10
5th anniversary
june26
2012
A Look Back at Five Years of Vernonia’s Voice
From our first issue in June 2007
On December 3, 2007 Vernonia and surrounding communities were hit with a devastating flood that impacted residents, local services and
flooded all three schools. The community rallied together and with the help of volunteers, worked to rebuild the town.
Children are an important part of our community—and they are very photogenic!
In August of 2008 we spent a day in the woods
with
a logging crew and learned about logging in
Stub Stewart State Park opened in
the pacific northwest.
2007, 10 miles from Vernonia.
Postal Customer
Vernonia School
District Voters to
Decide on Measure
5-197
This past August, the School Board of the
Vernonia School District 47J voted unanimously
to place Bond Measure 5-197 on the November 3
election ballot. If approved, these general obliga-
tion bonds would raise $13 million towards capital
construction of a new school campus through in-
creases in local property taxes. The total cost of the
new construction is estimated at $37 million.
Specifically, the bond measure would
provide funds for construction, and to furnish and
equip elementary, middle and high school facilities
on an insurable site above the flood plain; purchase
property and pay any related demolition and site
improvement costs, and pay fees associated with
issuing the bond. “The amount of money dedi-
cated to the bond, in terms of debt service, can-
not be spent on anything but capital construction
of that school,” says Tony Hyde, Columbia County
Commissioner, and Vernonia resident. “It can’t be
used for operations and maintenance of the exist-
ing schools. It can’t be used to rebuild the schools
at the current site. It can’t be used to give to the
city for a new sewer plant. It can only be used for
the new construction of a school, out of the flood
zone.”
The bond was initially scheduled to ma-
ture in approximately twenty-six years, but the dis-
trict recently received word they were approved for
the Qualified School Construction Bond Program,
part of the Stimulus Bill, making them eligible to
receive very low-interest loans to back the bonds.
This would substantially reduce the total amount
of debt that taxpayers are obligated to pay. Details
of how the program would be applied to this bond
measure are still being worked out.
The School District has already gone
through a lengthy process to locate a suitable site
for the project and has acquired rights to twenty-
two acres of property on OA Hill at what is being
called the Boot Site. Already underway are ex-
pansion of the city Urban Growth Boundary and
needed zoning changes to accommodate the con-
struction.
The additional funding to complete this
$37 million project is expected to be secured from
a variety of sources including: grant applications
for federal stimulus funds for specific portions of
the school construction; other state and federal
sources including federal earmarks; a Capital Cam-
paign that will solicit private donations; and grant
applications to private foundations. Bill Haack,
Economic Recovery Coordinator for Colpac has
been working to develop the plan for securing
those funds. “Vernonia is in an unusual situation,”
says Haack. “Usually when a community goes out
for a bond to replace schools, they have been plan-
ning for it for many, many years. In Vernonia, this
is not planned. This is a disaster. We’re working
under a different set of rules.”
The planned school facility is designed to
hold 750 students, with the ability to expand to hold
1,000. The design incorporates innovative technol-
ogies that would make the school campus a model
for sustainable construction practices and one of
the most energy efficient and “green” schools any-
where in the United States. “What we are targeting
is about a sixty percent reduction in energy use,”
says Chris Linn, a principal with BOORA Archi-
tects, who created the design of the building.
A group of local citizens have formed a
School Bond Campaign Committee, chaired by
local resident Sharon Bernal. They have worked
to raise awareness about the bond measure and de-
velop support for its passage. “We need to look at
passing this bond as our ‘down-payment,’ just like
if you were buying a house,” says Bernal, a local
real estate agent. “When house-hunting, first you
pick out the house you want-- we’ve already done
that. Then you make sure you have your down pay-
ment. Then you go get financing to pay for the rest.
This bond is the communities’ down payment.”
Election Ballots will be mailed in mid-Oc-
tober to all registered voters and must be returned
by November 3rd. A drop-box will be available in
Vernonia at the Public Library.
New School Design Is Both Practical and Innovative
Plans would make the Vernonia School the first Leeds Platinum Certified public school in the nation
The plans
that architects are
developing
for
the proposed new
$37 million school
campus in Verno-
nia will make ex-
tensive use of new
and innovative en-
ergy-saving tech-
niques and tech-
nologies. But it is
also a simplified
plan designed to
keep construction
costs down and
provide a first-rate
facility in which
children will learn.
C h r i s
Linn is a principal
at BOORA Ar-
chitects, the firm
hired by the school
district to design the new facility, who
has been actively involved in the Verno-
nia project from the very beginning.
Linn has been with BOORA
for eighteen years and has worked exten-
sively designing schools and other types
of larger facilities, working mainly in
concept design-- how a facility will be
organized, what it looks like, how it’s
built. “I am typically juggling programs,
sites, needs of the community and the cli-
ent-- putting all those things together into
a cohesive package,” says Linn. Linn
is working with a large team within his
office that works on technical details, as
well as outside consultants working on
engineering and other facility require-
ments. “You would be surprised at how
many people it takes to put together a big,
complex project like this,” says Linn.
From the beginning, Vernonia
school officials have intended to build a
sustainable facility using “green technol-
ogies”, not only for the potential energy
and cost savings, but also in the hopes
of attracting federal grants that support
sustainable and innovative design. “One
of the reasons we were really attracted to
this job was that Ken (Vernonia School
District Superintendent Ken Cox) and the
board set a very high goal for sustainabil-
ity on this project,” said Linn.
That goal included a LEED Plat-
inum Certification which, if achieved,
would make the Vernonia School the
first LEED Platinum public school in
the country. LEED Certifications are
designated by the United States Green
Building Council (USGBC), and is the
accepted standard for designing and veri-
fying green buildings. “It’s one thing to
say ‘My building is green,’-- it’s another
thing to go and measure how it performs,
prove it and show you’re actually meet-
ing the targets,” says Linn. There are
four levels of LEED Certification-- Cer-
tified, Silver, Gold and Platinum, and
Vernonia and BOORA are targeting the
highest level.
