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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (June 18, 1997)
»iMt U I — By Nancy Burch Vernonia City Librarian This summer’s reading program at the li brary will be a “Celebration of Life". Animals (pets), music, Native Americans, and under sea life will be some of the things being cele brated. The sessions will be held on Thursday mornings from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Hawkins Park. Dates for the programs are June 26, July 10, July 17, July 24, July 31, and will end with participation in the Jamboree Parade on August 2. These programs are geared for chil dren, ages 4-12, but should be fun and inter esting for all ages. Children under the age of 6 must be accompanied by an adult or a re sponsible youngster who is at least 12 years of age. Youngsters are being encouraged to read through this program and books will be avail able for them to check out at each session. If your youngster has not previously used the Public Library, please bring him/her in and fill out an application card so all children can fully participate in the program. Certificates for hav ing read at least 10 books during the summer will be awarded from the State Superintendent of Education, in addition to certificates of par ticipation from the local library. The first session will be a celebration of ani mals... with a wallaby, exotic birds, a llama, a pet duck, a rabbit, and maybe some baby quail. Bring your child and leam about these animals, check out a book about animals and just have fun (celebrate) this summer through your local library. Because some of the library’s videos are being kept much longer than the week allotted for their circulation, the $1.00 a day fine for overdue videos is going to be strongly en forced. We will be reminding patrons of this videos. Two new fees are going to be requested of library patrons beginning in September. Cur rently, anyone who lives outside the City limits does not pay any taxes toward the support of the City Library. These library patrons will be asked to pay a family fee of $15.00 per year for use of library materials. This is very close to the amount that citizens of Vernonia con tribute to the library through their property tax es and it seems only fair that everyone who uses the library pay something toward its op eration. The other fee that has been approved by City Council is a $2.00 per hour fee for using the Internet service provided in the library. During this first year, the State Library has paid for Internet use, but with this year ending and the library having no additional money for telephone costs, nor upkeep on the computer, it has been agreed that this would be one way of helping with these costs. This fee will also be implemented in September. Past issues of The Eagle and The Indepen dent are on microfilm through a project done through the University of Oregon. Another bundle of newspapers is ready for delivery to Eugene for microfilming, but several issues are missing from our files. These issues are No. 12, December, 1990; No. 8, August and No. 11, November, 1992; No. 7, June and No. 15, October, 1993; No. 2, January, 1994; No. 1, January and No. 4, February, 1995; and No. 15, Early August, 1996. If you have any of these issues, please contact the library. The copies will be returned to you. New arrivals in the library include several new books for children that are thematic to the summer reading sessions, as well as a nice variety for adults. These include LaVyrle Spencer’s Small Town Girl, Jeffery Deaver’s The Bone Collection, Barbara Delinsky’s A Woman’s Place, Anne McCaffrey’s Freedom’s Choice, John Lescroart’s Guilt, Belva Plain’s Secrecy, Sandra Brown’s Fat Tuesday, and Ann Rivers Siddons’ Up Island. Happy reading this summer. Vernonia Library is located at 919 Bridge Street: Library Hours: Monday and Fri day 1-5 p.m., Wednesday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Preschool Sto ry Time: Wednesdays, 10:30-11 a.m. Call 429-1818 for information. I Izaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter Last year I had the privilege of mentoring two high school seniors with their senior pro tects, one of the requirements they must com plete in order to graduate. I had a good time with both students and valuable information was gained from each project. Rodney Price’s project was on spotlighting deer. No, not shooting deer at night illegally, but doing a deer census at night with a spot light, recording how many, and where, deer were seen. Rodney’s project dovetailed per fectly with the Izaak Walton League’s previous spotlight surveys earlier in this decade. The im portance of deer spotlight surveys is that they provide information that is necessary for deci sions on whether the antlerless deer moratori um is working. Data collected in the early 1990s will now be compared with data from this year and the next two years to see if there has been a change. Preliminary results have shown a marked in crease in deer. Three routes were surveyed and two of them had 50-percent and 80-per- cent increases, respectively. The third route had a decrease of, at most, 62-percent, which can be partly explained by the fact that trees in most of the route have grown so it’s not easily surveyable and that a large amount of it was very recently logged and had not star-ted pro ducing forage that would have drawn deer into the area. I expect this route to increase in pop ulation rapidly in the next two years. Being Rodney’s mentor meant being with him through the entire spotlighting process be cause we used my pickup and I knew the sur vey routes. Rodney was good at spotting deer and was amazed to see the same deer in the were quite predictable as to where we would see them. All you hunters will have to pick Rodney’s brain for the locations, because I’m sure not going to tell! My second