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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 2007)
Page 2 The INDEPENDENT, January 4, 2007 The INDEPENDENT Published on the first and third Thursdays of each month by The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St., Vernonia, OR 97064. Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410. Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net Assoc. Editor Noni Andersen, noni@the-independent.net Year in Review Continued from Page 1 Apr. 17 – Workshop date set to discuss disposition of airport property. May 1 – Mayor Harrison says city is not planning on selling airport property. May 5 – Three 47J superintendent candidates sat alone for two hours at ‘meet the candidates’ time. May 11 – 47J board of directors selects Ken Cox, from The Dalles, as new superintendent. May 15 – Mayor says “We are not going to get rid of airport.” June 5 – City Administrator Bassett says a waste wa- ter upgrade project focus group will be formed. June 19 – City Council accepts City Administrator Bassett’s resignation. June 23 – Mayor sets up fact-finding committee to look at Vernonia airport. July 5 – Council interviews four for interim city admin- istrator, chooses M.R. “Dick” Kline. July 19 – Waste water project advisory committee holds first meeting. Aug. 7 – Council asked about previous agreement to notify citizens before fireworks; Mayor says, “We’ll revisit that.” Aug. 21 – Council hires Kline for City Administrator without interviewing anyone else. Sept. 16 – Vernonia Community Learning Center grand opening. Sept. 18 – Public gets tour of waste water system. Oct. 2 – Council approves $25,000 operating loan for Vernonia Community Learning Center. Oct. 5 – City Hall turns on new automated phone mes- sage system instead of person answering. Oct. 16 – Public Works Committee (waste water proj- ect advisory committee) recommends sewer rate increase of $12.00 per month to pay $500,000 loan used to plan Phase I of project. Oct. 28 – Candidate forum for Mayor and Council posi- tions; only two citizens show up. Nov. 6 – Administrator Kline tells council there is a $384,174 shortfall in one city fund; one staff position will be eliminated. Nov. 20 – Council okays $12.00 sewer rate increase. Dec. 14 – Windstorm leaves area without power for Ike Says… By Dale Webb, member Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League Happy New Year! We survived another year and can only dream of what is in store for us in the com- ing year. We can, howev- er, foresee the future of this year’s hunting sea- sons by picking up a syn- opsis. Please, pick up a synopsis and take it to your lawyer to get a proper reading of the regu- lations and changes. Just kidding! There are not many changes in the synopsis for the coming year. One of the biggest changes for the coming deer season on the West side of Oregon will be in regard to youth hunting. If you look closely, you will see that youth 12-17 years of age will be allowed to continue hunting Buck Deer- forked horn or better for two more days after the gen- eral season closes. This will put the hunt right in the height of the rut and should be a good hunt. It is nice for a change to see ODF&W give the youth a hunt that stands a chance of being suc- cessful, some of the current youth hunts are not very successful due to the timing. The one draw- back that I see to this youth hunt will be the op- portunity for adults to abuse this hunt; they should pay close attention to the wording in the synopsis that points out that all youth hunters must be accompanied by a Non-Hunting Adult. I will talk about what this means further in the column. Another change for youth hunters will be the addition of youth tags for spike or antlerless deer in some of the West side units. In most of these new hunts the tags will be valid from opening day to the end of the general season, but not into the new extended season for youth which is two more days. Hmm… are you confused yet? Ok, you must also remember that the regular antler- less tags for (which a youth could draw) are good only for the latter part of the general sea- son (please check the regulations for dates in the unit that you are hunting). The Saddle Mt. and Scappoose units are proposed to receive 100 tags each for this youth hunt. I have not seen any information suggesting that an offset will be accounted for in these new hunts in regard to antlerless harvest in the Sad- dle Mt. or Scappoose units. I would think it ap- propriate to reduce the regular 600 series tags accordingly. Personally, I think all the tags should be cut, but I’m sure that just is not a real- istic idea down in Salem. This last elk season I spent 10 days in the field, daylight to dark (three days scouting and one day packing), and saw a grand total of seven deer. Now isn’t that an earth shattering number of deer? This continues to il- lustrate that ODF&W is out of touch with the deer numbers in the Northwest units. It is curious to observe though, to the south of us, the biologist has cut antlerless tags to their lowest point in re- cent history and these are units that used to Please see page 17
