Letters to the Editor
From our weekly issue dated June 11, 2008
Thug mentality
From Andrea L. Thomas
Cave Junction
I am appalled at the response of this community to the thug mentality displayed by the youth responsible for savagely beating other human beings during Memorial Weekend.
The debate over whether the wrestling team or some members of the team were involved distracts from the problem that we, as a community, have to solve.
The problem which needs our attention is that a number of young people in this town believe that committing acts of physical violence, vandalism, and thievery is OK. In other words, we as adults have failed to teach the lessons of distinguishing right from wrong and that obeying the laws is an essential part of a civilized society.
Some of the steps not taken as the events of that night unfolded are as follows:
The school administrators should have immediately issued a strong condemnation of this behavior instead of taking themselves out of the equation by saying “it was a law enforcement matter.” They should not have minimized the situation by saying “this handful of kids just made a mistake.”
The coaches should have issued a strong condemnation of this behavior instead of whining about the wrestling team being blamed “and not football or track.”
The city should have issued a strong condemnation of this behavior instead of blaming the establishment where the beatings took place.
Law enforcement made serious errors in judgment when responding to the first call and not planning for the inevitable second call.
Until there are consequences for this aberrant behavior the problem will only escalate. We can point the fingers of blame all we want, but that will never solve our problem.
‘Guilt By Association’ view
From April Fisher
Cave Junction
I was outraged when reading the June 4 issue of Illinois Valley News. It’s unfair to crucify Jay Miller for the actions of a group of kids, most 18 years old and old enough to know better.
Jay Miller is an outstanding coach and role model for the wrestling team and our kids in general. For Miller to give any statements about what transpired would be hearsay and speculation. Miller wasn’t there.
Miller has dedicated years to this community and to our youth. During the wrestling season, when he does have “some” control over their behavior, there are very specific rules and guidelines that the team is required to follow. I have witnessed the suspension of team members who have suffered the consequences by not following those rules.
In the June 4 issue, Dave Korrell wrote, “I realize that the whole team was not involved. But let’s face it, the whole team, including Jay Miller know who was.” The whole team, nor their coach, were not present and would be reckless speculating who was there or to make statements about events they have no firsthand knowledge of. You might as well hold the football, basketball and track coaches just as responsible.
If the young men were involved in any other school or community activities, add them to the list. While we’re at it, add the teachers and school administrators. See how this is going. The list could go on and on.
Korrell wrote, “Miller should step up, tell what he knows, and punish the guilty for the sake of the innocent.” I’m sure that Jay is flattered that Korrell thinks he has that much control, but I thought that’s what we had police and a court system for. Is Korrell suggesting that he play judge, jury and executioner?
As it is, there are many versions of the incident going around. One of the versions includes the bouncers telling the kids to come back at 2 a.m. and they would deal with them at that time. So if the bouncers would have been the victors in this confrontation, would we be hearing about it now?
The asserted fact, that in such a small community, if these kids were allowed to enter the establishment and actually be served, and no one recognized them as high school students, is surprising to me. If you truly need to blame someone, blame the people involved.
Korrell wrote, “He should use that influence to guide them down the right path. To a degree, their future is in his hands.” What happened to the role of the parents, and/or guardians? I am in no way condoning the actions of these individuals, but if my child would have been involved there is no one I would be blaming or pointing the finger at besides myself and my child.
We are lucky to have volunteers coming into our school and so freely giving of their time to our children. You start down this road and you can kiss that good-bye. Who is going to want to volunteer to work with your kids if they are held to this ridiculous standard?
Korrell wrote, “I do not blame Miller or the wrestling team for the attack.” Everything in the letter was a pointed finger at Miller and the wrestling team.
Volunteers are few and far between. They give hundreds of hours away from their own families to be there for ours. If anyone doesn’t feel like enough is being done, they should get out there and do some volunteering themselves. How many sit at home while their kids are at practice being coached by these volunteers? How many dedicate even five hours a week to helping these coaches?
These coaches donate more than 30 hours a week during practice and tournament play. All of this after working their full-time jobs, and some want to hold them now responsible for these kids’ futures too. Look in the mirror. Each of us is responsible for giving to all the kids in this community, and yet it’s been put in the hands of a few.
