december5 2019
VERNONIA’S
volume13 issue23
free
reflecting the spirit of our community
Banks Fire District 13 Breaks Ground
for New Facility on Highway 26
$4 million bond paves way
for Hornshuh Creek Station
and training ground
By Scott Laird
Banks Fire District
13 is building a new station
on Highway 26, utilizing
funding from a $4 million
bond Washington County
voters passed in 2017, along
with funds from a FEMA
grant.
The new station will
be named Hornshuh Creek
Station in honor of the Horn-
shuh family, which donated
four acres of land for the
project. The facility will re-
place a much smaller station
in Buxton, and will include
crew quarters for volunteer
staff, a training classroom
and training tower, with space to ac-
commodate personnel and equipment in
the event of a large natural disaster.
“We expect to utilize this new
facility to its fullest,” says Banks Fire
Public Information Officer Scott Ad-
ams.
Banks Fire covers 136 square
miles of response area in western Wash-
ington County, with Banks personnel re-
sponding to almost 800 calls each year,
sometimes responding outside their
District limits to provide mutual aid to
neighboring districts in Columbia, Til-
lamook, and Clatsop counties, includ-
ing calls within the Vernonia Rural Fire
Protection District.
“We have a very good work-
ing relationship with the Vernonia Fire
District,” says Adams. “We often work
hand in hand, so yes, Washington Coun-
ty voters have gratefully given us the
resources for this project, but Vernonia
will also benefit from it. And we benefit
from the assistance Vernonia crews pro-
inside
3
salem report
vide to us up at Stub Stewart State Park
and along Highway 47. It’s an area that
we’re proud to share.”
Adams says Banks Fire con-
ducted a study about five years ago to
evaluate their call volume and where
those emergencies were located. “What
we found was that a very high percent-
age of our calls ran out Highway 26 and
up into the Coast Range and up High-
way 47 towards Vernonia,” says Ad-
ams. He notes that calls in those areas
are responded to by volunteers utiliz-
ing apparatus from the small Buxton
Station, and that personnel will simul-
taneously be deployed from the main
station in downtown Banks, which is
six miles away. Adams says the current
unmanned station in Buxton was built
in the mid 1960s and has no quarters or
restrooms for staff. “Getting apparatus
out to the west side and providing the
best and fastest service that we can is
something that our chief, Rodney Linz,
has been strongly advocating for. These
studies backed up our need to build a
station out there that could be manned,
so that we can cut our response times to
the western end of our District, and pro-
vide better service to the community.”
In addition to crew quarters and
office space, the new facility will have
four bays for firefighting and emer-
gency response apparatus. The new
facility will be designed to serve as a
training facility with classroom space,
a constructed pond on site
for water rescue training
activities, and a four-story
training tower, which can
accommodate rope rescue
and ladder training drills,
as well as live burn drills
inside the tower. The train-
ing tower is being funded
by a $390,000 FEMA grant
for firefighter safety. A Life
Flight landing zone will
be located on the property
providing a safe and con-
veniently located spot to
transport seriously injured
patients without blocking
the highway. There will
be space for the facility to serve as a
regional emergency operations center
in the event of a major natural disaster,
with room for Oregon Department of
Forestry to stage firefighting equipment.
“Basically we’re designing it to serve as
a multi-agency response command cen-
ter, so we’ll be able to run a large situ-
ation operation from there,” explains
Adams.
Voters overwhelmingly passed
the $4 million bond in November of
2017, with over 60% support. In addi-
tion Banks Fire voters approved an in-
crease to an operations levy in May of
2019, with over 58% of voters approv-
ing the addition of $0.35 to the $0.62
per $1,000 of assessed value tax that
was already in place.
“We always work really hard at
Banks Fire to be open with the community
about where their dollars are going and
what services we’re providing for them,
and to try and do it at the best value,”
says Adams. “And our community has
been extremely grateful in recognizing
continued on page 5
high water and
the big sponge
8
where do you
read the voice?
Saturday, December 14 th
See schedule of events on page 9
Columbia
Pacific CCO
Awards
Community
Wellness Grants
Columbia Pacific Coordinated
Care Organization (CCO) awards proj-
ects within Clatsop, Columbia, and Tilla-
mook counties that improve the health of
the community, drawing upon best prac-
tices and other innovations. The Commu-
nity Wellness Investment Fund (CWIF)
supports innovative, local, and sustain-
able solutions that address health equity
and social determinants of health, in one
or more of the eight improvement priori-
ties identified in the Regional Health Im-
provement Plan (RHIP).
“We have awarded some great
projects that support efforts focused on
improving health and well-being, which
are sustainable and aligned with the
continued on page 6
VHS Winter Sports Preview
Wrestlers look to defend District
title, girls basketball hopes to
return to State Tournament, while
boys are in a rebuilding year
By Scott Laird
7
The Spirit of
Christmas
in Vernonia
Girls Basketball – The Vernonia Lady
Loggers should have high expectations
for the upcoming season, with a ros-
ter loaded with talent, experience, and
depth, but head coach Jim Krahn isn’t
acting overconfident. “Right now we’re
just looking to win our first game,” says
Krahn.
Even with a low key attitude,
Krahn, the rest of the Lady Loggers
program, and Vernonia fans should be
excited this year. Last year Vernonia
earned a trip to the State Playoffs as the
#15 seed in the state and knocked off #2
Monroe and #3 Oakland on their way
to a 6 th place finish at
the State Tournament in
Pendleton. This season
the Lady Loggers return
a number of senior start-
ers from last year, along
with some very talent-
ed underclass athletes,
and should fight for the
Northwest League title
and another trip to Pend-
leton.
“This is an ex-
tremely talented group
Seniors Lauren Ely and Jordan Walters will lead the Lady
of players and we have
Loggers, coached by Jim Krahn and Teresa Williams.
more depth than we’ve
time is going to be intense. This is the
had in many years,” says
Krahn. “Not only will our varsity be kind of group that as a coach you really
good, but the JV will be really good. look forward to having.”
Krahn says he is pleased to have
We have an outstanding group of fresh-
a
strong
coaching staff for the program
man girls. The competition for playing
continued on page 14