Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 29, 1981)
BESS t E WET2ELL U OF ORE , FWSPAPER LID U 1J G L i. Ok j 7 4 -, 3 Tne tieppner WEATHER HWi I-" Preclp. ... Turn.. .Ian. 20 ,37 25 WH Jan. 21 38 32 .27" rain Thurs.. Jan. 22 45 35 Fri.. Jan. 21 48 39 ,.13" rain Sat.. Jan. 24 45 35 Sun.. Jan. 25 46 31 Mon . Jan. 26 49 30 .11" rain Weather y Don Gilliam Morrow County's Home-Owned Weekly Newspaper VOL.tW, No. 5 THURSDAY. JANUARY 20, 1981 10 PAGES 20 CENTS HEPPNER. OREGON q 11 ic- ji iiwiics Proposed flash flood warning system should double evacuation time A new flash flood warning system being considered for installation in the Heppner area will give townspeople twice as long to evacuate the city in the event of a flood as the present system, city officials have said. The new system, proposed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, would be tied directly Into the Morrow County Sheriff's department at the courthouse, and would warn of excessive water run off down Shobe canyon and Hinton Creek. lone Bank of Eastern Oregon plans grand opening Saturday ' ,. .''7,. ' mmmmmmtmriiC"'' ' - " "" rfj I - J U ; j x ; June Crowell stands The Bank of Eastern Ore gon, lone branch, will hold a grand opening this Saturday. Jan. 31. in honor of the completion of its new bank building in lone. Construction of the new 72-by-36 foot structure began July 31 of last year and was Just recently completed. The new building was con Denny Smith announces Ore., D.C. addresses Recently elected U.S. Rep resentative to Congress from the 2nd District Denny Smith has announced addresses and phone numbers for his offices in Salem and Washington, D. C, as follows: 1207 Longworth House Office Building, Wash ington, D.C. 20515, (202)225 5711; 4035 12th St. S.E. No. 20, Salem, Ore. 97302, (503)399 575. Until alterations are com pleted on a district office, Smith says he will be working out of a temporary space at 1797 13th St., S.E., P.O. Box 12868. Salem. Ore. 97309, 371-3-28. The system, as presented to city and county officials at a meeting last Wednesday night In Heppner. would consist of five rain and snow gauges and one river gauge In the Shnhe Cnnvon drainage, and nine rain and snow gauges with two river gauges In the Hinton Creek drainage. City officials praised the system, saying it would in crease the amount of time available to evacuate the town in case of impending flood and will not cost cither the county or city any money. behind tellers' windows 8tructed on the same site as the previous bank building, a structure which was erected in IRW8 The bank had occupied the building since 1959. The new structure features a lounge area, safe deposit boxes, a new and stronger vauir. three tellers windows, a bookkeeping area, office space, a night deposit and Eastern Oregon DMV supervisor named Dale Boyer, who for the past 14 years has been in the Motor Vehicles Division headquart ers in Salem, has been named supervisor of the division's Eastern Region, by Administ rator David P. Moomaw. As a region supervisor, Boyer will be responsible for all DMV offices In Heppner, Baker, Burns, Enterprise, Hermiston, John Day, La Grande, Milton-Freewater, Ontario, and Pendleton. The appointment will return Boyer tq Ontario, the site of his first job with the division. He was manager of the Ontario field office when the facility opened its doors in Corps spokesmen said the Corps will buy and install the svstem with the city providing minimal maintenance. The present flood warning system consists of several river gauges monitored at Pioneer Memorial Hospital. Flood warning consists of about 15 minutes of actual time to evacuate the city. Mechanically the system will be made up of a small bucket guage at the top of a ten-foot-high pipe. The buck ets tip over when full. This information is radio-transmit- space for a drive-in window which may be added in the future. "We think it's pretty special." says lone Branch Manager June Crowell . Crowell says the grand open ing will be open to everyone from 2 to 5 p.m. Sat., and that door prizes will be given away and refreshments served. 1949. He later supervised the Eastern District and became assistant manager of DMV's then-registration branch in 1966. When the division was reorganized in 1970. he be came the proration and recip rocity officer, responsible for Oregon's prorated-interstate-vehicle-licensing pacts with other states. Boyer, 55, suceeds Pat Guymon. Guymon will remain in the Baker field office as technical supervisor for the region. In addition, he will conduct dealer and wrecker investigations and driver im provement interviews. ted to a computer in the sheriff's department at the courthouse. When enough rain falls to indicate flood danger a warn ing would be issued. "It's a much better sys tem." said City Administrator Marshall Iovgren. "Should double our warning time," commented Heppner Mayor Cliff C.reen. The Armv Corps of Engi neers has indicated it plans to Install the system In conjunc tion with construction of the Willow Creek dam. lone teacher wins essay contests An lone English teacher. Ijiura McDoueal. has won two essay contests sponsored by the Idaho