Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 2012)
City manager announces retirement • I li • h 11 h h • I ' • a 11111111,, I B essie W etzell N ew sp ap er Library University o f O regon Eugene, O R 9 7 4 0 3 Bv David Sykes HeppnerCity Man ager David DeMayo turned in his resignation to the city council Monday night, and the council voted unani mously to accept it. 5<K HEPPNER azette imes VOL. 131 N 0. 7 10 Pages Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Boardman PD welcomes new officer As o f Jan. 9, the Boardman Police Depart ment has a full roster. Of ficer Jeremy Fye joined the Boardman Police De partment, filling the last open position and bringing the departm ent to eight full-time officers. Mayor Phillips conducted a public swearing-in ceremony at the Feb. 7 City Council meeting. Fye worked as a police officer in the City o f Nyssa before coming to Boardman. He had also worked as an officer for the cities of Umatilla and Stanfield prior to moving to Nyssa. Fye is married and has one child. He said they are glad to be back living in the area. In o th e r city business, the J e r e m y council appointed the city’s finance direc tor, Thomas Kligel. as the city’s budget officer for the 2012-13 budget meetings in April. The council also approved the first reading of an ordinance adopting an Interchange Area Management Plan for the l-84/Port o f Morrow inter change. The second reading and adop tion are scheduled for the Feb. 21 Fye meeting. The next meeting of the Boardman City Council will be Tues day, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. at Boardman City Hall. NOAA issues monthly climate summary for Heppner According to pre liminary data received by NOAA’s National Weather Service in Pendleton, tem peratures’ in Heppner aver aged warmer than normal during the month of Janu ary. The average tem perature was 37.5 degrees, w hich was 2.3 degrees above normal. High tem peratures averaged 47.3 degrees, w hich was 3.7 degrees above normal. The highest was 67 degrees on the 5,h. Low tempera tures averaged 27.7 de grees, which was 0.9 de grees above normal. The lowest was 13 degrees, on the 12th. There were 24 days with the low temperature below 32 degrees. Precipitation to taled 1.46 inches during January, which was 0.01 inches below normal. Mea- surable precipitation of at least .01 inch was received on nine days with the heavi est, 0.50 inches, reported on the 18th. Since October, the w ater year precipitation in Heppner has been 3.26 inches, which is 2.27 inches below normal. Snowfall totaled 3.5 inches with at least one inch of snow reported on one day. The h eav i est snowfall was 3 inches, reported on the 18lh. The greatest depth of snow on the ground was 3 inches on the 18,h. The outlook for February from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Cen ter calls for near-normal temperatures and near-nor mal precipitation. Normal highs for Heppner during February are 47.4 degrees and normal lows are 27.3 degrees. The 30-year nor mal precipitation is 1.12 inches. T he N a tio n a l Weather Service is an office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra tion, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department. Rea files for commissioner Leann Rea, cur rent Morrow County Com missioner, Position 1, an nounced this week that she has filed to run as a Demo cratic Party candidate for the same office during the upcoming election. The dead line to file for county positions is March 6 at 5 p.m.; all appropriate pa perwork must be filed with the Mor- L e a n n R ea row County clerk’s office at that time. P rim a ry elections will be held May 16 with general elections November 5. Special City Council meeting to. discuss hiring new city manager A special city coun cil meeting will be held on Monday, Feb. 27, 2012 at 6. p.m. for the purpose of discussing and choosing the method for hiring a replacement for the current city manager, who notified the council of his intent to retire. The council has agreed to honor his request to retire on August 31,2012. This special meeting is not an executive session; the public is invited to attend. A L L N E W S A N D A D V E R T IS E M E N T DEADLINE: M O N D A Y S A T 5 :0 0 P.M . » DeMayo will work until August 31, which will allow time for the council to find a replacement, and for DeMayo to line up his retirement plans and finish some projects he has been working on. DeMayo, who was hired by the city in 2005, said in his letter that health issues played a part in his decision. “It has been about nine years since 1 was di agnosed with Parkinson's disease,” DeMayo said in his letter. “The disease has progressed slowly, but the time has come when it has begun to affect my job per formance and 1 need to step down from my position.” A special city coun cil meeting will be held on Monday, February 27 at 6 p.m. for the purpose of discussing and choosing the method for hiring De- Mayo’s replacement, the city announced in a news release after the meeting. The meeting will not be an executive session and the public is invited to attend. L ater, D eM ayo said that after retirement he planned on going back to school and working on getting another degree. In other action, the council voted, after much discussion, to reject all bids it had received on several surplus items it had for sale. The council did not accept a bid of $25 for a boat, motor and trailer, or a bid from the same individual for $400 for a 1962 fire truck. City officials said the equipment was worth more than what was bid and recom m ended that a wall to the ceiling with the council put it up for a a door to divide the one straight sale. The large room into two council agreed, and rooms. decided to ask $800 T h e S t. for the fire truck P a tric k ’s S enior