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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2013)
an opinion february21 2013 An Opinion: What’s Going On? By Scott Laird Trails End Recovery has been working in Vernonia for the last sev- eral years doing home demolitions after FEMA flood buyouts. More recently they have been conducting the old school site demolition. Trails End has hired and em- ployed several local people during their time working in Vernonia. They have recovered and made available to the public many items and materials at ex- tremely reasonable prices. They have been easy to work with and good friends to this community. Trails End provided a low bid for deconstructing the school site and saved the Vernonia School Dis- trict money in the process. So how have at least a few mem- ber of this community chosen to repay Trails End Recovery for providing jobs for our folks? By stealing from them and vandalizing their equipment. That’s right; Trials End had approximately $50,000 in damage done to a piece of equipment that was left overnight on the school site last year. In addition over $50,000 in recoverable materials that Trails End intended to salvage and sell have been stolen from the site. The sal- vage operation and the expected resale of materials was how Trails End was able to provide that low bid to the school district. Lumber, wires, fixtures and more have been disappearing from the site regularly. Fencing around the site has been cut so trucks can pull in and be loaded with stolen goods. School Board members re- cently expressed frustration at the way this company has been treated by what is hopefully just few members of this community. When Trails End works in Portland they build in an expected loss of 3-5% for just this reason; they expect some thievery. But this job is now, way over that amount. “Frankly, I would hope that people would have some type of a conscious and bring the stuff back,” said School Board President Jim Krahn. “but it’s probably silly to think that might happen.” What is more likely is that someone with a conscious might contact the local police and turn in those respon- sible. required by DEQ. The City has been out of compliance and dodging the issue for many years. The City completed the first phase of the project back in 2005; the flood of 2007 has hindered the com- pletion of the entire project. The City is now moving forward and has plans for a $5-6 million upgrade, which is down significantly from the original estimate of $11 million. The City does not have the money in reserve to pay for this proj- ect and will have to borrow the funds needed. DEQ will not allow us to put this off any longer; putting it off to a later time only increases the end cost to the City. So now let’s address the three main points I heard during that internet discussion. First, no one ever likes to in- crease utility rates. Citizens hate it and become outraged; elected officials avoid it like the plague. That is one of the rea- sons you may not be aware that the City is currently wrestling with this issue— no one wants to talk about it. Past City Councils and city staff have tried to de- lay the issue for the same reason-raising rates is unpopular and it hurts people in the community. The Vernonia City Council is made up of citizens just like you and me- any rate increase affects their friends, family and neighbors, as well as them- selves. They do not want to increase rates but find themselves in a difficult spot. The Vernonia Public Works Committee is a group of volunteers who are appointed by City Council to repre- sent the citizens of our community and give input to the City Council about public works issues. The current group has been very involved in the process of the wastewater upgrade as well as sev- eral other projects to make the Public Works department more efficient. They, along with city staff, have looked at just about every way possible to cut costs on the project. Recently the Public Works Committee made a recommendation to City Council and the City Budget Com- mittee that they refrain from raising wa- ter or sewer rates by holding or lowering operational costs. The citizens serving on the City Council and city committees take their responsibility seriously. The issues they are asked to deal with are complex and require research and deep levels of un- derstanding. They make great sacrifices of time and energy to attend meetings and be informed and I believe the deci- sions they make weigh heavily on them. In my opinion, being angry at the citizens who represent us is misguid- ed and a poor use of energy. Which brings us to my second point. City staff and the City Coun- cil are aware that they have not done a good a job of getting information out to the public. As the local news outlet, I don’t think Vernonia’s Voice has done as well as we could in talking about the issue of high utility rates, or other sen- sitive or negative issues. The City has agreed to work with us to provide the City Administrator Report for each issue of our newspaper in an effort to provide more detailed information about current issues and projects. They also have been including information in the utility bills they send out monthly. City Administra- tor Bill Haack has been monitoring con- versations on the internet and occasion- Publisher and Managing Editor Scott Laird 503-367-0098 scott@vernoniasvoice.com Contributors Mark Brown Chip Bubl Tobie Finzel Nick Galady Bill Haack Jennifer Moloney Dennis Nelson Sonia Spackman An Opinion: The Power of Listening By Scott Laird Recently a conversation took place on the internet that got me think- ing about several things. The discussion was held on Facebook on the Vernonia Community Bulletin Board and was started when someone suggested that community members attend a Vernonia Planning Commission meeting. An interesting conversation emerged that went on for over a week, included over 135 separate postings and involved numerous participants. The discussion centered on the City’s wastewater facility upgrade project and the possibility that utility rates could in- crease in Vernonia-again. The conversa- tion revealed many things. People expressed concern, anger and outrage about the potential of higher water and sewer rates. Others tried to explain the reality of the situation and the reason Vernonia has such high rates. Some people encouraged citizens to be- come more involved. Some said they would and did. People vented their frustration and a feeling of helplessness at increasing rates. What I heard as I followed and listened to this conversation were sev- eral things. First, there seems to be a lot of anger towards our elected officials around high utility rates. Second, there is a lack of accurate knowledge and in- formation in our community. Third, and I already knew this, but is always nice to be reminded, people really care about Vernonia. First. lets clarify a few things. The City of Vernonia has undertaken an upgrade of their wastewater facility, as Photography Tracy Easlon Scott Laird Mckenzie Titus Want to advertise? Have an article? Contact: scott@vernoniasvoice.com One year subscriptions (24 issues) $35 Vernonia’s Voice is published on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month. Vernonia’s Voice, LLC PO Box 55 Vernonia, OR 97064 503-367-0098 www.VernoniasVoice.com ally joining them to add information. My hope is that the City will continue to improve on their commu- nication. As for Vernonia’s Voice, we are upgrading our web presence with a new website that links to Facebook and hope that this will allow us to be more timely with information. By including a community calendar, weather, polls and news updates between print publica- tions, we hope to keep Vernonians better informed and be the source you go to to find out what is happening in our com- munity. “STILL BIKER FRIENDLY” Taco Tuesday from opening until 9 PM 3 hardshell or 1 softshell $4.25 EVENTS Prime Rib every second Saturday 5-9 PM every Friday 9 PM-close iheck our Facebook page for daily specials and upcoming events 756 Bridge Street, Vernonia 503-429-5841 continued on page 7 Happy Hour Mon-Fri 4-7 Lady’s Night Wed 5-12 Cedar Side Inn Karaoke 3 • Specialty hamburgers • Draft beer & mixed drinks • Pool tables & satelite TV • Special live music events • Free Wi-fi Sun - Thurs 11 AM - Midnight • 733 Bridge St, Vernonia Feb. 23 Dixie Wrecked March 2 Play It Again Karaoke March 9 Probable Cause Now Beer & Kegs to go Fri - Sat 11 AM - 2:30 AM • 503-429-9999