True change isn’t going to happen in this community unless we all get involved. This incident will be dealt with through our court system and hopefully in the homes. This reckless attack on specific individuals for the actions of young men who are capable of making their own decisions needs to stop.
‘The Blame Game’
From Debbie Wilson
Cave Junction
My family has lived in Southern Oregon since the early 1900s. My family history includes one of the pioneers of the Rogue River.
I have raised three wonderful and successful children and worked a successful business, all right here in Southern Oregon.
Although I lived my life in Grants Pass, I moved to Kerby four years ago, and work in Cave Junction. It has been a cultural experience for me out here; a positive one I might add, as a person isn’t whole until they have experienced some diversity. There are truly all walks of life and cultures in our Illinois Valley.
This brings me to the subject of the infamous Art’s Red Garter. I had heard of this place many years before moving out here. In this place of business you literally see all walks of life, lots of good and a few bad who abuse the privilege of being there. These “abusers” are apparently ruining it for all.
If we did not have this only location to have dancing, music, alumni parties, teacher parties, birthdays, and bachelorette parties, we, who enjoy a fun evening that includes music, would have no place here worth going to for a good time. The few who are really bad would just pick another bar in this same town to cause trouble.
I have gone to only a few bars in my life. My partner and I do not go out to drink. When I go out, I go to dance floors and maybe have a couple of drinks but my partner doesn’t drink at all, so there is always a designated driver. Moving from Grants Pass, (where there are a couple of dance floors and Medford not being too far out of the way) it was really hard on me as just to drive to Grants Pass is a 60-mile round trip.
So now, if I am going to resume my passion, I need to explore local possibilities. When I and my other began to explore The Garter it was on the one weekend a month when the band Lavender Blue plays there. They are all friends of ours, and they play a very diverse music list. I am a very diverse dancer.
To continue, our first couple of years experiencing The Garter were exciting to say the least. We knew to get there early, then leave around midnight as that was when the unsavory would start their infiltration. The bouncers that were there at that time knew too many of these individuals and would be overly relaxed rather then watchful.
Then all of a sudden, approximately 18 months ago, there were new bouncers and surveillance cameras. We didn’t even notice what time it was anymore. I get to dance my heart out. We watched as these great security people escorted rowdies out, refused admittance to disorderly persons and really took care of business.
What The Garter did was respond exactly as suggested by OLCC to correct the problems they were experiencing. Stop playing the blame game. The Garter never tried to shift blame or deny there were problems. They took steps to be a better member of the business community.
The Garter is doing a great job of serving an important purpose in our community by giving us such a wonder venue. To take away this because of the few troublemakers, well, it’s like blaming the entire wrestling team for the actions of a few troublemakers.
Merlin for Merlin
From Christopher Smith
Cave Junction
In response to Holger T. Sommer’s letter to the editor (“How safe is Cave Junction?” -- Illinois Valley News, June 4), I have to ask just how much time does this guy have on his hands to waste?
Why would a Merlin resident care or comment on the status of the city of Cave Junction? Does Sommer plan to relocate to Cave Junction?
I find it interesting and funny his description of a “civilized” community. He wrote, “Urban services and facilities like water, sewer, road, fire and police protection are mandatory for ‘civilized’ communities.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I checked, the community of Merlin did not have a police department and was patrolled just like Cave Junction by the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office.
I frequently see Sommer’s name in newspaper articles related to local government meetings. Whether or not I agree with anyone’s views, I applaud someone wanting to take an active role in their community.
I wish I had the time that Sommer does to attend practically every local government function. I have to earn my keep though. Perhaps Sommer should concentrate his efforts on the community of Merlin, where he resides, and not the city of Cave Junction.
‘Stop pointing fingers’
From Nichole Byers
Cave Junction
This is about the whole issue with juvenile persons and the Red Garter Saloon. We could go back and forth pointing at each other, blaming people who not even involved.
But all of this could have been taken care of if the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office (JCSO) had responded properly. I am tired of paying taxes to a police force that is basically nonexistent. If they had responded to the call, then a lot of this could have been taken care of that night.
