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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1995)
Page 2 The INDEPENDENT, April 26,1905 ^INDEPENDENT Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published twice monthly on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 1206 S tate A venue, V ernonia, OR 97064, as a free new spaper. E ditors and P ublishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen, (503)429-9410. Voters must believe levy will be of value The law enforcement levy that will be on the May 16 ballot is meant to provide expanded coverage for rural areas of Columbia County. There is no doubt that it is needed. The sheriff’s office is underfunded and under staffed, as most voters already know. The only poten tial barrier to passage of the levy is whether people believe they will get what they are paying for. As both rural and city residents in this area know, city police respond to law enforcement emergencies in rural areas long before anyone from the sheriff’s of fice is available. This results in city residents paying for rural law enforcement without reimbursement from the county and, at the same time, being left without police officers when they go to rural areas to help. At this time, the City of Vernonia is trying to deveh- op an intergovernmental agreement with the sheriff’s office in order to clarify how expanded law enforce ment would be delivered. There are many options: Four or five of the twelve new deputies the levy would provide could be stationed on the west side of the county, along Hwy. 47. But, if they were stationed in St. Helens and responded only after getting a call, they would be of little value to the people who need their services. Another approach would be to have resident deputies, in the Vernonia and Clatskanie areas, who work out of the city police departments. Again, it would require four or five deputies to cover the area seven days a week. Sheriff George Hulit wants to provide all deputies with laptop computers in their cars and develop a net work of computers in all law enforcement offices in the county. This could eliminate a lot of the time deputies now use to file reports, etc., in St. Helens—if it is used properly. Until a delivery system for enhanced law enforce ment is worked out in a satisfactory manner and with a written intergovernmental agreement, it’s unlikely to convince the voters that there will be any substantial improvement. It is incumbent on the law enforcement community to reach a quick and efficient agreement. Arraignment of sheriff doesn’t cancel election It is distressing, to say the least, to have Columbia County Sheriff George Hulit arraigned on criminal charges, no matter how minor they may be. Never theless, he has pleaded not guilty to the charges and will seek his day in court. At this time, Hulit should not be considered the same as Commissioner Bruce Hugo, who admitted his guilt without even waiting for an indictment. As difficult as it may be, when voters mark their bal- lots-yes or no-on the law enforcement levy, it’s im portant to consider the question without dwelling on who is sheriff. But whatever you do— remember to vote! I The Josi Report By Rep. TimJosi Oregon Representative, District 2 Proposed changes in Oregon’s Workers’ Compensation Law, embodied in Senate Bill 369 and amended in the House, seeks to rec tify potential problems that may arise from re cent court and Workers’ Compensation Board decisions that appear to create an unbalanced system which is more sympathetic to workers than to their employers’ well being. The idea is, of course, to strike a balance where legiti mate and reasonable compensation is granted to workers in a timely fashion so that the work er and the employer are not placed in adver sarial roles, especially if those positions are inherently biased against one group or the other. One of the primary concerns of the Legisla ture is to reinforce the concept of sole remedy, which is in jeopardy from recent court rulings. In order to have a sound and effective work ers’ compensation program, all employers and em ployees must know that the decisions made to compensate workers are made on an impartial basis. There are limits both on pay ment to the worker and responsibility of the employer; once a decision is made that an in jury is not covered by Workers’ Compensa tion, there is no further avenue of recourse against the employer, such as a civil suit. To make the changes more palatable to workers, the bill calls for increased compensa tion for permanent partial disability benefits and for increased benefits for surviving spous es. It also allows for treatment of injured work ers by out-of-state physicians, which takes into account that some people working in Ore gon do not live in the state. In addition, there are provisions which accelerate the payment By Dale Webb, member Izaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter The water gently flows through the logs and limbs of the very small creek as it springs forth from small springs in the hillsides. As more and m ore w ater m erges, the creek gains enough force to dig holes in the stream bed after falling over logs. The water flows on, ■ : - W iflM ttl of settlements, which may or not prove to be beneficial to workers, especially if the new rules do not allow proper time to submit and verify claims. While a worker could conceivably be grant ed increased b e ne fits, one of the m ajor changes and clarifications made by the bill would make it much more difficult to prove that major cause of an injury is job related and not tied to some pre-existing condition, therefore, limiting the number of cases that will be de clared eligible for workers’ compensation. The worker may not even need to be aware of the pre-existing condition or have been treated for it to be denied benefits. For a worker to be granted benefits for an injury, the worker’s doctor must be able to base diagnosis on objective findings that must be consistently reproducible, measurable or observable. Physicians will no longer be able to use subjective verbal information regarding pain supplied to them by their patients as veri fication of an injury. This means, for instance, that chronic back pain, the cause of which cannot be consistently verified by physical ob servation and measurable means, will proba bly not be accepted as a claim. I believe these revisions favor the employer at the expense of the worker. Business has al ready saved $2 billion since the initial passage in 1990 of compensation reform. If the bill is not changed to increase the ability of workers to have legitimate claims approved, Governor Kitzhaber will veto the bill. Rep. Josi may be reached at: State Capitol Room H491 Salem, OR 97310 Phone: (503)986-1402 FAX: (503)986-1575 depths of these pools and man is unaware, until now. This year the stream has something new to flow through, a strange contraption made of plastic pipe and plastic mesh. This device spans the whole creek and seems to catch ev erything that flows into it, including all the mi grating fish. The fish are forced to swim into a Please see page 9
