Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 25, 2010)
i I.M After 55 years, Heppner TV to flip off the switch Discounts offered to sign up with satellite 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 111 Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Library University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 Heppner TV side o f our business, the press release said. Heppner TV is owned by WindWave Communica tions which will continue in business. “After 55 years of service to the community our equipment is old and failing, replacement parts have become unavailable. We felt it was in the best # 1 gJL interest of the community I I I t h a t we provide a controlled I shut down instead of wait- ing until we have a com plete failure of the system. This will give the residents o f H eppner, Lexington and lone time to make the change to satellite TV,” the release said. Direct TV techni cian Justin Lim was work ing in the H eppner TV office Tuesday morning and he said people need to call Heppner TV office to get a special discount for new satellite hookups. Lim said signing up locally will be good for the commu nity and he also mentioned Direct TV is looking for a local person to train as a satellite installer. “To help the com munity through this transi Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon tion Heppner TV has ne By David Sykes After 55 years of continuous cable television service, Heppner TV will be closing down Septem ber 30, General Manager Pat Lauritsen announced Tuesday morning. “With deep regret we are announcing that we are closing down the HEPPNER imes VOL. 129 NO. 34 8 Pages Wednesday, August 2 5,2010 DirectTV technician Justin Lim shows office worker Tammi Lien how to hook up a monitor at the Heppner TV office Tuesday. After 55 years Heppner TV is shutting its doors. Special discounts will be given to those who sign up for satellite TV by September 10. -Photo by D avid Sykes gotiated with DirecTV and Dish TV for a discounted monthly rate and a dis counted installation fee for our customers that sign up by September 10th 2010. If you sign up with DirecTV or Dish TV in any other way than through our office the discounted rates will not be available,” the news release said. “Our staff, Sandy Matthews and Tammi Lien will be happy to help you with the transition to your new TV services. We have information about the of fered packages and the signup sheets at our office for your convenience. Di recTV will be looking to train a local technician. We would like that person to live in Heppner area so you have better support for the transition. Please contact them if you would like to train for this position,” the news release said. The first television membership was sold to W.C. and Virginia Rose- wall on February 1, 1955, Matthews said, for $150. The second was to Amanda Duvall and the third to L.E. Dick. Claude Graham gave a lifelong easement for $1 on which to place a TV tow er when the company first formed, said Matthews. Dudley’s message: ‘It’s not working’ By David Sykes Oregon guber natorial candidate Chris Dudley made a campaign stop in Heppner last week. His message to the voters was, “What we are doing now is not working, and Oregon can do better,” the 6’10” former Trail Blazer Basketball player told a group of about 120 gathered at the Heppner City Park last Wednesday. Dudley, a Re publican running against Democrat John Kitzhaber, said his vision of Oregon is one of economic growth with strong businesses pro viding family wage jobs to its citizens. He wants state government to live within its means, and for us to have a world class educa tion system. Dudley pointed out that the last 20 years of Democrat rule has seen a slide in the state’s fortunes to the point where Oregon is above the United State’s average unemployment rate at 10.4 percent unemploy ment, and only 66 percent o f O regon students are now graduating from high school on time. There were 700,000 people receiving food stamps in Oregon last month, he said. “This is unacceptable.” “Oregon is ranked number 47 in economic activity among all states, and it is my opponent that set the table for our current problems,” Dudley told the crowd. Kitzhaber was gov ernor of Oregon from 1995 to 2003 and Democrats have controlled the gover norship since 1987 when Neil Goldschmidt won the seat. “A leopard cannot change its spots,” he said of his opponent Kitzhaber. “And to make mat ters worse the state is facing a budget shortfall of $2.7 billion over the next eight years,” Dudley said. He said, if elected, his number one priority is to create jobs. “Jobs in the private sector are what we need. We need to reverse this anti-business attitude we have in Salem .” He said one thing he would do is reduce the capital gains tax.” D udley’s second priority would be to “reset” the size o f state govern ment. “ It has gotten too big,” he said. He said we cannot afford automatic increases in the state budget every year. Dudley said he is not against state workers like teachers. They did not design the Public Employ ees Retirement (PERs) sys