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The INDEPENDENT, June 16, 2011
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
Advertising Rep., Ellen Sadler, ellen@the-independent.net
Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes
Opinion
Let’s return to high ideals
Now that the recall of Vernonia City Councilor
Kevin Hudson is over and he has left office, it re-
mains for the other four councilors to appoint a per-
son to fill the rest of Hudson’s term. We’d like to see
a return in all branches of government to high ideals,
starting at the grassroots level of city government.
We hope the council finds an applicant who is a civic
minded individual with good critical thinking and lis-
tening skills and no personal agenda. Then, we’d like
to see the new council find a way to hire back Bill
Haack as city administrator when the council inter-
views candidates on June 24. Then, if there are in-
deed two more recalls (WIllow Burch and Marilyn
Nicks), we hope to see the same qualities in their re-
placements, too. Then, maybe the council can get
back to running the business of the city instead of in-
fighting and blocking sensible cooperation.
And speaking of high ideals
The Vernonia School District Certified staff (that’s
teachers, counselors, etc.) recently agreed to work
190 days, instead of the 180 days previously consid-
ered, but for the 180 day salary. The Classified staff
agreed to no raise, no cost of living increase and will
work the 190 days. Why did these people make this
kind of sacrifice? Because this way there will be seven
more days of school next year. They want that so they
can teach more and better prepare students for gradu-
ation. In order to graduate, the kids will need to meet
higher standards for reading, writing and mathematics
than they did this year. More days in school = more op-
portunity to meet those new, higher standards. Thank
you, district employees for thinking first of the needs of
your students.
What not to do this summer
A recent medical study from the University of South-
ern Denmark and the Harvard School of Public Health
indicates that for every two hours spent in front of a tel-
evision, the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes increas-
es by 20 percent, while the risk of cardiovascular dis-
ease increases 15 percent, and all-cause mortality in-
creases 13 percent.
Spend your time away from the television and live
longer and healthier. There really is life without T.V.
Out of My Mind…
by Noni Andersen
Vernonia voters spoke
loudly and clearly in last
Friday’s election, as they
approved the recall of city
council member Kevin
Hudson by a margin of 86
percent to 14 percent.
The current situation in
Vernonia’s city govern-
ment shouldn’t be a sur-
prise to anyone who has been paying attention.
The only surprising element is that voters are fi-
nally so disgusted that they recalled one council
member and will now start another recall cam-
paign against two more.
The three councilors, Hudson, Willow Burch
and Marilyn Nicks, quite clearly earned that dis-
gust, and the anger that accompanies it. In their
unrelenting defense of an unscrupulous city em-
ployee they fired a competent professional city
administrator, who they seemed to think should
have protected that employee from a state inves-
tigation. The city won’t be hurt if all three are re-
called.
But citizens should also be asking themselves
some questions: “What led up to this situation?”
“Were there warning signs we ignored?” “How
long has our council been so dysfunctional?”
“How can we do a better job of picking council
members?”
Years of citizen apathy have allowed the
council to bypass good practices. That apathy al-
lowed the council to hire a string of unqualified
and incompetent administrators to head city gov-
ernment. As long as the “right” people were hap-
py, the council was happy.
One of those administrators bought “new” fi-
nancial system software that was so old the city’s
computers couldn’t use it, so he was the only
person who could say what was going on with
city funds. Another one tried to get rid of the Ore-
gon Solutions team that was helping us recover
from the ‘07 flood. Another one refused to look at
complaints about that same unscrupulous em-
ployee. And still another approved loads of ex-
penditures that were not in the budget.
We need a council that thinks good practices
are a priority. Only the voters can assure that.
Earlier, in the May 17 election, voters defeat-
ed a ballot measure that would have increased
funding for the woefully underfunded Columbia
County Sheriff’s Office. In the Nehalem Valley,
the levy was defeated by a much greater margin
than in the county as a whole.
If the people I have spoken with are a meas-
ure, they voted against the levy because of eco-
nomics. After devastating floods in 1996 and
2007, and in spite of being hard hit by the reces-
sion, voters in the Vernonia School District ap-
proved a $13 million bond measure to help build
new schools above the flood plain. That $13 mil-
lion may not seem like much to larger school dis-
tricts, but it created a big hike in property taxes
for a district that has rarely had as many as 700
students. Voters in the Nehalem Valley aren’t op-
posed to better law enforcement, they just can’t
afford it at this time.