V o l. 72 N o . 46
SANDY OREGON THURSDAY NOVEMBER 18. 1982
( IS P S ISI-IWH
Single Copy 25<
Volunteers hub of center activities
by DAM D ILLO N
Nightly newscasts and morning
newspapers grim ly report rising
unemployment figures But for
many, the unemployed rem ain just
faceless numbers
For a band of 41 dedicated
volunteers at Sandy's Community
Action Center, those unemploy
ment figures are very human and
the volunteers deal with them on a
daily basis
"People don't realize how bad
some of these people are o ff." said
Freda Goodwin, a volunteer at the
center for six years
"We have people who are sleep
ing in cars because they can't a f
ford rent You look at their clothes
and you can tell they 're sleeping in
their car ”
But for Goodwin who puts in
three-hour shifts sorting donated
clothes and helping clients, there is
a reward. " I think there's a need
for volunteers." she said. “ It kind
of makes you feel good to help peo
ple ”
Helping people has been what
the Sandy Com m unity Action
Center has been about since its in
ception in the 1960s
In 1970, faced with a cutoff of
federal funds, a group of local
volunteers got together, formed a
corporation and it has been up to
volunteers ever since
The Sandy center remains the
only action center in Clackamas
County without a paid director
Pete Sulzbach. chairman of the
cen ter, estim ates that center
volunteers spend about half an
hour working with each client who
comes into the center The average
is nearly 1.000 clients a month
"We go from chaos to order,
chaos to order." Sulzbach said
smiling.
The reasons clients w alk in are
varied
T h e c e n te r p ro v id e s food
baskets, vouchers for gasoline,
clothing and bedding, and this
winter w ill again help with the fuel
assistance program, that can pro
vide as much as $100 help on a fuel
bill
"People are coming in having
their heat turned off," Sulzbach
said. “ It ’s kind of amusing in a
way. To some extent P G E does
social work. They tell somebody
where they can get food stamps, so
maybe they can pay their PG E
bill "
Even the food stamps leave
shortfalls, however
"The food stamps they’re han
ding out isn't enough to hold them
fo r a m o n th ,’ ’ said Colleen
Mod Hartley. Pete Sulzbach and Frank M arcy tote in a couch that will go to
help a fam ily in need.
by DAN DILLON
New City Manager Tom Reber
learned early on that Sandy residents
and the Sandy Police Department
are on the ball
He was in the process of moving in
to temporary quarters at the hon e of
former City Manager Roger Jordan
when he received a visit from the
local police. Someone had reported a
suspicious vehicle at the residence
Reber hopes that unfam iliarity
won’t be repeated as he spends the
early days of his stay in Sandy
meeting the people, getting his finger
on the pulse of the city council and
fam iliarizing himself with situations
unique to the community.
Photos by
Dan Dillon
The sorting of donations never ends as Colleen Pledger, left, and Freda Goodwin look over a new batch of clothes
at the Community Action Center.
Pledger, who has helped out at the
center for eight months
The trip to apply for the food
stamps at Gladstone or M arylhurst
often requires a voucher for
gasoline.
The center, on the other hand,
o nly p u rp o rts to o ffe r food
assistance for three to four days.
The bulk of its food supply comes
from the Food Bank in Portland,
but other sources lend a helping
hand with cash and food donations,
including the local Kiwanis Club,
V F W Auxiliary, TOPS Club and
four local churches.
" I f we had help from all of them,
we could almost be independent."
Sulzbach mused
The Clackamas County Gleaners
have filled a void throughout the
harvest season, dropping off 3,000
pounds of turnips, 1,300 pounds of
cabbages, and e q u a lly la rg e
amounts of potatoes, apples and
squash.
“ I thought those turnips would
never go aw ay," Sulzbach chuckl
ed.
That kind of bulk food goes on the
center's “ help-yourself sh elf."
Although there are local donations
and money comes from the city of
Sandy, routed through Clackamas
County officials in a string of red
tape, the center relies on donations
and contributions from clients and
local residents.
“ The contribution can has been
kind of lean though lately," Good
win said.
‘ ‘ P e o p le
q u e s tio n
w hat
volunteers do here,” said Nod
Hartley. "W orkers spend hours in
that room sorting, hanging clothes
on the racks so they can be
displayed."
What isn't used at the center is
sent to the Goodwill depot in
Gresnam The center gets between
2,000 and 3,000 household items
every month.
Helen Sulzbach makes quilts
from scraps of m aterials left over
from sewing and she has made "in
the hundreds," said Goodwin.
"Most of the tim e that's mainly
what we have to give out to the
clients,” Pledger said. "W e don't
get many blankets.”
With all the donations filling the
tin y
b u ild in g
on
P io n e e r
Boulevard, the center has search
ed for a new home.
