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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 2019)
4A | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 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anonymous, libelous, argumentative, sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without documentation will not be published.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: New publication day for Th e Sentinel Over the course of the past two years, we’ve seen some changes here at The Sentinel. Those changes were subtle at first and began with re-organizing our in- side pages to make finding information easier by es- tablishing consistent pages for “Records,” “Commu- nity News,” contributed features, etc. Then, this past April, we changed the look of our front page and introduced a sidebar to the left of the page to provide readers with a quick glance of the highlights in each edition. Along the way, we also updated our text fonts to a cleaner, less stylized version that is easier on the eyes. It also gave us more creative control over the look of feature photos and layouts to make them more dynamic. All of these changes were made with a single purpose in mind: To im- prove what we do as your community newspaper. nel’s Facebook page has increased from less than a few thousand a week to nearly 3,000 visitors each day. Things like that let us know we’re on the right track. Beginning Dec. 5, we’ll be making another change From the Managing Editor’s Desk Ned Hickson This has also included having a stronger and more consistent presence online and through our social media pages as a way to get you the most current information as quickly as possible. The response has been tremendous, and we are both encouraged and appreciative of the positive comments, constructive feedback and hundreds of “likes” we get each week. Activity on The Senti- that will help us provide you with more timely news and information in print as well. One of our biggest challenges in clearing that hurdle has been our print deadlines, which have meant getting our pages to the press by 5 p.m. on Mondays. Because of this, any- thing that happens Mon- day or Tuesday evenings — city council and school board meetings, for exam- ple — are too late to make Wednesday’s print edition. As a result, the paper that comes out Wednesday is already nearly two days old — and whatever hap- pened Monday or Tuesday has to wait almost nine days to see print. That will all change Dec. 5, when The Sentinel will move its publication day to Thursdays. That one-day shift will allow us to move our print schedule to Wednesdays, meaning those council and board meetings that happen Mondays and Tuesdays? You’ll be reading about them that same week on Thursdays. They say most of us don’t like change. But in this instance, it’s the kind of change I know our readers will benefit from as we continue our pursuit to improve what we do as your community newspaper. The Elliott has importance as research forest (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 n response to Dr. Zy- bach’s Guest Viewpoint (“Geisy Plan Is Alternative To Current Elliott State Forest Management,” Nov. 13), I agree with Dr. Zy- bach on one point: The El- liott State Forest has been mismanaged. For decades, large swaths of steep slope clear-cuts have eroded its soils, polluted its streams and creeks, jeopardized the neighboring commu- nities’ watersheds and negatively impacted at- risk and endangered spe- cies. In the face of prior flawed logging proposals and legally questionable land sales, the courts have repeatedly decided to up- hold environmental pro- tections in the Elliott for the endangered species and rich riparian areas it contains. The Elliott is comprised of 93,000 acres of irre- placeable coastal rainfor- est. Within its borders, the Elliott encompasses more than 41,000 acres of native mature and old-growth forest, providing critical habitat to endangered and threatened species as well dren of Oregon with a decent education for the sake of the future of our state. However, we must also be able to provide a future for our children to Guest Viewpoint By Cristina Hubbard Executive Director of Forest Web, a grassroots environmental nonprofi t based in Cottage Grove as healthy streams and riv- ers that provide drinking water to the communi- ties within its watersheds, and spawning grounds for Coho and Chinook Salm- on in the Coast Range. Fisheries experts have determined 25 percent of Oregon’s wild Coho salm- on are produced in its wa- ters. Despite the fires that devastated the Elliott 170 years ago, this native forest has thrived. Fire is a natu- ral part of the life cycle of any forest. Today, the El- liott contains a rich diver- sity that includes Doug- las fir, western hemlock, western red cedar, bigleaf maple and red alder. With regard to the Common School Fund, it is vital that the state find ways to provide the chil- utilize that education. In the face of climate change, the Elliott has greater value as a research forest than as a source of commercial timber. And, it has even more value to the environment as a standing contiguous for- est, sequestering carbon. Forest Web puts great effort into making gov- ernment agencies and elected officials aware of public opinion regarding environmental concerns such as clear-cutting in state forests and the cu- mulative impact on our climate caused by logging our planet’s richest carbon sinks. Ecotrust’s 2011 Car- bon Analysis of Proposed Forest Management Re- gimes on the Elliott State Forest states, “If no har- vests were to occur in the Elliott Forest, the total amount of carbon stored would be approximately 46.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050, approximately 68.5 percent of the annual emissions of greenhouse gas for the entire state in 2007...” The report also states: “…The significant im- pacts of climate change on our forests and their continued management requires that we evaluate the potential of our forests to store more carbon and include this in the poten- tial outcomes of the state’s management plans...” It is time to stop selling off our planet’s future. We must eliminate the anti- quated concept that the value of a forest is mea- sured only in board feet. We must find other ways to fund our schools. And, we must not sell our public lands to pri- vate interests. It is time to look past expediency and economics. It is time to look forward instead of repeating the mistakes of the past. It is time to truly turn our forests over to the future of our children. 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 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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