bailey hill construction

The makeover of Bailey Hill Road next to Churchill High School is not just a story about reconstructing a half-century-old stretch of pavement and putting in a couple of crosswalks. It’s also the story of a life lost, and the other lives that were changed forever when they intersected on a hot August day nearly two years ago.
When Marina Hajek drives down Westleigh Street across from the high school, she meets the road construction that began two weeks ago — converting Bailey Hill Road from four lanes to two, with a middle turn lane — and she is thankful. But she is also sad that her son is not alive to see it.
“Of course it’s good,” Hajek said. “I applaud the city for what they are doing. I just wish the changes were there for him.”
Her only son, Vaclav Hajek, was 10 years old on Aug. 27, 2007, when he was struck and killed by a car speeding south on Bailey Hill Road. He was walking his bicycle across the road after a driver in the inside lane had stopped to let him cross.
Shawn Patrick Tichenor, then 16, was going an estimated 65 mph in a 35 mph zone (that has since been reduced to 30 mph) when he swung around the other car and into the outside lane, striking Vaclav in front of the Eugene Fire Department’s Bailey Hill station. The impact was such that his bicycle came to a skidding stop 211 feet from his body, according to investigators.
Tichenor, who graduated from Churchill this spring, was sentenced last year to eight years of probation — and the loss of his driver’s license during that period — after being charged with criminally negligent homicide.
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Today is the fourth week of construction on Bailey Hill Road. The inbound lane, shoulder and bike lane have been excavated to the gravel road bed that is being improved for the new road. This is road replacement, not road repair. For the foreseeable future, two lanes of bi-directional bicycle and automobile traffic have to share a space that formerly was used for unidirectional bicycle and automobile traffic.

The quality of the performance of the traffic flow control subset of the construction team on Bailey Hill Road has improved significantly over the last three weeks. During week one, orange cones were placed semi-randomly in the street. Drivers were faced with an impromptu slalom course. Drivers who had the misfortune of needing to go into the shopping center with Koho Bistro and the mini mart and the dog grooming place and the army recruiting station had to run the slalom course perpendicular to the other drivers.

Week 2, the cones were arranged in lines, signaling the new lane structure. Week 3, there was a new dotted yellow line painted on what used to be a lane and a bike lane. Also, tiny white arrows showed the appropriate direction of travel in each newly designated lane. Also, the stop sign that had replaced the traffic light at the corner of BH and Westleigh was replaced by a human. Instead of the normal stop sign behavior, the human would let ten people go from one spot at a time. The wait time for traffic going into town on Bailey Hill Road one morning was close to five minutes. The guy in front of me was just about to make a tight u-turn and go back to the intersection and take Bertelsen instead when the crossing guard allowed us to go. One day, the crossing guard tried to force me to turn onto Westleigh. He forgot that the drivers of the cars decide which way they go, not him. Should this guy really be directing traffic if he can’t remember that even though he gets to temporarily be the boss of WHEN, the driver is still the boss of WHERE?

There are many roads that are in much greater need of repair than this section of Bailey Hill Road. However, the city of Eugene and maybe Lane County used the death of 10-year-old Vaclav Hajek at the hands of 16-year-old Shawn Patrick Tichenor on August 27, 2007 to divert state (Federal?) road funds to this particular patch of asphalt. The week before election day, Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy, City Councilor President Chris Pryor, Police Chief Pete Kerns and Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson were standing in the parking lot lobbying people to vote yes on something. Chief Kerns was talking to Marina Hajek. He pretended not to see me and ignored me when I stood near them. Most mothers would feel angry at an Irish Catholic police chief who conspired with the Lane County District Attorney and Lane County Circuit Court to sentence the Irish Catholic teenager who killed her son to ZERO days of jail time but not Ms. Hajek.

Ms. Hajek has bought into the frame created by EPD and LCDA and LCCC that the blame for the death of Vaclav is “poor road design” and not the decision by Churchill High School graduate Shawn Patrick Tichenor to drive 65 miles an hour in a school zone. Ms. Hajek says things like “I applaud the city for what they are doing. I just wish the changes were there for him.”

I remember looking at Pete exude phony(?) compassion to Marina and thinking “This guy reeks of priest.” It had never occurred to me before to use the phrase “reek of priest” and I will always think fondly of Pete and Marina in the Koho Bistro parking lot in October, 2008 with Pete, Chris and Kitty when the phrase occurs to me.

Would Mr. Tichenor have received zero days in jail if the person he killed was one of the Boy Scouts allegedly sired by LCDA Alex Gardner? Would Mr. Tichenor have received zero days in jail if he had committed the crime of criminally negligent homicide thus causing the death of a Lane County Circuit Court Judge (e.g., Greg Foote, Lauren Holland, Maurice Merten, Greg Foote, Mary Ann Bearden, Charles Zennache, Greg Foote)?

ellmers quiz

State of Oregon (Plaintiff) v. Matthew Nathan Ellmers (Defendant)
Lane County Circuit Court Case No. 2009-01803
Judge: Jack A. Billings
Counsel for Plaintiff: Deputy Lane County District Attorney David Vill
Counsel for Defendant: Brad Cascagnette and Daniel Koenig

Judgment
June 30, 2009
11:00 a.m.

Count 1: Manslaughter in the First Degree [120 months]
Count 2: Manslaughter in the First Degree [120 months, 66 to be served concurrently with the sentence imposed in Count 1 and 54 to be served consecutively to the sentence imposed in Count 1]
Count 3: Manslaughter in the First Degree [120 months, 66 to be served concurrently with the sentence imposed in Count 1 and 54 to be served consecutively to the sentence imposed in Counts 1 and 2]
Count 4: Manslaughter in the First Degree [120 months, 66 to be served concurrently with the sentence imposed in Count 1 and 54 to be served consecutively to the sentences imposed in Counts 1, 2 and 3]
Count 5: Assault in the Second Degree [70 months, 46 to be served concurrently with the sentence imposed in Count 1 and 24 to be served consecutively to the sentences imposed in Counts 1, 2, 3 and 4]
Count 6: Reckless Driving [12 months, to be served concurrently with the sentence imposed in Count 1]
Count 7: Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants [12 months, to be served concurrently with the sentence imposed in Count 1]

Page 5 “The total incarcerative period with the Department of Correction imposed in this judgment is 240 months.”

The total number of months alleged by Judge Jack Ass Billings is 240 months. The actual total is ___.

a. 239
b. 240
c. 242
d. 306
e. all of the above

The court-appointed counsel for the defendant Matthew Ellmers was Brad Cascagnette, a former employee of Gardner, Honsowetz, Potter and Budge and Ford who is now in an individual private practice. Mr. Cascagnette has been licensed to practice law in Oregon since 2002.

If you go to the public access terminal in the Clerk’s Office in the Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse and type in Brad Cascagnette, you find five cases. The number of these cases that involve representing former EPD Officer Roger Magana is:

a. 5
b. 6
c. 7
d. b and c