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* * *Peace and quiet nixed by drugs and alcohol
Name withheld
Cave JunctionWe moved to Cave Junction seeking peace and quiet, and by all outward appearances, this town was the right place.
Unfortunately, as we became acquainted with some of the local population, we realized that, on the contrary, this was a place of joblessness and desperation fueled by and encouraging the use and distribution of drugs and alcohol.
Indeed, time in jail is the good life to the perpetual criminal with no place to sleep and nothing to eat.
Still, we love it here. Our neighbors were friendly and nonviolent. We were aware that our neighborhood, like all others in the Southern Oregon area, was in flux, with homes and acreage changing hands as the real estate market would allow. We watched new neighbors move in and hoped they’d all be like us -- caring and conscious.
Now we are faced with an uncomfortable situation and nowhere to turn for help. The sheriff’s office is understaffed and “lacking resources.” It has neither time nor incentive to aid in apprehending a gun-toting pot-grower who has recently decided to set up camp in what may be a transient land purchase.
Shots ring out across the quiet valley, a form of intimidation, we guess. The man and his henchmen brazenly carry handguns in side holsters, and greet their neighbors armed this way.
In the short time that they have been in our neighborhood, we’ve seen numerous strange vehicles driving up and down our otherwise less-traveled road, some of them slowing to seemingly survey homes.
Already, there has been one attempted break-in where heretofore there have been none.
We have attended the Cave Junction City Council meetings and noted that only those residing within the city limits have opinions and votes that count. Police patrol the city, but have no time to patrol outlying areas. A person could die 20 times over before a deputy arrives at the scene.
True, the businesses that bring revenue to the city are targets for crime and must be protected, but where do you think criminals come from? Only the alleyways and parks?
No. They live in our forests, under our bridges, in abandoned houses, in makeshift lean-tos and tents and boxes -- wherever they can find a bit of shelter and a place to hide for one more day -- to get one more drink, one more fix, to sell 1 more ounce of something they found, stole, grew, or manufactured.
Meanwhile, the county gets a kickback and a pat on the back for all the liquor sold by the state stores last year.
We don’t know what else this pot-grower may be doing on his side of the fence. We only know that we don’t want the evil element that accompanies his activity. We only know we don’t want our children shot by accident or our well being threatened by people whose mindset we are unsure of.
We have decided we must look out for one another and be prepared to protect our homes and families without the aid of the city sheriff’s office. Together, as a cooperative neighborhood, we can make it uncomfortable and unprofitable for this guy to continue to conduct business in our neighborhood.
But where will he go next? Perhaps he will be your neighbor.
Criminal justice system needs immediate repair
From Roslynn Berubee
Cave JunctionWhat is wrong with this picture? I was recently a victim of a crime, and after six months of “dealing” with the police, the grand jury, the D.A.’s office, Victim’s Assistance, and the continuing saga -- finally a resolve was reached.
He plea-bargained. One of the charges was dropped; he pled guilty to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, received a 10-day sentence (no wonder thieves are not bothered with doing that kind of time for that kind of crime), 18 months probation, and has been ordered to pay $5,000 restitution (which I probably will never see a dime of).
Now this person already has priors for the same kind of crimes, as well as other offenses he had not dealt with, and was sentenced for those crimes as well. Three charges he was sentenced to 30 days each. (That’s 90 days).
Then he was sentenced for another charge of 120 days. (That’s 210 days). Finally, adding the 10 days he received for stealing my vehicle (220 days), he was incarcerated May 31 and was released Aug. 18. That does not add up to 220 days. That’s less than 90 days.
I read the Aug. 23 issue of “Illinois Valley News” regarding the article “Punks, thugs need to know crime bites,” and I am upset. As a registered voter and taxpayer, I feel betrayed.
The “powers of government” insisted we needed a new jail facility; the people voted for the new jail to house all the criminals in this county, supposedly because we are so rampant with crime. Especially here in Illinois Valley.
For years we’ve been wrestling with crime out here, like everywhere, and were coerced by not having enough money in our budget, to have a police department, or an officer on-duty in the valley.
