The Columbia Press
September 17, 2021
Volleyball team loses hard-fought contest
By Bruce Dustin
For The Columbia Press
The Warrenton volleyball
team lost to Yamhill-Carlton
last week.
In the first of five sets, the
Warriors trailed the Tigers,
never once evening the score.
While the Warriors took the
second and third sets, they
trailed at the outset in both of
them.
It was well into the last
quarter of set two that War-
renton evened the score, 20-
20, and then won, 25-20.
The third set was almost
entirely dominated by War-
renton by a decisive 25-16
margin.
Momentarily, they carried
that enthusiasm over into the
fourth set. A 1-0 lead was the
only time, though, that they
were ahead. They lost mo-
mentum and lost the fourth,
16-25.
The fifth wasn’t a walk away
win for the Tigers. It was a
back-and-forth struggle. But
Yamhill-Carlton finally domi-
nated 11-15, taking the match
three sets out of five.
“I could feel it before the
match,” said junior Aaliyah
Couple’s RVs pose problems
during renovation of house
By Cindy Yingst
The Columbia Press
Bruce Dustin
A teammate goes down as they work the ball against the Tigers.
Watson. “Our energy level
wasn’t very high and it kind
of put us in a funk, a funk we
just couldn’t get out of.”
Warrenton has played bet-
ter and beaten Yamhill-Carl-
ton in the past, she said.
“Our mental strength just
wasn’t there Thursday, our
willfulness to compete. I
think losing will make us
a better team. We need to
learn what we want, and we
need to maintain a mentality
that we’re going to win,” she
said.
The Warriors’ away game
against Gaston was cancelled
on Tuesday. Next up was
Banks on Thursday.
Writer wins for best local column in state contest
The Columbia Press
Congratulations to The
Columbia Press columnist
Emma Edwards, who won
first place for best local col-
umn in the 2020 Oregon
Newspaper Publishers As-
sociation Better Newspaper
Contest.
Edwards competed against
columnists working at other
similarly sized newspapers in
the state.
Her selection of Senior Mo-
ments columns covered the
topics of money, navigating
medical benefits, the impor-
tance of compassion, and the
benefits of walking.
5
Cindy Yingst won second
place for best feature photo
for her photo of the school
district delivering lunch to
children during COVID-19.
The contest was judged
by members of the Arizona
Newspaper Association.
A couple who bought an
eyesore building on Main Av-
enue, hoping to fix it up and
use it for their business, has
run afoul of the city.
Work fixing up the proper-
ty pretty much stopped, city
officials said, after the couple
moved three recreation vehi-
cles and a storage bin behind
the 70-year-old two-bed-
room, one-bathroom house
at 719 S. Main Ave.
The property, near War-
renton United Methodist
Church, is listed on the Ore-
gon Secretary of State’s Office
as the location for JMC Con-
crete LLC, owned by Jeffrey
and Teri Menna.
“The CMU (commercial
mixed-use) zone doesn’t al-
low someone to park an RV
and live in it while building
a commercial building,” said
Will Caplinger, the city’s in-
terim planning director. “You
can’t do this just on a verbal
OK.”
Warrenton’s former plan-
ning director, who left after
just six months with the city,
may have told the Mennas
that they could temporarily
live in an RV on the proper-
ty while they worked on the
permanent structure. He was
wrong, according to Warren-
ton’s building codes.
Regardless, three RVs is out
of the question, Caplinger
said.
And, recently, the city has
been cracking down on RVs
that are parked outside of
designated campgrounds, es-
pecially those being used as
living quarters.
The city’s building official,
Van Wilfinger, sent a letter in
mid-June, telling the couple
they’d need to move the RVs
and remove its connection
into the city’s sewer system,
which was done illegally and
without a permit.
The city received no re-
sponse and, a month later,
sent a “cease and desist” let-
ter giving them a deadline. A
few weeks later, the structure
and RVs were posted with let-
ters alerting the couple that
the city planned to take legal
action to remove the RVs.
On Sept. 9, following a pub-
lic hearing on the cease-and-
desist order, planning com-
missioners voted 4-2 to levy
fines of $1,000 per day per
See “RVs” on Page 8