The center has a grant and a
$30,000 bequest from the estate of
Lydia Koch to purchase a new site,
but so far no deal has been made
“ We want a permanent home,"
Sulzbach said. "Rent is the biggest
item in the Community Action
Center finances. I f times get
tougher, with local help, we could
operate in our own building."
Improvement district voided; city to start over
by DAN D ILLO N
A recent Oregon Supreme Court
decision not to review the six-year-
old case of Local Im provem ent
District 4 has sent the city of Sandy
back to the drawing board
The court's refusal to hear the
city's appeal of an earlier ruling by
the state Court of Appeals has local
officials scrambling to, in effect,
begin at the beginning
“ In a sense, we don't have a local
improvement district," said City
M anager Tom Reber
So, City Engineer Greg DiLoreto is
preparing a report that follows the ci
ty ordinance outlining what a local
improvement district should be
That report is expected to be
delivered to city council members to
day. The council will meet in ex
ecutive session Monday evening at 7
p.m to discuss the situation. That
evening the council is expected to ap
prove the new engineer's report and
set a public hearing for Dec. 13.
The project to pave Heritage
Square parking lot should not have
been divided into two phases and con
tinued without initiating new pro
ceedings, according to Associate
Judge Edward Warren of the Oregon
Court of Appeals.
At the tim e of cost overruns that
caused the city to take that action, it
should have gone back, re initiated
the proceedings and began it again
That is what it is doing now.
"You start all over with the pro-'
cedure for establishing a local im
provement district Legally, that is
what's happening,” Reber said “ I ’m
sure that that's not what is going to
happen with all th at’s gone into it."
The city hopes to persuade the ad
jacent property owners to agree to
pay for the parking lot and to decide
what portion of the cost they are w ill
ing to pay—all or part of it.
City officials w ill have a list of
alternatives ready for the Dec. 13
hearing in case the property owners
remonstrate against the new L ID and
effectively kill it.
The parking lot project began in
M arch 1976 when property owners
asked the Sandy City Council to build
a 106-space municipal parking lot
th ro u g h a lo c a l im p ro v e m e n t
district.
The engineer's report filed then,
however, didn’t detail plans and
specifications but sim ply listed
general work with estimated costs It
didn't include the cost of property ac
quisition, appraisal fees, lighting,
water lines and hydrants, utilities or
attorney fees The report estimated
the project's cost at $57,565
By October 1976, however, pro
blems arose The property owners
were concerned that the project
hadn’t progressed In executive ses
sion, the city council decided to
divide the project into two phases, a t
tempting to expedite the project.
When assessments for Phase I
w e re
b ille d ,
th e y
to ta le d
$104,989,76—n e a r ly d o u b le th e
original estimate.
The property owners argued that
the city denied them the right to
remonstrate against a proposal that
differed from the original L ID .
Property owners involved in the
L ID project included the owners of
Decker’s Store, the Bolster-Scales
Professional Building, the Heritage
Square Building, the Double Dragon.
TJ's Fireside Dining, the Wheatland
Building a , . ' ‘he Frontier Building.
Two property owners later applied
for Bancroft bonding to pay for their
assessments. H o w eve r, pending
litigation has prevented collection of
any assessments The Court of Ap
peals ru lin g , w hich essen tially
eliminated the L ID . negated the
assessments
Hoodland volunteers seek ‘sendee’ policy review
by MICHAEL P. JONES
Post Correspondent
The Volunteer Association of the
Hoodland Rural F ire Department
last week asked the board of direc
tors to allow a committee to explore
the potential impact of a new policy,
forbidding board membership by fire
department staff.
That includes volunteers who are
now re fe r re d to as p a rt-tim e
employees
The policy was heavily opposed by
b oth f u ll - t i m e an d v o lu n te e r
fire fig h te rs who questioned the
legality and motive of the policy at
the board's October meeting
The board, however, adopted the
policy and board members Dave
Olson and Ray M iller resigned as
department volunteers
In a letter to the Tire board last
week, Barbara Matheson, president
of the Volunteer Association asked
the board to endorse a committee to
approach government agencies to
study the potential legal ra m ific a
tions of the policy The volunteers
fear that because they are looked on
as part-tim e staff, they w ill have to
be paid minim um wage and have
social security and other benefits
Peggy Hergert, board president.
doesn't see any difference in the
status of the volunteers since the
policy went into effect
"O ff the top of my head I can see no
change." agreed M iller, "since other
districts in the state operate under
this same policy .”
F ire Chief Don Armintrout told the
board that taxes for a person w ill be
taken out only if they are paid to be at
a certain place at a certain tim e If
this is the case then the benefits will
have to be taken out He said an
auditor just recently informed him
that the departm ent's part tim e
weekend help are considered "paid
person n el." T hat means social
security should have been withheld,
but was not.
