TWO - Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, March 22, 2023
The Official Newspaper
of the City of Heppner and the County of Morrow
Heppner
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:
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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: $35 in Morrow County; $40
senior rate (in Morrow County only; 65 years or older); $30 elsewhere; $35 student
subscriptions.
Chris Sykes ...............................................................................................Publisher
Andrea Di Salvo ............................................................................................ Editor
Cindi Doherty.........................................................................................Advertising
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For Advertising: advertising deadline is Monday at 5 p.m. Cost for a display ad is $5.50 per
column inch. Cost for classified ad is 50¢ per word. Cost for Card of Thanks is $15 up to 100
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placed in the classifieds under “Card of Thanks” at a cost of $10.
Funeral Notice
Gayla Jones—A me-
morial service will be held
for Gayla Jones on Satur-
day, March 25, at 11 a.m.
at the Church of Latter-day
Saints in Lexington.
Gayla Lee Hodson
Kelsey Snell Jones passed
away on Jan. 17, 2023, at
Pioneer Memorial Hospital
in Heppner at the age of
88. Gayla was born on Oct.
1, 1934, in Greybull, WY,
daughter of Willis and Pearl
Hodson.
In lieu of flowers, a do-
nation may be made to the
charity of your choice.
Grow ‘Em and Show ‘Em
swine group holds first
meeting
By Harper Coiner, Club
Reporter
On March 16, the swine
4-H group from Grow ‘Em
and Show ‘Em had its first
species meeting. Before the
meeting, they took a trip to
Neiffer Ranch in Lexington.
At the ranch, Jake and Lara
Neiffer showed them the
compost casa where they
breed and raise their pigs.
The Neiffers shared a lot of
facts about pigs.
After they made the
trip, they made their way
back to the NRCS of-
fice. First, they elected a
vice-president, a president
and a news reporter. The
president is Natalie Piper,
the vice president is Jace
Wilson, and the news re-
porters are Harper Coiner
and Keller Sweeney.
Club leaders Kacee
Lathrop and Jennifer Wil-
son also did a presentation
on what the pens need to
look like, how to know
when a pig is sick and what
supplies are needed.
The next meeting is
scheduled for April 16 at
4 p.m. at the NRCS office.
Country club ladies
kick off season April 4
The Willow Creek
Country Club ladies board
invites all lady golfers to
its kickoff breakfast and
biannual meeting April 4.
Registration begins at
8 a.m. with breakfast and
meeting at 9 a.m. The la-
dies will play a scramble
immediately following the
meeting. Cost of joining
ladies Tuesday play for the
year is $30.
Nominations now open
for Town and Country
Awards
Dale Bates receives the Life-
time Achievement Award at
last year’s Town and Coun-
try event. -File Photo
The Heppner Cham-
ber of Commerce is now
accepting nominations for
this year’s Town & Country
Awards.
The chamber will host
the Town & Country Awards
banquet on Thursday, May
4, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
at the Gilliam and Bisbee
Event Center. This annual
event honors citizens that
go above and beyond to
make Heppner a beautiful,
thriving community.
Awards include Stu-
dents of the Year, Citizen/
Educator of the Year, Wom-
an of the Year, Man of the
Year, Business of the Year
and a Lifetime Achieve-
ment Award.
Information on how to
sponsor this year’s event,
ticket sales and nomina-
tion forms can be found
at www.heppnerchamber.
com/awards. Copies of
nominations forms can also
be found at Heppner City
Hall and the chamber office.
Heppner council considers new security cameras
-Continued from PAGE ONE council voted to close out
computer scientists. The
company is based in Cal-
ifornia, but Malec said he
specializes in government
and education spaces in
Eastern Oregon.
Malec said that Ar-
lington, which has a pop-
ulation of about 600, has
23 Verkada cameras set up
throughout the town. He
told the council that tradi-
tional cameras have pieces
that need to maintained,
such as a network video
recorder (NVR) or digital
video recorder (DVR), and
each camera would require
its own NVR/DVR at each
location.
Verkada, on the oth-
er hand, is hybrid cloud,
which means the feed is
stored on the camera itself
but also able to be accessed
and stored on the cloud re-
motely, so they don’t need
NVRs. All cameras have a
10-year hardware warranty
and automatic firmware and
software updates with U.S.-
based technical support and
unlimited archives.
The cameras also have
three different alerts for if
the cameras go down, or
if someone tries to tamper
with a camera or tries to
spray over or otherwise
block the camera’s view.
“The goal there is to
make sure that you’re never
actually missing footage,”
said Malec.
He also demonstrated
how to access the video
feeds remotely, showing
the council how they could
select clips based on time
frames or the camera’s
motion detector, and how to
share the footage or archive
it for later use.
He also said live feeds
from any of the cameras
could be embedded in the
city’s website.
City Manager Kraig
Cutsforth told the council
he was considered about
seven cameras. One would
be placed on city hall point-
ing down May, one on
another building pointing
down Main, which would
have a feed the public could
access, two or three at Hep-
pner City Park, one or two
at Hager Park, and one on
Thompson Square.
With all of the features
included and a 10-year con-
tract period, the cost would
come to about $20,000.
“But that covers ev-
erything, and they are nice
looking cameras,” said
Cutsforth. “We have inter-
net at all of those locations
except Hager Park, and we
could get that easy enough.”
He added that the Ver-
kada cameras also have
capability for facial rec-
ognition and license plate
recognition.
Heppner Councilor
Dale Bates said he had sat
in on some of the meetings
and was thoroughly im-
pressed with Verkada.
