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?”
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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
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Contact: scott@vernoniasvoice.com
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(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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