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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 2018)
community september6 2018 3 WOEC Annual Meeting Report Costley elected to represent Vernonia, electronic voting added to bylaws About 70 members of the West Oregon Electric Cooperative (WOEC), along with management and staff, gathered on Saturday, August 18 at the Vernonia Schools for WOEC’s Annual Meeting. The Annual Meeting is held in accordance with the co-op’s bylaws for the purpose of electing Directors, hear- ing reports from the previous fiscal year, and conducting any other business of the co-op. Special guests at this year’s meeting included Oregon State Repre- sentative Debbie Boone (District 32) who represents much of WOEC’s ser- vice territory, and Ted Case, Executive Director of Oregon Rural Electric Co- operative Association. Also introduced was Sharlena Roberts who was on the ballot and running for Position 4 on the Board of Directors. The membership voted to ap- prove 42 new members to the co-op. It was announced that Brett Costley was elected to Position 4 (Ver- nonia). Brian Baker (Position 1 - Elsie, Jewell, and Necanicum) and Rosemary Lohrke, (District 6 - Scappoose and Chapman) were also both re-elected after running unopposed. Costley had been serving as the Director for Position 4 after being appointed to fill the seat left vacant when former Director Dan Mur- phy resigned. Members also approved a pro- posed change to the co-op bylaws which will now allow members to choose to vote by electronic ballot for co-op busi- ness. General Manager Bob Perry told the members there is no additional cost to the co-op for this service. Board President Robert VanNat- ta gave his report which touched on the current state of the co-op. Dan Huggett, Manager of Fi- nance and Administration, asked mem- bers to please update their phone num- ber, address, and email address for all members in a household so all members can be notified about any co-op business – there is an application form on the co- op website to update member informa- tion. Huggett noted that 30% of monthly utility payments are now being made automatically through Smart Hub, the co-op’s online payment service, and re- minded members that August is the true- up month for anyone using the co-op’s Equal Pay option. Huggett said WOEC received $10,615 from the Oregon En- ergy Fund and $13,300 through Care to Share, two programs that provide energy assistance funding to members. Huggett reported that the co-op had $180,000 in damages last winter and recovered $160,000 through insurance claims. He also addressed capital credits, which is equity in the co-op owed to the mem- bers. Huggett told the members that the Board did pass a $0.0025 increase that will go into a reserve account and be used to retire capital credit accounts in the future. Operations Manager Don Rose told the membership that increased tree trimming has reduced outage time by 33% and said overtime for lineman has been reduced from 450 hours to 225 hours. He said the co-op is continuing to put lines underground when they can, which helps improve reliability. General Manager Bob Perry opened his remarks by stating, “It’s been my privilege to serve here for the last four and a half years. We have a tre- mendous crew here, probably one of the best management team I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and we’re do- ing a good job keeping the lights on for you.” Representative Debbie Boone spoke about the importance of the Co- lumbia River Treaty, an international agreement between the United States and Canada for the cooperative develop- ment and operation of water resources in the Columbia River Basin; the treaty is currently being re-negotiated. Chuck Fadeley, WOEC’s legal counsel, responded to a question about the possibility of restructuring WOEC and negotiating deals with adjacent util- ity providers for outlying portions of the service area, and potentially creating a PUD for the Vernonia area. Fadeley said WOEC has always been open to those types of discussions and they’ve had them in the past, but nothing has come of them so far. Fadeley added that the Meet Father Joshua Clifton continued from front page Latin mass and we have a sizable com- munity of people who come to hear mass in Latin,” says Father Clifton. “Some people drive an hour and a half to get there. It turns out St. Birgitta’s was an unusual case because when the Catholic Church starting doing just modern mass- es in English about 40 years ago, rather than in Latin, the priest at St. Birgitta’s had special permission to continue to celebrate the Latin mass. In 2007 Pope Benedict allowed for the wide-spread celebration of the Latin mass, so now in Portland there are several churches and chapels where it is being celebrated.” Father Clifton says he hopes to make some evangelical efforts at St. Mary’s as a way to reach out to the com- munity and invite them to attend mass. He says he plans to be outside the church on some weekday afternoons in Septem- ber to greet families heading to the Ver- nonia Schools and hand out free rosaries and information about the church and catechism classes for students interested in first communion or confirmation. He also is planning to do a series of talks he calls, “An Introduction to the Faith” sometime this fall. “It’s a series of four talks I’ve given in every parish that I’ve been in,” says Father Clifton. “What I’ve found is that people don’t really un- derstand their Catholic faith, or they just grew up in it but they’ve never really investigated it in depth.” Father Clifton says he explores such topics as, “How do we know God exists?” “How do we know the scriptures are really inspired by the word of God?” “How do we know Jesus really existed and performed the miracles attributed to him?” “If we be- lieve in Jesus, what church or denomi- nation should we join?” and “What will Heaven be like?” FULL SPORTS PACKAGE! Father Clifton says he also hopes to be more visible and available for the St. Mary’s community, helping to direct and create programs the par- ish would like to institute. “In the past the priest was just here for an hour on Sunday to say mass,” says Father Clif- ton. “I’m working it out so I can come here more often during the week. I want to cast a wide net – for people that want to return to the church, for people who want to learn about their faith, or even for people who don’t have a church at all and want to learn about what we teach here and believe.” In closing, Father Clifton had this to say about serving the Vernonia community: “I can’t describe in words how happy I am to be here and be able to come up here and serve and be in these two parishes with these wonderful peo- ple. For a priest it’s a dream come true!” Publisher and Managing Editor Scott Laird 503-367-0098 scott@vernoniasvoice.com Contributors Michael Snow Photography Scott Laird 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 WOEC bylaws do not address restruc- turing the co-op. Door prizes were given out dur- ing the meeting and following the con- clusion of business, members enjoyed a BBQ lunch. Banks Library Awarded Grant The Banks Public Library won an important grant from the federal In- stitute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Tech- nology Act (LSTA) administered by the State Library of Oregon. The $3,000 federal LSTA grant was to be used for purchasing quality books for the youth collections of the library. Approximately 300 titles were purchased, both fiction and nonfiction, and added to collections suitable for kids 0 to 18 years of age. “This grant is a wonderful op- portunity for our small library to add a significant number of new, quality books to our collections,” said Denise Holmes, Library Director. For more information about the federal IMLS/LSTA grants, please visit the IMLS Web site at www.imls.gov or contact the State Library. 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