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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 2006)
TWO • Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, July 5,2006 The Official Newspaper of the City of Heppner and the County of Morrow H eppner GAZETTE-TIMES U.S.P.S 240-420 Morrow County’s Home-Owned Weekly Newspaper Published weekly and entered as periodical matter at the Post Office at Heppner, Oregon under the Act of March 3 . 1874 Periodical postage paid at Heppner. Oregon Office at 188 W Willow Street. Telephone (541) 676-9228. Fax (541) 676-9211 K- mail: editor«?rapidserve net or davidWheppner net Web site: ww w heppner net Post master send address changes to the Heppner Gazette-Times, P O Box 337. Heppner. Oregon 97836. Subscriptions: $26 in Morrow County. $20 senior rate On Morrow County only; 62 years or older); $32 elsewhere; $26 student subscriptions David S y k e s.....................................................................................................Publisher Katie F oster.......................................................................................................... Editor All New t and Advertising Deadline is Monday at S p.m. For Advertising: advertising deadline is Monday at 5 p.m. Cost lor a display ad is $4 90 per column inch. Cost for classified ad is 50c per word. Cost for Card of Thanks is $10 up to 100 words. Cost for a classified display ad is $5 50 per column Inch. For Pubiic/Legal Notices: publio'legal notices deadline is Monday at 5 p.m Dates for publi cation must be specified. Affidavits must be required at the time of submission. Affidavits require three weeks to process after last date of publication (a sooner return date must be specified if required). For Obituaries: Obituaries are published in the Heppner GT at no charge and are edited to meet news guidelines. Families wishing to include information not included in the guidelines or who wish to have the obituary written in a certain way must purchase advertising space for the obituary. For Letters to the Editor: Letters to the Editor MUST be signed by the author The Heppner GT will not publish unsigned letters. All letters MUST include the author’s address and phone number for use by the GT office. The GT reserves the right to edit letters. The GT is not responsible for accuracy of statements made in letters. Any letters expressing thanks will be placed in the classifieds under “Card of Thanks" at a cost of $10. On the HEPPNER WEBSITE: www.heppner.net • Start or Change a Subscription • Place a Classified Ad • Submit a News Story • View Real Estate for Sale • City Council & Planning Minutes •Local Businesses • County Park • Willow Creek Park Reservations • Free Digital Postcards • Senior Housing • and more! Willow Creek Clinic to close Dr. Kenneth Wenberg, managing director of Willow Creek Clinic in Heppner, has announced that the clinic will be closing the end of July. High malpractice insurance rates have been “killing [the clinic] financially” and have affected both the business and Dr. Wenberg’s personal life “to a degree that cannot continue,” explained Dr. Wenberg in a letter he sent out to his patients. “I am not wanting to do this but my hands are tied. I feel great loyalty to my patients and care about each one of you very much,” said Dr. Wenberg in the letter. Those who have been visiting the clinic regularly will need to find another personal physician before the end of July. Requests for record transfers will be numbered as they come in and will be sent out as soon as possible within the 30 days the law allows. Obituaries Merle G. Baker Merle G Baker, 85, died June 24, 2006. A serv ice was already held with interment at W illam ette N ational Cemetery. He was born Sept. 12, 1920 in Walla Walla and was raised on a farm in lone. During World War II, he served in the Army in the Philippines. He moved to Portland in 1956, where he w as an a cc o u n tan t for United Grain for 33 years. In 1942, he married M arjorie A. Holland; she died in 2001. Survivors include his daughters, Ann M. Greer and Sheri Watson; son, Jim; brother, C larence; sister, H elen S c h le se n e r; six grandchildren; and six great grandchildren. Death Notices Frances M. Barnett Frances M. Barnett, 60, of lone died Sunday, July 2. Arrangements are pending Sw eeney M ortuary of Heppner. William P. “Bill” Monahan W illiam P. “ B ill” Monahan, 65, of Hermiston, died on Saturday, July 1, 2006 at the Good Samaritan Center in Hermiston. Viewing will be on Thursday, July 6 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. at Burns M ortuary C h ap el. A graveside funeral service with military honors will be held on Friday, July 7, at 10 a.m. at the Heppner Masonic Cemetery in Heppner. Burns Mortuary of Hermiston, Oregon is in care of arrangements. Koffler honored as distinguished effect for the past 10 years alumni and Koffler is the first living G eorge K offler, president of Bank of Eastern O regon, was recently hon ored by Echo High School as the 2006 Dis- tin g u is h e d Alumni. He re c eiv e d the “cougar-head" aw ard at a school aw ards cerem ony held at the Red Lion in Pendleton. Koffler graduat ed from EHS in 1969. The distinguished alumni program has been in recipient. He was honored for his work with the bank and for becoming president o f a local bank that has grown from $18 million to $180 million in the last 20 years through branch growth and expansion. Kof fler has worked with the bank for 26 years and has been president for 14 years. He also served as board chairman for the State Bank Association from ‘95-’05. He is also active in many community organiza tion including Lions, Elks and regional boards. Exciting N e w C h a n g e s Com ing To H e p