HEPPNER
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azette
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VOL. 138
NO. 9 8 Pages
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon
St. Patrick’s events announced
The 37 th annual Wee
Bit O’ Ireland St. Patrick’s
celebration will be held the
weekend of March 15-17
this year. The celebration
of the town’s Irish roots
has turned the heritage into
an annual tradition that is
always held on the weekend
nearest to St. Patrick’s Day.
The celebration wel-
comes everyone who is
Irish or just wants to enjoy
the fun of the Irish week-
end. Family flags will be
visible hanging around in
town and leprechauns will
be busy.
On Friday, Mar. 15 the
festivities will begin with
a 3 on 3 basketball tour-
nament and Murray’s Irish
Beer and Wine Fest. Sat-
urday events will include
the sheep dog trials, the
Remembrance Walk, Irish
Coffee Hour and a tradi-
tional Gaelic social gath-
ering called a Ceili, which
involves Gaelic folk music
and dancing.
Everyone is invited
to participate in the Po-
lar Plunge, Welly Toss,
O’Ducky Race, Ewe-Do-
Bingo, Bed Races and
O’Planky Races that will be
scheduled for Saturday. The
Great Green Parade will
travel down Main Street
and the Cruz-In car show
will take place.
There will be arts and
crafts on display as well as
a book sale and activities
for children, youth and
adults, including a Lepre-
chaun Run and Bouncin’
Leprechauns Fun Zone. St.
Patrick’s buttons will be
available for sale and will
include a chance to win
$100 in two separate draw-
ings during the weekend.
There will be plenty of
Irish food, Irish music and
entertainment including a
local youth talent show, old
time fiddlers and Tiller’s
Folly as the main enter-
tainment for the evening.
All entertainment for the
weekend is funded by the
Morrow County Unified
Recreation District with
free admission for every-
one.
The sheep dog trials
will continue on Sunday
and the Irish Road Bowling
team competition will close
out the weekend celebration
Sunday afternoon.
For schedules and other
information about “Wee
Bit O’ Ireland,” visit www.
heppnerchamber.com. For
information you can call
the Heppner Chamber of
Commerce at (541) 676-
5536; check out the event
Facebook page at St. Pat-
rick’s Celebration Heppner
Oregon USA.
State informed of city budget
‘deficiencies’
‘Over expenditures’ noted
By David Sykes
Interim city manager
Kim Cutsforth has writ-
ten a letter to the Oregon
Secretary of State Audits
Division, laying out “defi-
ciencies” she says were re-
cently found during an audit
of last year’s city finances.
Her letter was presented to
the city council at its Feb.
12 meeting.
In the letter Cutsforth
blamed high turnover in
the city treasurer position
as reason for the city’s
budget problems. “In the
fiscal year 2017-18 the city
treasurer abruptly left and
the replacements (two of
them) stayed a very short
time. This loss of experi-
ence and change was part
of the reason that there
was so much lack of over-
sight and so many errors,”
she told the state. “We are
actively recruiting a perma-
nent replacement for our
treasurer position. We do
not anticipate these issues
in the future,” she added.
Each year the state is in-
formed of any deficiencies
found by auditors, so this
year’s letter was not out
of the ordinary, Cutsforth
said. She downplayed the
problems found and said
they were mostly “clerical
errors” that would be easily
corrected.
Although the letter cit-
ed turnover in city staff,
Cutsforth did not point out
any actions by the previous
city manager Edie Ball
as reasons for the budget
problems, even though the
council fired Ball Jan. 11
for what it said was inade-
quate handling of the city’s
budget process. A new city
manager is currently being
recruited and Cutsforth is
filling in part-time until the
replacement can be found.
