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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 2011)
The INDEPENDENT, January 6, 2011 State minimum wage increased 10 cents per hour Oregon's lowest-paid work- ers got a small boost January 1, when the state’s minimum hourly wage increased by 10 cents to $8.50. The 10-cent in- crease mirrors a 1.15% in- crease in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from August 2009 to August 2010, according to the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries. A full-time minimum wage worker will earn approxi- mately $208 more in 2011. The minimum wage in- crease is the result of voter-ap- proved Measure 25, enacted in 2002, which requires a mini- mum wage adjustment annual- ly based on changes in infla- tion, as defined by the CPI. The CPI, published yearly by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, measures changes over time in a fixed “market basket” of goods and services. Minimum wage workers did not receive an increase in 2010 under the formula. In October, the state Em- ployment Department reported that “Oregon had roughly 121,000 jobs paying less than $8.50 per hour in the second quarter of 2010. More than half of these jobs were in the leisure and hospitality or retail trade in- dustries.” OSU program for woodland owners Woodland owners interested in learning about how to main- tain their land are invited to at- tend Woodland Information Night, Wednesday, January 12, at 6:30 p.m. at the OSU Exten- sion Service office in Washing- ton County. This free program will pro- vide tips on dealing with weeds, planting trees, protect- ing wooded property from fire, and other issues of interest to small acreage woodland own- ers. Attendees will find out about the various sources of assistance available to help them achieve their goals and take care of their woodland and associated wildlife, water, and other resources. The OSU Extension Service office is located in Beaverton at the Capital Center, 18640 NW Walker Road. For more infor- mation, contact Amy Grotta at 503-397-3462. Page 5 Sen. Johnson named Vice-chair of Ways and Means Committee Senator Betsy Johnson (D- Scappoose) has been named Vice-chair of Ways and Means, the Legislature’s chief budget- writing committee, and Co- Chair of the Ways and Means subcommittee on General Gov- ernment for the 2011 Legisla- tive Session. “We have a lot of hard work in front of us to balance Ore- gon’s budget and set a path for economic recovery,” said John- son, who also served as Vice- Chair of Ways and Means dur- ing the 2009 Legislative Ses- sion. “I look forward to using my Ways and Means experi- ence to find ways to cut spend- ing while protecting critical services. Oversight and gov- ernment accountability will be key as we work to close our budget deficit and restore con- fidence in state services.” As vice-chair of Ways and Means, Johnson is responsible for working with the Co-Chair in crafting the overall state budg- et. In her role as co-chair of the Subcommittee on General Government, Johnson will oversee the budgets for the Legislative branch, the State Treasurer, the Secretary of State, Department of Revenue, the Governor, and several oth- ers state agencies. The 76th Oregon Legislative Assembly will convene on Jan- uary 10. Committees will begin meeting on February 1st. Rates will increase, but amounts to charge will be determined by studies, not guesses From page 4 gon Department of Environ- mental Quality (DEQ) because its sewer system pollutes the Nehalem River. In 2005, the city started a project that in- cluded new pump lines and sta- tions, and the purchase of the mill site for effluent disposal. This was paid for with Commu- nity Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds and DEQ loan fi- nancing. The city currently owes $6,487,923 (combined principle and interest) on DEQ Loan #R93462. Then, like so many other development activi- ties around Vernonia, the sec- ond serious flood in 12 years forced the city to reconsider its plans. Over the past four years, a succession of city administra- tors, turnover in the public works department, and “churn- ing” of the City’s plans for sew- er upgrades, caught this essen- tial project in a stranglehold. Recently, as a result of a “pre- pre-engineering” report by the engineering firm of Brown and Caldwell, the city is closer to understanding the way forward. Earlier this year, members of the City Council, Interim City Administrator Bill Haack and several members of the Public Works Committee, met with Brown and Caldwell, DEQ and a consulting firm retained by DEQ. The agenda included a review of Brown and Caldwell’s report, as well as a brainstorm- ing session to find additional ways to reduce the estimated cost of the project and limit its impact on utility rates. As we understand it, the steps be- tween us and a completed sew- er project are as follows: Pre-pre-engineering: 1. Brainstorm different proj- ect ideas. The ideas consid- ered so far include: abandoning the lagoons completely and building a treatment plant, a combination of those two mod- els, wetlands treatment sys- tems (inside and outside the la- goons), effluent management systems like poplar farming, etc. 2. Retaining an engineer to advise the city about the feasi- bility of these options. 