student, Tom Enneberg, con ducted a project that correlated rain fall with stream height measurements. This senior pro ject has provided very valuable information as to the reaction of both the Nehalem River and Rock Creek to rainfall. Tom’s project was fairly straight forward; he took daily stream height measurements, then gathered rainfall data from the Vernonia Water Plant rain gauge. He then entered this data into a computer and built a table, eventually producing a giant graph of both waterways for the time period that he monitored them. Preliminary results showed that, with an inch of rain, we could anticipate about two feet of rise in both systems. We also found out that the two rivers react similarly to rainfall, but that the Nehalem River is slower to recede. After the great flood of ‘96, we know the im portance to our community of understanding the hydrologic effects of rain and snow on our rivers. We now have some of that knowledge thanks to Tom Enneberg. I already have two seniors who will be gath ering data this summer for their senior projects. One project will involve catching crayfish and marking them. This project will, hopefully, pro vide information on how many crayfish are in our streams and how much they move around. This is an exciting project and I’m sure that my student will have lots of mentoring help. The second student w ill be collecting data on stream flows, stream temperatures and the re- Please see page 20 .■ V • < 4 * 4 m 4 N r t U M M f r Many Thanks To the Editor: We wish to thank the follow ing individuals and organiza tions for their contributions in making the Memorial Day Cer emony an outstanding suc cess: Ray and Synda Allen, Care takers; Oregon Air National Guard, Vernonia City Council, Jeff Davies, Dora Sevig, Pas to r G rant W illia m s, Larry D oppke, S andra and Rod McLean, Fuiten-Rose, West Oregon Electric Cooperative, Vernonia Public Works. Vernonia Memorial Cemetery Beautification Committee Upset about taxes To the Editor: There you go again. Slam the voters for passing a ballot you oppose. Call it what you want Measure 47 or Measure 50, the voters want tax relief. Judging from your editorials you can’t get enough taxes to pay. W ell, I pay more than plenty. My take home pay is 68.4% of my gross pay. Of this 68.4% I pay over $100.00/m o for property taxes, $40.00/mo for fuel taxes, $100.00/mo for sin ta xe s. Add the se taxes to phone taxes, vehicle registra tion (which will double soon), driver's license, trade licenses, sta te m andated schooling costs to keep my trade licens es, the list seems endless. If I want to go fishing there’s the fishing license, the boat li cense, boat ramp fee. Want to go on a picnic? Day use fee. Want to camp out? Camp fee. Want to stay in a motel? Motel tax. Etc, etc. To add s a lt to my tax wounds every year I still have to send a check with my tax returns. After I pay postal fees. You keep pushing for more taxes and I’ll keep pushing for tax relief. Welcome to America and Happy Holidays to you too. Rick Durbin Vernonia (Sorry, I didn’t make my position clear. I don’t like paying taxes, ei ther, but especially dislike wasting millions of dollars in taxes, as we did to vote a second time on what was obviously a flaw ed ballot measure. Ed.) Welcome sign up at Vernonia Lake site To the Editor: Our community now has a beautiful “Welcome to Vernon ia" sign. This has been a two- year Vernonia Pride project. The sign would not have been possible without the backing of the community. All of the cedar was donat ed by Terry Schaumburg of Cedarw ood Tim ber. The boards were sawed by Randy Ellson at Ellson Cedar Mill. Nehalem Valley Land Devel opm ent donated the site among the fir trees on the knoll at the lake. Many thanks to all of you. Susan M iller, chainsaw artist from Mist, made the sign. Susan, you did a beautiful job -- thank you! West Oregon Electric was present on June 2 and with their truck and auger drilled the holes and positioned the sign just right. Their donation of tim e and equipm ent is greatly appreciated. Thank you Greg Schaumburg, Gary Gulleckson and Mick Taylor of WOEC. Financial backing was pro vided by Dass Logging, Gwin & Sons Logging, Sentry Mar ket, Holce Logging, Bighorn Logging, Bud Gibson Truck ing, Skidmore & Son Trucking, Grant Trucking, Natal Grange, Weller & Sons Trucking, Bob Curl, Sword Logging, Busch Logging, Mike ihil Logging and Vernonia Pride. A number of people were there to assist in the sign rais ing. Thanks to Casey Mitchell, Date Webb, Jim Hayes, Ryan Seeberger, Elroy Miner, Dale Fisher and Bob Argue. I want to thank everyone who helped make the sign possible. Years ago, Pete Brunsman had a business in Vernonia. His truck had a sign saying “It’s a privilege and a pleasure to live in Vernonia." It is a privilege for me to give to Vernonia and a plea sure to know I can count on the support of the community. Gratefully, Shirlee Daughtry Vernonia Pride Poker Ride fun in spite of the weather To the Editor: Vernonia Ridge R iders would like to thank the follow ing businesses for their gener ous donations for our annual Poker Ride; AG West, Fisher Im plem ents, J & K K orral, W estern W orld, D ouble C Tack & Western Wear, RV Re sort at Cannon Beach, Bird- well Ford, Banks Feed, AG Chem, Mary’s Saddle & Tack, Marrilyns, Outwest Outfitters, Frog Valley Ranch, Tualatin Valley Farm Supply, Boothill, George & Deloris Bellingham, C olum bia Feed & Supply, Gratteri’s 4x4 Center, Wilcox & Flegel, Vernonia Hardware, Mini-Mart, Valley Commercial Bank. Due to adverse w eather conditions we had to cancel the ride. We did however still sell poker hands to the brave riders who did come, and had a great time visiting. Thank you one and all!! Sue East Vernonia Ridge Riders We are role models, learn to be rational To the Editor: My leisurely Sunday visit to the grocery store was abruptly Please see page 16 *W <’-■
