Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (July 26, 1979)
- - - H - The Library University of Or Sidewalk bargains fun await shoppers Friday Shoppers hunting fbr those mid-summer bargains will find them Friday aMhe annual Sidewalk Sale in Heppner. Local merchants will fiave items on sale outside their stores and booths set up by civic organizations in the city-wide shopping spree. Heppner Lions will be selling pop, cotton candy and popcorn, the VFW and Auxiliary "will be selling ice cream bars, Senior Citizens Center, crafts, rockhounds will have a booth, Morrow County Cowbelles will be selling their cookbooks, Degree of Honor will have a lunch booth and EMT's, baked foods. Jim Ackley will be providing music all day long and emcee a planned gong show at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. After they perform and are judged by a select panel chosen by Ackley, the first, second and third place winners will receive the top prizes of an 8 track stereo player-recorder valued at $40, a $10 gift certificate arid a $5 gift certificate respectively. All other participants in the show will receive grab bags of merchandise donated by participating merchants. The street between Case Furniture and the Wagon Wheel Cafe will be blocked off and a platform errected for the gong show performers. Persons may enter the gong show by filling out an entry form at participating stores up to the 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. shows. The merchants jug band will be performing. See today's advertisements for news about the variety of sales offered at Heppner Merchants. Shop Heppner this summer. County Court gives nod to Heppner plan Amendments to the city of Heppner's Urban Growth boundaries were approved by the Morrow County Court Wednesday, July 18 and a joint management agreement sign ed by County Judge D.O. Nelson and Commissioner Warren McCoy. Presented by Marie Hall, planner for the Eastern Ore gon Association of Cities, who told the court that the new boundaries had been unani mously approved by the County Planning Commission. Meeting county approval, the boundaries must now be approved by the State Land Conservation and Develop ment Commission, which has recently come under fire in Eastern Oregon for rejections of growth boundaries submit ted by Pilot Rock and Echo. . According to EOAC's popu lation projections, the Hep pner area is expected to have 2,760 people by the year 2,000. During the public hearing, there were no residents pre sent outside planning and court officials. The Hoskins family has informed Ms. Hall that they no longer have objections to inclusion of their property within the urban growth boundaries. In other business. County, Judge Nelson said two new bridges, the Willow Creek and Gooseberry bridges will be constructed by the state this fall to ease flood problems in the lone area. Rip-rap or rock boulders will be added to a portion of the Willow Creek banks as a further aid to flood control as well as channel work. ' Roger Long, federal aid engineer for the Regional office in La Grande, has informed the court of the bridge approval after Judge Nelson's February appeal to Governor Victor Atiyeh de claring Morrow County a disaster area. The existing steel girders of the Willow Creek Bridge will be replaced with a pre-stres-sed concrete slab span and a sidewalk and bike path built on the left shoulder. The Gooseberry Bridge will also be constructed of con Cont. on page 3 IO OF gives life-pac to PMHfor patients A life-pac unit for Saving heart attack victims was demonstrated at last week's Hospital Board meetings by Karmon Bjella, Director of Nursing. Powered by electricity or rechargeable nickel cadmium batteries, the 27 lbs. unit contains a defribillator and cardiac monitor. It can be carried to the scene of an emergency and activated on its own powerjyat as pointed out by Bjella, it can only be operated by a physician, a trained R.N. or EMT 3. The unit has a miniature TV screen and a recording heart beat graph plus readout. The hospital recently had it transported by Forest Service helicopter to the Bull Prairie Campground where a John Day man was stricken with a heart attack. It provides Pioneer Memor ial Hospital with three heart monitors and was funded from a donation by the Odd Fellows and a grant from the Emer gency Medical Services. Heppner rations water The city of Heppner has set hours for water users because of distribution problems. Residents are advised to ' please water their gardens and lawns from 6 a.m. to noon and from 6 p.m. to midnight only until further notice. The notice is being made by Water Supt. Earl Papineau. The Heppner TE-TIM ES VOL. 97, NO. 30 Morrow County's Award-Winning Weekly Newspaper IIKPPNER. OREGON THURSDAY, JULY 26, 1979 TWO SECTIONS 18 PAGES 20 cents Willow Creek D am eome6cloer9 House-Senate committee OK's $3.2 million appropriation , . , ."