Why blame Jay Miller (wrestling team coach) for something when he was not present? He is not the law; he does not get paid to make sure our streets are patrolled. Should we blame the swim coach if one of the swim team members gets out of line?
I am saddened by what happened to those innocent people, but I am more saddened by the blame inflicted on those who were not present or aware of the situation. We taxpayers pay for a police force to patrol this valley. I have seen how hard it its to get a deputy to do his job.
What is it going to take to get a response? Memorial Day weekend my husband and I were leaving the Red Garter Saloon when we hit by a drunk driver. A witness phoned JCSO; I got on the phone and told the dispatcher what happened. The dispatcher told me an officer was on his way.
As was talking to the dispatcher, an officer with his lights off directly across the street turned on his lights and drove away. This is just one example of how JCSO responds to criminal acts. There have been people seriously hurt at that location, and each time JCSO was nowhere to be found. I know that many people have their own stories.
The point I am trying to make is that if JCSO would have responded correctly (the way taxpayers pay for), then those involved would have been arrested; everyone would know who did it (instead, we’re all pointing fingers and rumors are flying); and justice would have been served.
We need to stop pointing fingers, and use that energy to question what I say is a terribly corrupt JCSO. We need to ask why there was not a correct response.
America remembered
From John Bazen
Cave Junction
It was not too long ago that many never locked their doors. Nor was it that long ago that few cuss words were heard, especially from those still under the age of 7.
Sorry that those times and America are long gone. What has changed, or what’s been added to the public discourse?
Relativism, brought on by the “new god,” science, more specifically, science’s fiction that “life created itself.” All by itself, all from inert chemicals and organic materials, that all came from nothing, then Bang! All subsequent life forms “evolved” from that “one” spark of life.
Who witnessed and recorded this fact? Or is one of many “assumptions,” replacing scientific fact? God witnessed and recorded, no man did so.
They say that we come from nothing, are nothing, going to nothingness, as is all life. Plus we being from a line that produced the apes, we are nothing more, per science’s fiction, than intelligent animals. However when our children begin murdering each other, acting like animals, the liberal-secularists have no answers, begin by pulling out their hair, in despair, calling out “more laws.”
With legal assisted murder/suicide (as one smarter than me asked, “If a prescription from an MD allows any to shoot the owner of said prescription, would or could you do this?) abortions 40 million to 50 million to date.
Divorce rates out of sight, any reason being lawful, drug usage legal, as long as it’s “medicinal,” high taxes and low morals, anything goes because there are no absolutes in right, in wrong, or in truth, do what you want, when you want, where you want to do it.
With those changes in the public arena, are we better off then or now? We can answer this simply by looking up the number of prisons and prisoners, then or now.
(Hosea 4:6) “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, ... seeing that thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”
Sustainable logging
From Marjorie Reynolds
Cave Junction
This topic has come up in the press. I respect Selma residents Orville & Mary Camp and I am glad that private sustainable logging is being done in its pure form on the Camp’s land. My post-and-beam straw-bale octagon house was the recipient of their sustainable forest.
But some kind of fire-protection thinning is mandated on all national forest, BLM and private interface land. Lomakatsi has been doing good work on this. It’s better than slash-burning.
And we have a biomass furnace here already. It’s rumored that Rough & Ready Lumber Co. is cutting some trees to feed it already, and this seems to me a much better idea to feed it with the thinning slash from these “treatments,” which don’t include cutting old-growth, but with some thinning larger Doug firs which are encroaching on the oak savannas and meadows, and hopefully the old-growth is allowed to become old spar and then fall and add nutrients.
We who live in this paradise on Earth need to work together more often to come up with the solutions. I work for Siskiyou Project, but this is my own opinion, and I’m grateful Siskiyou Project is working with the agencies and sharing Rich Nawa’s expertise about what should be done for the salmon and meadow restoration along existing roads.
Noose aficionados
From Ross & Frances Pettigrew
Chino Valley, Ariz.
Here is our check for $36 for a one-year subscription to your newspaper.
Your news is very well reported, and we get so excited each week when we find you paper in our mail.
The staff is always so polite when we phone. We pray that we’ll be up there as your neighbors before our subscription expires. God bless you.
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