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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
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