Newspaper Associa tion, it was announced recent lv bv lone High School Principal Chuck Starr. McDoueal. a first year teacher at lone, entered an essav entitled "A Free Press Safeeuards My Freedom" in a contest in the "Messenger-. Index." the newspaper in her home town of Emmett. Idaho. Sen. Jernstedt receives committee appointments Stale Ren. Ken Jernstedt of Hood River has received his 1981 committee appointments, including the vice chairman ship of the Committee on . Trade and Economic Develop ment. Jernstedt also will serve on the Agriculture and' Natural Resource Committee, the Jus tice Committee, the Revenue Committee, the Rules Com-, mittee and the Legislative Council Committee. The appointments were made recently by Senate President Fred Heard. D Klamath Falls. McCoy to plead 'not guilty9 Morrow County Commis sioner Warren H. McCoy, Irrigon. says he plans to plead not guilty to a misdemeanor charge he solicited a prosti tute while in Portland last week. McCoy, who is scheduled to go to court on the charge Friday, said Monday he did not think he broke any laws in the incident. "I didn't know it was against the law to talk." he said. "I had no intention of rping anywhere with her (a Portland policewoman posing as a prostitute). I was on my way back to my car and no money exchanged hands," he said. McCoy was in Portland on his way home from a meeting in Eugene when he allegedly on State Fair wants MC exhibit The Oregon State Fair has told Morrow County it would like to see the county repre sented with a booth at next year's fair. In a letter to the county commission Jan. 15. the Ore gon State Fair's superinten dent of agriculture depart ment said the fair would like to have the county contribute and would like to have the names of people or groups who could sponsor an exhibit. Morrow County did not have a booth in last year's state fair, and "because the State Fair is Oregon's Showcase we would like to have your county contribute." the letter stated. Names of possible sponsors are needed by the fair by Feb. 1. the letter said. McDoueal not only won that contest and $75. but went on to win the state competition and $?sn for the same essay. McDoueal 's essay has now been entered in national competition, which offers a vir of $l.ono to the winner. "We're very proud of her and we're elad to see one of . our teachers get the recogni tion." commented Starr. McDoueal is a graduate of the University of Idaho at Moscow. As in the past sessions. Jernstedt was received one of the heaviest committee loads in the Senate. Jernstedt expressed plea sure at his committee assign ments "because they will permit me to devote a major effort to issues of critical importance to the people of our area." Senate Minority Leader Bob Smith of Burns said the major committee posts held bv Jernstedt "are indicative of the respect with which he is hold hv members and leaders of both political Parties." Warren II. McCoy (file photo) propositioned the woman. "I always thought the police were out to protect people not entice them and take them in on something." he said. WW V '1 v ..MI '81-82 School budget to go to voters March 31 The Morrow County School District budget committee finished up work on the 1981-82 budget Monday night, and will send it to the voters for approval on March 31. In its third and final meeting since receiving the budget Jan. 5. the committee took the knife to the document, cutting a total of $435,687 from almost every school and department in the district. From a proposed 17.8 per cent increase at the beginning of deliberations, the commit tee cut the budget back to a 9 9 percent increase over last ' year. School administrators were instructed at a Jan. 12 meeting of the committee to trim the $6,499,421 budget. Monday. Superintendent Matt Doherty presented $435,687 in across, t he-board cuts to the commit tee, which approved the re ductions without change after two hours of deliberations. The cuts will mean a total budget of $6,063,734 - up $548,162 over last year. The budget will require a tax rate Irrigon council elects mayor, dismisses police officer By FRANCES ROSE WILSON The City of Irrigon Council convened a week late for its January session because of postponement due to the death of Mayor Vernon Stewart's father, near LaGrande. Newly -elected councilman. Joel Stahl, was sworn in and the oath of office was also administered to Recorder Caryle Mayrand by Mayor Stewart. Daryl Brownlee was appointed to fill the council vacancy left by Dennis Riesch. Marie Johnson had. previously been appointed but she reconsidered and refused the appointment. With a full council in session. Donald Eppenbach was elected by the group to serve as mayor for the coming year. He replaces Vernon Stewart who has served in this position the past 4 years. The council re-elected Bill Cooley as mayor pro-tem. Morrow County Planner Dean Seeger presented a preliminary plot of a proposed subdivision to the council. The 4-acre tract, which lies west of 13th St. and south of California Ave. is outside the city boundary but lies within the urban growth lines under which both city and county approval is required. The tract