3. Settling on the best de- sign idea developed by the public works committee and the engineers, and producing an estimate of the cost to make that idea real. Pre-engineering: 4. Using the final idea emerging from Step 3, further improve the resolution of the plans and designs. 5. Provide another estimate based on these refined de- signs. 6. Reconsider funding op- portunities and estimate the im- pact on utility rates. 7. If indicated, revisit Steps 1 through 6. Engineering: 8. Prepare full design docu- ments and specifications for the project that emerged from Step 7. These documents need to be so well-designed and writ- ten that they can be publicly bid, limiting the opportunity for contractors to find loopholes with which to gain a change or- der. (It is these change orders that push fully funded budgets into the red.) 9. Bid and contract the de- sign documents produced in Step 8. 10. Construct the project. Vernonia may never see a more opportune time to com- plete the sewer project. The in- terest and sympathy of the pub- lic sector, beginning with the Governor, has given Vernonia historic levels of state and fed- eral interest in providing help. This interest includes problems like the sewer treatment sys- tem. It seems unlikely that the city will ever have the level of outside support available to it right now. At the same time, construc- tion costs, in general, have tak- en a dip after the real estate bust of 2008. There will proba- bly never be a less costly time to build the sewer project that is needed to bring the city into compliance. Finally, the standards that will govern the project’s design may be on the verge of chang- ing. Regulatory agencies are beginning to recognize entirely new categories of “pollutants” that must be eliminated from the waste stream. These are very common compounds which will be hard to remove. They include pharmaceuticals, birth control hormones, caffeine and even cholesterol. Any new system built after these rules are adopted will need to be much more sophisticated and expensive. So what does all this mean for sewer rates? Unfortunately, it means they will go up. At this point, it is not known how much. However, we are cur- rently accruing interest on $4,341,153 of expended princi- ple and have accrued to date $2,146,770 on this open DEQ loan. That interest is being added to our balance, accruing additional interest. It’s not un- like having a credit card bill and making no payments. The bal- ance just goes up and up. We need to complete our project as soon as possible to convert this higher-interest rate debt to DEQ into lower-cost, long-term municipal debt. Obviously, this cannot happen for a year or two. In the meantime, the Pub- lic Works Committee will rec- ommend that the City Council rededicate the soon-to-expire $12 per month water payment surcharge as a sewer sur- charge to begin paying against the interest accrual on the out- standing DEQ loan amount. No one in this process, not the engineers, not DEQ, not the City Council, let alone the Pub- lic Works Committee has a crystal ball to let us know exact- ly the right way to proceed. What is known, is that doing nothing will lead to a DEQ en- forcement action, and is likely to be the worst possible alter- native. The next article will discuss the alternative wastewater sys- tems that were considered in the process of selecting a de- sired option to take forward into final engineering. At this time the city anticipates selecting a project manager, a project en- gineer, completing a rate study, conducting geotechnical analy- ses of the soils at the lagoons, and upgrading existing pump- ing stations to protect them from flood damage in a future high water event. Over the next year more information will be provided on each of these ele- ments of the wastewater proj- ect as they develop. Source: City of Vernonia – Public Works Committee Unemployment still high in Columbia Co. Columbia County’s season- ally adjusted unemployment rate was 12.4 percent in No- vember, essentially unchanged from the previous month (12.1%) and the year before (12.7%). The rate was above the statewide (10.6%) and the national (9.8%) rates. Total em- ployment climbed by 138 to 22,075 and the number of un- employed people increased by 237 to 2,903. Total employ- ment this November was 633 more than one year before and there were 13 more people un- employed this year.