Image provided by: Vernonia Public Library; Vernonia, OR
About Vernonia freedom. (Vernonia, Oregon) 1978-198? | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 1981)
PUBLIC LIBRARY 919 BRIDGE VERNONIA OR 97064 Don't Forget - Schoo! Starts Aug. 31 BEATING THE HEAT— Jamie Kramer, 7, and his father Jack, both of Hillsboro, seem to have the right idea. As temperatures climbed into the high 90’s again Jack and Jamie headed for a stretch of water on the Nehalem River near Vernonia. Lots of shade, cool water and an occasional fish on the line are exactly what the doctor ordered for these two on a hot August day. FREEDOMFOTO Lease proceeds exceed expectations ^25<b freedom Thursday August 20,1981 VOL 3 NO. 41 NWNG hits Mist gas well No. 8 Following close on the heels of last week’s gas lease. sale Northwest Natural Gas announced Tuesday that they’ve struck a significant new gas well near Mist. The well, designated Well No. 47 J decides to rent new shop facility space Local 47 J School Board members voted last Thursday to rent the Davies garage rather than purchase it as had been originally planned. Under the current terms the district will rent the building for $650 per month on a yearly contract. The district can act to purchase the shop space at each yearly Price dispute with IP means chlorination plant to be built After offering International Paper Co. (IP) $2500 per acre for the ten acre piece of property it needs for the planned third sewage lagoon the city council voted to turn down a counter offer of $3000 per acre, at last Monday night’s meeting. According to council sources negotiations for the acreage are currently at a standstill, with little hope of compromise in the future. Realizing that it may take quite some time to reach an agreement with IP on the property the city council has decided to go ahead and install the chlorinating equipment necessary to clean city sewage enough to end the discharge currently entering the Nehalem River. Current plans call for the completion of the project this Fall. The lining of Pond No. 1 with local clay to act as an anti seepage agent is also scheduled to be completed this Fall. The council also voted at its last meeting to accept a bid from Mike Mullin to log and remove stumps from the land the liner clay will come from. Once the land is cleared excavation of the clay for the sewer lagoon can begin. The exchange of ten acres of city land, the site of the existing landfill, for ten acres of Longview Forest’s land for the site of a new landfill has been signed and approved by all of the parties concerned. In addition, DEQ has approved the new site both for drainage and land use. Actual trenching of the new site for landfill operation should begin in the very near future. Pagel Electronics of Forest Grove has been awarded a bid to rewire the city hall. The job should be completed this week. In other action the council voted to erect a “No U-Turn” sign at the comer of E. Alder and Pebble Creek Rd. The sign should be in place before the end. of the week. renewal period using the building’s current appraisal value of $80,000 as a basis for price negotiations. Under the plan previously proposed the district would have purchased the building over a four year period for $80,000 but in payment figures that would have averaged between $1200 and $1300 per month, paid in lump sums of $20,000 plus interest once during each of the four years. According to the latest information available there may be one piece of good news for the district’s budget. School Superintendent Art Parrow informed the Board last Thursday that Vernonia’s Basic School Support funds may very well exceed the amount allowed on the budget by as much as $16,000. Any action taken with the windfall funds will have to wait until the final figure has been confirmed and the funds are actually available, he said. Even with extra School Support funds the district is operating on more than $400,000 less for school year 81-82, excluding the local tax base, than it did last year, Parrow said. Considerable discussion ensued when Penny Port challenged the board’s decision to implement user fees for the use of school district facilities by outside groups. After lengthy discussion the board decided to maintain the fee schedule recently arrived at rather than trying to break it down into component hourly portions. As one board member put it, “By voting down the last levy the voters were telling us to keep this (the school system) affordable. Our response has been to cut when and where we can. One way of doing this is to charge enough for the non-school use of our facilities to pay for the energy it takes to keep them open,” he said. “We would love to be able to do this for free,” said another, “But we just can’t.” One way misunderstandings between the board and the voters may be avoided in the future may be a series of informal ‘Coffee Klatches’ hosted in private homes and attended by one or more of the board members it was decided. Acting on a suggestion from the floor the entire board enthusiastically endorsed the idea. The first of the get-togethers will be scheduled for the near future. For further information you can call the District 47J offices at 429-5891. The board also approved a new Continued On Page 3 8, is located just west of Mist and is expected to produce enough natural gas to heat over one thousand homes according to a gas company spokesman. Lease revenue realized by the county in this latest sale exceeded most expectations according to County Commissioner Marion Sahagian. “We were pleased and surprised by the bidding,” she said. While the last lease auction produced $1,514,077 in sales the latest sale exceeded it, providing $1,528,503 for the county. Areas of interest centered on. section T7R5, just north of the current strike area with bids here going for as much as $93 per acre. The area around Camp Wilkerson (T5R3) also produced some heavy bidding with prices ranging from $50 - $52 per acre. Little or no interest was shown in the area around the Goble Shiloh Basin and from the current field north towards Rainier. Those companies involved in the most active bidding included: Northwest Exploration, Arco, Nehama and American Quasar, all of Denver, Co. Weagant, Tenneco and Gulf Oil, all of Bakersfield, Ca., as well as Champion Petroleum, of Inglewood, Ca., Howard Johnson also bid for Exxon, out of Denver. Sahagian indicated that the funds received will be treated in the same manner as they were last year with disbursal to the various taxing districts scheduled for the end of the current fiscal year; a policy currently being contested by the Rainier School District in court. The school district is asking, for all of the taxing districts in the Continued On Page 3