The Big House gets built, and nothing has changed. Now we’re informed that understaffing at the jail is the problem. There is a state-of-the-art kitchen at the jail, but we don’t use it, we have a caterer?
We don’t have enough money to properly staff the jail, but we have beds to rent to Jackson County inmates, and apparently enough staff to accommodate “those” inmates. That makes no sense to me.
What’s worse is that many of the beds that we rent to Jackson County are being filled, being used by high-profile sex offenders, some with million dollar bails. What gives? Why aren’t they in one of our many prisons?
Right now, for instance, a certain man is sitting in county jail. Last year he and two other men were all charged with sexually molesting one of the other men’s 13-year-old daughter. One of the men (step-brother to the victim) received six years.
I never heard what sentence the father received. But, the certain man, a registered sex offender, who at the time of his arrest was found in bed with a 4-year-old, shows up, and now here he is, once again in our county jail on other charges. Why?
He is not one of Jackson County’s inmates, for whom we rent a bed. He happens to be just one of the repeat-offenders in this county.
I guess my point is, how does that work again? Jail deters crime? If law enforcement plans to deter crime, with jail time, then those convicted should be sentenced and then have to do every day of that sentence.
The perpetrator of my crime? This is his M.O. -- “Criminal Mischief,” UUMVs, possession, probation and programs.
Ten days for auto theft seems like a pretty stiff sentence to me. Ha, Ha. And as for the restitution, I was informed that restitution, in Oregon, follows a person for 50 years. I’m 53, do you think I might live that long?
The anguish I have suffered gets no merit whatsoever. He gets a slap on the hand and is released into the community to continue on his “wicked” path until law enforcement catches up to him again, when he again relieves his hate, by inflicting some other person with a similar crime. And there is no doubt in my mind that he will commit one.
Has justice been served?
Has justice been served for that little girl, who had been repeatedly, and continuously, violated by these men, who all lived at the same residence, and by at least one of them, since she was 10? And that’s probably not the whole story.
Then within a few months (maybe two at the most if memory serves me well), one of those men, a known, registered sex offender, shows back up in our county jail, at taxpayer expense, to sit for weeks or months, until he’s sentenced again.
I can guarantee, sooner or later, that he’ll show up again, maybe this time on just a probation violation for not registering in his community (few of them ever register), he’ll get little more than 10 days, and he’ll again disappear from “known whereabouts” to continue his “dastardly deeds.”
Again I ask, has justice been served?
I, too, have no solution. Is it the laws on the books, the sentencing guidelines, over-budget, under-staffed, the courts, the jails, the judges?
I don’t know. What I do know is that we all need to address these issues, investigate all possibilities, and together come to a solution, or compromise, because this is not working. The Insanity Rule: If you want to keep getting what you’re getting, keep doing what you are doing. (It’s a no-brainer.)
People should write their congressmen and senators and anyone else they can think of -- and don’t give up.
President criticized on many fronts
From Wally Hardie
SelmaThere is no reason to wonder how Chicken Little is doing. He is alive and well, and no small thanks must be given to our leaders in Washington who have managed, with a great deal of effort, to avoid any comprehension of the words “foreign policy.”
If you really believe that the world is better off since President Bush invaded Iraq and that we are safer, then you need to listen to someone other than Rush Limbaugh, or find a good psychiatrist. Bush’s war in Iraq has led to such disaster that the television evangelists and fundamentalists are all in accord that the sky is falling, the end time is near, and the second coming is imminent.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Hale-Bopp Comet was seen as a sign that the end is near. The turn of the century to 2001 was going to be the absolute end.
Fundamentalism comes in many shades of ignorance. My president believes that a fertilized stem cell when used for science is murder. But only if the stem cell was fertilized after he became president. If it happened before he became president, it wasn’t murder. This is more of the incomprehensible Bush logic.
Bush is the only president in the history of the United States to use his fundamentalist view to veto a bill that would allow science to find cures for all mankind -- putting one’s own narrow view before the welfare of so many. But this was his political pandering to the religious far right in attempt to keep that part of his base in tow.
