The INDEPENDENT, October 19, 2011
Page 15
Power of the People
By W. Marc Farmer, General Manager,
West Oregon Electric Cooperative
The New HQ Building: The
Complete Story
To close out my series of arti-
cles about the new headquar-
ters facility we just completed,
dedicated, and relocated to, I
thought I would provide a com-
prehensive review on the
process from beginning to end so that all members
will have the complete story.
The process of building a new headquarters facility
really started back in 1996 after the first flood event.
Our old building, constructed in 1956, was inundated
with three feet of water. At that time the General Man-
ager, Russell Green, informed the Board that a new
building would need to be constructed within the next
10 years. The reasons for the new building then re-
mained true in 2007 as the Board had decided to
move forward with the purchase of land to construct a
new facility. The reasons included: the old building
being in the flood plain, we had outgrown the building,
wiring was old and needed to be replaced as it could
not handle the power needs of today’s electronics,
(we actually had smoke and sparks coming from our
electric panel from the overload), our plumbing need-
ed to be replaced, the facility was not energy or space
efficient, and another safety issue came from an engi-
neering study that declared the building unsafe from
seismic events. The building was not designed back in
1956 to meet seismic codes, and if an event took
place this side of Seattle it would bring the building
down upon us. This was only added to by the almost
four feet of water in the 2007 flood.
In the month prior to the December 3rd flood of
2007, the Co-op had put down escrow funds to pur-
chase seven acres on Mist Drive. When looking at the
property immediately after the flood, it was plainly
clear that we should not proceed with the purchase as
the front half of the property was flooded. We would
have moved from one flood plain to another, and so
we made the wise choice to not proceed with that pur-
chase. The decision was made to conduct three sep-
arate searches for the location of the new facility. I
conducted the first search with the help of Vernonia
Realty. The second study was done by Steele and As-
sociates from Bend, and the third by a certified com-
mercial realtor from Portland. Each independent study
came up with the same conclusion that the best loca-
tion for the new facility was the Gordon Smith proper-
ty on the corner of Rose Avenue and Maple Street.
To make sure the construction of a new facility met
with the approval of the membership of the Co-op, a
member survey was conducted. The response was
not only statistically valid in the number of members
responding, 12%, it was also very evenly balanced
from each of the seven Board Districts. The message
was clear from those responding as 81% responded
that they would be willing to pay $3 or less per month
for a new headquarters facility. This strengthened the
resolve to proceed to build.
The first question people ask is why we did not use
property the Co-op owns where the pole yard is cur-
rently located. This property was included in each of
the three searches but was determined to not be prac-
tical for three major reasons: the first being that the
access road to the property was completely impassa-
ble during flood events making it impossible to get to
or from the building. To build an access road out of the
flood plain to the property would have cost over $1
million. This brings us to the second major reason
that, because the property was out of the city limits,
there were no sewer, water or telephone facilities to
the site. Adding the extension costs of these to the
road access meant that, even before we began any
site prep work for construction, we would have to
spend almost $2 million just to have proper infrastruc-
ture in place. It was significantly cheaper to purchase
property with the infrastructure already available.
The downturn in the economy then came upon us
and the Board of Directors decided that now was not
the time to begin construction of a new facility. About
six weeks after this decision, West Oregon was noti-
fied by FEMA, Oregon Emergency Management, and
the City of Vernonia that this was not an option. As an
essential service with more than 80% damage to our
facility, we had to relocate within three years or jeop-
ardize receiving future FEMA funding for future flood
events if we chose to purposely remain in an identified
flood plain. The Board had no choice but
to proceed with the purchase of property
and construction of a new building. The
Gordon Smith property was purchased
and the architectural design sent out for
construction bids.
The silver lining for building during an
economic downturn actually resulted in a
huge cost savings for the members of the
Co-op. The same building project that
would have cost $4.8 million from an earli-
er bid, was now going to be able to be built
ODOT changes northwest districts
Restructuring within the Ore-
gon Department of Transporta-
tion that combines state high-
ways in Columbia, Clatsop,
Tillamook and rural western
Washington Counties into a
single maintenance district
took effect October 3. The
newly constituted District 1 is
headquartered in Astoria, and
is responsible for maintenance
and operations, including
emergency response.
The restructuring moves
over 500 miles of state high-
ways in Columbia and rural
western Washington Counties
from Region 1 in Portland to
Region 2 in Salem. The re-
structuring is expected to im-
prove coordination and effi-
ciencies over the coastal feed-
er routes of U.S. 30, U.S. 26
and OR 6 as well as other rural
Northwest Oregon state high-
ways. It also helps reduce
ODOT’s operational costs to a
level sustainable with projected
revenue decreases.
In western Washington
County, all highways west of
OR 47 (including OR 47) will be
part of District 1. As part of the
restructuring, the Manning and
Clatskanie maintenance facili-
ties will join District 1. Crews at
those facilities will continue to
service the state highways in
Columbia and rural western
Washington Counties.
No decision has been made
yet on project delivery bound-
aries, or how other ODOT busi-
ness lines will be integrated in
to the restructuring efforts.
for $3.2 million. Requests for construction bids were
sent out and three responses were received by the
deadline, one from Portland, one from Hillsboro, and
one from Banks. We had determined from the begin-
ning that the project would be done with as much local
labor, products, goods and services as possible. We
were thrilled with the results that the low bid came
from Five Star Builders in Banks, the most local of the
bids. It also turned out that about a third of their em-
ployees, including a managing partner are members
of WOEC. They were selected as the contractor with
a bid over $900,000 less than the highest bid and over
$500,000 less than the second lowest bid.
Five Star stayed true to our request and hired addi-
tional people from Vernonia, (one of whom continues
to be employed by Five Star), bought as many items
as possible locally, even purchasing tires for their ve-
hicles from the hardware store. One of the best stories
of staying local was when we had to change from
metal siding on the truck bays and warehouse to
wood, due to an increase of 44% in metal prices. Five
Star came up with the idea and plan to purchase a
small mill from Eastern Oregon, bring it over here and,
using trees from one of the Co-op members, cut the
majority of the wood used in the project themselves.
Their managing partner, Clint Jackson, a Co-op mem-
ber did the milling with local trees cut by a local mem-
ber and used in the siding of the building, which saved
over $44,000. The additional win was the fact we got
a better looking building that is also more energy effi-
cient, green qualifying, and for a lot less money.
Another good local story came when we received
three bids, two from Vernonia and one from Forest
Grove, for all of the cabinets and countertop work. The
winning bid went to Alan MacComb and his sons who
live and have a shop two doors down from our old
building. Their shop, located across the street from
the Vernonia Substation, had seven feet of water in it
Please see page 21