BREAKING NEWS: School district to seek bond; City council divided on homeless letterBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, April 12, 2024
SCHOOL NEWS
Budget cuts lie ahead for Central School District 13J and so does the need for a bond – there is no money available to fund all of the improvements necessary to school facilities, where needed repairs range from fixing some corroding tile floors to repairing water-dripping roof leaks.
“We know we need to make improvements to our infrastructure,” said Superintendent Jennifer Kubista in her report to the school board Monday night. “We know our facilities need improvements,” she added.
Renovations to buildings don’t qualify for the usual revenue schools receive. “In order to make improvements to our facilities we would need to ask our community to support a bond,” she said.
It isn’t simply that the level of state revenue the district receives won’t meet the CSD 13J’s educational budget – lower enrollment and high absenteeism will continue to take a financial toll, Kubista explained. This year, there were 100 fewer students than the previous one, as families chose online educational options, charter schooling or out-of-district transfers.
The Eugene-based consulting firm, Funk/Levis & Associates, which conducted the survey to evaluate support for a bond last year, will assist the district in formulating a campaign for public education and outreach about the need to fix facilities in disrepair. The first meeting for the “Facilities Committee” is Monday at 4:30 pm in the CSD Annex, at the southeast corner of 16thStreet and Hoffman Road.
CITY NEWS
A new agenda item that was a letter of city support for a homeless program – introduced toward the end of the Independence City Council meeting Tuesday night – drew opposition from two city councilors that the addition was too sudden to give the public a chance to see it.
“I saw this 10 minutes before the meeting,” said City Councilor Sarah Jobe. Councilor Dawn Roden had the same objection, calling it wrong to “sweep this onto the desk moments before city council.”
The letter was drawn up to convey support for housing solutions by Salem-based Church at the Park, which has proposed sheltering sites for the homeless at two Polk County cities, Monmouth and Dallas. It is the same non-profit organization that eventually was dropped for plans to use a church-owned lot near Stadium Drive in Monmouth after a public outcry by neighbors.
An email request for approving the letter came from City Councilor Kathy Martin-Willis, who received it and forwarded it on to the city manager a few days before the city council meeting. Martin-Willis is the council’s representative to the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance.
A city emergency prevented it from being placed on the meeting agenda, City Manager Kenna West explained. A water-main break put the city on a “boil water” alert Friday, so the letter wasn’t added as an item until shortly before the meeting, she said.
Following the meeting, several residents contacted Trammart News with a request to have their comments included as a reaction to the matter, so interviews will be conducted this coming week for a second look at the issue – the follow-up article will appear April 19. ▪
Independence woman receives Congressional Gold Medal as a trailblazing WWII Rosie the RiveterBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, April 12, 2024
Eighty years ago, Independence resident Clarice Lafreniere was a welder helping with the war effort. This week, she got the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition for her work.
Along with more than two dozen other “Rosie the Riveters,” a group comprised of female defense workers during WWII, Lafreniere received the nation’s highest civilian honor in Washington D.C., at a ceremony that celebrated the jobs they performed.
However, for many, it wasn’t only a crucial contribution to the war effort during a male labor shortage but a turning point in their lives – it proved that women could do difficult, physically demanding jobs that once were the sole domain of men – making munitions, building planes and ships. “I learned I could do anything I wanted to do,” Lafreniere recalled.
Posters of “Rosie the Riveter” – the iconic woman with her hair in a red polka-dotted kerchief, hoisting her arm as she rolled up her sleeve – were all around the nation’s capital. Lafreniere wore red polka dots, too.
In fact, when she sat down for an interview with Trammart News before her departure, the white-on-red dots was the material of the blouse she wore.
Lafreniere, who is originally from Colorado, got married there in 1939. After the couple had a son, she and her husband decided to move to the Pacific Northwest.
Her daughter was born in Oregon the night Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese.
Lafreniere remembers blackout curtains were placed on the hospital windows, as a precaution in case the bombers proceeded to the west coast. About a year after the baby was born, Lafreniere arranged to have her mother care for the two children, and she began working at Kaiser Shipyard on Swan Island in Portland.
She worked as a welder and “burner,” forging metal with an instrument “that looked like a big gun with a rod and a flame on the end,” she explained. It was heated to such high temperatures that it melted steel. “You had to move very steadily, “ Lafreniere said.
“Everybody had to be a fast learner,” she added. Clad in leather overalls, wearing long gloves and a helmet equipped with a glass shield, Lafreniere worked the night shift for three years. Sometimes sparks flew all around her as she toiled.
When the war was finally over, “I got fired,” she recalled. But she continued to work other jobs, ranging from the former department store Meier & Frank to the DMV, where she initially wasn’t allowed to give driving tests, Lafreniere noted. Getting behind the wheel was strictly limited to the expertise of the men. Nor could she wear pants. “I really resented that,” she said.
