PRESORTED STANDARD
U.S. Postage Paid
Vernonia, OR 97064
Permit No. 37
Vol. 24, No. 6
“Voice of the Upper Nehalem River Valley”
March 19, 2009
Many attend meeting to
hear board pick school site
Vernonia School Board members, from left, Ernie Smith, Jim Krahn andTammy Jennings lis-
ten intently during discussions of a new school site during the March 12 Board meeting.
Council given update on flood recovery plans
Jim Tierney, Director of Co-
lumbia County Flood Relief,
gave a presentation to Vernon-
ia’s City Council on Monday,
March 16, to provide an update
on the Columbia County Flood
Unmet Needs Committee Pro-
ject Recap.
The presentation included
timelines for completion of
flood recovery projects from the
December 3, 2007, flood that
has recovery completed by the
end of 2011. In other comments,
Tierney mentioned the need for a
75-year timeline to gradually get
all land in the flood plain cleared
to allow water to flow better and
keep houses out of the damage
zone.
More than $12 million in
grant, award, or matching dol-
lars is expected to be used by
the end of 2009 to work on 40-
50 more elevations, 35 buy-
outs, and 10-15 new affordable
replacement homes, in addition
to the 142 houses that have al-
ready been completed county-
wide. According to Tierney, the
142 completed houses were all
done with private monies, while
the next batch will be done
mostly with public funds, Tier-
ney told the council. 40 percent
of the homes in Vernonia were
flooded, according to Tierney,
with 340 homes in the county
receiving more than 50 percent
damage (termed “substantially
damaged”).
Tierney’s project recap includ-
ed the statement that overhead
expenses (including salaries)
have accounted for 9.4 percent
of all costs. Tierney mentioned
$12,500 out of donated Colum-
bia County Flood Unmet Needs
funds used as a grant to the City
of Vernonia as a match to pay
the salary of a RARE student
whose work has been deemed to
be of value to future flood pre-
vention. A grant for $5,000 was
obtained for the rest of the mon-
ey needed for the RARE student.
Not specifically mentioned in the
presentation was $36,000 the
Board of County Commissioners
approved to be spent out of the
$180,000 in unspent donated
funds, in February. That money
is backfilling salaries of a Volun-
teer Coordinator, Administrative
Assistant and Case Manager
that cannot be reimbursed using
grant money. According to Tier-
ney’s recap, $340,836.28 was
the total of cash donations.
The value of volunteer hours
is estimated at $1,935,000 (at
$10 per hour) based on hours
secured or donated through
February 2009. Now that the
weather is improving, volun-
teers from Christian Aid Min-
istries (CAM) and others are re-
turning to help with recovery ef-
forts by volunteering their time
and expertise on the many proj-
ects Columbia County Flood
Unmet Needs Committee is
overseeing.
(See related article under
headline Columbia County
Flood Relief… on page 15)
More than 65 members of
the Vernonia community at-
tended the March 12 Vernonia
School District Board of Direc-
tors meeting to hear the an-
nouncement that the new
school will most likely be built
at the “Boot Site” on O-A Hill.
Before voting on the pro-
posed school site, the board
heard from Wendy Hemmen
during the Public Comment
portion of the meeting. Hem-
men told the board that she is
an engineer in Oregon and has
issues with the Boot site,
specifically the grading, the
steep terrain and the hydrology
that causes the fields there to
be “very, very wet year round.”
Hemmen went on to say she
saw hillside stability issues and
wetlands that will require miti-
gation. On the other hand, said
Hemmen, “The Knott St. site is
larger, flatter, with easier to
deal with wetlands, and more
shovel ready.” After Hemmen
spoke, Matt Newman, a land
use planner in Hillsboro, said,
“We’re not suggesting not us-
ing the Boot site, just that you
consider Knott St. as a backup
plan.”
Mike Pihl told the board, “I’m
here for myself. I agree, no
school, no Vernonia. We need
a site above the flood plain that
can be a community center in a
flood.”
Community members had
submitted written questions, in
addition to making comments.
One asked, “How much will the
bond be?” referring to an
amount the community has
been told they will need to put
in to help build the schools.
Board Chair Kim Wallace an-
swered that the bond may be
$10-15 million dollars, but they
will work with what they think
the community can afford. Wal-
lace and Superintendent Dr.
Ken Cox agreed to put together
a committee to determine the
bond amount.
Another written question
was, “Do you have a plan B if a
bond doesn’t pass?” Wallace’s
response was, “Yes, we’ll be
Please see page 11
Brown-outs, outages result from
problem on BPA transmission line
West Oregon Electric Coop-
erative (WOEC) customers ex-
perienced short outages and
brown-outs March 16 and 17.
According to General Manager
Marc Farmer, the outages were
caused by a problem on the
B.P.A. (Bonneville Power Ad-
ministration) Warren Line
through St. Helens. They could
tell that one of the three phases
went down because it caused a
brown-out.
WOEC brought in six line
crews, sending two to the Tim-
ber substation to heat it up.
When that was ready, at about
10:17 p.m. Tuesday night, they
brought all the power down in
order to switch the power feed
from the Chapman line to the
Timber line. Then two line
crews went to Chapman and
switched their feed from the
B.P.A. line to the line coming
through Vernonia from Timber.
The crews were working
Wednesday to find the problem
with the B.P.A. Warren line,
looking first at a part of the line
where a fire earlier in the year
may have caused problems. In
the meantime, power will contin-
ue to come from the Timber sta-
tion. There may be one more
outage when the line is
switched back over from Timber
to Chapman in the next few days.