The INDEPENDENT, August 3, 2011
Page 17
Power of the People
By W. Marc Farmer, General Manager,
West Oregon Electric Cooperative
Board Votes to Apply for
Grant
It may seem like all of our
focus is on the building at times,
but there is a lot more going on,
and our plate just got a little
fuller at the last Board of Direc-
tors meeting. One of the silver
linings from experiencing three FEMA events in a row
at WOEC is that we have developed a good relation-
ship with them and Oregon Emergency Management
(OEM). We joke that we have FEMA and OEM on
speed dial, and are on their Christmas card list. This
turned out to be more true than we thought.
A few months back, we were meeting with OEM to
finish up the Timber/Elsie transmission line project.
Remember, we undergrounded most of the line that
was damaged from the 2006 and 2007 wind storms,
at a cost of $6.2 million dollars. The reason we could
undertake such a huge project is that FEMA covered
a major portion of the costs as it was declared a
FEMA disaster event, and OEM provided over
$500,000 under a program called the Hazard Mitiga-
tion Grant. This grant goes to a project that will miti-
gate FEMA having to provide disaster funds ever
again for this particular project by taking measures to
eliminate the possibility of a disaster event occurring
in the future. By undergrounding the transmission line,
we eliminated the possibility of wind storms again
destroying the line. which also eliminated FEMA from
having to provide disaster funds in the future. We
received the final grant and disaster funds from com-
pletion of this project after our final meeting with OEM.
It was at this meeting that we were presented with
another possible Christmas present from FEMA. We
were told of another program called the Pre-Disaster
Mitigation Grant. It is a grant that is similar to the Haz-
ard Mitigation Grant, because its purpose is to provide
funds for a project that would eliminate future FEMA
funding for a disaster event if the project is success-
fully completed. It is a competitive
process, so we would not be guaranteed
funding if we apply, but if successful, we
can receive up to $3 million towards our
project if we match it with $1 million of our
own funds. The project we have selected
for consideration is to underground crucial
sections of the Timber to Vernonia Trans-
mission Line.
This means we could underground the
Beware these “sweepstakes” scams
Attorney General John
Kroger is warning Oregonians
to not respond to unsolicited
“sweepstakes” phone calls.
Both the Marion County Sher-
iff’s Office and the Department
of Justice’s Consumer Hotline
have received reports about
suspicious callers who notify
consumers that they have won
a sweepstakes and then
instruct them to purchase a
prepaid credit card to cover
“taxes” or “fees” associated
with collecting their cash prize.
One Marion County resident
was contacted on his cell
phone earlier last week by a
con artist who asked him to
purchase three $1,000 Green
Dot MoneyPak credit cards. In
order to collect his sweep-
stakes prize, the man was told
he must call an Idaho number
and read the serial numbers off
the back of the cards. Fortu-
nately, he smelled a rat and
called the Marion County Sher-
iff’s Office instead.
Bogus sweepstakes and lot-
tery offers are among the most
common types of scams run by
crooks who seek to rip off Ore-
gon consumers. These opera-
tions are often run by perpetra-
tors located outside the U.S. –
making it very difficult for law
enforcement agencies to track
them down. In 2010 the
Department received 1,054
complaints about international
money
schemes,
with
$1,999,323 in reported losses
– more than double the
$707,783 reportedly lost in
2009.
Attorney General Kroger
offers the following advice to
consumers when it comes to
unsolicited telephone calls,
mail or e-mail about a sweep-
stakes or lottery:
• Never pay to play in a
sweepstakes.
• Never pay money to claim
a prize.
• Do not give out your pre-
paid credit card number to
someone you don’t know (learn
more about Green Dot prepaid
cards).
• Participating in a foreign
lottery is illegal and such lotter-
ies often have close ties to
organized crime.
• Beware of fake organiza-
tions that go by names similar
to more widely-known groups
in order to trick consumers.
• Government agencies do
not sponsor sweepstakes.
• Beware of requests for
information about your income,
credit card ownership, or bank
accounts as a condition of par-
ticipating in a sweepstakes or
lottery.
• Do not participate in
sweepstakes or respond to
advertisements that resemble
a check, bill or invoice.
• Destroy fake sweepstakes
or lottery offers by shredding or
deleting them.
The Oregon Department of
Justice Consumer Hotline, 1-
877-877-9392, is a free
resource for all Oregonians
with consumer-related ques-
tions, concerns or complaints.
If you or someone you know
has fallen victim to a sweep-
stakes or lottery scam, please
contact the Consumer Hotline
for assistance.
line for 25 cents on the dollar, which would result in
increased reliability, dramatically reduce outages,
expenses and maintenance costs, and increase the
longevity of the line. The Board unanimously
approved applying for the Pre-Disaster Mitigation
Grant and to hire a professional consultant to prepare
the grant application to increase the possibility of
being successful in the competitive process. We
would use some of our RUS Loan funds to pay for our
matching share of the project. We won’t know until
next year if we are successful, but an opportunity to
accomplish a huge project like this and have to pay for
only a fourth of the costs was too good to pass up.
Keep your fingers, and maybe even your toes crossed
for us. We will begin immediately working on the appli-
cation and give it our best shot.
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