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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 14, 2019)
4A | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL Cottage Grove Sentinel 116 N. Sixth St. Cottage Grove, Ore. 97424 NED HICKSON , MANAGING EDITOR | Opinion 541-902-3520 | NHICKSON @ CGSENTINEL . COM The First Amendment C ongress shall make no law respect- ing an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Govern- ment for a redress of grievances. “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800) USPS#133880 Copyright 2019 © COTTAGE GROVE SENTINAL Letters to the Editor Policy The Sentinel welcomes letters to the editor as part of a community discussion of issues on the local, state and national level. Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters must be signed. All letters need to include full name, address and phone number; only name and city will be printed. Letters should be limited to about 300 words. Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the volume of letters received. Letters that are anonymous, libelous, argumentative, sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without documentation will not be published. Letters containing poetry or from outside The Sentinel readership area will only be published at the discretion of the editor. Political/Election Letters: Election-related letters must address pertinent or timely issues of interest to our readers at-large. Letters must: 1) Not be a part of letter-writing campaigns on behalf of (or by) candidates; 2) Ensure any information about a candidate is accurate, fair and not from second-hand knowledge or hearsay; and 3) explain the reasons to support candidates based on personal experience and perspective rather than partisanship and campaign-style rhetoric. Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the editor column to outline their views and platforms or to ask for votes; this constitutes paid political advertising. As with all letters and advertising content, the newspaper, at the sole discretion of the publisher, general manager and editor, reserves the right to reject any letter that doesn’t follow the above criteria. Send letters to: nhickson@cgsentinel.com HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS LETTER Will start bringing my own water to BMD I’ve been having a great time attending local events this summer. I especially enjoy the Wednesday concerts in the park and recently went to the con- certs each night at Bohemia Mining Days. Sadly though, this year the prices for beer and wine have gone up to the point that I won’t purchase either. I enjoy a couple of glasses of wine while listen- ing to the music and watching people do their thing. It was a little shocking to see that an approximately 5-oz. glass of wine is up to $8. That price takes a little of the enjoy- ment out of sipping. A nice glass at a restaurant, served in a wine glass is only $6 or $7. A 750-ml bottle of wine holds 25 oz. That means five glasses from an $8 bottle of wine would net $40 per bottle! I am certain the wine be- ing served is in the $9 to $11-per-bottle range, but even a $30 profit per bottle is pretty steep for the average consumer. At those prices, the vendors will make no money from me now. I only purchased one glass at that price and no tip (sorry servers.) It’s not personal. If the price per glass was more reasonable, I would certainly buy one or two glasses and leave a tip. That would be more money for the vendor and the server. Maybe the price can come back down and I will go back to buying a couple of glasses. For now I have decided to just take my own water to BMD from now on. —Kent Russo Cottage Grove Will you be able to communicate in an emergency? (Editor’s Note: View- point submissions on this and other topics are always welcome as part of our goal to encourage community discussion and exchange of perspectives.) I’m sure we can all recite the most important issues in family preparedness usually covered as water, food and shelter. I like to include communications as a member of the top tier. Humans are by and large a “pack” animal. We thrive in an environment where we can combine our skills and abilities for the greater good of the pack. Basic to that need is the ability to communi- cate with each other. We are blessed with the finest ability to com- municate with each other through technology that man has ever known in our history. My attention in today’s discussion will be centered on how we will communicate when the technology is not functioning, due to infra- structure failures. All of the advanced technologies require in- frastructure to function; phone lines, fiber optic circuits and electricity are required for the intercon- nectivity to exist for face book, cell phones, twitter, email, etc. We have had many re- cent examples of the fail- ures in the infrastructure due to nature’s storms. Of course nature isn’t the only thing that can bring down our infra- a channel, push the push- to-talk button on the side and speak slowly and clearly of your situation. The least expensive kind is called FRS (family Guest Viewpoint By Joe Brown Ham radio operator structures, but the effects are the same to the vic- tims — no matter what the cause. No electricity, no phones, means no com- munications. How would you re- spond if your family was in an environment where you have no food, no wa- ter, possibly no shelter and no communications… for several days? I’m sure we can imagine all the stress we, our families and even our extended families would be going through in not being able to con- tact anyone — anywhere for that length of time. This doesn’t even take into consideration pos- sible injuries, loss of life, and missing persons that a storm like this can cause. The best communica- tion devices available that require no infrastructure are simple hand-held two- way radios. They require only a few small batteries (usually AA size), and ev- erything else is built in. Simply turn it on, select radio service), they have 14 channels you can use, and require no licensing to operate. They are limit- ed to ½ watt of power and their expected range is up to about a mile, depending on terrain, trees, build- ings, etc. They are kind of rare anymore in the stores, since most radios sold now are a combination of FRS channels and GMRS channels (General Mobile Radio Service). GMRS radios are capa- ble of a few watts of power, so they may have a usable range of 2-3 miles. GMRS radios require a license from the FCC to operate legally, and I believe the charge for the license is around $85 for the term of the license, which is five years. Anyone in the im- mediate household may operate the radio under the single license. You can find these in most hardware stores, Walmart, Bi-Mart, etc. The FRS radios can be found on Amazon for a very low price, about $39.95 for four radios; GMRS run anywhere from $29 to $59 for a pair of radios. Anything that advertiz- es more than 14 channels is a GMRS radio. I don’t recommend us- ing rechargeable batteries. They are very economical for regular use, but for storage and saving for an emergency, I guarantee they will probably be dead when you need them — then you need electricity to recharge them. I suggest getting a blis- ter pack of new alkaline batteries of the correct size, leave them in the package and put them away with the radios. Most batteries boast of a 10-year shelf life. I’m not sure I’d bet my lunch mon- ey on that claim either, but if you rotated them into use in other devices with- in five years, and buy new ones for your storage, you should be fine. Under no circumstances should you install batteries in the ra- dios then store them that way for an extended peri- od (six months or more). They usually leak out, and will destroy the radios. I believe the ability to communicate locally to your nearest neighbors and discuss each others’ needs and relay import- ant messages is absolutely vital in any emergency sit- uation in our community. Oregon state representatives Oregon federal representatives • Sen. Floyd Prozanski • Rep. Peter DeFazio District 4 State Senator PO Box 11511 Eugene, Ore. 97440 Phone: 541-342-2447 Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@ state.or.us (House of Representatives) 405 East 8th Ave. #2030 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: defazio.house.gov/ contact/email-peter Phone: 541-465-6732 • Rep. Cedric Hayden Republican District 7 State Representative 900 Court St. NE Salem, Ore. 97301 Phone: 503-986-1407 Website: www.leg.state.or. us/hayden Email: rep.cedrichayden@ state.or.us • Sen. Ron Wyden 405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: wyden.senate.gov Phone: (541) 431-0229 • Sen. Jeff Merkley Email: merkley.senate.gov Phone: 541-465-6750 S entinel C ottage G rove 541-942-3325 Administration Jenna Bartlett, Group Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager... Ext. 1207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Gerald Santana, Multi-Media Sales Consultant... 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