of land is control led by Stan Knapp. H. Eugene Smith and Kenneth Kamer er, all of Hermiston, and would be titled Honeywild Estates with home offices in Vancouver. Wash. The project would consist of 37 one-acre lots with easement for future development of streets and would be develop ed for sale in two stages. Three wells are proposed for water service to the area and individual septic tanks for sewage disposal. The tract is somewhat isolated from de veloped streets and several citizens and council members raised questions concerning this issue. The tentative plan, however was approved. of 9 2 dollars per thousand of valuation, an increase of 1.2 over last year. The budget will also require both A and B ballots, a point debated by budget committe members. , Superintendent Doherty ex pressed a desire for the committee to name specific programs which will be in cluded in the $416,905 B ballot. He asked that the commit tee name areas to be included in the B ballot as an aid In explaining the ballot to dis trict taxpayers. - In response, the committee identified 12 programs that would most likely bear the brunt of cost cutting if the B ballot were to fail. The programs include afh letics. driver education, kind ergarten, speech therapy. : summer grounds help, a new "able and gifted program," transportation, food services, bus and shop improvements, bus replacement, learning disability, and educational media. Doherty expressed belief that B ballots, however, are . Daryl Brownlee presented a petition containing 76 signa tures asking the council to dismiss the city safety officer, Robert Hoover, who was hired last summer. Since the cir cumstances which prompted the petition were presented in the form of a series of questions rather than by specific charges of dereliction of duty, the council was reluctant to take action. The dozen or more townspeople attending the session were quite outspoken concerning specific occasions. Both busi nessmen Paul Brown and John Cimmiyotti named in stances alleging that Hoover either failed to respond to calls or came only after a long period of time. Because of the possibility of legal repercussions which could arise from discharging an employee without due process the council agreed Hoover should have an oppor tunity to answer allegations. Police Commissioner Bill , Cooley stated that he had requested Hoover to be at the meeting of the council. At tempts to reach Hoover by phone were unsuccessful and two men sent to his residence could not get a response by knocking on the door. In a final effort of fairness, a special meeting was set for Wed.. Jan. 21. with the safety New to town? New to the community? The Gazette-Times is now offering a free three-month subscription to newcomers. Just give us a call. 676-9228. and we'll sign you up. Jernsted nominated for Senate president State Sen. Ken Jernstedt of Hood River was nominated for Senate president pro tern during the organizational act ivities of the 1981 legislature. Jernstedt. a 14 year legisla tive veteran, was nominated here to stay in Morrow County. "If we are going to operate schools in Morrow County you are going to have to have a B levy, and you are going to have to sell it." he told the budget. committee. He said the district's tax base is not realistic enough to support the district by itself now. On a positive note Doherty told the committee that be cause of better than expected tax collection recently, he was increasing the anticipated cash carryover the district will have for next year's budget from 'he original estimate of about $50,000 to over $150,000. Overall Doherty said. "It's a budget I think voters can support." commenting that the percentage increase was the lowest in at least five years, and the .total dollar amount the lowest in the last three years. - "We are doing better than some of the districts around us." he added. officer to be notified of the meeting in a hand-delivered letter. At the special meeting Wed., action was taken to discharge the policeman and safety officer. Robert Hoover, after several attempts to deliver the letter and to contact him by phone had failed. In other business the coun cil: . , adopted a resolution call ing for depositing of $14,000 of funds from a matured-time certificate in the City Hall Building Fund to savings and transferring of $3,396 of it to a General Fund to pay accumu lated attorney fees related to the railroad property. adopted a resolution to transfer funds in the amount of $1,598 from the water-reserve fund to pay for mater ials and supplies purchased for the water system. tabled a request from Albert Philips for reimburs ment for his use of his truck to haul gravel on a street to a new lot he has for sale. requested that Umatilla Electric Co-op Association conduct a street-light study concerning upgrading and projected needs for city light ing. selected a logo for new city seal and letter heads. noted that the census count for the citv is 710. . for the number-two Senate post by Sen. Jim Simmons of Tieard and Senate Minority leader Bob Smith of Burns. Jernstedt received the un animous support of his Senate. Republican collegues. I " I . r
