4A | OCTOBER 8, 2020 | 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)
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Copyright 2020 © 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documentation will not be published.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:
Celebrating National Newspaper Week
local community that would ant understanding that con-
otherwise be overlooked tinues to define us as a com-
without them,” said Al munity newspaper:
To our readers, we are not
Cross, director of the Insti-
tute for Rural Journalism at just the newspaper; we are
the University of Kentucky. their newspaper.
USC professor Judy
In fact, in 2019, the com-
bined readership of those Muller told the Stanford
At least once a week, some 6,500 non-daily newspapers University Press that, while
6,500 community newspa-
pers — those with a circu-
lation of less than 30,000
— land on porches, inside
Ned Hickson
mailboxes or at local super-
markets and coffee counters
across the United States.
was almost 15 million more local journalism is certainly
According to a survey than that of daily newspa- about police blotters, obit-
conducted by the Univer- pers, with non-dailies tally- uaries, bake sales and club
sity of Missouri-Columbia, ing 55.5 million subscribers meetings, “The best com-
more than three-quarters of — compared to 30.5 million munity newspapers also
respondents said they read daily-paper subscribers.
hold local governments and
most or all of each edition
This is according to the institutions accountable by
of their local newspaper National Newspaper
As- covering meetings, asking
— with 94 percent of those sociation (NNA), which questions and recognizing
people holding subscrip- also noted that 70 percent the good as well as the not-
tions.
of those small non-dailies so-good because ... if not
Locally, on Thursday have a circulation of less them, then who?”
mornings, you can see the than 15,000; The Sentinel is
That “not-so-good” has
front page of The Sentinel among that smaller group, been more frequent in re-
suspended in front of fac- with a circulation of just cent months as communi-
es around town as people over 4,500.
ties here in Lane and Doug-
inform themselves about
When I became an editor las counties — as well as
what’s happening in our in September 2016, I’d had around the state and nation
community — from upcom- the good fortune of working — deal with the challenges
ing fundraisers and special with three terrific editors of COVID-19.
reports, to recaps of the lat- over the past 20 years I’ve
Updates,
guidelines,
est board meetings and local spent as a journalist here in spikes and drops in cases,
newsworthy events.
as well as the efforts by in-
Lane County.
“Community papers pro-
And while each brought dividuals and groups in our
vide news coverage about their own style and focus, communiy to address those
things that matter to their there has been one import- challenges for each oth-
From the Editor's Desk
er and those less fortunate
have never been more im-
portant than now.
Each of our story meet-
ings are underscored by the
notion of “If not us, then
who?”
As we head into Nation-
al Newspaper Week (Oct.
6-12), we’d like to thank
you, our readers, for sup-
porting your local newspa-
per.
Not only with your sub-
scription or that weekly trip
to our office or store to buy
your copy, but also for your
participation and contri-
butions — through letters,
emails, phone calls and con-
versations in my office —
that help make The Sentinel
one of those 6,500 non-daily
community newspapers that
is continuing to grow during
one of the most challenging
times experienced within
our community.
In the words of Thomas
Jefferson in a letter to Col.
Edward Carrington on Jan.
16, 1787:
“Were it left to me to
decide whether we should
have a government without
newspapers, or newspapers
without a government, I
should not hesitate a mo-
ment to prefer the latter.”
A better plan is needed to prevent wildfi res
As of Sunday, Oct. 4, several west-
ern Oregon wildfires, fanned by the
strong east winds on Labor Day eve-
ning, are still burning out of control.
These are the most widespread, dead-
ly and destructive urban and forest
wildfires in state history.
Subsequent fall rains have mostly
stopped the spread of these Sept. 7-8
fires, but they have already covered
more than one million acres, de-
stroyed more than 4,000 homes and
1,400 other structures, caused the
emergency evacuations of more than
40,000 people and deaths of at least
10 others, and killed millions of wild
animals.
The long-term effects of severe re-
gional air pollution for nearly two
consecutive weeks on both people and
wildlife remains to be measured.
These are just the latest in a series of
large- and catastrophic-scale Western
Oregon forest fires that began in 1987,
starting with the 96,000-acre Silver
Complex Fire that burned the Kalmi-
opsis Wilderness that year.
More than 90 percent of these sub-
sequent events have taken place in
federal forestlands, which only rep-
resent 50 percent of Oregon’s forested
areas. The reasons for this disparity
have been discussed in detail for more
than 30 years, with some blaming in-
creasingly passive federal forest and
rangeland management policies and
others blaming climate change.
The larger question remains:
What next steps should be taken to
lessen the future number, severity, and
extent of these recurring fires?
From 1952 until 1987, for example,
there was only one forest fire great-
er than 10,000 acres in all of western
Oregon: the 1966 43,000-acre Oxbow
Fire in Lane County.
From 1987 until now there have
Guest Viewpoint
By Bob Zybach
PhD Environmental Sciences
Program Manager,
Cottage Grove
been more than 30 such events, with
several being far greater than 100,000
acres in size.
What changed?
Lessons from the 1933-1951 “Six-
Year Jinx” Tillamook Fires and the
1987-2018 Kalmiopsis Wilderness
Fires are clear: unless removed, the
dead trees resulting from these fires
will most likely fuel greater and more
severe future fires. Forests of dead
trees are far more dangerous, flam-
mable, and unsightly than those with
living trees.
The best first-step solution is
that 2020 fire-killed trees should be
mapped, sold and harvested ASAP.
Prices for Douglas fir logs are at a
record high, there is a great need for
good-paying rural jobs, and fire-killed
trees have proven likely to burn again
— and even hotter and more intensely
than when they were living.
Rapid removal of hazardous fuels
resolves two problems: reduced likeli-
hood of another fire in the near future,
and local provision of needed recon-
struction costs, jobs and materials.
But this leaves another problem in
place:
How long will it be until another
wildfire threatens these communities?
And is there a way to keep that from
happening?
Part of the problem with Western
Oregon wildfires is that primary fuels
often consist of contiguous forest can-
opies — mostly Douglas fir — whether
five-years or 500-years old. This situ-
ation is due in part by the elimination
of historical landscape-scale burning
and grazing patterns being replaced
by solid plantations of conifers; often
due to legal requirements.
For thousands of years, ancestral
Oregon Indian families kept ridge-
line and riparian areas open for travel,
hunting, fishing and harvesting pur-
poses that were kept clear of ground
fuels via constant firewood gathering
and seasonal fires. This created a sys-
tematic series of firebreaks and “safe
spaces” across the landscape
To effectively mimic these desired
conditions, modern site preparation
via scarification and prescribed burn-
ing would still be critical, but high-
grade seedling stock of select species
would be planted on the basis of “mi-
crosites” and desired densities/acre,
rather than grids. And then regularly
maintained via commercial harvest-
ing, grazing, and prescribed burning
— as proven successful in both an-
cient and historical times.
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
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