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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 2, 2003)
Vol. 18, No. 1 ‘ Voice of the Upper Nehalem River Valley' January 2, 2003 Vernonia Credit Union will merge with WFCU Vernonia Federal Credit Union board has agreed to merge into Wauna Federal Credit Union. Vernonia Federal Credit Union serves the Vernonia community with a base of more than 700 members. VFCU cur rently offers limited services with limited hours. Wauna Fed eral Credit Union has ex pressed a commitment to mak ing the Vernonia Branch, in its current location, a full service branch, with full service hours and an ATM. According to a press release from Wauna Federal Credit Union, the range of new servic es that will be offered include, but are not limited to: Checking Accounts, Debit Cards, Visa Card, Internet Banking, 24 hour telephone account access, and 30 year mortgages, in addition to a large variety of low interest High winds cause area power outages The wind blew hard and trees fell throughout the area served by West Oregon Elec tric Cooperative - Buxton to Necanicum and Mist to Yamhill, keeping line crews working around the clock for nearly 48 hours to restore service. The crews started removing trees and restoring lines at 3:30 a.m. Friday, Dec. 27, and continued until midnight on Saturday, Dec. 28, according to opera tions manager Steve Hursh. Most of the damage was caused by trees falling through power lines, Hursh said, but line crews also had to spend a lot of time removing fallen trees that blocked roads and pre vented trucks from getting through. In some areas, particularly along Johnson Road, falling trees stripped insulators off of poles. Fallen lines caused two small fires, one at Vernonia Air port, the other in Yamhill Coun ty- Buxton, Timber, Keasey and Elsie had extensive outages caused by the loss of the Bon neville Power Administration transmission line to the Timber substation, WOEC transm is sion lines and local distribution lines. The Gaston area was also hard hit. Power was out in Mist for about an hour, while Chapman, Vernonia and Necanicum had only brief outages. Council sets two public hearings After a year of consideration, workshops, discussions and a public hearing, the Vernonia City Council will hold a second public hearing and make a de cision Monday, January 6, whether to adopt an ordinance that would finance the city’s parks with a $1 charge added to the monthly water and sewer bills. Most of the people who spoke at the public hearing in December felt that such a pro cedure would be the fairest and most efficient way to establish a consistent source of revenue. Monday’s public hearing will be to consider the proposed or dinance. It will start immediate ly following a 6:30 p.m. public hearing to consider vacating a city-owned portion of O kla homa Avenue adjacent to Spencer Park. rate loan products. Wauna Fed eral is rapidly being recognized as the Lender of choice within its communities. “The VFCU board of direc tors is pleased with the merger decision because Wauna Fed eral shares similar values, an ongoing com m itm ent to the com m unity we serve and a wide range of financial services and products,” said Randall E. Holce, VFCU manager. The board and staff of Wau na Federal are excited and honored to have the opportuni ty to service the community of Vernonia, according to Manag er Linda Ray. “We look forward to offering a continued expan sion of services,” Ray said. VFCU members will receive more information at the annual meeting in a few weeks, in ad dition to details of the merger timeline. Legislators, school officials discuss mutual concerns The Northwest Regional Ed ucation Service District (NWRESD) held a dinner and forum for school board mem bers and local legislators, in December, to discuss issues to be dealt with in the upcoming legislative session. The twelve legislators attending answered questions about school funding and effective working relation ships. NWRESD serves 20 school districts in Clatsop, Columbia, Tillamook and W ashington Counties; these districts serve more than 107,700 students and are represented by 125 school and ESD board mem bers. In turn, the counties are represented at the state level by 21 legislators (8 senators and 13 representatives). With term limits gone, legislators said that they hoped to develop long-term working relationships between parties. Bipartisanship needed The legislators in attendance indicated that bipartisan agree ment could be obtained for a multi-faceted approach to solv ing Oregon’s funding crisis. The legislators largely agreed that the budget cuts already taken in school districts may not have been noticed by the public, but that the expected failure of Measure 28 will be an “alarm ing wake-up call” to the citizens of the state, as Rep. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) said. Real cuts with genuine effects of huge magnitude will leave Oregonians “shocked and an gry,” Johnson continued. Using a phrase that was periodically picked up by other legislators throughout the evening, John- Please see page 10
