The independent., June 20, 2001, Page 2, Image 2

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The INDEPENDENT, June 20, 2001
Will we nurture and
protect our children?
In this season when young people complete various
phases of their education and launch themselves into
the future, the Vernonia School District has an un­
precedented opportunity to catapult into the 21st cen­
tury.
A dedicated and diverse group of volunteers has
been meeting with district administrators and the dis­
trict’s architect for several months to evaluate long
range facilities for the school district. The group eval­
uated the previous plan, did an informal survey of the
community, reviewed engineering reports, studied
possible new locations, evaluated educational pro­
gram needs and contemplated how much money the
community would be willing and able to provide.
Conventional thinking, as in the previous plan,
would be to build a new high school and repair exist­
ing buildings to bring them up to standard. Unfortu­
nately, repair estimates for existing schools, plus the
cost of constructing a new high school on a new site,
is far beyond the district’s means. Faced with an engi­
neering evaluation showing that ALL of the district’s
major buildings are worn out, inaccessible, and just
plain dangerous in the event of an earthquake, and
that the major focus of the community was to address
student safety issues, the committee began to explore
new territory. Instead of proceeding in the traditional
fashion, strategic thinking resulted in an entirely new
concept.
Based on the premise that sharing resources pro­
vides the most efficient use, and considering the im­
portance of the school campus to the small town feel
of Vernonia, a design evolved that calls for construct­
ing a facility with its major functions (library, cafeteria,
administration, gyms) in a central hub, surrounded by
smaller buildings for different grade level programs.
This design allows for great savings in capital con­
struction costs and in operating costs over time.
Like all truly innovative plans, this will require sacri­
fice. Not only will the community have to come up with
the necessary funding but, in order to capitalize on the
central location of the existing campus, buildings must
be replaced. Historic and classically beautiful though it
is, Washington Grade School is essentially a pile of
bricks held together with sand, just waiting to fall on
the children within.
It is no accident that this editorial is being presented
before most of you have a chance to learn much about
the recommendations of the long range facilities com­
mittee. That will be presented in depth in the July 5 is­
sue of The INDEPENDENT, in the meantime, we want
you to consider what is needed to provide a quality ed­
ucation in a safe atmosphere. Overcrowded class­
rooms can interfere with learning; unsafe buildings
can interfere with life.
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Salem Scena
By Rep. Elaine M. Hopson
Second District
June 8, 2001
In addition to the regular bills/laws being
passed to hopefully improve our conditions, sev­
eral major issues reached a peak this last week.
Money was used that reduces the kicker refund,
a defection occurred in the Republican Caucus,
and redistricting maps were released.
In an effort to fund some of the needed pro­
grams, the House voted to pass SB 963 by a 31-
27 vote on Thursday. SB 963 takes $106 million
in federal Medicaid money from this year’s kick­
er refund in order to fund these programs. Cur­
rently, the State turns some Medicaid money
into general fund money. By taking that federal
money out of the general fund, the kicker still
“kicks in” but not to the extent it would do if that
money remained in the general fund. The kicker
“kicks” when general fund revenues exceed es­
timates (made two years earlier) by two percent
or more. By removing the Medicaid money, the
revenues in excess of the two percent will de­
crease from $355 million to $249 million, there­
by decreasing the individual kicker check. How­
ever, the money will be used to fund some
needs of our most vulnerable populations.
As you no doubt read, a Republican House
member left the Republican Caucus and is now
an independent. Jan Lee decided that the con­
finement brought on by some of the conserva­
tive members of her Caucus was more than she
could tolerate. Although her defection does not
really change committees or power, it is a state­
ment regarding the need for compromise, con­
sideration, and cooperation with the halls of the
Legislature. We don’t get all that we want but we
can always focus on what is good for the people
in our communities and the State as a whole.
Every ten years, redistricting occurs to reflect
the changing populations in the various commu­
nities and legislative districts. The Republicans
and Democrats have each developed a plan to
address increased populations in each District
and those plans have been released. I think it
would be fair to say that neither will remain as
presented. The plan the Republicans want will
most likely receive enough votes to exit the
building - which is what being in the majority
means. However, in this case, the Governor can
turn the plan down and then it goes to the Sec­
retary of State for his decision. There are a num­
ber of criteria for redistricting the areas such as
using specific, prominent geographic distinc­
tions; keeping communities of interest together;
following various highway/freeway lines, and
other demarcations. This is just the first step, as
a bill must pass out of the legislature in order to
start the process mentioned above.
June 18, 2001
Rumors are rampant trying to guess when we
will be out of here and close up the “shop" for
another two years. Doing the business of the
state, especially the budgeting, for a two-year
period certainly complicates the process. Al­
though I am not willing to argue for annual ses­
sions, you can imagine the complications in try­
ing to project income and expenditures two
years in advance. Nevertheless, we work toward
a speedy conclusion to this process with the
best estimates and projections we can.
On Thursday, the first of the education bud­
gets passed from the Education Subcommittee
of Ways and Means. It fully funded the $45 mil­
lion dollars for enrollment growth requested by
the Community College folks. Although it was
pulled back into our committee on Friday, there
is every reason to believe it will go forward.
On Saturday, we passed out the first of the K-
12 budgets - the one dealing with all the Grants-
in-Aid that come through the Oregon Depart­
ment of Education. One complicating factor in all
of the K-12 education budgets is the increased
amount of money expected to come from the
Federal budget. It continues to look like we will
get more federal money but it is unclear how
specifically it will have to be allocated. The im­
portance of the education budgets moving is
that it signals the preparations for the end of the
session.
A bill to require insurance companies to pay
for prescription contraceptives continues to be
an issue. SB 608 had sufficient support to come
out of the building. However, due to a very
strong lobbying effort, it appears it may be dead
this session. The fact that it was sent back to
committee without a vote on the floor was the
impetus to one member of the Republican’s de­
cision to leave her Caucus. The federal court in
Washington ruled that pharmacies excluding
contraceptives from employer health plans vio­
lates the federal Civil Rights Act thereby sub­
jecting employers to legal challenges. The Leg­
islature’s own attorneys stated in writing that
they were reasonably certain the courts will be
ruling the same way on pending legal chal­
lenges currently in place in Oregon. In spite of
that, an attempt to bring the legislation back to
the floor for a vote was thwarted by the Republi­
can majority. It seems a shame that we will ne-
Please see page 3