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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 30, 2009)
Concern for district spurred yes vote on tax increase, Smith tells Chamber lllllo 'll....... .......... . . . r..r. Illlllll" ; wetze» Newspaper l.ibrar> Bessie University of Oregon l ueene.OR 97403 By David Sykes and Andrew Sykes R e p r e s e n ta tiv e Greg Smith, one o f only two Republicans to cast a yes vote during the last legislature in favor of a new state tax increase, defended his vote last week by saying HEPPNER imes VOL. 128 NO. 39 10 Pages Wednesday, September 30, 2009 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Caldwell hired as new HHS teacher New to the staff also received his master at H eppner High of arts in teaching degree from Con School this year is cordia University in Matthew Caldwell. June ^009. B orn and raised in Sacramen During the to, CA, Caldwell time the he was in and his wife Kris Portland, Caldwell ten currently live in was a youth min Hermiston. Kristen Matthew ister at E astside is also em ployed Caldwell Church of Christ. with the Morrow And though he says County School District as he had not always wanted an 8lh grade language arts to be a teacher, it was dur teacher at Riverside High ing this time that he began School. substitute teaching and, he Caldwell attended says, “1 decided 1 loved college in Portland where teaching.” He was a sub he received his undergradu stitute teacher for 1 Vi years ate degree from Oklahoma and taught one math class Christian University. He at Columbia Christian High it was for the good of his ey for Eastern Oregon Uni voting district. versity Library Smith, who resides - $2.3 million in state bonds in Heppner, told the for Port of Morrow Heppner Chamber Education Center. o f Commerce last - Limiting cuts in Thursday that his the Oregon Univer decision to vote in sity System to ben favor of the tax in efit agricultural ex crease secured over tension centers and $18 million in state Hep. Greg the ranger resources spending to come Smith program. He also out of the Democrat asked for support controlled house into his for extending a tax break on district. In an often emo logging equipment. tional talk to the Chamber, Injustifyinghisyes Smith said he voted in favor vote Smith told the Cham of the tax increase because ber his research had show n he was concerned about the that the tax increase w ould possible closing of East only affect between 35 and ern Oregon University, the 52 people in his district. consolidation of Extension S m ith and the offices into one Northeast Democrats now have a new ern Oregon block, possible obstacle in getting the tax cutbacks in Health and Hu increase enacted however, man Services, public safety as last week a group of citi and education. zens filed a petition w ith the S m ith and Bob Secretary of State to have Jensen of Pendleton were the tax placed on the bal the only two Republicans lot for voter approval. The to vote for a tax increase group, called The Taxpayer on individuals making more Defense Project, turned in than $125,000 annually, or more than twice the needed families making more than signatures to have the tax $250,000. Their votes were measure placed on the bal crucial to the Democrats to lot January 26, 2010 for get the measure passed in voter approval. the last state legislature. M eanw hile fa ll In exchange for his out from Smith’s vote has vote the Democratic con reached into the May 10, trolled Oregon legislature 2010, prim ary election, promised him the follow ing as Colleen M acLeod of would be included in the LaG rande declared last final state budget: week she is running against - $8 million in lottery mon Smith for the House District ey for Blue Mountain Com 57 seat. MacLeod is a Re munity College. publican who served three - $8 million in lottery mon term s as Union County commissioner and was a field representative for Or egon Republican Rep. Greg Walden. MacLeod has also been active in the Associa tion of Oregon Counties and the National Association of Counties. She and her husband, Alan, run a small coffee roasting business in Summerville, about 16 miles north of LaGrande. Smith has served five times in the Oregon House, and told the Chamber last week he has received quite a bit of encouragement from his constituents. And at the conclusion of last week’s talk he received an enthu siastic round of applause from the Chamber of Com merce. Heppner resident and Chamber member Cliff Green told Smith he was glad he did what he did for the district. Back in June not long after the crucial vote in the legislature Smith had told the same Heppner Chamber o f Commerce: “My job is to roll up my sleeves and do the job for the people back home, and I am not ashamed of that. Our communities are dying and 1 am doing what I can to support our communities, and every item (that was promised) has merit. 1 have to come back and explain what each of these (proj ects) will mean. People are going to tell me what they think at the ballot box,” he told the Chamber in June. School. He completed his student teaching at Corbett High School. This is the 25-year- old’s first full-time teaching job. He is teaching junior high math, high school business, and yearbook. Caldwell’s first day was September 21. “Com ing in one month into the school year can be tough,” The Morrow County Health Department flu clinic has been cancelled for said Caldwell. “But 1 feel Thursday, October 1, due to a lack of the regular flu vaccine. very supported. 