Among those green design
ideas, energy use has been targeted as a
way to lower operation costs over the life
of the building. “Energy costs are bills
you pay forever,” says Linn. “And for
every dollar you put into energy use,
that’s a dollar out of the classroom.” Ex-
tensive use of day lighting is a big com-
ponent of the plan, which brings natural
lighting into the classrooms, hallways,
gymnasium and cafeteria, and is done in
very scientific ways. “We have day light-
ing computer modeling programs and a
day lighting specialist through the Uni-
versity of Oregon who helps us locate the
windows, size them properly, and orient
the building in the right way,” says Linn.
Other features being incorporated into
the design that will increase efficiency
and reduce utility costs include: daylight
sensors on light fixtures; radiant heat in
the floors; photovoltaic panels on the
roof to make use of solar energy; rainwa-
ter collection which can be used to flush
toilets; and natural convection ventila-
tion, and heat recovery systems. “What
we are targeting is a sixty percent reduc-
tion in energy use from a typical school
building,” said Linn. “And that will
equate to tens of thousands of dollars a
year in savings on utility bills.”
Linn explained that the school
district has applied for a US Department
of Energy grant for a ground source heat
pump, a technology that uses ground wa-
ter that comes from wells at a constant
temperature to either heat or cool the
building. “It’s a very inexpensive source
of heat and cooling, and this element tied
to the radiant floor are just made to work
together,” says Linn. That combined sys-
tem, said Linn, would also be one of the
first of its kind in the country.
Linn says the intention is to use
as much local materials as possible, espe-
cially locally-harvested wood products,
which would reduce transportation im-
pacts and costs. He also explained that
indoor air quality is part of the consid-
eration in the design. “No volatile adhe-
sives or finishes will be used-- all natural
materials will be used to create a healthy
indoor environment for kids to learn in.”
Concern about increases in ini-
tial costs for a construction project that
incorporate these green design features
is a big factor for some members of the
community. “A lot of these systems do
have a higher first cost,” explains Linn.
For clients like school districts who will
be long term holders of the property--
this will be Vernonia’s school building
for the next 100 years or more--there
is time to recover those costs. “For a
LEED Platinum building there is usually
about a three to five percent extra cost,”
says Linn. “But most of those features
will pay back those costs within six
years--then you are saving money. And
when you project that over the life of
the building, the savings are enormous.
And remember too, that utility rates are
constantly going up. So even if there’s
a savings today, it will be much, much
more later.
“Over the life of the building,
you will pay more in the cost to operate it
than in the initial cost of construction of
the building,” says Linn. He notes stud-
ies done by General Services Adminis-
tration, who build federal courthouses
and other large public buildings. Those
life-cycle analysis studies of their build-
ings have shown that over a forty-year
life span the energy costs are ten times
the initial cost of construction.
In addition to energy efficiency
and sustainability, BOORA has designed
the school so that it could be expanded to
hold up to 1,000 students with additional
classroom construction, which could be
done without disturbing operations. The
current design can hold 750 students.
The cafeteria and gymnasium are initial-
ly designed to hold 1,000. BOORA has
also designed the building so an audito-
rium could be added in the future.
Concerns about housing grades
K-12 all in the same building have also
been addressed. “We’ve created four
separate, independent age-appropriate ar-
eas within the building,” says Linn. “The
areas are safe and secure and easy to su-
pervise.” Grade schoolers will be on the
ground floor, older students on one wing,
younger students on another. Middle and
high school students will be upstairs in
separate wings. Access will be through
a central area and stairwell that will be
monitored by office staff. “The adminis-
tration area is located right in the middle,
with great visibility up and down the cor-
ridors and stairwell, so they can see who
is moving from one side to the other.”
The are two gymnasiums-- an
elementary gym and a high school gym.
The plan is to have one large library but
with distinct areas and two separate en-
trances. The cafeteria has been designed
to have two separate aged areas with
moveable dividers and will act as an
auditorium, as well. There are separate
outdoor play areas for different grades.
“There has been a lot of thought that has
gone into how to keep the kids separate,
but not duplicate a lot of facilities, which
saves us square footage and costs,” ex-
plains Linn.
“This design is a very commu-
nity-oriented design,” says Linn. “We’re
zoning the building so parts of it can be
used at night by the community. We’ve
tried to design not only a great school,
but a community center as well,” says
Linn.
“The community has had a lot of
great ideas about sustainability and about
how the school would be organized,” said
Linn in closing. “We’ve had great com-
ments from the community. This town is
really interested in this project-- they’ve
been vocal and had great ideas and ques-
tions. And I think all that input has made
the project a better piece of architecture.”
In October of 2009 we published
a 4-page special edition to help
inform voters about the upcoming
school bond election.
Vernonia students celebrate the passage of the
school bond with a rally and balloons.
Spring time 2009 at Vernonia Lake.
Lowell J.
Mitchell
In our January 5, 2010 issue we featured regional
stories that have been put to music, including the music
of local legend John Cunnick who, along with his wife
Kim, wrote the songs in the Timberbound Songbook. In
our July 27, 2010 issue we covered
a reunion in Keasey of the band
Timberbound, with members Dave
Berge, Hobe Kytr, Mark Loring and
Kim Cunnick Fergus.
Guitars & Vocal
Entertainment, Production,
Lessons & Bookings
(503) 235-8996
www.loweljmitchell.com
lowelljmitchell@gmail.com
buyer and seller of musical instruments
In our March 9. 2010 issue we featured the Vernonia
Rural Fire Protection District and their volunteers.
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