Current News You Can Use

The Daily Courier reports that Josephine Community Libraries wants to try for a tax district this year, and is asking for input from the public to figure out what services we want to force each other to fund.  After all, we are already sending them what we can afford if we wish to pay for it. We haven't even funded our jail and justice system yet.  The library was cut loose from county government because the commissioners need to fund public safety first.  The public safety situation has only gotten worse.  Citizens Securing Our Safety are finally pushing their own levy, rather than asking the Commissioners to put it on the ballot.  Almost certainly, JCL’s tax district will fail.  If it is on the same ballot as the levy for the jail and juvenile justice system, the levy may go down with it.  If it goes for the November ballot, it will still interfere with the levy campaign. The beauty of a non-profit is that it doesn't need a majority vote...

Jo Gro, our city’s composting operation, will soon be under the management of Republic Waste Services, minus the sewage bio solids that it was originally started to make use of.   Those will be hauled by Republic to Dry Creek Landfill to make methane for electricity generation.   The city will be running Jo Gro long enough to decompose the rest of their bio solids, and then lease the operation to Republic, who will run it as a regular composting service. Leaf bags waiting for pickup One might expect “free” leaf pickup to go away, since it was instituted to provide material for Jo Gro to help decompose those bio solids.   But leaves will be picked up by Republic and Southern Oregon Sanitation from the curb for free as part of their franchise agreements with the City, as they always have.   The only difference is that they will be free to take them to any DEQ-approved composter, to seek the best price for dumping.   Such “free” leaf hauling...

Kids play in a pile of leaves.   It’s so common, it’s a cliché in the funny papers every fall.   So normal that a dad was taking pictures of his daughters playing in one, without thinking about the fact that they were playing in the street.   So obvious that an 18-year old, still a kid but driving with her brothers, drove through that pile, not thinking about what might be in it.   She felt a bump, probably thought she ran over a big stick, and drove the few blocks home before having her brother check for damage.   This happened last week in Forest Grove on October 20 th . Everyone was careless in this accident: the kids for playing in the street; their father for letting them; the girl for driving over the leaves; but first and most of all, the school district for leaving a pile of leaves in the street, an attractive nuisance that did what attractive nuisances do: attract careless youngsters into danger. This is just one egregious example of the conse...