p n e r D a y C a re / P re sch o o l! Sign up n o w fo r Fall p re sch o o l. W e h a v e o p e n in g s fo r 3 a n d 4 y e a r old p re sc h o o le rs. A lso , call n o w to r e s e rv e y o u r d a y c a re slots fo r this fall! ___________ ~ Letters to the Editor ~ ____________ The Heppner Ga/etle Times will print all letters to the Editor with the following criteria met: letters submitted to the newspaper will need to have the name of the sender along with a legible signature. We are also requesting that you provide your address and a phone number where you can be reached. The address and phone number will only be used for verification and will not be printed in the newspaper. Letters may not be libelous. The GT reserves the right to edit. The GT is not responsible lor accuracy of statements made in letters. Any letters expressing thanks will be placed in the classifieds under “Card of Thanks" at a cost of $10. Lions Club joins Adopt-A- Highway program To the Editor: I am p leased to welcome the Heppner Lions Club as a new cooperator in the Oregon Department of Transportation's Adopt-A- H ighw ay program . The Lions are adopting Highway 206/207 south from town to and past the Willow Creek Road. One o f H eppner’s main assets is our neat and orderly appearance. Many visitors comment on how litter free our highw ays, streets and sidewalks are. O f c o u rse, this doesn’t happen by itself. M ain tain in g a good com m unity ap p earan ce takes effort by all of us. To help the litter pick up effort, small Stop Oregon L itter and V andalism (SOLV) litter bags have been placed on the counter at City Hall for general use. So, H eppner citizens, on your walks for exercise and health, take along a SOLV litter bag and pick up and dispose of any trash you see. (s) John Edmundson Heppner Citizen voices concerns regarding Lexington City Council decisions To the Editor: To the citizens of Lexington, Wake up and smell your city council. Only one member was elected by you, the rest are her personally selected cronies. At a recent executive meeting, advertised for 6 p.m ., to select a new reco rd er, w ith a public meeting to follow at 7 p.m. to d iscu ss and sign the Windwave contract, several citizens attempted to enter the city hall and were in fo rm ed that the prior meeting was still in session. The maintenance man and the fire chief were both at the executive m eeting. Why were they allowed at that meeting and not the rest of the community? When others were finally allowed in. they were informed that the council was already signing the Windwave contract. There was no discussion with the public and only after many questions did the council members admit that they had done no research and say that there was no value to the system. However, on the Morrow County Tax roll, it is listed at $18,730. If it is worth that much, the council or W indw ave should reimburse everyone with a stockholder certificate and not ju st give the system away. If they want to give something away, why not the fire department? There is only one certified firpman and four trucks. Many days there is no one in town to shut off the alarm. Thanks to Heppner and lone, we at least have some coverage. We should be paying into a rural fire department instead of wasting our tax dollars in the town of Lexington. (s) Bob Taylor Lexington Surviving slander To the Editor: Please read this. I shared this writing from my Bible called “Diamonds for Daily Living” with two of my Sister’s in Christ Jesus. They where deeply moved by it.! read this often with Psalm 7. From my H eart to your Heart: P o rtrait o f an accuser (Psalm 7)* Have you ever had anyone tell a lie about you? Some people try to build their success on the backs of others by defam ing their character. David wrote this psalm as he endured the vicious slander of Cush the Benjamite. W hen Liars A ttack Some say Cush was a member of King Saul’s court. Others say he was a kinsman of David. Whoever he w as, he en jo y ed the company of the inner circle of the king. Cush told Saul that David was not loyal. What a lie. David had spared King Saul’s life twice in the cave of Adullam and when Saul was sleeping in his cam p. A disloyal David would have killed Saul and claimed the throne. D escrib in g his situation with Cush, David likened his enemies to a lion, a hungry lion that pounces upon a baby lamb and rips it to shreds in its powerful jaws. Why? Because “there is none to deliver” (v. 2). David, though, was not afraid. He told God to turn him over to his enemies if he had done anything wrong against Cush (v. 3-5). To m ake certain he had G o d ’s a tte n tio n , D avid called, “Arise, O LORD, in Your anger.” He wanted the Lord to sit in the ju d g e’s chair and rule against his. a cc u ser w ith M\ the consequences of the mighty wrath of God. God W atches All David recognized the fact that sometimes the w icked seem to prosper w ithout incurring G o d ’s punishment. As they get by Public works director explains funding of road projects I w ould like to respond to the letter in the June 21 e d itio n o f the Gazette Times written by Barbara Cutsforth-Carter. I very much appreciate and share your concern about Sand Hollow road. I would however like to clarify what I believe is a simple lack of information about our road department and how decisions are made as to p rio ritiz a tio n of projects. Rest assured we will be patching that road this sum m er (ag ain ). The problem is the dollars to rebuild and pave that portion of the road will take over $1,0()0,()()() to do. what needs to be done to save that road. It is beyond any sort of preservation repair and has been for the past several years. We currently have three roads in the county that are in a