A rate hike for Brandt's Sanitation Service is on the way, effective this May
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 29, 2024
A 7.9% increase to current rates charged by Brandt’s Sanitation Service for trash pick-up and recycling will go into effect this May. It’s the second fee hike in the past two years for the Monmouth-based company.
The increase was approved by the Independence City Council at its most recent meeting.
In a separate development, Independence’s leaf pickup program may become part of Brandt’s operation in the future through additional yard debris pick-up, due to city budget constraints, according to the head of the company, Joshua Brandt, who spoke at the city council meeting.
The challenge for any additional services is to “figure out how we can make those changes and try to have it not be so dramatic to everyone, the customers,” he said.
The pressure to keep costs down is a continuing one: Across the nation, rising charges for collection services have been reported due to factors ranging from increased landfill fees to growing labor costs. The situation is one that is no longer simply “creeping up” but now is “leaping up,” reported one regional trash service provider in California.
In Oregon, for example, the standard minimum wage increased from $13.50 to $14.20 this past July, according to the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries.
Brandt’s Sanitation Service, a family-owned business, has been serving the Independence and Monmouth communities for more than seven decades. ▪
Polk County Commissioner Jeremy Gordon shares the developing county program on homelessnessBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 29, 2024
The saying goes that all politics is local. In addressing homelessness in Polk County, Commissioner Jeremy Gordon was handed a political "hot potato" that isn't local at all — in fact, it is involving multiple cities.
The funding that Polk County received from the state to help meet the challenge of homelessness is a cross-county collaborative effort with multiple public agencies, ranging
from school districts to police departments. Gordon, who helms the effort, observed that it includes the cities of Independence, Monmouth, Dallas, Falls City, Willamina and the Grand Ronde community.
In a presentation to the Independence City Council in mid-March, Gordon explained the program. Called PATHS, an acronym for Partners Aligned Toward Housing Solutions, a chief goal is prevention — keeping homelessness from happening before it hits at-risk families or individuals.
“That’s the core of our goal here,” Gordon said, noting that PATHS meetings are now held every other month with community leaders. PATHS is detailing who these “struggling community members” can be. They “could include the check-out person at the grocery store, the people you volunteer to serve at the local food bank, your favorite barista making your coffee in the morning, or your child’s classmate,” according to the initial PATHS report.
The problem of homelessness has been dubbed in media reports as this decade’s “hot potato” issue, a term that seems to have been coined eight years ago by the Los Angeles Times, when homelessness was identified as a pressing problem with proposed solutions that almost invariably cause controversy.
The backlash has proven so formidable that a non-profit Canadian group battling homelessness calls themselves the “Hot Potato Initiative.” In Monmouth, a proposal to use a church lot for a modular shelter, which quickly reached “hot potato” status, was dropped after a sustained outcry by neighbors.
Gordon explained that it isn’t only collaboration that PATHS is undertaking though, obviously, that’s key. There is also emphasis on data-gathering, as well — the evidence being collected can help show where and when “we may need to change course,” he said.
For example, analysis shows the growing homeless rate has been affected by the lack of affordable housing. The vacancy rate across the county is “very low,” Gordon pointed out. Meanwhile, the median rent has climbed to an all-time high.
The average rent in Polk County rose hundreds of dollars from the four-year period of 2011-2016, a baseline period for the report. Currently, a two-bedroom apartment in Polk County typically is about $1,500 monthly, according to PATHS.
The findings so far indicate that 45 households, including 22 families, are homeless; 114 people are sleeping in cars, with 33 minors experiencing homelessness, he said.
When Independence City Councilor Sarah Jobe pointed out that some statistics in the city council agenda packet included a report on homelessness that listed an overwhelming majority of Independence households receive assistance from the Department of Human Services, Gordon said he would check those numbers. He followed up later by stating that he would notify DHS of the possible error.