Eventually, Lafreniere became an office manager.
She looks back on the change from those wartime days as a young bride, when she was ineligible for a credit card and couldn’t qualify for a mortgage, all because of her gender. “I do think we did get things started,” she said of the progress women made after the “Rosies” filled male vacancies.
Still, she thinks women have more gains to make. There shouldn’t be wage gaps she continues to read about, she said.
These days, Lafreniere keeps up to date with the news in so many different ways, since the internet expanded far beyond the radio broadcasts upon which the population once depended.
Lafreniere resides with her granddaughter in town, but she continues to be socially engaged with members of her own age group, organizing get-togethers like a monthly pinochle game. Having passed the century mark herself, Lafreniere is often asked about the secret to a long life.
Though she had hard times, “I never felt I suffered much,” she said. So, is optimism the key to longevity? “I think maybe it has to do with resilience,” she replied. ▪
Cafe Brarlin saying goodbye to place on Main StreetBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, April 12, 2024
The clientele grew steadily at Cafe Berlin over the past several months. But the opportunity for consuming the comfort food cooked up by Alice Kollinzas at the cozy eatery is coming to a close. The lease isn’t being renewed.
Cafe Brarlin may be gone within days, along with the aroma of freshly baked bread and buttery cookies that often wafted onto Osprey Lane.
Kollinzas and husband, Ben Jackson, created a unique menu that included vegetarian and vegan selections, such as the “Existential Sandwich,” a creation with tofu and cole slaw tossed with ginger vinaigrette, which earned a following among those with dietary restrictions for health reasons. “One guy came in, he was so happy – we had things he could eat,” Kollinzas said. The “crunch salad” was another favorite, made with fresh organically grown ingredients, often right from the local fields of Lucky Crow Farm in Monmouth.
Though both Jackson and Kollinzas grew up in rural Oregon, they spent years in Portland pursuing their vocations. Kollinzas has a music degree from Portland State University and Jackson has a fine arts degree from Southern Oregon University. Both were involved in the music scene. Kollinzas worked in restaurants, learning the ins, outs, ups and downs of the food-service business. Jackson worked as a courier and as an art installer-handler in galleries and for private collectors, while doing freelance painting and design commissions.
After they bought a four-acre parcel in Dallas, they decided to open their own place, labeling it “Cafe Brarlin,” a noun Kollinzas created to refer to her husband, a blend of Bro and Darlin. Married 13 years, the two have been together for more than two decades.
They opened Cafe Brarlin on the ground floor of a former house on Main Street, just north of the Independence Civic Center.
This spring, the lunchtime crowd often “slammed” the small restaurant, where the turkey-avocado sandwich, the “Turkey Lurkey,” along with the “Dale Cooper” chicken sandwich, were favorites. The climb in profitability was a source of great satisfaction, said Kollinzas. But though success increased, other factors proved more problematic.
After helping with the remodeling project for seven months, fixes that they anticipated never materialized, such as highly visible signage that identified the building as commercial space, the two said. Since the businesses are housed in a refurbished home, that proved more important than they initially realized. It was confusing to some who were seeking a sandwich and baked goods shop that had been recommended by a neighbor or friend.
Options that some downtown businesses took to engage in the community – joining the Monmouth-Independence Chamber of Commerce or the Independence Downtown Association – weren’t undertaken by Brarlin. The first year was a time of immersing themselves in the business, they stressed.
But word-of-mouth traveled quickly – Kollinzas' cookies practically became the stuff of local legend. They were seen as tasting fresh-baked days after being put on a counter or bin at home.
So, what happened? Why are they leaving so soon? The notice of non-renewal that Brarlin received from owner Yul Provancha indicated only that "expectation(s) do not align.” Asked about the Brarlin departure, Provancha replied with a simple statement: "Make sure you get all of the facts."
The city wasn't very responsive to inquiries about codes and permits, Jackson said. Trammart News seemed to have the same difficulty: An email, letter and phone call to the city’s communication coordinator, Emmanuel Goicochea, requesting a response to the couple’s observations went unanswered.
The couple said they learned the "hard way" a few lessons they think will help guide them if they decide to open another restaurant. They would insist on at least a three-year contract – with a lot more detail, precisely spelling out responsibilities. Their advice: get a business lawyer to give the proposed agreement a good going-over before signing, including a provision for labor if that’s being done.
Meanwhile, they will be taking a break from a storefront operation as they regroup and rebuild.