1 don’t feel like I have been left in the dust. This has been a posi tive and exciting experi Lynn Prag, co-publisher of the North Morrow Times in Boardman, has an ence. My expectations were nounced that the next issue will be the final issue for the newspaper. exceeded in coming here, Prag has been publishing for 16 years. both by the administration and the students.” Thursday flu clinic cancelled North Morrow Times to publish final issue Boardman clinic seeks $100,000 from Morrow County Health District to fund new clinic building By April Sykes Mindy Binder, ex ecutive director o f Co lumbia River Community Health Services, and Lynn Prag, CRCHS Board chair, appeared before the Mor row County Health Dis trict Board meeting Mon day night in Boardman to request $100,000 for the CRHCS building fund. CRCHS operates a federally funded migrant health care clinic in Board- man which had received from $70,000 to $140,000 yearly in MCHD funds, with the exception of last year because the health district’s previous levy had expired and the new levy had not been received. The previous stick ing point for the health district board had been that CRCHS had not been forth coming in providing their annual audited financial report. The health district had requested the report from CRCHS as a prereq uisite for providing oper ating funds for the clinic. Prior to the establishment of CRCHS, the board also unsuccessfully requested financial reports from Dr. t Robert Boss, who sold his medical clinic building to CRCHS and continued on as a physician with them. Ed Glenn o f Boardman, representing CRCHS, pre viously denied a request by the Heppner Gazette-Times for financial reports, say ing that the operation was not required to divulge that information. Binder announced that Dr. Boss was stepping down as a physician with CRCHS as of December 31, but will be continuing on as medical director. His departure as a practicing physician with CRCHS will leave the clinic with three providers-one physi cian and two physician’s assistants. Binder said that CRCHS had 11,500 patient visits in the previous year. M C H D B o a rd m e m b ers a g re e d th a t CRCHS needed new fa cilities and praised them for the services they provide to Boardman area residents, but Monday night did not request audited financial reports from CRCHS as they had previously. The board appeared favorable to providing the $ 100,000, but they opted to wait and see if CRCHS received federal funding for the project. If the federal funding was not approved, the consensus of the board was to reevalu ate the funding request at that time. CRCHS requested a $1 m illion loan from USDA and $2,370,178 from the Health Resources and Services Administra tion for its “capital cam paign”, $200,000 from the Ford Family Foundation, $200,000 from the MJ Mur dock Charitable Trust, and $341,840 for capital equip ment from HRSA in addi tion to the $100,000 from MCHD and other monies from a variety of other re sources. CRCHS received $475,405 from HRSA for operating funds on May 15 of this year and requested a $497,303 grant from HRSA on September 3. Binder said that they plan to go forward in requesting a USDA loan for clinic construction and, if funding is received, break ground on the new clinic in late spring or early sum mer next year. “Make no mistake,” said Prag. “We are going to guild a new clinic.” B oardm an EMT Bruce Kirkendall asked the MCHD board to not com mit the funds to CRHCS at least until CRCHS had received confirmation that federal funds had been ap proved. Kirkendall said that Boardman EMTs’ equip ment was not up to par and said he believed that the monies would be better spent in providing better equipment and more fund ing for EMTs, rather than giving the monies to the Boardman clinic. “I see other areas where we are short and lacking . . . staff, volunteers and equipment. Some equipm ent is just ju n k ,” he said. He also raised questions about the need for a new building. “Is this the best use for these monies?” he asked. The district cur rently provides funding for two paid EMTs in Boardman and one in Irrigon. Board- man has two ambulances provided by MCHD. Also at the meet ing, MCHD CEO Michael Blauer introduced Barbara very fortunate to be here.” She said she planned to visit the clinic this Wednesday and start work on Thurs day. Also at the meet ing, Prag, who is also co- publ isher of the North Mor row Times, the Boardman newspaper, announced that the paper’s next issue would be its last, due to increased costs. Prag said she had been publishing the paper for the last 16 years. In other business, the board: -h eard a re p o rt from Molly Rhea, Director of Nursing, Home Health and Hospice, who said that the district has had difficul ty in recruiting nurses and especially certified nurse's assistants. She also said that the entire staff is on a provider list for the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccination and the staff has been vacci nated for the regular flu. She said that in the event of an epidemic, MCHD has some Red Cross cots, but, she added, “We’re already short staffed.” In addition to Rhea, the district current ly has only five registered nurses and Home Health has specified that currently only people hospitalized with the flu will be tested for the H 1N 1 virus, but, she added, hospitalization of flue patients would increase exposure to other patients and hospital staff. She said that one solution would be to teach people to take care of themselves at home. -learned from Chief Financial Officer Nicole Mahoney that the district owes $191,000 back to Medicare as a reimburse ment for overpayment to the district. She said that Medicare calculates the dis trict’s reimbursement at one rate and then reassesses the rate later, sometimes result ing in a hefty repayment for the district. “It was to my huge surprise that we w ould owe so much back," said Mahoney, who attributed it to an increase in “swing volume.” She said that situ ations like this were testi mony as to why the recent tax levy was needed. - l ea r ned from Blauer that no bids for the Pioneer Memorial Clinic remodel were received. He said that they plan to re-bid the project and also have a