The PATHS presentation appeared to be an introduction to the work performed so far, which is ongoing. Trammart News will follow the developments. ▪
A Marine who served in Vietnam shares a remembrance from his time there, a lesson for lifeTrammart News Service, March 29, 2024
Billy Whisenant, of American Legion Post 33 in Independence, wrote the following memory about his time in Vietnam. With very light editing, it appears just as he composed it. Trammart News requested the essay for its deeply affecting account of a wartime experience – it is one from which so many can benefit, an account illustrating how, even in the darkest of hours, a small sign like a single flower can become a lifelong token of remembrance and restoration. It’s an inspiring tribute for National Vietnam War Veterans Day.
The White Bloom
By Billy Whisenant
When I was 19, I was enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, and I was stationed in Vietnam in an area known as Dong Ha. I had only been in Vietnam for two weeks and was waiting to be assigned to a unit.
An old-timer, the term for men who had been in Vietnam and close to being able to rotate out, asked me one day if I wanted to go to graves registration. It was an opportunity to take a drive in a Jeep, and to get away from the sitting and waiting with not much to do in that time.
When we arrived at graves registration there were a row of bodies, all Marines. They were not yet in the body bags. There was a body bag lying beside each body.
I remember seeing the tag on the toe of one of the bodies that were used to identify them. I can remember the bodies, or at least some of them, being in parts. As I walked past, I immediately knew what death was. It was something that I had never experienced or seen so much of at one time.
I counted 12 Marines in that row and, as I raised my head from the downward right angle I had been viewing and understanding death, I saw a dead-looking bush ahead of me, about 10 feet to the left of the path I was on.
There was one white bloom on that dead-looking bush. The thought that came to me upon seeing this white bloom was that, as long as I am alive, I can perceive the beauty in that one flower. That flower represented life to me.
To continue my thought … that as long as I am alive, I can see that beauty, and that I will do everything I can to stay alive because of my very recent understanding of death.
This experience was one whose meaning has remained with me. Within the past five years, I have come to believe that, when we are completely engulfed by our day-to-day activities, functions, or responsibilities, that we can sometimes forget to look for that beauty that is always around us.
I have had times where I forgot to look for that beauty. In this time, I remind myself to always look, to be aware, to not be too absorbed with my circumstance no matter what it might be, and to not only see but appreciate the truth that beauty is around us and within us. ▪
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 29, 2024
A 7.9% increase to current rates charged by Brandt’s Sanitation Service for trash pick-up and recycling will go into effect this May. It’s the second fee hike in the past two years for the Monmouth-based company.
The increase was approved by the Independence City Council at its most recent meeting.
In a separate development, Independence’s leaf pickup program may become part of Brandt’s operation in the future through additional yard debris pick-up, due to city budget constraints, according to the head of the company, Joshua Brandt, who spoke at the city council meeting.
The challenge for any additional services is to “figure out how we can make those changes and try to have it not be so dramatic to everyone, the customers,” he said.
The pressure to keep costs down is a continuing one: Across the nation, rising charges for collection services have been reported due to factors ranging from increased landfill fees to growing labor costs. The situation is one that is no longer simply “creeping up” but now is “leaping up,” reported one regional trash service provider in California.
In Oregon, for example, the standard minimum wage increased from $13.50 to $14.20 this past July, according to the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries.
Brandt’s Sanitation Service, a family-owned business, has been serving the Independence and Monmouth communities for more than seven decades. ▪
Polk County Commissioner Jeremy Gordon shares the developing county program on homelessnessBy Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, March 29, 2024
The saying goes that all politics is local. In addressing homelessness in Polk County, Commissioner Jeremy Gordon was handed a political "hot potato" that isn't local at all — in fact, it is involving multiple cities.
The funding that Polk County received from the state to help meet the challenge of homelessness is a cross-county collaborative effort with multiple public agencies, ranging
from school districts to police departments. Gordon, who helms the effort, observed that it includes the cities of Independence, Monmouth, Dallas, Falls City, Willamina and the Grand Ronde community.
In a presentation to the Independence City Council in mid-March, Gordon explained the program. Called PATHS, an acronym for Partners Aligned Toward Housing Solutions, a chief goal is prevention — keeping homelessness from happening before it hits at-risk families or individuals.