tem, he says, pointing out that his mother and sister are both teachers. “But we have to look at what we can afford for each employee. A 13 to 15 percent increase in labor is unsustainable,” he says. “Fifty five percent of people in the private sector have lost jobs or taken cuts in pay. If they (state agen cies) ask for an 11 percent increase and they only get a four percent, that is not a seven percent cut,” Dudley said of the way government budgets are portrayed to the people. “We simply can not afford the way we are going.” Dudley’s third priority would be educa tion. He said we need to have a “world class” system that trains our young people for the jobs of the ftiture. His fourth goal would be to restore trust in government. “Your voices Boardman says goodbye to councilor and seeks to fill vacancy Tuesday night, Au gust 17, the Boardman City Council said goodbye to Councilor Jerry Johnson. Johnson submitted a letter of resignation ex plaining he plans to retire to the central Oregon area. In his letter he said it has been a privilege to serve the citizens of Boardman and has been a pleasure to work with all the council. He encouraged the council to work as a team and to never give up the dream of seeing Boardman grow and prosper. Boardman Mayor Chet Phillips presented Mr. Johnson with a Certificate of Appreciation for serving on the council since January of 2009. C ouncilor Jo h n so n ’s resignation leaves the City Council with a vacancy to fill. This term ends December 31, 2012. Those wishing to serve on the Boardman City Council must currently reside within the City limits of Boardman , must have resided within the city limits for at least a year, and be a registered voter. Letters o f interest should be addressed to City Manager Karen Pettigrew at Boardman City Hall, P. O. Box 229, Boardman, Oregon 97818. In other city busi ness, the council approved spending up to $4,000 to widen a driveway to the Shell station along the new ly completed South Main Street project to allow bet ter access for semi-trucks. The council also declared two police cars, a pick up, and a lawn mower as excess property for sale. The n ex t m e e t ing of the Boardman City Council will be Tuesday, September 7, at 7 p.m. Heppner Gazette-Times closed for Labor Day The Heppner Gazette-Times will be closed on Monday, September 6, in ob servance of the Labor Day holiday. The deadline for news and advertisements for the September 8 edition of the newspaper is Friday, September 3, at 5 p.m. ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. i Governor candidate Chris Dudley poses for a picture with (l-r) Janet Dezellem, Rhonda Winters and Shelli Britt during a campaign stop in Heppner last Wednesday. -Photo by David Sykes have not been heard in Sa lem,” he said of Eastern Or egon and other parts of the state. He said that visiting all the counties in Oregon once per year shouldn’t be unreasonable. The current governor, Democrat Ted Kulongoski, has failed at listening to all the people of Oregon, Dudley said. Another thing he would like to see done is to remove the conflict of inter est between those who im plement and manage PERS, which, if it continues as is, will break the state of Or egon. “The governor, legis lature andjudges should not be under the same system they administer,” he said. He said there is nothing that can be done about cur rent government employee retirement plans, but the system has to change or the state will go broke. He ad vocated establishing a rainy day fund to put money aside while things are going well. to be used later when the economy goes in a slump. Dudley says he is not a politician, not having run for public office previ ously, “But I do care deeply about this state and we can turn this thing around. We must change our direction,” he says. Local business man Joe Miller told Dudley that it has become harder and harder to conduct busi nesses in Oregon. He said his fees have doubled and measures 66 and 67 in creased taxes on business. “I don’t think we should litigate measures 66 and 67,” Dudley said o f the two measures that were recently passed by voters which raise taxes on busi nesses and people making over $250,000 per year. He said Oregon needs to improve its business cli mate by removing red tape and regulations that hinder growth. He also said that in his travels around the state talking to small businesses, the comment he hears most is not what can government do for us. “Most of the time it isn’t what government can do for small business, but what can we do to get them out of our business,” Dudley said. On a question about the many windmills coming into the state and to Morrow County, Dudley said he believes Oregon needs to develop different energy sources, but he criti cized Business Energy Tax Credit which helps establish the windmill farms as being too generous. “We need to make sure the state is taking in more money than it is giving out,” he said. “We can turn this around,” he said in closing about the state of Oregon. “But we need each of you to talk to people and get the word out. Your vote can count,” he said.
