opinion/in other words
march3
2016
An Opinion: It’s Time to Decide
By Scott Laird
In the last issue of Vernonia’s
Voice (February 18, 2016) on page
15, Vernonia Fire Chief Dean Smith
explained a concerning situation at the
Vernonia Rural Fire Protection District
(VRFPD).
Smith explained that, due
to a shortage of volunteers, he and
his department are having difficulty
responding to calls and providing
adequate coverage in a manner that is
safe. The demand to meet expanding
state training requirements, along with
the everyday personal demands of family
and work have left his department short
handed and burned out. New volunteers
are not stepping up and the current
roster is down to less than a dozen.
Smith says that if current conditions
persist, there will be times when there is
no one to respond when you call in with
an emergency. I’m paraphrasing here,
but that’s it in a nutshell.
Smith, the only paid responder
on the department, has been telling
the community about this concern for
several years now. Usually not one to
complain, but rather one who rolls up
his sleeves and gets to work creating a
solution, last year Smith offered a well
thought out fix, a fix that apparently fell
on deaf ears.
Last May the VRFPD placed
two initiatives on the election ballot.
Voters approved a measure to purchase a
new fire engine and help modernize the
department’s fleet. They rejected a levy,
by an overwheling 59-41% margin,
that would have been used to hire a
single additional paid staff member
who would serve as a training officer
to assist volunteers meet their training
requirements, could also respond to
emergency calls, and also manage
cadets in training who could be brought
in to serve as volunteers.
In his February 18 appeal to
the community, Smith is once again
proposing the District hire an additional
paid staff member, who could help
shoulder the burden and relieve some
of the pressure the volunteer shortage
currently puts on department members.
This community is lucky to
have a chief like Dean Smith, who is
hard working, caring and professional.
He continues to creatively make the
most with what he has, works to build
the esteem and morale of his volunteers,
keeps his aging rigs on the road and
functional, and continues to respond to
calls for emergencies whenever they
come in. But there is only so much he
can do.
While our community doesn’t
often have a need for a full fire or rescue
response, there are occasions when it’s
needed, and it’s comforting to know
there are well trained and dedicated
department members ready to drop
everything at a moment’s notice to show
up and help.
Our community, and each of us
individually, needs to take a hard look at
how we support our local fire and rescue
personnel, and then we each need to
make a decision. We either need to step
up and volunteer, agree to pay more and
fund another staff position, or decide
that emergency services are not that
important and start doing without. The
decision is yours.
Publisher and Managing Editor
Scott Laird
503-367-0098
scott@vernoniasvoice.com
Contributors
Britt Bensen Steele
Kala Cota
Dr. Carol McIntyre
Aaron Miller
Karen Miller
Grant Williams
Representative Brad Witt
Photography
Britt Bensen Steele
Scott Laird
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Vernonia’s Voice is published
on the 1st and 3rd Thursday
of each month.
Salem Update: Increasing the Minimum Wage
By State Representative Brad Witt
There are a
lot of big issues
pushing through
the
Legislature
right now, and
one of them is
SB 1532A, the
bill that would
raise the minimum wage in Oregon.
We received well over 250 emails in
our office, from all over the state, just
about equally split for and against. The
bill came up for a vote in the House last
week, and it passed by a slim margin,
32-26, after more than 4 hours of debate
and parliamentary procedures. It had
already passed the Senate, so by the time
you read this, it may have been signed
by the Governor. I supported the bill and
since some of you contacted me about
this issue, I wanted to take the time to
give you some background and explain
why I voted yes.
First of all, I think it’s important
to know that 67% of all working
Oregonians already make between
$13.50 and $15.00 per hour. That leaves
28% who make less than $13.50, and
5%, or over 100,000 Oregonians, who
work at minimum wage. The debate
on the floor seemed to center on this
lowest tier of workers and whether or
not they are entitled to a raise based on
their age (teenagers), or experience (1st
time workers). And then there are the
constraints of a particular industry – will
agricultural products in Oregon become
so expensive that they will be unable
to compete in the global market place?
These are all important questions from
an employer’s standpoint.
Taking some of these concerns
into consideration, SB 1532A does not
take a one-size-fits-all approach, but
rather divides the state into three tiers
based on differences in cost of living.
The Portland Metro area receives the
highest increase, topping out at $14.75
per hour in 2023. Columbia County and
parts of Washington County, as well as
other “suburban” areas including the
Coast, top out at $13.50 per hour, and
“nonurban” counties, those in eastern
and southern Oregon, top out at $12.50
per hour. All of these areas will see their
first increases in July 2016, with District
31 beginning at $9.75 per hour. Fifty
cents an hour may not seem like a lot,
but that’s about $80 more per month that
will help those who are just scraping by.
Even though SB 1532A has
pretty much made it through the process,
please stay tuned! There is a group
of moderate, bipartisan legislators
representing mostly rural districts, who
have been working behind the scenes to
craft another minimum wage bill that
they feel will be more representative of
their districts and take into consideration
concerns expressed by small businesses
and agricultural interests. I am waiting
to see what the final product is before I
agree to support it.
Another bill of some importance
to District 31 is SB 1517A. Although at
the outset it deals with Tillamook County,
the impact of this bill to a district like ours
with numerous wetlands along creeks
and rivers, as well as those contained
within land zoned Exclusive Farm
Use (EFU), could be both significant
and beneficial. Under current law, the
creation, restoration or enhancement of
a wetland is an allowable use on EFU
land, but the lack of county authority
to review wetland projects and assess
impacts to neighboring properties was a
source of frustration to many.
Anyone working the land
understands the importance of wetlands
in maintaining a healthy ecosystem,
Vernonia’s Voice, LLC
PO Box 55
Vernonia, OR 97064
503-367-0098
www.VernoniasVoice.com
but in some cases construction of these
projects ended up altering drainage
patterns and severely impacting
neighboring properties. As you can
imagine, parties on all sides have strong
feelings about this. Tuesday’s hearing
was continued to an evening session and
the parties sat down to get this bill to a
better place. In Oregon, we are lucky to
have smart, dedicated advocates for the
conservation and farming communities
that were able to work with all levels of
government to chart a course forward.
Thank you to everyone involved!
SB 1517A allows the governing
body in Tillamook County to create
a pilot program that would provide
a mechanism for parties, prior to the
approval or denial of a permit, to enter
continued on page 13
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