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TWO - Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, July 7, 2021 The Official Newspaper of the City of Heppner and the County of Morrow CREZ III gets organized Heppner New enterprise zone comes with changes GAZETTE-TIMES U.S.P.S. 240-420 Morrow County’s Home-Owned Weekly Newspaper SEARCH OLD COPIES OF THE HEPPNER GAZETTE-TIMES ON-LINE: http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/ Published weekly by Sykes Publishing and entered as periodical matter at the Post Office at Heppner, Oregon under the Act of March 3, 1879. Periodical postage paid at Heppner, Oregon. Office at 188 W. Willow Street. Telephone (541) 676-9228. Fax (541) 676-9211. E-mail: editor@rapidserve.net or david@rapidserve.net. Web site: www.heppner.net. Postmaster send address changes to the Heppner Gazette-Times, P.O. Box 337, Heppner, Oregon 97836. Subscriptions: $31 in Morrow County; $25 senior rate (in Morrow County only; 65 years or older); $37 elsewhere; $31 student subscriptions. David Sykes ..............................................................................................Publisher Bobbi Gordon................................................................................................ Editor Giselle Moses.........................................................................................Advertising All News and Advertising Deadline is Monday at 5 p.m. For Advertising: advertising deadline is Monday at 5 p.m. Cost for a display ad is $5.25 per column inch. Cost for classified ad is 50¢ per word. Cost for Card of Thanks is $10 up to 100 words. Cost for a classified display ad is $6.05 per column inch. For Public/Legal Notices: public/legal notices deadline is Monday at 5 p.m. Dates for publi- cation must be specified. Affidavits must be requested at the time of submission. Affidavits require three weeks to process after last date of publication (a sooner return date must be specified if required). For Obituaries: Obituaries are published in the Heppner GT at no charge and are edited to meet news guidelines. Families wishing to include information not included in the guidelines or who wish to have the obituary written in a certain way must purchase advertising space for the obituary. For Letters to the Editor: Letters to the Editor MUST be signed by the author. The Heppner GT will not publish unsigned letters. All letters MUST include the author’s address and phone number for use by the GT office. The GT reserves the right to edit letters. The GT is not responsible for accuracy of statements made in letters. Any letters expressing thanks will be placed in the classifieds under “Card of Thanks” at a cost of $10. By David Sykes Columbia River Enter- prise Zone III is underway and open for business, and the new board of directors met last week to lay out the ground rules for the latest zone, which will govern its operation over the coming years. The rules are import- ant since the zone will not only attract and expand new businesses to Morrow County, but also will decide how and where millions of dollars in lieu of tax money collected from these busi- nesses will be spent. The board members making these decisions in the coming years are the three members of the Morrow County Commis- sion, Melissa Lindsay, Don Russell and Jim Doherty, along with Rick Stokoe, Ryan Neal and Joe Taylor Cicada killer wasps showing up in our area The western cicada killer Last week a G-T reader brought in a wasp found in Lexington wondering what kind it was. We put the question to our readers and one knowledgeable person called to tell us the unfa- miliar insect was a cicada killer wasp. The reader, who said she used to work in “bug management,” said al- though the wasps look pret- ty intimidating, they are actually not very aggressive and are also a beneficial in- sect for plants and gardens. The wasps earn their name for targeting cicadas, the winged insects that make the buzzing and clicking sounds heard during the summer. Female wasps paralyze cicadas with their venom and carry them back to underground burrows where they bury the ci- cadas alive next to their eggs, which become hungry larvae. Apparently eastern Or- egon has an ideal climate and soil conditions for the cicada killers. They burrow in particularly sandy soils, and this area is ideal for the females to dig a burrow, about eight to 10-inces deep and to lay their eggs. An outbreak of the ci- cada insect has led to a rise in the western cicada killer wasps in eastern Oregon, which measure about 1.5 to 2 inches in length. They will reportedly take down the large cicada insects midair to feed to their young. ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. from the Port of Morrow. The members could change over the years, and they will also most certainly be joined in the future by rep- resentatives from the city of Boardman. Jerry Healy and Lisa Mittelsdorf from the port were chosen as alter- nates and will fill in during an absence of a regular port member. Alternates for the commissioners have not yet been announced. Before the board gets into negotiating with pro- spective businesses over tax abatement deals, however, it needed to hammer out its own operating rules. Much of its operating rules will be the same as the CREZ II, which statutorily expired after 10 years, but there will be some changes. One area discussed at length was how to handle bonded debt, or the money raised not through regular property taxation, but the issuing of bonds by special taxing districts like the schools. In CREZ II some of the businesses claiming long- term 15-year tax abate- ments are paying more when special districts issue bonds, and other businesses do not pay specifically for that bond. It was reported at the meeting that Lamb Weston and Tillamook Cheese, even though the bonding language was in- cluded in their original tax abatement contracts, were surprised when assessed the additional bond tax. Other businesses such as Amazon made it known they did not want the uncertainty of future unknown bond- ed debt tax bills and were given a different payment from the CREZ. Instead of being hit with potential new unknown bonded debt payments in the future, Am- azon elected to pay a fixed amount over the years. Some of the new CREZ III board members thought every business should pay for new bonded debt over the life of their agreement. “It is my opinion they need to all be paying for bond- ing,” Commissioner Lind- say said. She said in the past when companies have pushed back against paying for the bonds CREZ has given it up rather than lose a business deal. “We want to make sure those things near and dear to us are tak- en care of,” she said. Port Manager Ryan Neal said it depends on the deal, asking, “Do you really want to pass up a good deal over this?” Commissioner Don Russell said the company should pay and arrangements have been made using a defined amount set aside. “Maybe they don’t want an un- known cost, but they have their kids in the schools too,” he pointed out. Enter- prise Zone Manager Greg Sweek told the board the rules they are laying out now are not binding on the negotiations. “This is not binding. It just goes to the company (preparing to open negotiations with the CREZ on a tax abatement agreement) so they have an idea of what they need to do to get a significant tax break,” Sweek said. “It is just a guideline and sub- ject to the situation at hand in front of you,” Russell added. Of course, the other big question the new board will face is: How will the money collected from businesses in lieu of taxes be spent? The CREZ is different from any other regular taxing district. The members of the board are not elected per se (as with a school or medical district or city council for example) and they do not have to formulate a budget, publish a budget, or hold public hearings on a bud- get and how their money is spent. Nor is there an annual audit done on its spending as with every other public entity that receives public property taxes. The board has great leeway on how and where in the county its money will be spent. In the past the CREZ II allotted the money under four broad categories of housing, education, pub- lic safety and community enhancement. Another cat- egory was added last year for infrastructure spending, However the new CREZ III is not bound by those categories and could come up with a totally new distri- bution system for the mil- lions of dollars expected to be collect over the coming years. “It is appropriate to re-visit how we spend the money, and this conversa- tion should be in front of the public,” Lindsay said. The new board was not ready to tackle the spending question last week, howev- er, and decided to deal with it at a future meeting. It was suggested that a joint meet- ing be held between the CREZ II and III boards to talk about the “philosoph- ical questions” of how and where the money will be spent in the county. It was also pointed out that CREZ III does not currently have any money and will not for several years until new deals are in place. Another topic dis- cussed was the money com- panies with enterprise zone agreements pay to commu- nity and civic groups in the county that can then be used as an offset against those companies’ tax bills. It was suggested that CREZ keep a list of contact people at the companies so people in the nonprofits and other civic groups can then contact those companies and ask for donations. June averages much warmer than normal Second warmest June on record According to prelim- inary data received by NOAA’s National Weather Service in Pendleton, tem- peratures at Heppner av- eraged much warmer than normal during the month of June. The average tempera- ture was 69.5 degrees which was 6.8 degrees above nor- mal. High temperatures av- eraged 84.0 degrees, which was 7.4 degrees above nor- mal. The highest was 109 degrees on the 29 th . Low temperatures averaged 55.1 degrees, which was 6.2 degrees above normal. The H H H lowest was 37 degrees, on the 7 th . On 10 days, the tem- perature exceeded 90 de- grees. It was at least 100 degrees on three days. Precipitation totaled 0.51 inches during June, which was 0.87 inches be- low normal. Measurable precipitation, at least .01 inch, was received on four days with the heaviest, 0.38 inches reported on the 16 th . Precipitation this year has reached 4.25 inches, which is 4.41 inches below normal. Since October, the water year precipitation at Heppner has been 7.73 inches, which is 4.99 inches below normal. The outlook for July from NOAA’s Climate Pre- diction Center calls for above normal temperatures and below normal precip- itation. Normal highs for Heppner during July are 85.7 degrees and normal lows are 53.9 degrees. The 30-year normal precipita- tion is 0.33 inches. This was the second warmest June on record. The warmest was 70.6 de- grees in 2015. 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