By the second week of May, Brarlin will be at the Independence Farmers' Market in the Umpqua Bank parking lot on Saturdays and at the West Salem Farmers’ Market on Thursdays "We are not giving this up, we are changing venues," Jackson said. ▪
Trammart News Service, April 12, 2024
SCHOOL NEWS
Budget cuts lie ahead for Central School District 13J and so does the need for a bond – there is no money available to fund all of the improvements necessary to school facilities, where needed repairs range from fixing some corroding tile floors to repairing water-dripping roof leaks.
“We know we need to make improvements to our infrastructure,” said Superintendent Jennifer Kubista in her report to the school board Monday night. “We know our facilities need improvements,” she added.
Renovations to buildings don’t qualify for the usual revenue schools receive. “In order to make improvements to our facilities we would need to ask our community to support a bond,” she said.
It isn’t simply that the level of state revenue the district receives won’t meet the CSD 13J’s educational budget – lower enrollment and high absenteeism will continue to take a financial toll, Kubista explained. This year, there were 100 fewer students than the previous one, as families chose online educational options, charter schooling or out-of-district transfers.
The Eugene-based consulting firm, Funk/Levis & Associates, which conducted the survey to evaluate support for a bond last year, will assist the district in formulating a campaign for public education and outreach about the need to fix facilities in disrepair. The first meeting for the “Facilities Committee” is Monday at 4:30 pm in the CSD Annex, at the southeast corner of 16thStreet and Hoffman Road.
CITY NEWS
A new agenda item that was a letter of city support for a homeless program – introduced toward the end of the Independence City Council meeting Tuesday night – drew opposition from two city councilors that the addition was too sudden to give the public a chance to see it.
“I saw this 10 minutes before the meeting,” said City Councilor Sarah Jobe. Councilor Dawn Roden had the same objection, calling it wrong to “sweep this onto the desk moments before city council.”
The letter was drawn up to convey support for housing solutions by Salem-based Church at the Park, which has proposed sheltering sites for the homeless at two Polk County cities, Monmouth and Dallas. It is the same non-profit organization that eventually was dropped for plans to use a church-owned lot near Stadium Drive in Monmouth after a public outcry by neighbors.
An email request for approving the letter came from City Councilor Kathy Martin-Willis, who received it and forwarded it on to the city manager a few days before the city council meeting. Martin-Willis is the council’s representative to the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance.
A city emergency prevented it from being placed on the meeting agenda, City Manager Kenna West explained. A water-main break put the city on a “boil water” alert Friday, so the letter wasn’t added as an item until shortly before the meeting, she said.
Following the meeting, several residents contacted Trammart News with a request to have their comments included as a reaction to the matter, so interviews will be conducted this coming week for a second look at the issue – the follow-up article will appear April 19. ▪
Independence woman receives Congressional Gold Medal as a trailblazing WWII Rosie the RiveterBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, April 12, 2024
Eighty years ago, Independence resident Clarice Lafreniere was a welder helping with the war effort. This week, she got the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition for her work.
Along with more than two dozen other “Rosie the Riveters,” a group comprised of female defense workers during WWII, Lafreniere received the nation’s highest civilian honor in Washington D.C., at a ceremony that celebrated the jobs they performed.
However, for many, it wasn’t only a crucial contribution to the war effort during a male labor shortage but a turning point in their lives – it proved that women could do difficult, physically demanding jobs that once were the sole domain of men – making munitions, building planes and ships. “I learned I could do anything I wanted to do,” Lafreniere recalled.
Posters of “Rosie the Riveter” – the iconic woman with her hair in a red polka-dotted kerchief, hoisting her arm as she rolled up her sleeve – were all around the nation’s capital. Lafreniere wore red polka dots, too.
In fact, when she sat down for an interview with Trammart News before her departure, the white-on-red dots was the material of the blouse she wore.
Lafreniere, who is originally from Colorado, got married there in 1939. After the couple had a son, she and her husband decided to move to the Pacific Northwest.
Her daughter was born in Oregon the night Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese.
Lafreniere remembers blackout curtains were placed on the hospital windows, as a precaution in case the bombers proceeded to the west coast. About a year after the baby was born, Lafreniere arranged to have her mother care for the two children, and she began working at Kaiser Shipyard on Swan Island in Portland.
She worked as a welder and “burner,” forging metal with an instrument “that looked like a big gun with a rod and a flame on the end,” she explained. It was heated to such high temperatures that it melted steel. “You had to move very steadily, “ Lafreniere said.
“Everybody had to be a fast learner,” she added. Clad in leather overalls, wearing long gloves and a helmet equipped with a glass shield, Lafreniere worked the night shift for three years. Sometimes sparks flew all around her as she toiled.
When the war was finally over, “I got fired,” she recalled. But she continued to work other jobs, ranging from the former department store Meier & Frank to the DMV, where she initially wasn’t allowed to give driving tests, Lafreniere noted. Getting behind the wheel was strictly limited to the expertise of the men. Nor could she wear pants. “I really resented that,” she said.
