Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 1978)
Willow Creek Dam issue not decided As of this writing, the future of the Willow Creek Dam is still undecided as the U.S. ' Senate re-grouped after Presi dent Carter's veto of the public works appropriation bill last week and resubmitted a bill with drastic cuts for his signature. The Willow Creek Dam is included in the second go-around. "We have a bill the House of Representatives will accept and the President will sign," Senator Mark Hatfield told the Gazette-Times Wednesday morning. The Senate appropriations committee went into a sp?cial session Tuesday afternoon to revise the bill Carter vetoed last week. The new measure will restore $63-million for Oregon projects, including Willow Creek. Steve Hickok, field repre sentative for Hatfield, said the committee was reacting to a concern that passing a contin- uning resolution which would have permitted funding for projects already started would stop many worthwhile projects that needed to be funded. The committee cut 17 pro jects from the first bill - more cuts than President Carter had requested including those that were on the President's "hit list" last year. None of the Oregon projects were considered to be cause of the veto. The revised bill should be on the President's desk for his signature by Friday morning, the day Congress adjourns. President Carter is expected to take action that day on the bill and political observers predict that he will sign it. Included in the bill is $500,000 for the Willow Creek Project, to be used in preli menary design and right-of-way acquisition. If Carter signs the bill, the Corps of Engineers is expected to begin their preliminary work within a couple of months. The $22-million Willow Cre ek Dam would be constructed under authorization given by Congress in 1965, but would follow design specifications for water allocation based on the 1974 try for funding. Physically, both dams are basically the same, with differences being in designa tion of purpose. The 1965 plan included water for irrigation and recreation, while the 1974 proposal is based on flood protection, with capabilities for multiple-use in the future. The City of Heppner faced with a flood plain that encompasses all of the down town commercial and much residential property could benefit directly from constru ction of the dam in relocation of major water lines and a reservoir. Added capacity would improve the city's water supply and storage, as well as increasing pressure to homes located on the hillsides surrounding town. In addition, construction of the dam would effictively eliminate the flood plain, ensuring economic stability in the commercial area of downtown. The Heppner iorrow County's Award-Winning Weekly Newspaper Weather Wed. Oct. 4 Thu. Oct. 5 Fri.Oct.6 Sat. Oct. 7 Sun. Oct. 8 Mon.Oct.9 VOL. 96 NO. 41 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1978 Hi 70 68 70 73 76 75 HEPPNER, OREGON TWO SECTIONS Lo 40 38 38 41 47 42 20 PAGES 20c School building h icl come in ai expect d Bids for constructing a new multipurpose room at A.C. Houghton Elementary School and a new shop building at Riverside High School came back higher than expected, forcing Morrow County school officials to hold a special meeting Monday night to decide whether to accept or reject the bids. Low bid on the A.C. Hough ton gym-multipurpose room was submitted by Eastern Oregon Construction Co. of Pendleton at $378,916. The amount the school board had budgeted for the new Irrigon school building was $325,750. The board voted to follow recommendations by arch itect Bob Smith to trim more than $53,000 in equipment from the building contract, to bring the project cost down to $325,766 $16.11 above what was budgeted for the building. Equipment removed from the contract included lockers, bleachers, basketball back boards, a portable handball court and benches. The board also voted to substitute a synthetic gym court surface for a hardwood floor. Superintendent Matt Doh erty noted that the school board has a total of about $150,000 budgeted for,,, new,, equipment for the new school buildings, plus interest money from bond funds on deposit that could possibly be used for buying some of the equipment that was pared from the contract. Board members in dicated that at least some of the equipment could be pur chased with funds from these sources. "I doubt if we could get as much as we got if we re-bid the building," Smith told the board, before it voted to accept Eastern Oregon's bid, minus the equipment costs. The Riverside shop building was a different story. Eastern Oregon Construc tion was again the low bidder on this project, turning in a proposal for $478,000 well above the $330,500 budgeted for the building. Smith presented the board with a study outlining costs for building similar structures in the area, which he said showed that Eastern Oregon's bid "was not out of line.. .We were just asking for more than we could afford." The school board voted to follow Smith's recommend ation to reject the low bid, and redraft the project. Smith submitted a preliminary floor plan for the building that slightly decreased the square footage to 10,500, but was similar to the layout that was bid on by Eastern Oregon. The second go-around on bidding the Riverside shop will be based on constructing a steel modular building, with an alternative plan for a combination steel and block structure based on the same layout. Voting was unanimous on both the decision to accept the Irrigon bid and the decision to reject the Boardman bid. The school board will meet in regular session on Oct. 16. 