Sock Hop Fun
Heritage Days, Fly-in and Can-Am Apple Cup Races
Wauconda Sock Hop and Classic Car Show See page 12
See page 4
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Focus changed to remodeling Oroville Library BY GARY A. DEVON MANAGING EDITOR
OROVILLE – Rick Braman, with the Oroville Friends of the Library, told the council their focus has changed from tearing down the public library and building fresh, to remodeling and refurbishing the existing building. “There’s not much more to add, we’ve changed the focus from tearing down the old building and building completely new, to using what we have, although it won’t be quite what we had planned on,” said Braman at the council’s Tuesday, July
17 meeting. Tearing down and building a new library was estimated to cost in the neighborhood of $1 million, while remodeling and refurbishing would be a fraction of that. Braman said two builders had already done a walk through of the old Craftsman-style library and Civic League Building and that a list of the requirements for the upgrade were taken to local builder Bob Thompson to see what he can come up with. “We are going to massage the plans to meet our needs, while a new building would have been larger, the original
footprint of the current building won’t be changed,” Braman said. Plans included removing the kitchen from the old Civic League part of the building and making a break room instead. This will shrink that space down to allow for more books, according to Braman. The plan is also to remove the existing middle section between the library and the Civic League (meeting room) and move the bathrooms. “We will try and get the interior redone, remodeled and ADA compliant,” said Braman. As far as the exterior is concerned,
Braman said it was hoped they could remove the T-1 siding that was installed over the old bevel siding and reuse the old siding. The group also envisions a better front entrance that would tie the two sections together. “Julie Ashmore feels confident that we have a higher chance of finding funds for a smaller project at about a fifth the cost of building new. She feels we have a much better chance of getting that type of grant,” said Braman, referring to the Friends of the Library’s grant writer. Braman said his late wife, Ellie Braman, who led the Friends of the Library and
the push to build a new building, came up with the idea of going back to a remodel the day she passed away. “None of us know what libraries will look like in 10 years and this seems to be our best chance of getting what we need for the near future,” he said, adding that the building inspector has already told the group that the library is basically sound, with the exception of some sagging roof joists. “I think it is a great idea, I am glad we can move in that direction, rather than a new building because of the cost savings,” said Mayor Chuck Spieth.
Refurbished mill added to canola plant Tonasket
schools finalize budget BY BRENT BAKER BBAKER@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM
Photos by Gary DeVon
Canola meal, produced at Carbon Cycle Crush in Oroville is loaded into a trailer. The 3700 pounds of meal, a byproduct of crushing canola seeds, is heading to Benton County where it will be mixed one to four with other feed like hay for dairy cattle. This was one of three similarly sized truckloads of the meal that was on its way out from the plant.
Three truckloads of meal heading south BY GARY A. DEVON MANAGING EDITOR
OROVILLE ‚Äì Carbon Cycle Crush was showing off their new seed mill for crushing canola seeds at their plant in Oroville. The mill is actually a 1940’s or 1950’s vintage 10-24F French, built in Piqua, Ohio, one of three mills of this type the company has had in storage at their Oroville operation, according to Leroy Smith, the operation’s production manager. “This particular machine was combined from two of those and totally refurbished,” he said. “It and the other two were last used by Cambria Foods in the 1960s in Lethbridge, Alberta. At that time they were running eight of them.” The mill has a 10¬º inch bore and is advertised as having the capability of crushing between 100 and 150 tons of seeds. Besides the shiny new paint, the company also put in new liner bars and converted it from an electric choke to a manual one, according to Smith. “It can do at least twice as much as the two Chinese-made mills we already have running at the plant. A lot of how much it can handle is based on how it is set up,” Smith said.
He said the newly refurbished mill was moved in place next to the two existing mills and will become part of the line in the near future. The two smaller mills, which were operated independently are now tied together. The first mill crushes the seeds once extracting oil and meal and then the meal is sent to the second mill where it is crushed again, in an effort to extract as much oil as possible. When the larger mill comes on line the two smaller machines will be tasked with each doing the initial crush and the recrush will be done in the big mill. “This machine will potentially do the recrush down the road. We like to use our most efficient mill for the second crush to get every ounce of oil we can get from the seeds,” said Smith. The meal is then sold to cattle, dairy and poultry farmers to be mixed about one to four with other feeds. The oil, which is not “food grade” is used in lubricants and as additives to diesel to make bio-diesel. “We want to leave some of the good oil in the meal, but we’re leaving too much. It makes a difference to the purchaser if there is less oil, whether for dairy, poultry or cattle. We want to get as much oil out of the seeds as possible, because the farmers know how to better use the meal that is produced,” adds Arnie Marchand, Business Development Director for the company. Marchand explained that the canola meal is prized by farmers as it is a good
OKANOGAN VALLEY GAZETTE-TRIBUNE Volume 108 No. 30
Leroy Smith, CCC Production Manager, stands next to a 1940/50’s vintage French-brand seed crusher that was refurbished from two similar machines owned by Carbon Cycle Crush. The machine, built in Piqua, Ohio, still needs to be hooked up to a 200HP electric motor and when it goes into service should be able to crush more than twice as many seeds as the two 50 ton mills already running at CCC. source of Omega 3 Fatty Acids. When the animals are fed the meal it allows the farmers to advertise their poultry, eggs, beef and milk as having the beneficial compounds naturally present in the food. CCC gets most of its canola seeds from Canadian farmers in Alberta, but has been encouraging local wheat farmers to adopt the crop, at least on a rotational
basis. Oroville is kind of the CCC’s test kitchen, they are using it as test bed for creating more canola crushing facilities in Eastern Washington. Their business plans include using Oroville as a base for setting up the new facilities and training workers, then moving the set up to the new location, while continuing to operate the Oroville facility.
MOU The Memorandum of Understanding represents a four year agreement between the union and the schools on how to deal with the 1.9 percent cut to teacher compensation enacted a year ago. Turner said that the 1.9 percent equaled about three days pay and that the MOU adjusts teachers’ personal days to compensate. “In the contract right now they have two days of personal leave that the district picks up and two days where they can pick up the sub themselves, potentially four days,” Turner said. That now increases to a maximum of five personal days during the school year, all of which the district will pay for the cost of a substitute. For unused personal days, teachers will be reimbursed for the equivalent cost of paying for a substitute for those days at the end of the school year. “(The reimbursement) is an incentive to keep the teacher in the classroom,” Turner said. The agreement will be good for four years: the final year of the current contract, and the three years of the upcoming contract yet to be negotiated. Turner said with the 1.9 percent issue dealt with, contract negotiations will focus on three main issues: teacher/principal evaluations, health insurance, and language discrepancies in the current contract. “I really want to thank the teachers for
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TONASKET - The Tonasket School Board finalized its budget for the 2012-13 school year and approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the teachers’ union that had been negotiated by superintendent Paul Turner at their Tuesday, July 23 board meeting. The approved budget includes a general fund of $10,798,100; and Associated Student Body fund of $196,989; and a debt service fund of $791,000. For the general fund it represents an increase of about $80,000 over the 2011-12 school year. Anticipated revenues come in at $10,715,731, meaning a potential dip in the fund balance from $800,000 to $717,000. The budget is based upon an anticipated average enrollment next year of 1,040 students, which determines the level of state funding the district receives. By comparison, the 2011-12 budget was based upon an expected enrollment of 1,005 students. The actual enrollment for the year averaged 1,055, and the estimated enrollment for next year is expected to be similarly conservative.
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