Sandy post., August 21, 1980, Image 1

Pg- 3-6,
Sec. I
Inside the Post
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Voi. 7 0
Single Copy 2 0 ’
SANDY, O REG O N , THURSDAY, A U G . 21, 1980
No. 34
Two streets
go one-way
next month
Tax base proposal
goes to city council
A tax base that would keep the tax
rate close to what Sandy residents now
pay has been passed to the Sandy City
Council by the city’s budget committee.
The $460.000 tax base would cover a
two-year period and require a rate of
$6.18 per $1,000 assessed valuation the
first year and $5.54 per $1,000 the
second for homeowners.
Under the second year of the base a
new police officer would be added to the
Sandy force to handle crim e prevention
work and crim inal investigations. That
is the only increase in existing services
that the city anticipates during the two-
year period.
In its deliberations Tuesday night,
the committee expressed a desire to
maintain a tax rate that has been
sim ila r to the past few years, but would
still m aintain the existing services. The
proposed base would accomplish that,
according to City Manager Roger
Jordan.
Currently, the city is operating under
a tax base of only $12,586.83 That base,
approved long ago. would not even
provide for one week of operation of the
city now, if voters did not approve the
annual special levies.
“ Without the revised tax base, we
face the possibility each year of having
serious financial difficulties or total
closure of city services,” Jordan told
the committee, council and mayor in a
memorandum outlining the proposed
expenditures under the base.
The establishment of a new base
would also add the stability that Jordan
feels is necessary to a ttra ct new
residents and homeowners to the Sandy
area. A stable government, he said,
would ‘ensure that their existing home
is protected.”
With inflation ranging between 9
percent and 14 percent annually and
growth as high as 12 percent, Jordan
said, it became difficu lt to develop a tax
base which increases only 6 percent for
the originally projected three-year
period. Therefore, he abandoned the
three-year plan in favor of the current
two-year proposal.
I f the voters approve the base at the
Nov. 4 general election, there w ill be a
re-evaluation in 1982 fo r future bases.
“ I f inflation continues downward and if
growth slows, the proposed base may
meet our needs for a longer period of
tim e,” Jordan said.
Jordan also feels that the state’s
move to pay up to 30 percent of the local
tax base amount for homeowners
makes the approval of the new base
more attractive for voters.
The c ity ’s costs are increasing at an
approximate 25 percent rate, yet its
revenues, other than property taxes,
have not kept pace with th a t That
forces the city to rely more heavily on
the property tax to pick up a bigger
share of the total cost.
Sandy drivers w ill have to rearrange
their driving habits soon with the
initiation of two new one-way one-lane
streets in the central business area.
Sometime during the firs t week of
September, Hoffman and Revenue
Avenues w ill become one-way couplets.
Hoffman w ill run north. Revenue south.
The reason for the change, according
to the recently-adopted Sandy Com­
prehensive Plan, is that “ going north on
Revenue Avenue creates a blind corner
situation when making a left-hand turn
or a tte m p tin g to cross P ro c to r
B o u le va rd ’ ’ because of the high
retaining wall behind Sandy Arco.
On Hoffman Avenue, because of the
location of W illiams T hriftw ay on the
west side of the street, grocery trucks
unload goods for the store, effectively
making this street a one-lane function
most of the time. According to City
E n g in e e r John L ich te n h e ld , the
grocery trucks also lim it visib ility for
the southbound tra ffic on the street
when they attempt to turn on to Pioneer
Boulevard.
Also, because the street is offset, that
is it doesn’t line up w ith a through-
street across Pioneer, it w ill not
hamper southbound tra ffic which would
have used the street.
The west side of Hoffman Avenue w ill
be designated as a loading zone,
although the hours have not been
finalized, pending city negotiations
with the grocery store management.
Parking w ill be allowed in hours
when the loading zone is not in
existence and 24 hours per day on the
east side. There w ill be no parking at all
on Revenue Avenue between Pioneer
and Proctor Boulevards.
New energy sought on Hood
Geothermal energy, collected and
piped down from wells near Mount
Hood, may be available to some East
County industries in as little as two
years.
That’s the most optim istic estimate
of P a u l Howe, vice -p re sid e n t of
operations for Northwest N atural Gas.
The gas company, in conjunction with
the U.S. Department of Energy, is
conducting well d rillin g operations
near Old Maid Flats, five miles west of
Mount Hood.
The federal agency is funding the
search for hot water, which as of
Monday had taken d rillin g rigs 1,200
feet below the earth, the deepest well
ever drilled on the mountain.
Howe savs the d rillin g is a long term
project which, hopefully, w ill lead to
the discovery of a water reserve that is
hot, clean and large enough for in­
dustrial use
The well probably w ill be drilled to
6,000 feet to find such water, Howe said.
A te m p e ra tu re of 165 degrees
Fahrenheit would be necessary for the
water to be usable, he said.
If suitable water was found, Howe
said. Northwest Natural Gas could
construct a 42-mile pipeline from Mount
Hood to the Portland area.