2-Hour parking begins Winn L. Crist was sworn in as parking control officer for the City of Heppner Tuesday at City Hall. His duties will be to monitor parking and write citations for non-moving violations. The fines for violations are $2 if paid within 24 hours, $4 after 24 hours. If not paid within 5 days, a warrant will be issued for the persons arrest with a fine of $10. Since removal of parking meters, the downtown parking is now limited to two hours, except in front of the Post Office, which is 15-minute parking. The one that got away! I f Many out-of-town hunters left Morrow County last week with only stories about the "one that got away." But one Portland hunter can add a new and truthful twist to her "buck that got away" story. Janice Novak of Portland, hauling a dressed and tagged four-point buck in her pickup after a successful opening week of hunting, stopped in Boardman before returning to the Rose City. When she returned to her rig, parked in the lot of the H Bar W Tavern, she discovered her deer had been stolen and notified the Morrow County Sheriff's Department. A possible moral to this story may be to never figure on pulling off the freeway at Boardman without dropping a buck or two. MOONLIGHT MADNESS Merchants open tonight from 7-9 p.m. Heppner merchants superstitious about Friday the 13th have scheduled their annual fall Moonlight Madness Sale for tonight (Thursday) from 7-9 p.m. Most downtown merchants are participating in the sales event with tremendous price markdowns on regular and special merchandise. Stores will close at their regular times tonight and reopen at 7 p.m. for the two-hour sale. Moonlight Madness advertising appears on pages six and seven of this section. 'First of its kind9.... inzua Corporation dedicates revolutionary new sawmill More than 130 leaders from the wood products industry gathered in Heppner at Kin zua Corporation's facilities last Wednesday, to take part in ceremonies officially dedi cating the company's new $4.5 million computerized sawmill. In opening ceremonies Kin zua Operations Manager Har ry Kennison said, "I never thought I'd see the day we cut logs with a computer" ex plaining how the sawyer only needs to make a determina tion as to the grade of the log. From that point, the log is scanned by photo-electric cells determining the best cut d ic ' -,; t. i" overhead carriage with an end-dogging system and in one trip up and a second trip back, the log is cut into the most productive combination of boards which automatically go on their way to another part of the mill for further cutting or finishing. Size is no object for the computer either, accepting logs ranging in size from six to 50 or more inches in diameter. This capacity will enable Kinzua Corporation to utilize the small diameter logs killed by the pine beetle as well as other small logs that have J.OniLpU ft ST:f v ?M i ' "' I " J k ' A Wc; of its kind in the pine industry and when operating at full capacity will turn out about 200.000 board feet per day. Included in the construction project was a new sorter-stacker system also computer; ized and fully automatic. The sorter scans each board and directs it to a bin for that size and grade of lumber until a full pallet is ready to be stacked and taken to the new dry kilns. The stacker de signed and built by Kinzua personnel is one-of-a-kind unit. Kinzua Corporation has scheduled public tours for anyone wishing to see the new mill on Friday, Oct. 20 between the hours of 9-11 a.m. Anyone wishing to tour the mill should go to the com pany's main office on that day. Mrs. Harry Stuchell breaks a bottle of champagne on the new dry kilns at Kinzua Corporation's' $4.5 million computerized sawmill. Indus try leaders from throughout the Pacific Northwest were in Heppner last Wednesday to view the new mill. At right, Harry Kennison, operations manager for Kinzua, watched as a log is scanned by the computer for cutting while a second log prepares to go through the combination of saws and chippers on the overhead carriage. 1 S ' I Y ' ' ' 1 ti - --J:. Li y'L '. -J - " i' i X 1 v-: , ; 1 I lid a, 1 gfo V f i 1 r f . .mv. . - . . i - , i - uJ ,- : ' ,- ' - - , - - . - i
