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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2009)
free february2009 V E R N O N I A’ S reflecting the spirit of our community volume2 issue9 vernonia visitors guide Page 13 What Would New Schools Look Like in Vernonia? A Day With the Linemen By Scott Laird More than a year after the December, 2007, Flood, Ver- Growth Boundary of the city, and the raising of millions of nonia school students, teachers, administrators and parents dollars (current estimates are around $30-40 million), that will undoubtedly in- are still trying to work around the clude passing a bond devastation it left behind. Stu- issue that citizens will dents and teachers are attending have to back. All diffi- classes in modular classrooms, cult and time-consum- the community watches sporting ing chores. events in a temporarily repaired Although a fi- gymnasium, students have to nal site for the schools travel outdoors in the rain be- has yet to be deter- tween classrooms, and every- mined, the Facilities one is uncertain what the future Committee, which is holds for Vernonia schools. working as part of the How many classes will Oregon Solutions pro- graduate having spent their high cess, has put together an school years in mods? Are run initial plan that provid- down and temporary classrooms ed estimates of square and schools what Vernonians footage that would be want for the children of our community? How many teach- A classroom at Bonnie Slope Elementary in Beaverton is bright and colorful needed, which is now being used to help de- ers will continue to stay and termine the final site, and which then allowed architects to work in these current conditions? How many families will create preliminary cost estimates. According to Vernonia give up and move away if we don’t build new schools? And Superintendent Ken Cox, a final TGM report is expected to how will the district recruit new talent for its faculty? be presented to the Oregon Solutions Team on February 20, These were just some of the questions facing the Or- paving the way for the School Board to choose a final site. egon Solutions team that is working on the plan to build new schools in Vernonia. Building new schools is a complicated Then would come some public input as to what the com- process that involves Transportation and Growth Manage- munity wants to see included in a new campus, before a final ment (TGM) studies, the possible expansion of the Urban design is created. Cox also expects to begin the process for choosing an architect in the near future. “The process is tak- ing longer than any of us would like,” said Cox. “But with all this work completed on the front end, we will be able to move ahead much quicker once we have a site chosen.” And the process also includes some fun work for the Facilities Committee, who get to help figure out what should be included in a new campus, and do some dreaming about what a new campus would look like. The Facilities Commit- tee has authorized a group of teachers and interested com- munity members to do visitations to recently constructed school campuses in Oregon. The group has been charged with investigating what kinds of design features are being used, to see what new buildings look and feel like, and to ask questions of staff and administrators about how the buildings are functioning. continued on page 12 The cafeteria at West Salem High School inside new officer 6 A WOEC member gets educated in how our electric coop oper- ates, and a glimpse at what linemen do to keep the power on. By Scott Laird The service area is very big. And it’s very, very rural. That was the first, and most important thing I learned when I was the given the opportunity to spend a day with some of the Line- men crews from the West Oregon Electric Cooperative (WOEC) in mid-January. WOEC are the providers of electric service to Ver- nonia and a bunch of other rural customers in Northwest Oregon. Another important thing I learned was that those crews, and the rest of the people who run WOEC, are dedicated, and work incredibly hard to provide us with electrical service, under what can be some pretty extreme and difficult circumstances. One other thing I want to point out, before starting this story, and it really turns out to be the moral, so I want to make it clear early. As members of this Coop, we are all in this together-- we are all owners and operators of this service system. As much we don’t like high rates and unreliable winter service, it’s our Coop, and our situation is not likely to change significantly anytime soon. *** *** *** *** This past December, a series of snowstorms dumped two to three feet of snow on the WOEC service area. Some customers were without power for days, some for weeks, and some were just being reconnected in mid-January. Many of the Coop members were very understand- ing-- others com- plained about the lack of service-- some pretty loudly. There seemed to be a lot of questions on people’s minds about what it takes to operate a rural power provider, me included. It seemed Randy Heath and Jim King reconnect to like a good time to power to a WOEC customer. take WOEC Op- erations Manager Steve Scott, and General Manager Marc Farmer up on their offer to do a ride-along with some of their crews and see what a day is like for the linemen and other folks at WOEC, continued on page 10 Vernonia Flood Stories: Part III- Community Services In early January, 2009, the city of Vernonia stared down two potential storms that had the potential to cause flooding. In the wake of the devastating floods that hit the area in December, 2007, National Weather Service predictions led city and community leaders to gather and make preparations-- initiating contingency plans, activating emergency shelters, moving important equip- ment-- even sandbagging, and trying a new technology that was called “shrink wrapping” to preserve the interiors of some build- ings in the flood plain. Fortunately, the nasty weather spared Vernonia, and gave us an excellent opportunity to work through a live drill, showing how much was learned from last year’s disaster. The community was organized, alert, vigilant, informed and prepared-- and emergency Incident Commanders did an excellent job of running the show. In this series of articles, Vernonia’s Voice has been looking at the Flood of 2007, its effects on the community, what has hap- pened since last December, and where we are now. This month, we look at vital community services and organizations, and get a chance to see how they prepared for the possible flooding that was predicted in early January, 2009. By Scott Laird 18 23 happy 150th oregon winter formal Vernonia Cares -- Initiating an Action Plan One of the truly amazing stories from the Flood of 2007 was the Vernonia Cares Food Bank, which lost everything at their head- quarters when the flood hit-- leaving the devastated community without the food assistance so many residents desperately needed. On top of that, Director Sandy Welch’s home was also flooded, leaving the recovery effort in the hands of volunteers and board members. And what a response they got. Flooded on Monday with almost three feet of water, through the herculean efforts of volunteers, Vernonia Cares reopened on Saturday December 8, and began receiving food donations and handing out assistance imme- diately. Taking over the entire American Legion Hall, when they had pre- viously worked out of two small storage rooms, Vernonia Cares bounced back with a vengeance. continued on page 14 WOEC staff moved office equipment to an upstairs crawl space in January during the flood warning