february2 2017
free
VERNONIA’S
volume11 issue3
www.vernoniasvoice.com
reflecting the spirit of our community
School Board Approves
Another Bond Attempt
Injured Eagle
Released Back into the Wild
District again selected
in lottery and guaranteed
matching funds
Bird injured in Vernonia
fi nally released after two
years of rehabilitation
The Vernonia School
Board voted to approve a second
attempt to pass a bond measure
at their January 26, 2017 meeting
after being informed by Superin-
tendent Aaron Miller that the Ver-
nonia School District (VSD) once
again holds the number one slot
to receive matching funds through
the state’s Oregon School Capital
Improvement Matching (OSCIM)
program. That means the district is
guaranteed funding from the state
if District voters approve a bond
measure.
The $6.8 million bond
measure will be placed on the May
16, 2017 election ballot and would
be added to the existing $13 mil-
lion construction bond the commu-
nity passed in 2011.
The bond will be the sec-
ond time in less than a year the Dis-
trict has asked local voters to pass
a bond measure. The funds would
be used to retire construction debt
from the new school campus,
which cost a total of $45 million,
and would also include funding to
complete parts of the campus that
went unfi nished in the original
construction.
In November of 2016
Vernonia voters rejected Measure
5-259 by a slim margin of 1,034 no
votes to 1,000 yes votes.
“The part of the bond that
would have been used for improv-
ing facilities and grounds would
have been matched,” Miller told
the School Board and audience.
“In that defeat we as a community
threw away about $3 million.”
According to the Oregon
Department of Education, com-
munities in Oregon generally ad-
dress school facility needs by pass-
ing local, voter-approved bonds.
In many communities, getting the
votes needed to pass these bonds
has been a challenge, and state-
wide, there is currently an estimat-
ed $7.6 billion in deferred school
maintenance costs.
The OSCIM program pro-
vides matching grants to support
improvements to school facilities.
The Oregon Legislature authorized
the sale of state-backed general
obligation bonds for this program
that will provide about $123 mil-
lion to help stretch local dollars
and address urgent school facility
needs across the state in commu-
nities that pass general obligation
bonds to improve their local school
buildings. Districts were given
three opportunities to apply for
these matching funds in the general
elections of May 2016, November
2016, and May 2017. This is the
fi nal opportunity for the Vernonia
School District to receive matching
funds under this program.
OSCIM funds are awarded
to districts through two methods:
a Priority List Process which pri-
oritizes districts with low-assessed
property value and higher rates
of student poverty, and a Lottery
Process which is designed to pro-
vide all districts with a chance to
receive matching grants from the
state. Vernonia was lucky enough
to be chosen fi rst in the Lottery out
of 20 school districts for the sec-
ond time in a row.
The new bond measure
will request total funding of about
$6.8 million that will be used to
retire the approximately $4.5
inside
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valentine classifi eds
continued on page 6
On Monday, January
23 in Longview, Washington’s
Gerhart Gardens Park a bald eagle
was released into the wild.
The release of the eagle
concluded a two year journey back
to health for the eagle following a
collision with a motor vehicle.
The injured bald eagle
was taken to the Audubon So-
ciety’s Wildlife Care Center in
Portland for treatment after it was
hit by a car driven by Nicole Larke
just outside Vernonia. Larke’s
husband Eric, along with friend
Matt Poetter, rescued the injured
bird from a nearby creek follow-
ing the collision.
In the collision, the eagle
sustained a broken wing, which required
surgery to repair. Audubon staff and
volunteers at the Wildlife Care Center
cared for the injured eagle through an
extensive rehabilitation process in order
to prepare it for release back into the
wild.
“It was a cool experience to be
there and see her release,” said Nicole
Larke.
Eric Larke said he was
disappointed
that
the Audubon
Society decided to release the eagle in
Washington, rather than return her to the
Vernonia area. According to Eric Larke,
Audubon offi cials told them that since it had
been two years, her territory here had most
likely been occupied by another bird.
“It is good she is back out there,”
said Larke.
Larke says he was told the release site
was chosen because it was at the confl uence
of the Columbia and Cowlitz Rivers which
is an important geographic marker for bald
eagles and would help the eagle orient
Photos courtesy of Nicole Larke
herself, although it was later revealed that the
location for the release was also chosen as
part of a protest against a proposed methanol
plant in Kalama, Washington.
On a sadder note, Eric Larke also
mentioned that the vet that traveled to Ver-
nonia to treat the eagle on the day it was in-
jured, and continued with its initial care, Deb
Schaefer, passed away from cancer last year
and did not see her released back into the
wild.
VHS Seniors Present Projects
Vernonia High School 12 th grad-
ers recently completed their Career Re-
lated Learning Experience, also known
as the “Senior Project.” This project is a
requirement for graduation, and is one
of the most interesting portions of their
school experience.
This year the Senior Projects
were presented on Thursday, January
19, following a delay for weather. The
Senior Project requires students to sub-
mit a written Letter of Intent explaining
the goals of their project, spending at
least 20 hours of hands-on experience
with a project mentor, creating a display
board explaining their project, and then
making an eight to ten minute presenta-
tion in front of a small panel of commu-
nity judges, where the students explain
what they learned during their project.
The purpose of the Senior Proj-
ect is for students to demonstrate skills
they have learned through-
out high school such as
communicating, planning,
following-through, work-
ing with others, meeting
deadlines, working to set
standards, and challenging
themselves to learn new
things.
Megan Ely – Megan job
shadowed a clinical labo-
ratory scientist to help
discover the presence or
absence of disease in the
human body and then
send the fi ndings to doc-
tors so they can develop
treatment. Megan says a
clinical laboratory scien-
tist will test urine, blood, cancer cells,
kidney functions, blood sugar levels,
Megan Ely
and everything in between. “They are
the backbone of the hospital,” says Me-
gan. Megan worked with Jenny Glass
continued on page 9