-Ik -.. 19 i wow ntzp t j r 9 m A f jtotmS t. S i 'Oregon Congressman Al Ullm'an reported Tuesday that a House-Senate Conference Committee has approved an appropriation of $3.2 million to continue construction work at Willow Creek Dam in Hep pner. "I am pleased about this action," Ullman said. It is an important step towards resol ving one of the longest water resource controversies in Eastern Oregon." Funds for the project were included in a Senate bill appropriating funds for Energy and Water Develop ment in fiscal year 1980 at the request of Oregon Sen. Mark Hatfield. Members of the What it would look like,,. t III - i 9 . a. Construction of the Willow Creek Dam moved closer to reality Tuesday with the announcement from Con. Al Ullman that the $3.2 million proposed for appropriations had been approved by the House-Senate conference committee. If the Willow Creek Dam is built, it may look like the superimposed structure the Corps of Engineers has pencilled in over an actual photograph taken from the west hill of Heppner. The Corps has given the County Court several pictures' of various angles of the proposed earth-filled dam. House agreed to the Senate proposal on Willow Creek Tuesday at Ulllman's request. The conference committee action clears the way for final Congressional action on the bill. "Sen. Hatfield's work on the appropriations committee was critical to the success of this effort," Ullman said. "I'm glad we were able to join forces to achieve this important decision." The $3.2 million appropria tion would supplement the $500,000 appropriated last year to begin land acquisition and construction at the site. The primary purpose of the dam is control of flooding which has destroyed property and resulted in extensive loss of life in Heppner since the turn of the century. Community advisory panel for PMH formed with enthusiastic membership Members of the newly formed community advisory committee on future planning for Pioneer Memorial Hospi tal will meet Monday, July 30 at 7:30 p.m. at Columbia Basin Co-op in their first session with Hospital Board Members Gladys Hobbs and Dan Sweeney serving as co-chairmen. Appointed to the committee by the Hospital Board were David Hanna, Jim Bier, Jewel Hager, Kathy Peck, Evelyn Black, Sammy J. Griffin, Linda LaRue, Larry Mills, Don Peterson, James J. King, all from Morrow County, Rep. Bill Bellamy, Gilliam County, Judge Leo Barnett, Arlington, Judge A.F. Lecke and Father Hopp of Condon. All those listed have agreed to serve on the planning committee which will be one of three. The remaining two are medical staff planning and hospital staff planning. At last week's hospital board meeting, Ron Ellingson, planning consultant from the Oregon Association of Hospi tals, noted the high degree of acceptance from those asked to serve. The Hospital Board amend ed its mission statement to add emergency medical ser vices as recommended by Hospital Administrator Bob Byrnes. The overall mission statement calls for an overall care of providing health care services. Before the 7:30 p.m. meet ing, Ellingson met with mem bers of the hospital staff and outlined steps that body will take during the planning process. The administrator is serving as chairman of the group and one of the group's first projects will be compiling answers to a ten page ques tionnaire. Board Member Ed Dick will serve as chairman of the medical staff planning com-1 mittee which presently con sists of two doctprs, two dentists and a pharmacist. The ' board accepted a motion by Dick to grant permission to the Hospital Auxiliary to use one of the county's new ambulances for display purposes at the county fair. Several board members expressed the hope that the two new ambulances would arrive in the county before the August 9 medical levy election in order to show voters both in north and south ends of the county. They are not expected from a Georgia manufactur ing plant until August 13th. The Director of Nursing, Karmon Bjella was asked whether the delivery date could be speeded up. The official said two phone calls had already been made to the factory. Dick recommended that the board allow a sale of surplus sale of obsolete items in the hospital's storage by the auxiliary. The board gave tentative authorizing stipu lating that a complete inven tory be made of the items to be sold. Negotiations are still under way with nonlicensed em ployees of the hospital and a settlement is not expected until after the August 9 levy vote. Dick reported that the County Court's request