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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