Eventually, Lafreniere became an office manager.
She looks back on the change from those wartime days as a young bride, when she was ineligible for a credit card and couldn’t qualify for a mortgage, all because of her gender. “I do think we did get things started,” she said of the progress women made after the “Rosies” filled male vacancies.
Still, she thinks women have more gains to make. There shouldn’t be wage gaps she continues to read about, she said.
These days, Lafreniere keeps up to date with the news in so many different ways, since the internet expanded far beyond the radio broadcasts upon which the population once depended.
Lafreniere resides with her granddaughter in town, but she continues to be socially engaged with members of her own age group, organizing get-togethers like a monthly pinochle game. Having passed the century mark herself, Lafreniere is often asked about the secret to a long life.
Though she had hard times, “I never felt I suffered much,” she said. So, is optimism the key to longevity? “I think maybe it has to do with resilience,” she replied. ▪
Cafe Brarlin saying goodbye to place on Main StreetBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, April 12, 2024
The clientele grew steadily at Cafe Berlin over the past several months. But the opportunity for consuming the comfort food cooked up by Alice Kollinzas at the cozy eatery is coming to a close. The lease isn’t being renewed.
Cafe Brarlin may be gone within days, along with the aroma of freshly baked bread and buttery cookies that often wafted onto Osprey Lane.
Kollinzas and husband, Ben Jackson, created a unique menu that included vegetarian and vegan selections, such as the “Existential Sandwich,” a creation with tofu and cole slaw tossed with ginger vinaigrette, which earned a following among those with dietary restrictions for health reasons. “One guy came in, he was so happy – we had things he could eat,” Kollinzas said. The “crunch salad” was another favorite, made with fresh organically grown ingredients, often right from the local fields of Lucky Crow Farm in Monmouth.
Though both Jackson and Kollinzas grew up in rural Oregon, they spent years in Portland pursuing their vocations. Kollinzas has a music degree from Portland State University and Jackson has a fine arts degree from Southern Oregon University. Both were involved in the music scene. Kollinzas worked in restaurants, learning the ins, outs, ups and downs of the food-service business. Jackson worked as a courier and as an art installer-handler in galleries and for private collectors, while doing freelance painting and design commissions.
After they bought a four-acre parcel in Dallas, they decided to open their own place, labeling it “Cafe Brarlin,” a noun Kollinzas created to refer to her husband, a blend of Bro and Darlin. Married 13 years, the two have been together for more than two decades.
They opened Cafe Brarlin on the ground floor of a former house on Main Street, just north of the Independence Civic Center.
This spring, the lunchtime crowd often “slammed” the small restaurant, where the turkey-avocado sandwich, the “Turkey Lurkey,” along with the “Dale Cooper” chicken sandwich, were favorites. The climb in profitability was a source of great satisfaction, said Kollinzas. But though success increased, other factors proved more problematic.
After helping with the remodeling project for seven months, fixes that they anticipated never materialized, such as highly visible signage that identified the building as commercial space, the two said. Since the businesses are housed in a refurbished home, that proved more important than they initially realized. It was confusing to some who were seeking a sandwich and baked goods shop that had been recommended by a neighbor or friend.
Options that some downtown businesses took to engage in the community – joining the Monmouth-Independence Chamber of Commerce or the Independence Downtown Association – weren’t undertaken by Brarlin. The first year was a time of immersing themselves in the business, they stressed.
But word-of-mouth traveled quickly – Kollinzas' cookies practically became the stuff of local legend. They were seen as tasting fresh-baked days after being put on a counter or bin at home.
So, what happened? Why are they leaving so soon? The notice of non-renewal that Brarlin received from owner Yul Provancha indicated only that "expectation(s) do not align.” Asked about the Brarlin departure, Provancha replied with a simple statement: "Make sure you get all of the facts."
The city wasn't very responsive to inquiries about codes and permits, Jackson said. Trammart News seemed to have the same difficulty: An email, letter and phone call to the city’s communication coordinator, Emmanuel Goicochea, requesting a response to the couple’s observations went unanswered.
The couple said they learned the "hard way" a few lessons they think will help guide them if they decide to open another restaurant. They would insist on at least a three-year contract – with a lot more detail, precisely spelling out responsibilities. Their advice: get a business lawyer to give the proposed agreement a good going-over before signing, including a provision for labor if that’s being done.
Meanwhile, they will be taking a break from a storefront operation as they regroup and rebuild.
By the second week of May, Brarlin will be at the Independence Farmers' Market in the Umpqua Bank parking lot on Saturdays and at the West Salem Farmers’ Market on Thursdays "We are not giving this up, we are changing venues," Jackson said. ▪
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