to have Thompson Street vacated has been referred to the city of Heppner's street committee after objections raised by Jewel Hager. The court owns the property and is making the proposal to allow approval for an ambulance port at the rear of the facility. An environmental impact statement for new expansion at the hospital will be review ed in the next ten days by the Regional Office of Health, Education and Welfare. Byrnes recommended a change in the architectural plans to include a place for the nursing home patients to enjoy the sunshine and im prove the aesthetics. The structure proposed is a circu lar concrete patio area with funding from community don ations. The board gave its support in the form of a motion. Chairman Fred Martin said he has been in touch with a physician from Lake Oswego, interested in relocating . In other actions, board members accepted the resig nation of Byrnes, effective October 31, approved a motion calling for an audit and directed Martin to contact the Oregon Association of Hospi tals for possible candidates for administrator. Trimmed medical levy back for voter approval Thursday, August 9 If you are writing a song about the 1979-80 Pioneer Memorial Hospital and North Morrow County levy, you might call it "Changes." There have been so many changes since it was first proposed to the voters in the May 22 levy request outside the 6 percent limitation, that voters could be confused when the final figures are submitted in the August 9 levy election. Even the date of the week has been changed. While the first levy votes were held on Tuesdays, the County Court has decided it will hold the third levy test over a changed budget and levy figures on a Thursday. The August 9 levy request placed before the voters or $506,474 outside the 6 percent limitation asks a rate of $1,125 per $1,000 in assessed valu ation, $.20 cents per $1,000 cheaper than the original levy request on May 22 which the voters defeated by a hefty margin and $.10 cents per $1,000 lower than the $1.22 per $1,000 asked on June 28 and which almost received a simple majority. Five votes stopped it. The original levy request was for $598,587 to support a budget total of $1,710,274 and a levy rate of $1.32 per $1,000. After the first defeat of the levy request, Hospital Board members asked the County Court to trim $45,000 off the levy, $20,000 in physician revenue and $25,000 from planning and development. They also made a change in the wording of the planning and development budget, leaving off the words medical planning. The second levy request was $549,077 or $1.22 per $1,000 to raise a lowered budget of $1,685,274 in requirements and resources of $1,186,152 and $499,122 was set as the amount needed to balance the budget with $49,955 inserted in uncol lectable taxes. That request failed by five votes to gain a simple majority and board members went back to the drawing board. The latest levy request of $506,474 and a rate of $1.25 per $000 in assessed valuation reflects lower requirements of $1,633,835 and lower resour ces, $1,173,450 and a lower figure needed to balance or $460,385. The uncollectable taxes has been set at $46,089. It marks a $43,603 decrease from the June 28 levy request and an $88,603 reduction from the original levy. A number of changes were made by the hospital board and county court. The levy name was changed from hospital to medical levy. A number of line item expendi tures and resources were changed including: hospital patient services was reduced from $465,451 to $457,109, physician clinic services were dropped from $94,976 to $56,232, thereby lowering the bottom line figure of the budget; on the income side, $2,700 was budgeted for rental of the administrators's houjse balanced on the expenditure side of the budget in salary to the administrator and in creasing total administrative salaries to $58,774 from $56, 071; total lab and x-ray budgeted items were increas ed to $72,949 from the previous $68,949; physician recruit ment was reduced by $5,000 from $25,000 to $20,000; the full time physician's salary drop ped from $50,000 to $37,500, and physician weekend relief costs, malpractice insurance and fringe benefits eliminated or reduced, lowering total physician services from $139, 588 to $88,449. Many items were left intact including funds for a physician at the North Morrow Clinic and north end medical services, planning and contingency funds. A great many of the changes were instituted after com ments from a newly formed professional association which met with the Hospital Board following the second levy defeat. Persons with' questions on th budget and levy request should contact Hospital and County Court officials. I.-- . Is r I, 4