This was the same mentality during the 13th through the 17th centuries. Bush would have made a great pope for those dark centuries.
I think that care and protection should be for the living, and those who are fighting to stay alive, praying and dying while waiting for their cure to be perfected, rather than concern for cells that perhaps someday, somehow, may or may not be a life.
The Learning Tale told by Owl Woman
From Deborah Dawson
O’BrienThis is a story that could happen to you. It is not fiction, and yet it sounds like a Learning Tale that people use to teach children profound truth.
Two years ago there was a beautiful box canyon in a magical place called O’Brien.
Cedars, yew, and pine were just a few of the Tree Nation that carpeted the mountains and canyon walls. Thick layers of moss covered rock and fallen trees, and lacy ferns grew in the shade.
This canyon received great amounts of rain, and the two creeks flowed nearly all year until August and then submerged beneath the stream bed. The magical springs never dried up because they were fed from full water tables beneath the ground.
Bear, Mountain Lion, Grouse and Fox lived peaceably alongside the people of the canyon; everyone got along because the animals had lots of forest to live in and raise their young. Every fall and spring, Salmon would wiggle their way up to spawn in the place of their birth. Every spring frogs sang.
Then one day an evil and greedy monster sent its slaves to destroy the trees on the mountainsides. They did not care whose home it destroyed, all they wanted was the wealth that came from slaying every tree to feed the hungry factory.
There was no thought to the animals or humans who lived near and relied on the beautiful forest for its strong magic.
A wise woman who lived in the canyon drummed to the death cry of the trees that fell to the teeth of the slaves. Others who lived in the canyon would moan with despair, feeling their hearts break with the sound of each tree crashing to the ground.
Now two years later, the bears’ cubs try to rob the garbage cans to get enough food. The springs have dried up, and the water tables have shrunk.
The cedars are turning brown and the creek is filling with silt. The wise woman has moved away, and many of the inhabitants have run out of fresh, clean water and their gardens fail.
Neighbors from the country whose lands border O’Brien are worried when they look upon the destruction so close to their own magical forest, for they know they are connected.
They know that all life is connected and the waters and air and earth are all part of a living system including beings that need air and water and earth.
Now it seems that many believe the lies of the monster and think they are safe from its destructive ways. They refuse to see that their own existence is at risk because it has not affected them personally -- yet.
But as this Learning Tale draws to a close the warning is this: This monster cares not for the well-being of the people of this land, only for the gold the trees bring.
So, children beware of lies and return to the wisdom of the ancient ones and live in harmony with all Nature.
‘Katrina’ wake-up call needs to be heeded
From Kate Brownell Robarge
Cave JunctionA year after “Katrina, we still are left wondering what our government can and should be able to do for us.
While no one could expect the administration to keep us “safe” from natural disasters, we do expect it to be able to rush in and start picking up the pieces. We do expect it to be able to give us fair warning and have plans in place ready for these types of disasters.
The Bush administration has shown that it has little regard for what happens to the real people of America, not the big business types, but the averageJoe-on-the-street type. You know him, he’s you and me.
Our government, George Bush, was given advance warning that the levees could and would break under “Katrina”-like conditions or similar; yet he did nothing. He was given advance warning that the Superdome would not have enough capacity or supplies, if New Orleans flooded, to care for the survivors, yet he sent them there anyway.
As ex-FEMA head Michael Brown had told the president weeks before it happened, it became a “catastrophe within a catastrophe.”
“Katrina” should be a wake-up call that changes need to happen within our system. The people who needed our/their government the most were the ones who were forgotten or ignored by it.
This has been and still is a massive failure by our government run by G.W. Bush. While he’s busy telling me why my sons should go defend his oil-hungry wants, he’s ignoring the very real issues here at home.
Perhaps it’s time that we all start taking a very hard look at all of those we even think about putting in a position of watching out for our country’s safety. Perhaps it’s time we start talking about the real issues that face us.
Might be a bit scary, but then, so was “Katrina.”
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