september27 2011
V E R N O N I A’ S
reflecting the spirit of our community
Town Hall Provides
School Project
Updates
inside
8
ridge
riders
9
spider
talk
10
student
volunteer
volume5    issue18
Sentry Constructs Flood Wall
A Town Hall Meeting, organized by the Vernonia
School District , was held on September 13, 2011 at the
Vernonia School Cafeteria. Over fifty people were in at-
tendance for the evening meeting.

The meeting provided updates on the fundraising
efforts and the construction of the school campus. A team
from Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) was
on hand with plans for the improvements to OR Highway
47, also called Bridge Street, and Missouri and Texas
Avenues. The community was also introduced to Kurt
Lango of Lango Hansen, the firm that has been chosen to
create a design for the new Spencer Park at the site of the
current schools.

Another Town Hall has been scheduled for Octo-
ber 20, 2011, specifically to receive community input for
the design of the new Spencer Park.

Construction of the School campus continues on
schedule, with the new campus expected to be open for
students in the fall of 2012.

ODOT representatives provided a detailed design
for the Highway 47/Bridge Street improvements, which
are being paid for with a $3.9 million grant from ODOT.
The design calls for the widening of the highway on either
side of Missouri Avenue, which will be the main access
street leading to the new K-12 school campus. There will
be a left turn lane added in the north bound direction of
Highway 47 for motorists turning onto Missouri Avenue.
The plan includes wider sidewalks and bike lanes on both
sides of the highway with the south sidewalk being wid-
ened to ten feet. The marked crosswalk at Texas Avenue
will be removed to encourage use of the new crosswalk at
Missouri Avenue. The new crosswalk at Missouri Avenue
will include better illumination for pedestrians crossing
the highway and Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons to
alert drivers to pedestrians.

Missouri Avenue will be widened to include a ten
continued on page 10
free

If you stopped by to shop,
or even just driven by the Verno-
nia Sentry Market recently, you
couldn’t help but notice the con-
struction happening around the
building. If you haven’t already
asked then you are probably won-
dering, “What are they doing?”

What they are doing is
constructing a flood wall to help
keep out water in the event of
a future flood. In December of
2007 the Sentry Market had over
twenty-two inches of water inside
the store, causing hundreds of
thousands of dollars in damages
to their stock. In 1996 there was
over seventeen inches of water in
the store.

“It is nothing special—
it’s just a wall to keep the major-
ity of the water out,” says Sentry
owner Randy Parrow about the
flood wall. “We figure there will
be some leakage somewhere--
we’ll have a pump, squeegee it
to there and pump it out. But we
hope we’ll just be dealing with an
inch or two of water.”

The flood wall will be
four feet at its highest point and
consist of sealed cement blocks
that will encircle the entire build-
ing. The blocks extend under-
ground one foot below the foot-
ings of the building. There will
be six openings to allow access to
the building. Those openings will
be sealed with specially designed
flood gates--metal doors that fit
Bud Boldon of Bolden Construction in Forest Grove working on the
Sentry’s flood wall.
into the blocks and can be put in
place and hand-cranked tight in
case of a high water event.

As part of the construc-
tion of the wall, new windows will
be installed along the store front.
The bottom sill of the previous
windows sat below the high water
level—the new windows will be
placed above the top of the new
flood wall.

According to Parrow the
building will also be receiving a
facelift with new wood siding, a
solid awning across the front, and
an outdoor, covered shopping cart
corral. “Since we were doing this
flood wall construction we de-
cided it was a good time to do a
facade upgrade,” said Parrow.

FEMA funds will pay for
seventy-five percent of the cost
for the flood wall construction.
Parrow estimated the cost to be
around $200,000. “The cost of
this versus building a new store
that would have cost millions—
we felt like this was the way to
go,” explained Parrow. Parrow
was clear that the FEMA funds
are only paying for the flood wall,
they are not being used for the
other building upgrades.

The project is being con-
structed by Five-Star Builders.
Bud Boldon of Bolden Construc-
tion in Forest Grove is doing the
actual masonry wall construction
work.

Parrow says the project is
expected to be completed by the
end of October.
Providence Clinic Leaving Vernonia
Vernonia Health Center Board is Working on a Replacement Plan
By Scott Laird

According to a flyer being
handed out at the Providence
Medical Clinic in Vernonia,
Providence Health & Services is
leaving Vernonia at the end of this
calendar year.

“Currently,
Providence
has no plans to continue clinic
operations after the end of the
year,” says the flyer that is being
handed to Providence patients at the
Vernonia clinic.

The Vernonia Health
Center Board (VHCB) owns the
building and provides the space
for Providence to provide health
care for the community. That
building was flooded in 2007 and
the VHCB was mandated by FEMA
requirements, as a vital community
service, to move from its current
location.

Since the Flood of
December 2007 the VHCB has been
working to find a suitable location
and sufficient funds, but currently
lacks the resources needed to move
the clinic on their own.

In
September
2010
Providence said they were willing to
help the VHCB in their relocation,
offering to let the VHCB keep
equipment currently in use at the
clinic. There is also an account
controlled by Providence that is
holding approximately $140,000
that was collected after the flood
in 2007 to help Vernonia rebuild its
health clinic.

Gary Walker, Regional
Director of Public Affairs for
Providence provided additional
information in a prepared response
from Providence to questions about
the split from the VHCB.

“These combined donations
of cash and equipment have a
value of more that $200,000,”
said the prepared statement from
Providence. “We have not yet been
notified by the board whether the
clinic will continue in operation
or shut down for a period of time.
Once the board has an opportunity
to finalize its plans, Providence will
be working with the board and the
community to determine the best
ways to use these funds to help
provide a place for a sustainable
clinic operation in Vernonia in the
future.”

That still leaves a significant
shortfall of funds needed to actually
move the clinic facility.

Last summer the VHCB
began exploring other options
and developed a plan to become a
Federally Qualified Health Center
(FQHC). In the fall of 2010 the
VHCB made a grant application
to become a FQHC in partnership
with Coastal Family Health Center
which operates a medical clinic in
continued on page 7