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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2023)
St. Pat’s Celebration March 17-19 50¢ VOL. 143 NO. 5 8 Pages Wednesday, February 1, 2023 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon CREZ II disburses more than $12 million throughout county The Columbia River En- terprise Zone (CREZ) II board distributed more than $12 million to Mor- row County organizations and tax districts last month. The board reviewed the enterprise zone finan- cials at its Jan. 23 meet- ing in Boardman and dis- cussed distribution of the $12,343,637 it received from the businesses locat- ed in the CREZ II boundar- ies. In most cases, amounts aligned with last year’s figures. One notable exception is the funding for Willow Creek Valley Economic Development Group (WC- VEDG). Ione Community Agri-Business Organiza- tion (ICABO) had request- ed that it directly receive funds that would normally be distributed to the city through WCVEDG, and the CREZ II board ap- proved that request. As a result, WCVEDG received 19.5 percent less than it did last year, $592,699 rather than $736,273, while ICA- BO received the difference at $143,573. In other disbursements, Irrigon and each of the Willow Creek Valley cities each received $200,000 for community infrastructure development. The City of 2022 CREZ II Disbursement by Entity Boardman Cemetery Boardman Central Urban Renewal Agency Irrigon Cemetery CREZ II Zone Manager Expense Irrigon Park Umatilla Morrow Radio & Data District Oregon Trail Library North Morrow Vector Control North Morrow Vector Control Local Option Morrow County Unified Recreation Intermountain ESD Blue Mountain Community College Boardman Park City of Heppner City of Ione Town of Lexington Morrow County Health District Morrow County Health District Local Option Boardman Fire & Rescue Willow Creek Valley Economic Development Group ICABO Morrow Education Foundation Boardman Community Development Association City of Irrigon Morrow County Port of Morrow City of Boardman TOTAL Boardman, as one of the enterprise zone’s sponsor- ing entities, received a total of $2,332,944 in sponsor allotments, bond payments and other payments. The other two sponsoring en- tities, Morrow County and the Port of Morrow, each received $2,012,786 in al- lotments. A detailed list of dis- bursements from the 2022 CREZ II accompanies this article. In other business, the CREZ II board named Boardman representative, 1,584.92 4,427.35 8,143.45 9,451.15 32,358.67 23,010.08 34,324.33 25,699.52 13,628.59 61,704.79 83,308.83 132,097.57 95,979.53 200,000.00 200,000.00 200,000.00 231,875.52 53,151.44 422,975.51 592,699.93 143,573.27 1,117,398.28 1,144,936.00 1,152,790.80 2,012,786.49 2,012,786.51 2,332,944.87 12,343,637.40 mayor Paul Keefer, as chair and Morrow Coun- ty representative, coun- ty commissioner David Sykes, as vice chair. The CREZ II board is made up of two representatives each from Morrow County, the Port of Morrow and the City of Boardman. Heppner teen shares love of anime through local club Participants in the anime club gather in a corner of Flood Town Books last Saturday. Sam Lamb (upper right) is joined by (clockwise from bottom) Dylan Sherrer, Xavier Sauceda, Julian Sauceda, Moira Di Salvo and Hannah Brannon. -Photo by Andrea Di Salvo By Andrea Di Salvo Saturday morning at Flood Town Books in Heppner, a small group of tweens and teens clustered to discuss one of their fa- health program in different vorite topics—Japanese forms until 2007, when the anime. The anime club commissioners authorized the formation of a non- profit, feeling that would better serve the needs of the county. Since then, CCS has changed and grown, The Morrow County expanding from Morrow Board of Commissioners County to contract with recently approved $150,000 Morrow, Wheeler, Gilliam, to aid Willow Creek Ter- Grant and Umatilla coun- race (WCT) assisted living facility. Willow Creek Terrace Board of Directors Secre- tary/Treasurer Jeff Bailey appeared before the board as a follow-up to a discus- sion in December, at which he had told the commission- ers-elect that Willow Creek Terrace was struggling both financially and with staff- ing. The assisted living facility’s difficulties stem Kimberly Lindsay from COVID-19 restric- ties, with an 11-person tions but are also exacerbat- board made up of repre- ed by current inflation and a sentatives from the five difficult hiring market. counties. Morrow County Fi- Lindsay said the core nance Director Kevin Ince service of a community said he was comfortable mental health program is a with giving funding to WCT and suggested the mon- Community