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
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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
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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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