The water could be used by industries
to replace oil burning heating systems,
thus conserving on some fossil fuel use.
Howe said.
The pipeline could be built in three
months and would cost about $750,000
per mile, Howe said.
Northwest Natural Gas isn’t the only
u tility interested in the possibilities of
geothermal energy, however.
Portland General E le ctric also is
exploring geothermal use.
Other prime sources in Oregon are
located in the Alvord Desert and the
Newberry Crater area southeast of
Bend and near Vale.
The change is the result of an on­
street parking evaluation done by
Lichtenheld and Police Chief Fred
Puzel, and the comprehensive plan.
Along w ith that recommendation, they
suggested that the city restripe the
parking spaces in the city, allowing
ample room at the m ajor intersections
to increase visibility.
I ’holoby Brail I B rie
It's down the chute for these kids at last week’s Clackamas
County Fair. When the fun was over, the real winners were
those who participated in the event and had a good time. For
a wrap-up of fa ir activities, see Section II.
That restriping project is now being
completed by the Sandy Public Works
crews and at intersections along the
two m ajor throroughfares there is now
a 20-foot setback to aid visibility.
That came as a response from citizen
complaints and concerns about the
safety of travel across Highway 26 as it
passes through Sandy, according to
City Manager Roger Jordan.
Will a third ill wind blow again this August?
by DAN DILLON
If you have a strong sense of deja
vu or a re m a rka b le m e m o ry,
chances are you've spent the past
couple of days battenning down the
hatches, boarding up the windows
and waiting for the wind
H istorically, for the last two years
at least, the third week of August has
brought gale-like gusts of wind that
have uprooted trees, knocked over
swing sets and even blown over
houses If lightning doesn't strike
twice in the same place, Sandy
residents have learned that the wind
sure does.
Two years ago. a tornado-like
stro m
ripped
th ro u g h
the
southeastern edge of the city and
slipped up through Marmot It
struck so fast that the National
Weather Service in Portland didn’t
even have a chance to report it.
Afterwards, they still had no official
report on the incident
That storm began with a large,
dark cloud moving rapidly east­
ward. followed by a torrential
downpour and high winds that began
with the power lines and ended up
devastating whatever else go in its
path.
Fred M ille r of Firwood Road was
sitting in his home that Aug 23 when
the storm struck at 7 30 pm .
“ A ll of a sudden the rain started
coming down real hard and ka-
w hoom f — the w ind sta rte d
sw irling around,” he said. “ I t all
lasted only a minute, but that was
enough.”
It was enough to level the M ille rs’
garden, knock over a swing set and
blow away the benches to their
picnic table. More damage was
narrowly averted when a tree fell
and narrowly missed the fa m ily
pickup truck.
On Cornog Road, the Heiberg
fam ily had two trees lying on their
roof when the storm was through
“ Thank goodness we had an
Aerospan house, they can stand a lot
of pressure,” Susan Heiberg noted.
It was only a m atter of minutes
and the damage, while not that
large, was a combination of little
things that would require clean-up
and little elbow grease.
And it set a precedent, because
one year later, on Aug. 20, 1979, the
wind came again with a vengeance
and it brought along a new ally —
ice-cube-sized hail.
The storm swept in from the
southwest tins time at about 6 p m ,
slamming the hail into gardens with
winds estimated at up to 90 miles per
hour
“ We got our firs t call at 5 59 and
then went wild for the next hour and
a h a lf," said F ire Chief Bob Rathke.
The high gusts of wind toppled
trees, knocked walls out of two
homes under construction and
flattened a third. Power lines were
cut, leaving some homes without
electricity until the following day.
The B a rry Fretz fam ily, on Gary
Street in the Aldergate subdivision,
had just finished eating their first
dinner in the home they had moved
into that day when the roof caved in
around them.
A cedar in the backyard had
fallen, crushing the roof truss and
burying son B arry Jr. under the
debris. He escaped w ith ju s t
scratches
Most of the calls the fire depart­
ment handled were for downed
power lines. Bob Fallen, manager of
the Sandy substation for Portland
General E lectric Co., estimated
that during the peak of the storm
2.000 homes were without power.
Tom Day, Sandy building official,
said two houses under construction
lost walls during the high winds
A t a third, the crew was on the
scene when the storm began They
worked to brace the house against
the storm and just as they thought
they had it done, the wind changed
direction and blew down the walls
A p re c ip ita tio n m easurem ent
taken before and after the storm, at
kl.il I
The Barry F re t/ family had just finished dinner when
this tree t rashed through the roof right above their
the Clackamas -Marion branch of
the State Forestry Department on
Vista Loop, indicated that 11 inches
of precipitation fell during the
sto rm . That flooded several
p i» l il t
dinner table. It was an eventful way to spend the first
day in the new home.
basements and plugged sto rm
drains F ire ere
v Hred until 10
p m tryin g to keep up with the
water-caused problems
The extended weather forecast
calls f«>r fair weather »hr•••,«»» th.>
who have been picking tree iunbs
out of their attics in the past couple
years might be a bit more skeptical