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Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Number 15 • 135 years
Oregon Ethics Commission investigates council, mayor
WHERE WE LIVE
Concers are protocols for hiring city manager weren’t followed CINDY WEELDREYER Cottage Grove Sentinel The Oregon Government Ethics Commission (OGEC) has launched an investigation into an alleged violation by the Cottage Grove City Council and mayor following a complaint by a Cottage Grove resident. Citizen Johanna Zee’s complaint alleges that, in violation of Oregon’s public meetings law, the Cottage Grove City Council made a final decision of who to
CANDACE SOLESBEE
GREG ERVIN
hire as new city manager in a Dec. 15, 2023 executive session and then hired a new city manager prior to the public having had an opportunity to comment See ETHICS on Page 10
Bear euthanized
Animal reportedly intentionally fed by residents, lost fear of humans JEREMY C. RUARK Cottage Grove Sentinel
Cindy Weeldreyer / The Sentinel Looking through the Chambers Railway Bridge you can see a metal train engine play structure in the distance.
Restored bridge part of National Register of Historic Places
T
CINDY WEELDREYER Cottage grove Sentinel
he tall weathered Chambers Railroad Bridge stands as a sentinel of a bygone era as the last of its kind west of the Mississippi River. The wooden bridge was built in 1925 by an ambitious lumberman to harvest his timberland west of town. Great care and detail went into the rebuilding of the vintage bridge in 201011 and it is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The covered bridge’s fame draws camera-toting tourists to town year-round to capture its iconic beauty. LOOKING BACK
TODAY’S EDITION
The bridge served two mills owned by J.H. Chambers: a large mill in Cottage Grove and another in Lorane on the west side of his large tract of trees. Sadly, the Cottage Grove mill was destroyed twice by fire in the first half of the 20th century. According to local historian Curt Deathrage, Chambers built the Lorane Valley Lumber Company (later renamed J.H. Chambers and Son) sawmill on the south side of town and a smaller mill in Lorane that he operated it until his death in 1946. Another local lumberman, Warren Daugherty, then purchased and operated the
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two mills for five years until a second fire, in 1951, destroyed most of the Cottage Grove sawmill. The surviving equipment, buildings and timberlands were sold to the nearby W.A. Woodard Lumber Company, that today is owned by the Weyerhaeuser Company. The bridge design uses a Howe truss to support a single span across the Coast Fork of the Willamette River that is 78-feet long and 24-feet wide. It supported engines of up to 100 tons and the locomotive’s stack was custom made to fit inside the Cindy Weeldreyer / The Sentinel bridge. The Chambers Railroad Bridge. Deathrage noted the Oregon Pacific and Eastern Railroad, which at one time was See BRIDGE on Page 6
Read developing news and story updates @CGSentinel CGSentinel.com
A black bear that officials said was intentionally fed by people in Cottage Grove has been put down by the Oregon State Police after it lost its wariness and began approaching people. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) agents attempted to capture the bear over the last three weeks. “During the first week of April, the bear cornered a woman as she attempted to enter her house and subsequently went to sleep on a neighbor’s front porch,” ODFW District Wildlife Biologist Chris Yee said. “These are not normal behaviors for a wild black bear and wildlife biologists considered the bear to be habituated to the extent that it would become aggressive towards people.” At the request of ODFW, the bear was killed by Oregon State Police Monday night, April 1. “This is not the outcome anyone wanted,” Yee said. “The actions we had to take were a direct result of people intentionally feeding this bear.” The two-year-old male bear was first seen in the city on March 5 and was spotted repeatedly near people or dwellings over the last several weeks. THE WARNING ODFW
and
Cottage
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THIS IS NOT THE OUTCOME ANYONE WANTED. THE ACTIONS WE HAD TO TAKE WERE A DIRECT RESULT OF PEOPLE INTENTIONALLY FEEDING THIS BEAR. CHRIS YEE, ODFW DISTRICT WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST
Grove Police Department provided information to residents and warned people not to feed the bear. “Bears that are fed by people lose their wariness and can become aggressive and pose a threat to human safety,” Yee said,. “In this case, the bear was being intentionally fed, had become foodconditioned, showed no fear of people when approached, and eventually began approaching people, presumably for food handouts.” In March, ODFW and Oregon State Police served a local car dealership and employee with a warning to cease feeding the black bear. Under Oregon law, (ORS 496.730 and 496.731), it is illegal to either directly or indirectly feed bears and can result in a criminal citation, a Class A misdemeanor, by Oregon State Police. See BEAR on Page 6