Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (April 30, 2014)
Bessie Wetzel I Newspaper Library I niversitx of Oregon Eugene. OR 9740.1 Sperry Street Bridge is no more HEPPNER azette imes VOL. 133 N O . 17 10 Pages Wednesday, April 30, 2014 Morrow County, Heppner, Voters get face time at candidates’’ forum The Sperry Street Bridge in Heppner was removed for good on Tuesday, an action that is seeing an alternate traffic route developed by the Department of Transportation. The bridge enforcement to the county removal has been in the planning stages for some time because the bridge was getting old sheriffs and returning local and needed repair. It was determined to be less expensive to remove the bridge and develop control in land-use planning a new route than repair the old bridge. “Everything went tine,” said Heppner City Manager Kim Cutsforth. She said on Wednesday ODOT w ill begin the rest of the job by removing the from the state. cement abutments and doing bank restoration. Cutsforth said an ODOT biologist will place G ordon C hallstrom . fish barriers in the creek 40 feet above and below the former bridge area, and then tase or stun a M edford R epublican any fish in that area of the creek, so they can be removed without harm and relocated above gubernatorial candidate, or below the barriers. -Contributed Photo By David Sykes the local level, and reform Six candidates showed o f Oregon’s tax code. He up Sunday for Heppner's advocates cutting back the c a n d id a te s fo ru m to income and corporate taxes meet the public, discuss and having local sales tax the issues and answ er pay for schools and other questions. Ballots will be services. in voters’ mailboxes this “ P u b lic e d u c a tio n sa id g o v e rn m e n t w as week and are due back by needs com petition. We too big and Oregonians control of education. And he said it was time to May 20. The forum need parents to be in needed more local was sponsored by get more economic control of education control over their activity in Oregon, the Willow Creek d o llars for th eir b u s in e s s e s and Tea Party Patriots where he pointed children," he said. lives. and was moderated out that Democrats He say s to o “ R a d i c a l by Heppner attorney have controlled the m uch m oney is environm entalists governor’s office Bill Kuhn. About 30 going to the Salem are keeping us from for the past 28 years. people attended the Bruce Cuff through the logging, fishing and Karl King forum, which was “ Elect a income tax, law y er and you held at city hall. only to be sent back mining," he R e p u b l i c a n lo c ally w ith too said. “Government will get more laws, elect gubernatorial candidate many state controls and big business a businessm an and you Bruce C u ff o f Mehama attached. He feels are well represented will get more jobs," said was first to speak, and he h o m e s c h o o lin g in Salem, but not Challstrom, who is himself said O regon is headed s h o u ld be le ss G o r d o the individuals and a commercial contractor. In d e p e n d e n t K a rl in the w rong direction. r e g u la te d . C u ff Challstrom small businesses.” C uff’s main issues were a l s o favors C h a l l s t r o m -See CANDIDATE FORUM/ returning control back to returning authority for law also advocated more local PAGE SEVEN Farra recognized for 50+ years of dedication to county museum Heppner woman Ida Farra sits next to one of her donations, a high chair in which her husband, “ Bill” Farra, sat as a child. Farra has contributed more than a thousand items to the county museum. Photo by Andrea Di Salvo By Andrea Di Salvo an open house recently to The Morrow County honor long-time volunteer H eritage Museum held and contributor Ida Farra. The Morrow County F arm F o u n d a tio n , a nonprofit that operates Morrow C o u n t y ’s museums, honored Farra with a well-attended open house at the museum in Heppner Monday, complete with punch and cookies and a plaque recognizing her “donations, devotion and dedication" to the museum “from its beginnings and beyond.” Farra was one of five wom en who “ put th eir hearts into it” and worked to get the museum up and running at its inception in 1960. Since then she has “ lo an ed ” hundreds o f items to the museum, loans that she recently made permanent as a gift. In fact, Farm Foundation Chairman Cliff Green says that, if you add up all the items contributed by Farra, the number is more than a thousand. “That's quite a feat,” he adds. Farra shared a few remembrances of her early years with the museum, saying she was good help back then because she could climb ladders to reach high places. “ I c o u ld n 't do that now,” says the Heppner w om an, who is in her nineties but identifies her age only as “old enough." recent disaster drill. He told the board that the Infection Control Committee and the Safety Committee identified a need for the ability to lock down the hospital in certain em erg en cy s itu a tio n s . C u rren tly