Counseling Solutions discusses successes, struggles with commissioners meets weekly in Heppner to talk about old favorites, new finds, interesting plots and anime-style art. It may seem like a strange topic to find in a small town in the middle of -Continued to PAGE EIGHT County awards assisted living facility $150K The Community Counseling Solutions office in Heppner. -Contributed photo By Andrea Di Salvo Community Counsel- ing Solutions Executive Director Kimberly Lindsay shared the program’s suc- cesses and struggles with the Morrow County Board of Commissioners during a report to that board earlier this month. At the top of the list of struggles is the inabil- ity to find enough clinicians in today’s hiring climate. “There is a lot of work that we do. COVID has re- ally impacted our ability to hire clinicians, I think,” said Lindsay. “Behavioral health was one of the hardest hit.” She told the commis- sioners that a lot of CCS’s work is required to be in person, but when COVID restrictions were lifted, clinicians didn’t necessarily want to go back to in-person work. Heppner’s St. Patrick’s Celebration will return March 17-19 this year. -File photo The 2023 St. Patrick’s included in the printed pro- Wee Bit O’ Ireland Celebra- gram. Deadline to submit tion is scheduled for Friday, your events and activities March 17, through Sunday, is Friday, Feb. 10. March 19. This year’s St. Patrick’s Any business, nonprofit Day Celebration will in- or church group that is clude most of its traditional planning an event or activ- activities, along with some ity during the St. Patrick’s new, and some older, revi- weekend is asked to contact talized events. All enter- Shelby Matthews at the tainment will be free, with Heppner Chamber of Com- sponsorship from Morrow merce office at 541-676- County Unified Recreation 5536 or heppnerchamber@ District. gmail.com so they can be “There is a lot of clini- cal work, community men- tal health program work, that is entirely online now. You can have a visit with your counselor on your phone, and a lot of counsel- ors like to do that,” she said. “I think CCS was fortunate that we didn’t have the same exodus as some other community mental health programs.” However, she added that they were able to cre- ate additional positions due to new funding, but that CCS had not been able to fill those positions because they are largely in-person based services. “So we’re really struggling right now in filling those clinician-level positions.” Because of that, she said, the access for Morrow County has become more concerning. Everyone, she said, is seen immediately, or triaged, to assess their need. Before COVID, patients who were not in critical need were able to get in for assessment in Heppner in a week or a week and a half, and in Boardman in two to three weeks. Now, it averages three weeks in Heppner and up to two months in Boardman. She said some clini- cians have 60 or 70 people on their caseloads, which doesn’t equal great care. She said the clinicians want to do a good job, so if they continue to pile on new patients as some programs have done, those clinicians will leave. “So we’re choosing to put a cap on the upper end of the number of people. We’re choosing to provide good care to those we are seeing. We are creating space for the people who are high acuity,” she said, “but the end result is that people are having to wait longer to be seen.” “If you know anybody who has a master’s degree in behavioral health, send them our way,” she added. Lindsay also provided an overview of the role of CCS and its relationship with the county. In the 1963, the Kennedy Com- munity Mental Health Act moved responsibility for mental health authority to the states. The State of Oregon moved that respon- sibility to the counties and said each county is a local mental health authority. The county can either operate a county mental health pro- gram or contract it out to a nonprofit. Morrow County creat- ed and operated a mental -Continued to PAGE EIGHT ey come from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars, since those funds were originally intended to help with COVID-related impacts. “This is well aligned with the original intent,” Ince said. Bailey informed the board that, as of December, this is the first time all of the rooms in the assisted living facility have been rented sine before COVID. “It’s been a long haul,” Bailey said. “Two years of not being able to even interview tenants.” He also told the com- missioners that WCT had recently hired a new ad- ministrator, who would be starting soon. Ince rec- ommended awarding the $150,000 through a grant agreement.