A r m in t r o u t
d o e s n 't
fe e l
withholdings have to be taken from
volunteers' reinbursement checks
He said the auditor told him that if
the person has the opportunity to res-
pond or not to the call, no social
security would have to be taken out
Olson, however, said that all
volunteers are required to respond to
a certain percentage of the calls
This, he said, makes it a requirement
to respond
Class consolidation alarms Welches parents
A change in teaching assignments
and restructed first- and fifth-grade
classes have parents roncemted the
Welches School District
Based on superintendent Kenneth
Blackburn s recommendation, two
fifth-grade classes have lieen com
bined and the first-grade class split
into two 13-students classes He
maintains the district can't afford to
maintain two fifth-grade teachers in
their current positions and hire an
extra first grade teacher as well
As a result, Kathleen McDougall
was reassigned Monday as a first-
grade teacher The other fifth-grade
teacher, Chuck Peterson, had his
class increased from 11 students to 24
students
Board chairperson Dick Hoffman
said that the decision to make
McDougall a first-grade teacher.
New manager
studies city,
meets people
rather than Peterson, was her tra in
ing to teach the D IS T A R reading pro
gram
Rob H ill, a parent and former
teacher at the school, is concerned
how the school board made its deci
sions He said the decisions were
made in executive session, without
giving the parents a chance to voice
their opinion in the m atter.
Parent Bruce Traasdahl agrees
He told The Post the change was
"slid under the table at us ’’
Upset with the board's handling of
the problem, a group of parents a t
tended the Nov. I l school board
meeting to get answers to their ques
tions
According to M u rl S ilv ey , a
counselor and Ph D candidate at the
Oregon Graduate School of Profes
sional Psychology, the students had
" s u ffe re d
fro m
enough
ad
m inistrative indecision and changing
of horses in m idstream ."
Traasdahl said this class has been
"jacked around more than any
other," citing class changes in all
five years
Silvey said the administration and
school board's use of economic
criteria for bases of their decisions
d o e sn 't co n sid e r th e n e g a tiv e
psychological im pacts that con
solidation has on the students
Ijis t Thursday's meeting began on
a sour note when parents learned
that Blackburn would not attend He
was away on special maneuvers with
the National Guard at Fort Lewis,
Wash., Nov. 11-14, and the board was
aw are two months ago that he would
be absent from the meeting
Bob Meiser. a parent of three
children attending the school,
said he and the other parents want to
meet with Blackburn to get some
questions answered He said it was
concern of parents whose children
have been getting pushed around
since they were were in the first
grade and it had to come to a halt
Silvey agreed He said the changes
the students have undergone have
created stress that could affect their
ability to learn The affect of con
solidation and splitting up of classes,
he claimed, “ w ill be much more
detrimental to some than it w ill be
for others "
In some instances, said Silvey. the
stress may come out in the student's
academics or in their relationships
with one another
Tom Reber
Some of those situations won't be
as foreign as might be expected.
Sandy, according to the 31-year-old
city manager, has some striking
similarities to Jordan, Minn , where
he spent four years as city ad
ministrator.
"It's quite sim ilar in that it is on
the fringe of a metropolitan area, " he
said Jordan is just 35 miles from the
Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Although it was slightly sm aller,
Reber said, the city provided a full
range of services sim ilar to Sandy,
except for senior citizen and library
services which were provided by the
home county.
“ One area where it appears Jordan
was providing a higher level was in
parks and recreation,” he said,
noting, however, that it did not enjoy
the proximity to recreation areas like
Mt. Hood and the Oregon coast.
Reber also enjoyed a more open
taxing situation in Minnesota “ I
think Minnesotans are willing to pay
for the higher level of services
because they want to maintain their
standard of living," he said
The tax structure, supported by
sales, property and income taxes,
allowed him to submit a budget
within an 8 percent growth lim it an
nually without voter approval.
The Oregon system of voter ap
proval of levies could prove a
challenge, he admitted.
" It certainly seems to me to be an
unstable situation when m isinform a
tion or the timing of a certain event in
relation to the election can affect the
outcome,” Reber said.
In Jordan. Reber worked closely
with an economic development cor
poration and hopes to continue that
as Sandy makes its bid for industrial
and commercial growth.
He attended Mankato State U niver
sity in Minnesota where he earned a
bachelor's degree in urban and
regional studies, and business ad
ministration in 1973. He earned a
master's degree from the same
university in 1975 in urban and
regional studies and management
studies
Reber expects his wife Nanette and
daughter Katie to join him in Sandy
no later than the first week of
January.
Index
SECTION I
Editorial, Opinion
Keeping Posted
Senior Center News
Menus
Church News
What's Cooking
Sports. Recreation
2
4
4
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5
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11-12
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