“That’s the core of our goal here,” Gordon said, noting that PATHS meetings are now held every other month with community leaders. PATHS is detailing who these “struggling community members” can be. They “could include the check-out person at the grocery store, the people you volunteer to serve at the local food bank, your favorite barista making your coffee in the morning, or your child’s classmate,” according to the initial PATHS report.
The problem of homelessness has been dubbed in media reports as this decade’s “hot potato” issue, a term that seems to have been coined eight years ago by the Los Angeles Times, when homelessness was identified as a pressing problem with proposed solutions that almost invariably cause controversy.
The backlash has proven so formidable that a non-profit Canadian group battling homelessness calls themselves the “Hot Potato Initiative.” In Monmouth, a proposal to use a church lot for a modular shelter, which quickly reached “hot potato” status, was dropped after a sustained outcry by neighbors.
Gordon explained that it isn’t only collaboration that PATHS is undertaking though, obviously, that’s key. There is also emphasis on data-gathering, as well — the evidence being collected can help show where and when “we may need to change course,” he said.
For example, analysis shows the growing homeless rate has been affected by the lack of affordable housing. The vacancy rate across the county is “very low,” Gordon pointed out. Meanwhile, the median rent has climbed to an all-time high.
The average rent in Polk County rose hundreds of dollars from the four-year period of 2011-2016, a baseline period for the report. Currently, a two-bedroom apartment in Polk County typically is about $1,500 monthly, according to PATHS.
The findings so far indicate that 45 households, including 22 families, are homeless; 114 people are sleeping in cars, with 33 minors experiencing homelessness, he said.
When Independence City Councilor Sarah Jobe pointed out that some statistics in the city council agenda packet included a report on homelessness that listed an overwhelming majority of Independence households receive assistance from the Department of Human Services, Gordon said he would check those numbers. He followed up later by stating that he would notify DHS of the possible error.
The PATHS presentation appeared to be an introduction to the work performed so far, which is ongoing. Trammart News will follow the developments. ▪
A Marine who served in Vietnam shares a remembrance from his time there, a lesson for lifeTrammart News Service, March 29, 2024
Billy Whisenant, of American Legion Post 33 in Independence, wrote the following memory about his time in Vietnam. With very light editing, it appears just as he composed it. Trammart News requested the essay for its deeply affecting account of a wartime experience – it is one from which so many can benefit, an account illustrating how, even in the darkest of hours, a small sign like a single flower can become a lifelong token of remembrance and restoration. It’s an inspiring tribute for National Vietnam War Veterans Day.
The White Bloom
By Billy Whisenant
When I was 19, I was enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, and I was stationed in Vietnam in an area known as Dong Ha. I had only been in Vietnam for two weeks and was waiting to be assigned to a unit.
An old-timer, the term for men who had been in Vietnam and close to being able to rotate out, asked me one day if I wanted to go to graves registration. It was an opportunity to take a drive in a Jeep, and to get away from the sitting and waiting with not much to do in that time.
When we arrived at graves registration there were a row of bodies, all Marines. They were not yet in the body bags. There was a body bag lying beside each body.
I remember seeing the tag on the toe of one of the bodies that were used to identify them. I can remember the bodies, or at least some of them, being in parts. As I walked past, I immediately knew what death was. It was something that I had never experienced or seen so much of at one time.
I counted 12 Marines in that row and, as I raised my head from the downward right angle I had been viewing and understanding death, I saw a dead-looking bush ahead of me, about 10 feet to the left of the path I was on.
There was one white bloom on that dead-looking bush. The thought that came to me upon seeing this white bloom was that, as long as I am alive, I can perceive the beauty in that one flower. That flower represented life to me.
To continue my thought … that as long as I am alive, I can see that beauty, and that I will do everything I can to stay alive because of my very recent understanding of death.
This experience was one whose meaning has remained with me. Within the past five years, I have come to believe that, when we are completely engulfed by our day-to-day activities, functions, or responsibilities, that we can sometimes forget to look for that beauty that is always around us.
I have had times where I forgot to look for that beauty. In this time, I remind myself to always look, to be aware, to not be too absorbed with my circumstance no matter what it might be, and to not only see but appreciate the truth that beauty is around us and within us. ▪
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