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The INDEPENDENT, November 5, 2009
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
Mentor Noni Andersen
Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes
Opinion
Work done and work to do
Vernonia’ voters have done their work, by passing
Measure 5-197, the $13 million bond to ‘ante’ us into
getting new schools out of the path of future floods.
Now the real work begins for the school board, that of
raising or finding the additional $24 million needed to
complete the project.
The bond measure is going to raise property taxes.
That will be difficult for some property owners and more
expensive for some, depending on the size of their
property, improvements, and all of the factors that the
Columbia County Assessor uses to determine the val-
ue of each piece of property.
The school district and the city take the two biggest
chunks of property tax, with Columbia County coming
in a distant third. Property taxes pay for a lot of servic-
es that we wouldn’t have otherwise; such as street
lights, streets and paths, water, sewer, stormwater, and
police. Unfortunately, many of the people whose
salaries are paid, at least in part by those taxes, don’t
live here and help pay those taxes. That’s a shame.
One way the city and the school can give back to the
community is by shopping locally and keeping as much
money in the community as possible. For instance, the
city just bought studded tires, out of town, for many of
the city owned vehicles. When the police department
need to have cars painted, they don’t use the body
shop in town, they take the vehicles to Vancouver,
Washington. Everyone living in this area knows that the
time, mileage and gas needed to buy out of town isn’t
always a bargain. Often the same item can be pur-
chased here for the same cost, sometimes even less.
It makes sense for the city to spend our tax dollars in
our taxpaying businesses. Please, shop locally.
While we’re on the subject of our tax dollars at work.
People who work out of town usually have to drive their
own vehicles to and from work. Yet, some of our police
officers drive police cars to and from work. Wouldn’t it
be more cost effective to hand them one of those stick-
on lights for the few times they have to come to town
quickly? The police department has one vehicle per
employee, plus two extra vehicles; a truck and an un-
marked car.
One last thought. What other town the size of Ver-
nonia has a part-time police chief, a captain, a sergeant
and two officers? Seem top heavy? There were about
2,300 residents in Vernonia as of the last census.
That’s one police position for every 511 residents, in-
cluding babies and young children. We do need police,
but how many, and do we need them 24/7?
Ike Says…
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League
When you read this the
Blacktailed deer season
will just be finishing up.
The weather has been
perfect for hunting Black-
tails this year, opening
weekend had rain and
there has been rain lately
in conjunction with the rut,
a perfect combination for
good hunting. Early re-
ports are pointing, though, to a slow harvest this
year. The deer hunting sure isn’t what it used to
be and neither are the revenues that used to flow
through our area in the good old days. I remem-
ber all the red hats walking around town when
deer season was in full swing. Out in the woods
you had better have brought your own stump.
The height of hunters in the woods for Blacktails
was in 1985, partially because Eastern Oregon
was in the dumps because of bad winters and
tag cut backs. A record high 168,000 hunters hit
the woods that year and harvested 47,468 deer.
This was the record for hunters, but not for har-
vest; that record was 65,988 Blacktails in 1961.
Last year, 118,866 hunters pursued Blacktails
and harvested 25,592 deer. No matter how you
slice it, Blacktailed deer hunting is far from the
days of the past, just how much further the hunt-
ing will slide is anybody’s guess, but there is no
sign that the slide has stopped.
Many of you may have heard that a ballot
measure to return the use of hounds to hunt
cougars is in the works. This is very preliminary
at this point, but it is something that everybody in
the hunting community understands is needed.
It will be the non-hunting community that will
need to be educated so that they can make the
right choice. Of course I can hear the comments
being made right now that I’m full of B.S.; that’s
fine, but what is the goal of the people who want
to protect all the predators? Ultimately it is to
end hunting. Last year the harvest of deer in
Oregon, statewide, was 72% lower from the
peak harvest. We have a deer and elk popula-
tion that is faltering and a cougar population that
is peaking. The current estimate of the
statewide cougar population is above 5,800 with
a ungulate kill every eight days, which equals
around 265,000 deer, elk, antelope, sheep or
goats eaten a year. The herds simply cannot
sustain this amount of mortality.
Some units in this state are getting to the
point that even some hunters are starting to
question the logic of continued hunts. The lack
of mature bucks in the herds may be leading to
reduced breeding and lowered survival of the
fawns. There comes a time as a sportsman that
you have to understand that there may not be
room for continued hunting. This is a bitter pill to
swallow though when cougars are running un-
checked in the woods.
Hunters are allowed to hunt cougars, with
most being taken incidental while deer or elk
hunting. With decreased opportunity and cuts to
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