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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 2019)
4A | THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 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anonymous, libelous, argumentative, sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without documentation will not be published.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: Something most of us can agree on because it’s second making great strides, nature. I’m so used to it leading the state in this being there that I don’t campaign by being the even think about how of- only county in Oregon ten — and in how many to send more waste to ways — I use electricity. recyclers than we did to The same can be said landfills. While our dependence The inclusion of plastic for our use of plastic. Here are a few statis- on plastic is a global in our lives has grown exponentially over the past 70 years, making our lives easier, more From the Editor's Desk convenient and often Ned Hickson providing a significant cost savings almost too tics to help illustrate the issue, the solutions will good to be true. However, over the past scope of how plastic has need to be implement- few years we have begun become a second-nature ed one community at a element of our lives: time, with the first step to realize that the eco- Worldwide, more than in that process being logical interest rate on 500 billion plastic bags education. the cost of convenience are used each year, or Before we can solve has come due — with more than 1 million bags the plastic problem, we an unexpected balloon every minute. need to fully understand payment. The average “working its scope and the ways We produce nearly 300 life” of a plastic bag is 15 it is intertwined — not million tons of plastic only among those of us products each year in the minutes, after which it who use it, but how any U.S., nearly half of which “retires.” In 1996, 3.8 billion changes we make could is designed for single-use plastic water bottles were impact us economically. purposes in what has sold in the U.S. By 2014, Beginning Jan. 1, increasingly become a that number had grown Oregon HB 2509, also disposable society. And known as the “Sustain- despite efforts to educate to 57.3 billion. It’s no small irony that able Shopping Initiative” the public about the im- portance of “Reduce, Re- the process of producing passed by the Oregon a water bottle actually re- Legislature earlier this use and Recycle,” each year more than 8 million quires six times as much year, will go into effect, prohibiting retail stores tons of plastic is dumped water as there is in the and restaurants from pro- actual container itself. into our oceans. viding single-use checkout In Lane County, our When we lose elec- bags to customers, and goal is to recyle two- tricity in our home, I still walk into every dark thirds of our waste prod- placing restrictions on other checkout bags they room and flip the switch ucts by 2025. We were may provide. Like any change in routine, this will feel like an inconvenience until, eventually, bringing our own shopping bags be- comes second nature. In some cases, it will likely mean an additional cost for things like to-go containers or — should we forget our shopping bags — the need to purchase a multi-use alternative at the store. While deep divisons continue over our im- pact as a society on the changing climate, most of us can agree on the need to find solutions to dealing with what we once embraced as an element of everyday life that seemed too good to be true — and was. The question is what we can do — and are willing to do — as indi- viduals, a community and society to address the true cost of conve- nience. (Editor’s Note: For complete information on HB 2509, visit https:// olis.leg.state.or.us/liz /2019R1/Measures/Over- view/HB2509) LETTERS Awesome gifts from our community To the residents and friends of Cottage Grove, my family and I wish to thank all of the kindred spirits in our community for the good work done and activities that take place. To name a few, PeaceHealth Hos- pital, the new school, new pool and walking bridge. Such awesome gifts unite us all, young and old. Thank you and Happy Holidays to all of you. —Marie Melton Cottage Grove 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... Ext. 1216 gsantana@cgsentinel.com Veronica Brinkley, Multi-Media Sales Consultant... Ext. 1205 vbrinkley@cgsentinel.com Carla Skeel, Inside Multi-Media Sales Consultant... Ext. 1203 csummers@cgsentinel.com Editorial Ned Hickson, Managing Editor... 541-902-3520 nhickson@cgsentinel.com Damien Sherwood, Lead Reporter... Ext. 1212 dsherwood@cgsentinel.com Nick Snyder, Sports/Community News Reporter... Ext. 1204 nsnyder@cgsentinel.com Customer Service Meg Fringer, Office Manager, Legals, Classifieds... Ext. 1200 mfringer@cgsentinel.com Production Ron Annis, Production Supervisor... 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