Viking is state champ! WEDNESDAY, WEDNESDAY SDAY, Y, M MAYY 330, 0, 22012 02 01
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Geremia Lizier-Zmudzinski wins 1,500 meter race — See SPORTS, A12
WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2012 • MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN WESTERN WASHINGTON COUNTY SINCE 1886 • WWW.FGNEWSTIMES.COM • VOL. 128, NO. 20 • 5O CENTS
Banks levy squeaks through All buildings will get updates, ‘phase three’ will aid high school By NANCY TOWNSLEY The News-Times
PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP PHOTO: ALVARO FONTAN
While lead is outlawed in automotive fuel and isn’t used in jet fuel, it is present in aviation fuel used in small prop planes, like those that wow crowds at the Oregon Air Show.
■ Piston-engined planes emit lead when they take off and land ■ How much hangs in the air above Hillsboro, no one knows for sure
HILLSBORO’S
LEAD BALLOON I
n 2011 alone, just over 214,000 els for flight training. While lead is takeoffs and landings occurred at banned from automotive fuel and not the Hillsboro Airport. Most, if not added to jet fuel, small planes like the all, of the piston engine airplanes ones that take off and land at the Hillsconsequently sent lead emissions rock- boro Airport still use leaded fuel. eting out into the atmoAccording to federal sphere as they burned up researchers with the Enaviation gas. vironmental Protection STORY BY But it is unknown just Agency, lead is added to how much of the harmful the fuel for the small pollutant is sticking planes because it boosts around, because two studoctane levels and preies from the Oregon Department of En- vents unsafe valve seat wear. vironmental Quality offer varying estiThough the lead might make it safer mates of the impact of lead-fueled to fly the small planes, the lead emisplanes on the Hillsboro area. sions are a serious health risk, accordHillsboro Airport is owned by the ing to the Mayo Clinic. Lead inhalation Port of Portland, and is used mostly for harms brain development as well as the private general aviation, offering air space to small personal planes or modSee LEAD / Page 17
LAURA FRAZIER
COURTESY PHOTO
A study conducted in 2009 based on 2005 data from Hillsboro Airport suggested that lead could be in the air around the airport in excess of the safe “baseline” number. Lead above the baseline is shown in red on this map.
Budget plan hinges on contract talks Cut days, salary freeze and benefits still on union tables By NANCY TOWNSLEY The News-Times While the effects of unprecedented school funding short-
falls have been evident to students and parents who’ve seen electives shrink and class sizes grow, the economic woes have also hit local teachers, some of whom have lost more than 15 percent of their negotiated wages over the past four years. Between 2008 and 2011, when the Forest Grove School District
cut 15 days from its academic calendars, teachers lost between 11 percent and 13.25 percent of the wages their union had negotiated into a labor contract that expired in June 2011. In 2011-12, working under a one-year extension of that lapsed labor agreement, they agreed to another 2 percent loss in salary, as well as a freeze to district-
paid insurance contributions “in a time of increased cost of living and medical insurance” bills, Forest Grove Education Association president Jeff Matsumoto said Monday. Now, a $49.1 million operational budget for 2012-13 — predicated on significant concessions the district hopes its teachers and classified employees will
make during ongoing contract talks this spring and summer — heads to the school board for adoption June 11. Next year’s financial blueprint already contains $3.1 million in reductions, including a dozen teaching positions and six cut school days. The budget figure
See BUDGET / Page 11
Pair of memorials honor Gallinger-Long ■ Fallen Navy hospital corpsman is remembered at Echo Shaw School, memorial park
By CHRISTIAN GASTON The News-Times Last Thursday was a bit of a coming home for Cornelius resident Susan Blanchard. As she sat in the auditorium of Echo Shaw Elementary School watching children flood out the doors to plant flags next to a Japanese Maple, she remembered her twins, Ryley and Wyatt Gallinger-Long, as they competed with each other to answer questions first in class. “They would get physical and push each other,” Blanchard said, a wry smile crossing her face.
INSIDE
Both brothers graduated from Echo Shaw and headed on to Forest Grove High School and to military careers. Ryley never came back. The Navy hospital corpsman was killed in Afghanistan Aug. 11, 2011. S i n c e Ryl ey ’s d e at h , Blanchard has witnessed Cornelius and the Forest Grove area come together for one memorial after another for her lost son. And Thursday, as the youngsters planted those flags, Blanchard said she was moved.
Commentary ................... A4 Education........................ A5 Calendar ......................... A6
When Skip Smetana went to work at Banks Junior High School this morning it was a brand new day. The district’s maintenance supervisor wore the same heavy set of keys on his u t i l i ty b e l t and carried the same equipment around with him: a step stool, a tool b ox , some light bulbs. But the difference was, S m e t a n a — Jim Foster, could look forsuperintendent ward to a day when he won’t have to perform like a modern-day MacGyver in Banks’ aging school buildings — at least not the way his boss, Superintendent Jim Foster, says he’s had to the last many years. “Skip can talk about duct tape and bubble gum, trying to hold things together,” Foster said wryly last week, as Levy tally results from the May 15 Final unofficial results from the special elec- Washington tion showed County the district’s Elections Office construction show Measure bond passing 34-197, the by a mere 13 Banks School District’s $10.5 votes. million conIn the latest struction bond tally Tuesday levy, passing by a f t e r n o o n , a vote of 759 with all pre- to 746. cincts reporting, the $10.5 million measure looked as if it had been approved 759 to 746. “Personally, I am very pleased,” said Foster, who’s retiring at the end of June. “A lot of people put in endless hours over the past several years to get the word out about the needs of the district. “Since the schools are a focal point in the community, I believe this is a positive for the entire community ... and a plus for the town as it moves forward with its projected growth in the next 20 years.” It was the fourth time the Banks School Board had sent a bond levy to voters in the last four years. Levies of $25.5 million and $25.9 million failed in 2008 and 2010, respectively, and a $10.5 million attempt went down to defeat at the polls last May. This time, the district had lower interest rates — resulting in less of a hit to homeowners’ property taxes — and a pared-down project list on its side.
“I believe this is a positive for the entire community and a plus for the town.”
New classrooms
NEWS-TIMES PHOTO: CHASE ALLGOOD
At Banks Junior High, bond money will pay for the replacement of nine classrooms currently housed in portables and construction of another. It will also replace administrative and staff areas, the library and restrooms and add science, computer technology and special education classrooms to the campus. The boys’ and girls’ locker rooms
Erick Macias, a fourth grader at Echo Shaw Elementary School, plants a miniature flag next See RYLEY / Page 17 to a Japanese Maple tree planted in memory of fallen serviceman Ryley Gallinger-Long.
See BOND / Page 5
A&E ................................. A7 Obituaries ..................... A10 Home & Garden .............. A8
Sports ........................... A12 Classifieds .................... A14 Weather .......................... A6
CORNELIUS MARKET GROWING Farmers market in Cornelius is adding vendors — A8