PRESORTED STANDARD
U.S. Postage Paid
Vernonia, OR 97064
Permit No. 37
Vol. 19, No. 1
“Voice of the Upper Nehalem River Valley”
Welcome to 2004
January 2, 2004
County awarded U.S.
funds for food, shelter
Columbia County has been
awarded $43,595 in federal
funds to supplement emer-
gency food and shelter pro-
grams.
The selection was made by
a national board, chaired by the
Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Agency (FEMA), and
composed of representatives
from The Salvation Army,
American Red Cross, United
Jewish Communities, Catholic
Charities, USA; National Coun-
cil of the Churches of Christ in
the USA, and United Way of
America, which also provides
administrative staff and serves
as fiscal agent.
A local Board, with repre-
sentatives from the VFW,
American Red Cross, Salvation
Army, Columbia County Dept.
of Emergency Management,
community churches, home-
less and others will determine
how the funds are to be distrib-
uted.
Organizations wishing to ap-
ply for the grant money must
meet the following criteria:
Be private, voluntary non-
profits or units of government;
Have an accounting system;
Practice nondiscrimination;
Have demonstrated capabil-
ity to deliver emergency food
and/or shelter programs within
Columbia County.
If a private organization, a
volunteer board is required.
Organizations must have a
permanent Columbia County
Weather causes
power outages
With snow, instead of dust, covering the sidewalks along Bridge Street this week (bottom
photo), it looks remarkably unchanged since the top photo was taken in 1925. The white
lettering on the old photo shows against The INDEPENDENT building, before the theater
was built. The building that is now the Lyon’s Den can also be clearly seen, also. The
building adjacent to the fenced boardwalk on the left, where Shay Park is now located,
housed the telephone company.
FREE
Weather-related power out-
ages affected many members
of West Oregon Electric Coop-
erative from Sunday evening,
Dec. 28, through the following
morning.
A brief outage occurred
about 8:00 p.m., Sunday, when
Please see page 5
presence.
Qualifying organizations are
urged to apply for a portion of
the $43,595.00 by Friday, Jan-
uary 16, 2004.
Send proposals to P.O. Box
538, Rainier, OR 97048. In-
quiries may be made through
the United Way of Columbia
County at 503-556-3614.
Second Town
Hall meeting
on economy
Vernonia business owners,
and others interested in the
health of Vernonia’s economy,
will continue a discussion on
economic development that
was started with a town hall
meeting in November.
A second, follow-up meeting
was originally set for mid-De-
cember, but was rescheduled
because of the holidays and
businesses’ extended hours. It
will be held, instead, January
12 at 7:00 p.m. at the Scout
Cabin.
During the November meet-
ing, participants developed
lists of Strengths, Weakness-
es, Opportunities and Threats
(the “SWOT” procedure).
There will be a review of those
lists during the January 12
meeting, prior to discussion of
future plans.
Participants will also have
an opportunity to review the
progress of the plan developed
after the flood in 1996, when
Rural Development Institute fa-
cilitated several months of
analysis and planning.
This meeting will be pivotal
in setting the direction of
growth for the City of Vernonia.
Participants will set goals and
help put committees into place
to achieve those goals.
Everyone with a stake in
Vernonia’s economic develop-
ment is urged to attend.