Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
When Wasco County Commissioners met yesterday, Veterans service officer Chelsea Perritt passed out newly-designed and minted challenge coins featuring all the armed services, including, as she pointed out, the US Space Force.
She also had a request for commissioners. She said she’d been on a road trip and noticed that a number of other counties had signs honoring veterans.
“So my formal request is A, to change our Wasco County signs to say ‘Welcome to Wasco County, We Honor Veterans’ and then B, ask to pay for it.”
She said the Oregon Department of Transportation found a way to cut the cost in half for replacing the seven signs on highways entering the county, to just $3700.
The commission unanimously approved the project.
And Brianna Wimber approached the county about helping the Humane Society out with funding for the animal shelter. She asked for the county to fund an executive director position and to help with utilities for the county-owned building.
“The electricity averages around $450 per month, of course peaking really high in the winter and those hot summer months. Garbage would be about $275 a month. Our average vet spend can vary as well, depending on what we get in, but it can range anywhere from about 2 thousand to 5 thousand dollars a month.”
After calculating a monthly cost of $6,000 and an annual $100,000 for salary and benefits for an executive director, County Administrator Tyler Stone came up with a suggestion:
“My recommendation would be that we could theoretically transfer an amount – let’s just use 50 thousand, and contingent on the city matching that 50 thousand, that would give the shelter $100,000 towards an executive director or their monthly expenses.”
He said this would give them time to work on their goal of creating a taxing district for permanent sustainable funding.