deplorable state of re p a ir- K unze road in Boardman, Depot Lane in Irrigon and Sand Hollow road in Heppner. We finally got funding for Kunze road through ODOT, using it as a detour for the freeway for justification. The amount of this project is $2.7 million dollars to rebuild five miles. It is a high traffic road and must meet standards that will accept large traffic volumes. D epot Lane and Sand Hollow roads are both on the list of projects we would like to get funded th ro u g h ODOT. We are doing our best to get these done. But there are several criteria that a road must meet to qualify for funding. One of these is traffic numbers. Kunze road has counts of 940 per day, Depot Lane has 300 and Sand Hollow has 100. In the eyes of ODOT, anything below 100 is hard to justify funding for special projects. We receive vehicle registration dollars from the state v eh icle (gas tax) $656,000 per year. We have been receiving $240,000 per year from lost forest fee dollars. These forest fee dollars were to supplement the lost revenue from timber sales due to the inability of the National Forest to sell log and timber. The bill that authorized this at the federal level ends in 2006. It will probably not be renewed but rath er w ill be in a new version. The new version will reduce these dollars by 25 percent per year over four y ears. We receiv e the remainder from property tax dollars. When you consider that a ton of asphalt cost $44 and that will only do 81 square feet o f paving, it would take 1564 tons to pave one mile of road, which equals $68,000. Now consider that Sand Hollow has a full six m iles that need to be repaved. The cost would be $408,000 just to buy the asp h alt and an o th er $328,000 to haul and lay down the asphalt, which brings us to $736,440. We also have to consider what it costs to get the road ready to pave. The old road cannot be just paved over. The road needs to be reconstructed for those six m iles. T his is another $750,000 for a total cost o f $1,486,000. Now consider the other 340 miles of paved road in the county. It all needs m aintenance, som e even a co m p lete rebuild and some turned back to gravel. We have already done away with over 35 m iles of substandard paved road countywide. At the MCGG GREEIM FEED STORE in Heppner: B a c k to re g u la r h o u rs: M o n -F ri 8 a .m .-5 :3 0 p.m . / Sat. 8 a .m .-12 noo n ^~~Jluuih 1J u t Jot' ttu J tiru f otu' J j t ' t o u l O jrte n u u f a ( j t x a l - S t u ic X i. Contact Brandi S w e e n e y, 676 - 5530 . Notice: H eppner D a y C a re w ill be closed until m id-August due to lack of sum m er attendance. with their lies, their stealing, their fraud, their deceit, God doesn’t seem to be watching. But He is. God is angry with the wicked every day, and He prepares His arrow s into “fiery shafts” (v. 11, 13). Remember, His patience is not weakness. Although His justice grinds slowly, it also grinds to powder. Evil doings will fall dow n on the heads o f evildoers. Remember that Haman, who was building a scaffold to hang the Jews, looked like a winner. No one thought God was watching. And then God thundered into the throne room full of fury, and Haman and his ten sons were hanged (Esther 7:10; 9:13). R em em ber, Jezeb el m urdered the prophets of God in Israel and looked like a winner until G od decided to feed her corpse to the dogs (2 Kings 9:36,37). God does punish the wicked. Be Ready, Be Sure Perhaps you think you have no enemies, no accu sers. If God was slandered in Eden, you’ll be slan d ered . If Jesus was slandered in Jerusalem, you w ill be slandered. W hat should be your reaction? “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (M att. 5:12). Jesu s said , “The world hated Me. The world w ill hate y o u ” W hy? Because you are light in darkness. D espite C u sh ’s accusations, David says that he will not fear, for “in You I put my trust." Do you fear your accuser, or do you trust the Lord? Has fear broken your relationship with Him? Live your life dedicated to serving God and trusting Him. Be like David, who can say, “My defense is of God, who saves the upright in heart” (v. 10). (s) Teresa M. Gaines Heppner Purina Horse Feeds on Sale: buy 2, get 2 free with coupon (available at the «tore) PMI exclusive pet food: in store coupon - buy 1, get 1 free Morrow County G rain C L e x in g to n 9 8 9 -8 2 2 1 • 1 -8 0 0 -4 5 2 -7 3 9 6 For farm equipment, visit our web site at www mcyj.iwt Our entire budget is $2.8 million, half of that goes to personnel that leaves only $1.4 million for our entire road system . O ur road system is close to 940 miles. All of the maintenance for these 940 miles in the total county comes from these dollars. This includes gravel roads to grade and maintain with the rock we make to do this. It includes plowing and sanding in the winter. It includes all of the washout repairs after the rain storms or the roads that our farmers use to haul their crops to market that blow out and have to be repaired to keep them going. The signs that everyone depends on that are knocked down by weather or are vandalized. We must stretch those dollars over that entire road system. We are trying to keep it all in decent condition. What is needed sorely is some sort of system that gives us the funding to do the projects like Sand Hollow without breaking the bank in the process. This is not our fault or the taxpayer’s fault it is just a poor system with not enough money available. Our county only has 14,000 registered vehicles in it and that is not much when you look at Umatilla County with 88,000 and only 300 more miles of road than we have. Yet they receiv e o v er $3,000,000 per year in gas tax dollars. The Bombing Range road is funded from Finley ... continued on pane 7 I