and $150 for the C en ter has said 10-foot Livingston for some tim e it boat with motor and is facing a large launch. expense to fix its In o th e r C it y M a n a g e r heating system, and business, the coun D a v id the council agreed D eM ayo cil decided to di to give the money vide up the remain to help with that ing $ 13,200 in HUD house project. funds in the following man Heppner Chamber ner: $ 1,076 to the Heppner Executive Director Sheryll Chamber of Commerce to Bates said the lights pur purchase new decoration chased will be LED and lights for trees on Main last longer than the current St.; $849 to the chamber lights used to decorate the to purchase a web camera trees downtown. She also that will be hooked up and said that her husband Dale broadcast a continuous im Bates has volunteered to age of I leppner's downtown install the web cam and onto the Internet; $7,000 to hook it up at no charge. Web remodel city hall; $3,273 cams are popular and used for the Saint Patrick’s Se to attract tourists to towns nior Center to help put in a by showing them what the new heating system; $ 1,000 town looks like. People to Heppner Colt Football will be able to log unto program for equipment and Heppner's web site and see other expenses. live video o f H eppner’s City recorder Judy downtown area. Healy asked the council for The money from the $7,000 in order to build all o f the projects came a partition in the large front from the sale o f a Housing room of city hall and sepa and Urban Development rate the meeting area from House in Heppner. Under the work area. Healy said the program when HUD the city wants groups to use repossesses a house it puts the city hall for meetings, it on the market for a set but it is a distraction and amount of time. If the house difficult for city employees does not sell during that when the area in which the time, then the city can buy meetings are held is one the home for $1 and resell large room with the work it, providing that the funds area. are used for the betterment Heppner contractor o f the com m unity. The Jay Keithly was in atten city sold a house on Court dance at the meeting and St. and netted $18,200. It said it would cost between -See CITY MANAGERJPAGE SEVEN $6,000 and $7,000 to build MCSD to send $450,000 serial levy to the voters in May By April Sykes ITie Morrow Coun ty School Board, at their Monday night meeting in Boardman, approved send ing a $450,000 five-year local option levy to the vot ers in May. Morrow County School District Superinten dent Dirk Dirksen told the board that the district needs the monies to offset funding reductions and expected budget cuts. Dirksen said that the levy was “just a renewal of the present levy we have.” Voters approved a three-year school levy in 2009 when the district was facing a $500,000 budget loss. The 2009 levy asked for $ 1 per $ 1,000 assessed valuation and Dirksen said that this proposed levy will be the same. In 2009, a hom eow ner with a $50,000 home paid around $40 per year to support the levy; a homeowner with a $ 100,000 home paid around $70 per year; and one w ith a $ 150,000 home paid around $ 110 per year. In seeking the new levy, Dirksen cited the fol lowing: -a lower state edu cation budget, based at around $5.725 billion, down from $6.2 billion in 2007; -a lack of stimulus money this time around, as a $1.8 million one-time payment was spent in order to stay at the $6.2 billion spending level; -an in c re a se in PERS, the public em ployees’ retirement fund, which is expected to see a $500,000 increase for the 2011-13 biennium and a $550,000 increase for the 2013-15 biennium; -expiration of the district’s 2009 local option levy; -an increase in pay roll costs; He said that if the levy does not pass and there are no reductions in payroll, the district will have to reduce around $2 million from the budget. He said the options are to tighten up spending on the “20 percent.” which is basically the percentage of the budget the district spends on opera tions— facilities, books, and technology—and also to tighten up the “80 percent,” the percentage the district spends on salaries and ben efits, through staff reduc tions in administration, the district office, teachers and classified positions. As to the 20 per cent, Dirksen said that in order to save money, the district: -h as p u rc h a se d economy cars, which will save the district money on gas. He said the district should see a return on the vehicle purchase in gas savings in two to three and a half years. -has purchased new copiers, trading out the old copiers, which saves $26,400 a year. -would use grants and donations to purchase refu rb ish ed com puters with a three-year warranty, rather than purchasing new computers. -plans to buy half o f the normal textbooks and share; for example, stu dents in one grade or school would use the books one year and students in another grade or school would use the books the next year. Concerning the 80 percent spent on salaries and benefits, Dirksen pro poses the following first scenario, which would re sult in the reduction o f around $1.35 million from the budget for the 2012-13 school year and around $665,000 for the 2013-14 school year for $2.01 mil lion in total reductions: -for the 2012-13 year— reduce one direc tor position, a half-time confidential position, 15.5 teacher positions and 10 classified positions=$1.35 million. -for the 2013-14 school year— reduce one administrator position, six teachers, six classified posi- tions=$665,000. In the second sce nario, the district would schedule “furlough” days whereby employees do not come to work and are not paid. Dirksen said that one furlough day for all licensed and confidential staff comes to around $60,000. 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