In her letter Cutsforth said
long-time city auditors
Barnett and Moro, P.C. of
Hermiston had reported
they found three instanc-
es of over expenditure of
budget appropriations, in-
cluding $1,904 in the debt
service fund, $6,227 in
the water utility fund and
$8,997 in the sewer utility
fund. Details were given of
the over expenditures such
as a double payment of the
city hall loan, where two
payments were made in
one month. A transfer to the
city general fund of a new
franchise fee collected by
the city from local utilities,
with no line item having
been created to accept the
new fees, and a duplicate
transfer to the sewer utility
fund caused the entire fund
to be off by a significant
amount.
The city is in middle
of completely replacing its
computer and bookkeeping
systems, moving away from
the old software it has used
for many years. Cutsforth
said that process is going
as well as can be expected.
In other audit news the
council learned that Bar-
nett and Moro would be
increasing their yearly fee
to the city by $8,000, from
$10,000 to $18,000, with
not less than $14,000 per
year, depending on the
amount of work required.
Reason given for the in-
crease was “the extensive
work they did on the audit.”
In other business at Feb-
ruary’s meeting the coun-
cil learned that Sherron
Woodside is filling in as city
treasurer until a permanent
person can be hired. Cuts-
forth reported that the city
received four applications
so far for the job.
The council agreed to
give the owner of a pig who
is keeping the animal inside
the city limits a warning
about the animal getting out
of its pen multiple times.
Neighbors have been com-
plaining of the escaped hog.
The council learned
that the police commission
talked about upgrading the
cameras at the city park to
try and catch vandals dam-
aging the restrooms. The
new cameras will be similar
to the ones at the Fit Park
on Riverside and can be
checked remotely with ev-
ery incident being flagged
so they can be more easily
reviewed. The footage from
the cameras can be down-
loaded to a thumb drive
and given to the sheriff’s
department. This is how
the vandals at the Fit Park
were caught. The cameras
are expected to be installed
by the end of February and
the library has agreed to let
the city use their wi-fi for
the cameras.
The police commission
also said the city might re-
quire all residents to have
garbage collection because
of all the garbage accumu-
lating around town. Ac-
cording to a spokeseperson,
some cities do this.
The commission also
talked about making sure
all police who go on dog
calls in the city are check-
ing to see if those dogs are
licensed. If they are not, the
owners need to be notified
that all dogs are required to
be licensed within the city
limits, that citations can be
given for dogs running at
large and that unlicensed
dogs can be taken to Pet
Rescue in Hermiston.
Snow wreaks havoc around the area
A semi jackknifed and was blocking the highway near Cuts-
forth Corners on Monday.
Above: The Morrow County OHV Park was blanketed with
snow under sunny skies on Tuesday.
Jacob and Lizzie Finch took advantage of the deep snow by
building an igloo.
Morrow County Public Works was working hard to keep roads
passable after several inches of snow fell Sunday and Monday. Below: Morrow County’s Cutsforth Park was covered with
Above: Drifts on Carlson Lane..
snow.
Below: A grader on Liberty School Road breaks through the
deep drifts.
Grant recipients
announced
The Morrow County
Cultural Coalition, support-
ed by Oregon’s Cultural
Trust Foundation, recently
announced the grant recip-
ients for 2018 projects in
Morrow County. Grants can
be awarded for up to 50 per-
cent of the total project cost.
Recipients for 2018
are Inland Northwest Mu-
sicians for an associate
director; Lexington Grange
#726 for basement refur-
bishment; Heppner Ele-
mentary school for an art
program; FARM Founda-
tion for mural restorations;
Heppner High School Art
and Cultural Club for pot-
tery classes and the Morrow
County Historical Society
for printing of the Morrow
County Chronicles.
Applications for 2019
culturally based activities
in Morrow County are now
being accepted. Projects
supported in the past have
included quilting, art dis-
plays, historical library
books, cultural entertain-
ment structures, kid’s ac-
tivities for parks, drama
and musical workshops. For
complete guidelines and
an application form, please
contact Gayle Gutierrez at
541-676-5630 or ggutier-
rez@co.morrow.or.us.
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242 W. Linden Way, Heppner • 676-9422 • 989-8221 (MCGG main office)