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The INDEPENDENT, Septem ber 5, 2002
n.
INDEPENDENT
Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published twice
monthly, on the first and third Thursdays of each month,
by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 725 Bridge Street, Ver
nonia, OR 97064, as a free newspaper. Editors and Pub
lishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen. Phone/Fax: 503-429-
9410, e-mail: noni@ vernonia.com
Opinion_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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Budgets are bleeding
bandaids won’t work
Most of our state legislators don’t seem to have no
ticed, but there is a recession and it isn’t going away in
the next six or twelve months. Their response to a dis
astrous reduction in income taxes is to pretend that
everything will be just fine in January—after they’ve
been re-elected—when the new biennium starts.
Well, the economy isn’t going to recover that rapidly,
and their bandaid approach to a hemorrhaging budget
won’t work.
The Sept. 17 Special Election has two money meas
ures on the ballot.
Ballot Measure 19 is a retread of the ballot measure
voters defeated in May, when the legislature referred a
measure to raid the education endowment fund by
$220 million. Money for the endowment comes from
the state lottery. As an endowment, the principal is in
vested and the interest can be spent to pay interest on
school construction bonds and college scholarships.
Approval of Measure 19 would take $150 million
from the fund in May, 2003, leaving only $128 million.
T ha t’s bad, but worse is that the endowment is wiped
out and the money becomes a “stability fund,” which
can be raided for any educational use whenever em
ployment drops for two consecutive quarters OR state
revenues drop two percent or more below the quarter
ly state revenue forecast. The drop in revenue this year
has been 18 percent since the budget was approved
last year. A three-fifths majority of both houses of the
legislature would be required to spend the remaining
capital but, with another short-sighted legislature like
the current one, the fund not only wouldn’t be "stable,”
it would become just another regular part of school
funding. There would be no help with school construc
tion costs, college scholarships for low income stu
dents would be mostly wiped out, and it would help
prevent any real effort to develop stability in funding for
education.
In spite of the very real need for school funding, we
recommend a NO vote on Measure 19.
Ballot Measure 20 is for an increase in cigarette tax.
This is a reasonable increase, considering the higher
taxes in Washington and California. Whether it would
raise the amount estimated is a different question.
Oregon desperately needs a complete tax overhaul!
AWtfAY
SCtiùOLZ &/\CK IN SESSlM
C W iòflC /V
¡Kt f t f t . ,
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter Iza-
ak Walton League
Hunting season is final
ly upon us. Bow season is
currently underway, but
places to hunt locally are
limited due to high fire dan
ger. This seems to be a se
rious problem for bow
hunters, yet they manage
to harvest a fair amount of animals, in spite of all
the land closed to them. If the fire danger per
sists, I suspect that opening day for rifle deer
season will be limited to public lands. This has
started to become a common event; luckily, buck
hunting doesn’t usually get good till the end of
the season.
Make sure you sight in your rifle. Again, find
ing a safe place for this is becoming a problem,
due to land closures. Make sure, if you have a
variable power scope, to change the power set
ting and see if the scope is shifting point of im
pact. I had this happen to me last year. I had a
good group in the bull’s-eye, then increased the
power setting to look at the bullet holes from the
bench. Then I decided to shoot another group
and turned the scope power down, but not back
to the setting that the first group was shot with.
After three rounds I had a nice group two inches
to the left and high...it was time to retire the old
Weaver I had used since getting my rifle in 1968.
Also make sure all the mounting screws are
tight before you sight in your rifle; it's a lot easier
to do this before you discover your gun is throw
ing bullets all over the place.
If you have read previous columns, you know
that I feel that the local deer population is expe
riencing a dramatic population decline. Buck
hunters should not expect very many young
bucks this year. Like last year, the harvest will be
made up of older bucks, but they will be few and
far between. I feel this will be the last decent
year for Blacktails in our area. Last year’s buck
harvest was under 600, which is a major drop
compared to the old days and even a couple of
years ago. Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife
is currently trying to make the case that Black
tailed deer are declining on the west side of the
state because of declining habitat. That argu
ment, though, does not hold water up here in the
Northwest corner of the state. The last time I
looked, there were plenty of clear cuts and deer
feed. Besides, the buck harvest in the Saddle
Mountain unit has declined by 33 percent in just
three years and the results of declining habitat
usually do not appear so quickly. Just remember,
when this thing comes all unhinged, who allowed
antlerless deer hunting on top of the hair disease
losses.
Speaking of disease, hunters traveling out of
state have new rules to follow. Because of
Chronic Wasting Disease, sportsmen cannot
bring back into the State of Oregon any part of a
game animal that has the spinal cord or brain
matter attached. (ODF&W is putting out a list of
species this applies to.) This means that you
cannot quarter an animal by splitting it down the
back bone and then bring it back home. It is le
gal to bring back the horns attached to the skull
plate, but it must be cleaned of any brain matter.
The definition of “cle a n ” is not very clear. The
Please see page 17