som e o f the external doors are locked manually and others are on a timer, “making it virtually impossible to quickly lock Dr. Ed Berretta chats with local woman Joyce Ward at his retirement open house April 24 in Heppner. -Photo by April Sykes down the facility when needed," he said. G rigg presented the board a bid for a card lock system “that would give us more control over locking our doors and provide increased security," he said. He said that grant funds had been secured to contribute toward the expense. An estimate includes $14,124 for an access- c o n tr o l s y s te m w ith em erg en cy lo ck -d o w n buttons and $7,500 for electrical work for a total o f $ 2 1 ,6 2 4 . A $5 ,2 6 4 Healthcare Preparedness grant and another $3,000 gr ant woul d r educe MCHD's costs to $ 13,360. The bo ard did not approve the expenditure, with the majority of board members indicating that the proposal included only one level at the hospital and did not solve the issue of security throughout the entire facility. They asked that Grigg come back with I t's o ffic ia l; in all o f M orrow County, its cities, town and county governments have passed a one-year moratorium on establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries. The cities of Heppner, lone. Boardman and lrrigon all voted to enact the ban. then the town of Lexington. Lastly, the Morrow County C ourt passed the ban, making the ban unanimous across the county before the state deadline of May 1. The ban is for one year. until May 1, 2015. The Oregon legislature had passed a law allowing the facilities, which sell marijuana to people with a doctor's approval. Then, realizing there were flaws in the law, the legislature p a s s e d an a d d en d u m allo w in g com m unities and counties to place a o n e -y e a r m o ra to riu m on establishm ent o f the facilities. Everyone in Morrow County took them -See MARIJUANA BAN/ PAGE SIX Voters to decide health district levy Continuation o f current tax A levy request from the Morrow County Health District will be part of the ballot voters are to receive in the mail this week. The request will be asking for a continuation of a previously-approved levy of 39 cents per $ 1,000 of property valuation over a five year period. The anticipated uses o f the levy funds are to m aintain and im prove access to quality care, -See MUSEUM CELEBR.4TES purchase new ambulances FARR.4/PAGE EIGHT for Boardman and 1 leppner, implement electronic health records in clinics, home health and hospice, and upgrade cardiac monitoring s y s t e m s at P i o n e e r M emorial H ospital and a new proposal. Administration indicated concern that grant monies would not be available because the deadline for application Morrow County voters for monies to help fund the should receive their ballots project may have passed, this week. Morrow County but Chief Financial Office Clerk Bobbi Childers says N ico le M ahoney said all ballots for the May 20 she would look into the primary election will have possibility o f extending gone out by Wednesday, the application deadline for Apr i l 30. R em em ber, grant funding. ballots are not forwarded. In other business, the Those who don’t receive board: ballots but believe they -approved the proposed should have should contact 2014-15 district budget. the Morrow County Clerk's -See HEALTH DISTRICTV office at 541-676-5604. Health district discusses safety upgrades, procedures By April Sykes Morrow County Health District CEO Dan G rigg told the MCHD Board at th e ir reg u lar Monday-night meeting in Lexington that a need for lock-down procedures in emergency situations at Pioneer Memorial Hospital in H ep p n er had been determ ined follow ing a A ll o f county bans marijuana dispensaries emergency room. In information provided by the district it was shown that Morrow County has a reasonable health district tax rate: John Day is $2.13 per thousand. Burns has $1.93, and E n terp rise $ 1.64 compared to Morrow County’s current overall base and levy tax rate ofjust $.99 per $1.000. The district also points to past efficient uses of levy funds such as expansion of the lrrigon Medical Clinic, allowing for an additional physician; the upgrading of lab equipment, allowing fo r mo r e d i a g n o s t i c testing; the purchase of -See LEVY ON THE LINE/ PAGE EIGHT Primary ballots are in the mail All ballots are due by 8 p.m. Election Day, Tuesday, May 20. B allo ts m ust be received, not simply postmarked, on that day. For voter convenience, 24- hour drop boxes are located throughout the county. Locations are as follows: Heppner: Courthouse parking lot (24 hours) or the Morrow County Clerk's Office, Room 102 inside the -See BALLOTS/PAGE FIVE PAGE FIVE SPRING TIME - GARDEN TIME IN S T O C K N O W ! BEDDING PLANTS - TREES SHRUBS - FERTILIZERS POTTING SOILS SEED POTATOES - ONION SETS - GARDEN SEED S Morrow County Grain Growers Green Feed A Seed 242 W. Linden Way, Heppner » 676-9422 » 989-8221 (MCOO main offle»)