“I know the pricing
seems a little high when
you first look at it, but in
the long scheme of things,
I don’t think it’s that bad of
a deal,” said Bates, adding
that Verkada cameras would
give the city a lot of security
and have greater capabil-
ities while using far less
bandwidth than the current
camera. “I’m excited about
this, and I’d like to see this
move forward.”
“Now is the time to buy
these,” said Bates. “Now is
the time. Five years down
the road, I think we’re go-
ing to be very happy that
we did.”
The council decided to
have Cutsforth move for-
ward with the project and
gather more information
about the packages Verkada
has available.
Street project update
Based on a recommen-
dation from the Heppner
Utilities Commission, the
Premier’s contract on the
street project. The contract
still had about $20,000
worth of work left, which
was for painting cross-
walks, stop bars and center
striping on the streets. Due
to that, the contract had
been held open for some
time.
The council had earli-
er decided against center
striping but still wanted
the crosswalks and stop
bars. While the contract
with Premier had been for
painting, the utilities com-
mission discussed the mer-
its of painting versus torch
downs. Torch downs refer
to preformed thermoplastic
markings that are melted
onto the road’s surface us-
ing a torch. The city work-
ers would be able to apply
the torch downs.
Applying torch downs
will take a lot of time for
city workers, but torch
down striping is more du-
rable than paint, and Or-
egon Dept. of Transpor-
tation (ODOT) will cover
the cost of materials. The
utilities commission had
recommended ordering the
materials and then closing
out the project so the city
could get the funding.
Cutsforth said he and
Heppner Public Works Di-
rector Chad Doherty were
ready to order the torch
down stop crossings.
“And then our crew,
at their leisure, can put
those down in the spots
they want and not have the
lines striped in the middle,
and release Premier from
their contract,” said Cuts-
forth. “At the last council
meeting, that was a little
reversed, but I’m coming
back with a recommenda-
tion from the utilities com-
mission saying they would
like to go that way, so I’m
here to get clarity.”
The council voted
unanimously to move for-
ward with torch downs
and close out the Premier
contract.
Also on the subject
of streets, the council ap-
proved an intergovernmen-
tal agreement with Morrow
County to chip seal and/
or crack seal city streets
including Barratt, Water,
Quaid, Elder, some of South
Court, Riverside and Bruce
Kelly Way.
Chad Doherty told the
council that ODOT has a
company that’s about to
come in and tear up all the
sidewalk approaches.
“It’s gonna be a mess,”
he said.
He said March 27 was
the date he was told that
would start. He also said
they would be putting in
lighted crosswalks across
Main at Baltimore and
Quaid, along with a redo
of the Quaid intersection.
Investments and
properties
In other business, the
council approved a draft
investment policy for the
City of Heppner, which
guides the city’s practices
in investing financial as-
sets of general funds. The
objectives of the policy
are preservation of capital,
enough liquidity to meet
reasonably anticipated op-
erating requirements, and
return on investment, while
discouraging active trading
and turnover of invest-
Heppner Mayor Corey Sweeney Swearing in John
Doherty. -Contributed photos
ments.
“This is not required of
us, but I think it’s best prac-
tice,” said Cutsforth. “The
reason we’re doing it is to
try to get five percent high-
er return on some of our,
quote, ‘unused money.’”
He added that the pol-
icy makes certain that the
city isn’t making high-risk
investments, and that in-
vestments would need to
carry Aa or AA ratings.
The policy also states
that investment maturity
can’t exceed five years,
with 50 percent required to
have maturity in less than
2.5 years and 25 percent of
the portfolio to mature in
less than 90 days.
“ We ’ r e n o t l o o k -
ing at long-term invest-
ments. We’re not here to
keep money invested for
the city,” said Cutsforth.
“We’re here to keep it safe
and do the best we can in
what is a reasonable time
frame—because the city
doesn’t need to retire.”
The council also voted
to proceed with the purchase
of a property on Chase and
Center streets and with the
cleanup of the property
once purchased. The prop-
erty has a burned-out house
that the city would like to
see removed. Cutsforth
told the council he is in the
process of purchasing the
property and that, once the
city owns it, it will save a
lot of time getting the prop-
erty cleaned up.
“Otherwise, we’ll have
to go through a process like
we did a few years ago,
and we’ll end up paying
somebody to clear that
up,” said Cutsforth, refer-
ring to a previous property
on Linden Way, on which
the house had burned and
cleanup had been delayed.
Cutsforth also said he
had talked with Willow
Creek Valley Econom-
ic Development Group,
and they would give up to
$20,000 for the removal of
the burned house.
“It will rid us of a nui-
sance and speed us up tre-
mendously on time,” he
said. “We’ll end up with a
plot which, if we want to
keep it, we can, if we want
to sell it, we can.”
Cutsforth did say it
was not a very buildable
lot, but he estimated the
city would only lose two to
five thousand dollars if they
sold the property, which
the city would also lose if
they didn’t purchase the
property.
“This will be a much
cleaner things, and it will
be under the control of the
council,” he added.
Ione business honored at
state FFA convention
At the State FFA Convention in Redmond last week,
JVB Dairy and John and Janna Vanden Brink were
awarded the State FFA Distinguished Service Award.
They were nominated for the honor by the Irrigon,
Ione, Heppner and Riverside FFA chapters. Pictured
are the Vanden Brinks (center) with the four Morrow
County FFA chapters and advisors who attended the
convention. -Contributed photo
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