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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (July 18, 2019)
july18 2019 free VERNONIA’S volume13 issue14 reflecting the spirit of our community Vernonia School Board Taking Applications for Open Position The Vernonia School Board is seeking applicants to fill an open seat on their Board of Directors after no one filed to run for the position in the last election in May 2019. Currently Position #7 on the Vernonia School District Board of Directors is vacant. Position #7 is a four year term, however the appointed individ- ual to this position is required (if they so choose) to seek elec- tion during the regular election process in the Spring of 2021 in order to serve the final two years remaining of the original term. Any individual that is a regis- tered voter and has lived within the boundaries of the Vernonia School District for one year (12 months) is eligible to submit their interest to the Board. Em- ployees of Vernonia School Dis- trict, including all substitutes, are not eligible. Candidate Informa- tion Sheet will be accepted be- tween July 12 and July 26, 2019, due at the District Office by 4:00 pm on July 26, 2019. The Can- didate Information Sheet can be accessed at: www.vernonia.k12. or.us. Please submit com- pleted information sheet to Barb Carr at the Vernonia School Dis- trict Office - mailing address 1201 Texas Avenue, Vernonia, OR 97064 or deliver directly to the District Office located in- side the Vernonia K-12 Schools Building - 1000 Missouri Av- enue, Vernonia, OR 97064. The School Board antic- ipates appointing an individual to this position at the August 8, 2019 regularly scheduled Board Meeting beginning at 6:00 pm in the Vernonia Schools Library. Please contact Barb Carr at (503) 429-5891 if you have any questions. Remember to Walk Your Wheels on Vernonia Sidewalks The City of Vernonia is reminding citizens that they are required to walk their bicycles, scooters, and skateboards when traveling on city sidewalks. The reminder was prompted by a recent accident in which a patron leaving a downtown business was struck and knocked to the ground by a youth riding a bicycle. City Ordinance 745 allows for fines of up to $50 for anyone caught riding on City sidewalks. Seniors Look to Take Over Scout Cabin Vernonia City Administrator Josette Mitchell informed the City Council at their regular meeting on July 15, that the Friends of the Scout Cabin have notified the City they are relinquishing their lease with the City for the land where the Scout Cabin building stands. Mitchell also provided the Council with a letter from Vernonia Senior Center Board Treasurer Tobie Finzel notifying the City that they have been offered and accepted the Scout Cabin structure and all its assets. In her letter, Finzel said the Senior Center would continue to operate the facility as a public rental space, but also use it for their own social activities. Council gave consensus for Mitchell to move forward with preparing a new lease between the City and the Senior Center, which they will review at their August 5 meeting. Digging Deeper into Oregon’s Cap-and-Trade Proposal Part 2: HB 2020, the bill Oregon legislators failed to pass last month, was an ambitious attempt to reduce carbon and halt global climate change. Was it too ambitious? By Scott Laird When the Oregon House of Rep- resentatives passed HB 2020 in June and sent it to the Oregon Senate last month, Oregon Republicans were furious, and Republican Senators left to avoid voting on the bill. The bill died when several inside 3 they are children 10 remembering dave anderson 12 senior dogs fetch grant democratic Senators, including Betsy Johnson, who represents Vernonia and the rest of Columbia County, said they would not support the bill, leaving it short of the votes needed to pass. While the bill was being dis- cussed in the House and Senate some- thing amazing happened. Rural Orego- nians started showing up, first to listen, and then to protest. Loggers, truckers, farmers, and others, banded together un- der the banner of “Timber Unity,” and traveled together to Salem in several in- creasingly larger caravans, (one caravan stretched for five miles). They flooded the streets of the capital with horns honking, and the offices of their leg- islators. Timber Unity started small, turned into a wave, and has now be- come a movement of over 50,000 people. Two members of Timber Unity were invited to visit Washington, D.C. and met President Donald Trump on July 8. While the group says it has no political affiliations, it has become an official Political Action Commit- tee (PAC) and group leaders say the group will continue to advocate for the working class and rural commu- nities. It has become a voice for rural Oregonians who work in natural re- source industries, and is standing up for those who say they have grown tired of being pushed around by urban legislators. Why Vernonia’s Democratic Rep- resentatives didn’t support HB 2020 Support for HB 2020 was most- ly partisan, with just a handful of Ore- gon Democrats siding with Republicans and declining to back it. Two of those Democrats who crossed party lines were State Representative Brad Witt, who also represents Vernonia and Columbia County, and Senator Johnson. Representative Witt, in his regu- lar newsletter he sends out to constitu- ents, said he “...believes dealing with climate change is the moral imperative of our time,” and that we must, “...ensure that the earth remains inhabitable for us and every other living species.” He said HB 2020 was not the answer though, and said he voted against the bill because it “...is built on a flawed model,” that tol- erates: • allowing polluters to continue to pollute by buying credits • leaking Oregon revenues to out-of- state interests • excessive fuel costs • losses in market competitiveness and rural jobs • creating a large, inefficient and expensive bureaucracy to run the program. “I am concerned about the eco- nomic impacts that HB 2020 will have on our rural communities, so I voted no,” said Witt. I spoke with Senator Johnson by phone for this article and asked about her decision to reject HB 2020. “This bill went well beyond making Oregon carbon neutral,” said Johnson. “Describing this whole thing as the greatest crisis of our lifetime, and then plunging into it with as little un- derstanding of the effect it was going to have on farmers, the nursery industry, and timber, it was just too complicated and problematic, and just didn’t make sense. All those timber families came down to Salem to make a case for what this was going to do to what was left of the their industry, and they made a lot of valuable points.” Johnson said, that despite ap- pearances, she did not believe that Or- egon Democratic legislators listened to their constituents when they held public forums this spring. “In my opinion the bill was flawed on two levels, on a policy basis and on a process basis,” explained Johnson. Johnson said she objected to a number of ways the bill would be im- plemented, noting that the final bill had over 120 amendments from the original proposed bill. She said implementing the bill would involve nine different state agencies, create a new layer of bu- reaucracy, and commit a portion of the state budget that would be administered by unelected and unaccountable admin- istrators. And most importantly, that the actual costs of implementing the policies were unknown. “People’s untested beliefs that creating this policy was somehow going to contribute significantly to reducing world climate change, just seemed to me to be fallacy.” She also had major issues with the emergency clause Democrats at- tached to the bill. “When you look at the diminutive impact of Oregon’s contribu- tion to global climate change, it’s hard to understand why they slapped on an emergency clause, except to keep it from continued on page 9