researching the best way
to move forward with our me-
ter reading equipment. Hand
held meter reading devices had
increased in price to be over
$4,000 each.
They were able to replace the
equipment using smart phones
and software that allows the
phone to be used as a reading
device and upload the informa-
tion immediately to the cloud.
This allows for better customer
service when a leak is suspect-
ed, with a much shorter turn-
around time to address the po-
tential leak.
The Youth Advisory Council
had a great year presenting their
Nitrous Oxide bill to the Legis-
lation at the State Capitol. The
YAC was recognized through-
out the state and was asked to
speak at the League of Oregon
Cities conference.
I'd personally like to take a
moment and thank my employer
Weyerhaeuser and the manage-
ment lead team. Their support
of me in this position and will-
ing to let me be fl exible with my
schedule has truly helped in the
success of this past year.
LATHAM
Continued from A1
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informed the board that even if the school
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of fi ve to 10 students might not make the
school fi nancially feasible.
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