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The Mid-county Memo is your newspaper. We want to hear from you. Discuss an important issue or address a concern you want to call to the community’s attention. We prefer e-mailed letters to the editor, Darlene Vinson, at editor@midcountymemo.com. Please put “letter to the editor” in the subject line. You may also mail your letter to 3510 N.E. 134th Ave., Portland, OR 97230 or fax it to 503-249-7672. Our deadline for the March issue is Thursday, Feb. 15.

Hatfield unhappy over photo, salary quote
To the editor:
I’m normally not the type to comment on this type of thing — and this may not be significant enough to include in your Correction/Letters to the Editor section, but I had to write this as my explanation/justification.

What I’m referring to is the horrible picture of me taken by Tim Curran and published in the January 2007 Memo on page 15 (“Your East Portland Neighborhood Office — ready to serve”). Tim took about seven or eight photographs; the one used was probably the last one and obviously the worst one! I just returned to work after being off for three weeks from having foot surgery! My expression truly says what I’m feeling (as I stood without my crutches in my knee-high cast): that I’m truly in pain! That’s not fair.

Another item I want corrected or explained in your next issue is regarding the comment about what I earn.

Let me state for the record, I do not earn $40,000 a year. If you want the real deal, I make $17.56 an hour and work 32 hours a week. I am considered a 75-percent permanent part-time employee. I am required to share the cost of the medical premiums, and they are deducted.

You can do the math — the difference according to me is roughly over $10,000! That’s a lot of money that I wish I “earned,” but I don’t get in my pocket! Thank you.

Teresa Hatfield, neighborhood office assistant East Portland Neighborhood Office

Editor’s response:
To Ms. Hatfield, we’d like to apologize if the photograph we took offended her.

Second, a bit of explanation regarding Hatfield’s work payment schedule.

The Memo received the figure on Hatfield’s annual earnings as the neighborhood office assistant at the EPNO directly from EPNO Director Richard Bixby, in the form of an official breakdown of the funds provided the EPNO through the city of Portland.

Those figures said that $40,000 has been budgeted for the current fiscal year for her position.

A simple calculation of the figure Hatfield gives us in her letter makes her yearly earnings at approximately $28,000 a year. The Memo asks: What happened to the other $12,000? We asked EPNO Director Bixby to explain.

“The $40,000 figure is the total cost of employment,” said Bixby. “That includes salary, employer costs and all benefits.” The same can be said of Bixby’s quoted $75,000 a year salary.

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