Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 17, 2014)
I Fairgrounds bleachers safer thanks to volunteers ,öcss,c W c,/cll N cusdüdo spa per , Libran L n i\c r s i|\ o f O regon Eugene. O R 9 7 4 0 3 HEPPNER) imes Heppner High School Friday night recognized the engineers, welders, design ers and painters responsible for the beautiful new hand rails installed at the football held grandstands. The “Old Boys” firm of Archie Ball, Butch Laugh- lin, Don Stroeber and Son ny Biddle are responsible for taking on this job and making the bleachers easier to access and safer. “They saw a need and went to work” said Greg Grant, athletic director at Heppner High School. “They were not satisfied Dedicated local volunteers Archie Ball, Butch Laughlin, Don Stroeber and Sonny Biddle built and installed the handrails that now make the bleachers at the Heppner football held safer and easier to navigate. -Photo by AruJrea Di Salvo until they had it perfect. 1 think they looked at a dozen other stadiums to find the best design.” “It is really cool to live and work in a place where people have ownership, take pride and have initia- tive to get things like this done,” Grant added. City says late water bills under $5 won’t get late fee charge It’s your turn... VOL. 133 NO. 32 8 Pages Wednesday, September 17, 2014 By David Sykes The city of Heppner will no longer charge a late fee on water and sewer bills less than $5 not paid by the 10,h of the month, it was an nounced Monday night. In July of2013 the city council had adopted a resolution that a flat late fee of $5 will be charged to all accounts with any amount owing after the 10,h of the month; however, the city adminis tration has apparently been granting waivers and not charging for overdue bal ances less than $5. The issue came up when Lee Berlinsky, who has lived in Heppner eight years but is out of town some of the time, came to Monday’s council meeting and said his water bill nor mally runs $49. Berlinsky said he paid the city $50 a head of time, and then was surprised when his water bill came back at $55 and subsequently was billed the $5 late fee on the $5 unpaid balance. He said this repre sented a 230 percent Annual Percentage Rate (APR) late fee on the overdue amount which he though was “abu sive.” Berlinsky said he called Mayor Joe Perry to talk about it and was told that the fee was fair and that the city could actually, based on other cities’ charges, be justified in charging its us ers an even higher late fee. After hearing Berlin- sky’s complaint at Mon day’s council meeting Perry said he would not discuss the bill at the meeting; however, city Manager Kim Cutsforth said if Berlinsky would have called her, she would have waived the $5 late charge. “You could call us and we are happy to work with people,” Cutsforth said. “We apologize for any con fusion.” City councilmember and mayoral candidate Skip Matthews told Berlinsky that the charge is in fact not a late fee. “That fee is not a late fee; it is an administrative fee,” he said. “The util ity commission said it was more than fair when they adopted it. It has nothing to do with APR.” According to the pub lic notice and resolution passed by the council the city changed from an in terest-based late charge to the flat fee of $5 in August of 2013. Matthews said the $5 handles administrative costs in rebilling an overdue account. On Tuesday after the meeting Cutsforth told the Gazette-Times that, “The city position is not clari fied. I believe that the in tent was the late fee would encourage our customers to pay on time. And yes, if the overdue amount is less than $5, there is no late fee. The utility commission will be discussing raising this amount at their meeting on Thursday,” she said. In other business the council was told that there are problems with drain age on Water St. after the major rehabilitation project, and that the city engineer would be in town this week to talk about the problems. Cutsforth said there is $ 11,000 held back from the project that could be used for fixes. Also she said the construction company has a bond but she does not want to go that way, as then the city would have to do the work itself. “We don’t want to fix it; we want them to fix it,” she said. In other business the council heard a report from Chad Doherty of the Public Works. Water Report -Fixed a water leak on our side of a home owner's service. Replaced water meter at the same address. -Installed new water sample station at Public Drivers on 1-84 had bumpy ride Friday Oregon Dept, of Transportation (ODOT) had its work cut out clearing rocks from 1-84 when a truck pulling a belly dump trailer loaded with large rocks spilled its load onto the east- bound lanes near Boardman last Friday afternoon. ODOT and Oregon State Police responded to the scene. Only one vehicle was reported damaged. -Photo courtesy of Oregon State Police Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Works Shop -Installed safety eye wash station in chlorine room at Reservoir 1. -The city crew dug up and fixed a leaky water meter at the grade school. Sewer Dept. -Cleaned contact basins at sewer plant, twice. -The city crew hauled multiple loads of biosolids to range land site. Streets Dept. -The city crew re paired the sidewalk on Water Street. Painted the Shamrock before the rodeo parade. -The city crew hauled spoils out of city yard. -Took down rodeo ban ners. -Repaired two deck boards on Kirk Street bridge. -Painted the red and white caution stripes at grade school. -Set up and took down barricades for rodeo parade. -Got sweeper out mul tiple times before rodeo. Parks Dept. -The city crew fixed the ramp out at Hager Park restroom. -Pulled all weeds in new soccer field and plant ed grass in bare spots. Cut down a damaged limb in the City Park, which was broken in a wind storm. -Fertilized hanging baskets twice. C ity M a n a g e r Kim Cutsforth Report -City has continued to work on the Talking Rocks program. Several of the plaques have been delivered and the plan is to begin placing them on the rocks the week of the 15lh. Pam and Mark Wunderlich will be donating the balance of the boulders. All of the rocks have been sponsored. As soon as the plaques are in place, will begin to work on the text for the QR Codes. This will be the final phase of this project. -The city has placed a strong focus on nuisance abatement The high risk fire season has made this a priority. Have had a great deal of success in getting the repeat and long-term offenders motivated to con form and abate the fire haz ards. The rate of response is about 83 percent. The city has also been able to recoup the cost’of cleanup on a property. Are still strug gling with a few remaining Readers invited to weigh in on G-Tcandidates 'forum The Heppner Gazette- Times will publish a candi dates’ forum for Heppner City Council and Heppner Mayor in an upcoming is sue before the November general election. As part of this process, we’re inviting our readers Your candidate question: Return to: Heppner Gazette-Times -See CITY COUNCIL/PAGE SIX L __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ _ New surface gives Heppner tennis courts new life By Doris Brosnan Thursday, Sept. 11, was a red-letter day on the Heppner tennis courts. On that morning, six players were using the singles and doubles courts at the same time— a first that these players could remember, a definite first on the newly resurfaced courts. After City Manager Kim Cutsforth’s research early this spring and com munication with Heppner schools administration, Morrow County adminis tration. and Willow Creek Park District administra tion, the resurfacing of the tennis courts became a reality in late July. The Willow Creek Park District funded the project as part of its community outreach program, and the resurfac ing job was coordinated with the striping work at the new basketball courts near the swimming pool. This successful work delighted the few women who regularly use the courts and admit to having become “overzealous” in their re quests for improvements at the courts. It has also been welcomed by some younger players. Playing on the courts last Thursday morn ing were women who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Later in the day, teen- MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. t 1 i P.O. Box 337 / Heppner, OR 97836 1 Fax: 541-676-9211 editor@rapidserve.net Questions will be selected and may be edited at the editor's discretion J Tennis lovers (from left) JoAnne Burleson, Sherry F.wing, Carie Brosnan, Doris Brosnan, Nancy Propheter and Diana Ball put the new tennis court surface to good use last Thursday, possibly the most traffic the courts have seen in some time. -Contributedphoto agers Kai Arbogast. DaiChi Walters. Earl Propheter and Justus Schoerbom practiced their skills at doubles... proof that the appeal of the courts spans generational and decades’ lines. Last spring, Arbogast, Walters and Brian Fowler played tennis as members of the lone team, and now they can get in some extra practices without having to drive to lone. At the end of summer school this last spring, Mary Ann El- guezabal gave each of her students a tennis racket and tennis balls, as well as a lesson with retired tennis p O L « p l5 coach JoAnne Burleson, possibly stimulating inter est in the sport among even younger Heppner students. rhe welcome mat is out and the well-marked courts are weed-free and smooth, so everyone is encouraged to hit the courts for exercise and entertainment. *»55§\öO Ö lililí li ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: V to weigh in with questions they would like to see an swered by the candidates. Simply fill out the form below and submit it in person or by mail or fax, or email your question to editor@rapidserve.net by Friday. Sept. 26. M orrow County Grain G row ers Lexington 989 8221 . l J 8QQ-452-Z396 « l ........ * \
