Wins all around
Pendleton, Pilot Rock, Mac-Hi,
Stanfi eld, Weston-McEwen, Echo
win fi rst round games
SPORTS/1B
Kitzhaber email whistleblower steps forward,
reveals motives, resulting legal issues
NORTHWEST/2A
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
139th Year, No. 160
WINNER OF THE 2013 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
Senate tightens
regulations for
medical pot
regulations does not turn into
a replay of what happened in
Colorado and Washington.
SALEM — The Oregon Although voters approved
Senate Wednesday passed legalization of cannabis in
a bill to rein in the state’s both states in 2012, the states
largely unregulated medical struggled with the question
of
how
to
marijuana market,
handle medical
which
many
marijuana and
people
believe
lawmakers only
is crucial to the
recently passed
state’s effort to
bills to address
undermine
the
some of the
black
market
issues Oregon is
when marijuana
SB 964
becomes legal for • Creates licensing currently consid-
all adults July 1.
system for medical ering.
“I
think
The legislation marijuana business.
there’s a wide
to cap the size of • Limits medical
recognition
medical marijuana gardens to 12
that if we don’t
grows and track mature plants in
get our hands
weed
through residential areas,
the
the supply chain 48 plants elsewhere around
moves next to the •Allows cities and medical market
—
certainly
House where some counties to ban
Democrats have medical marijuana Colorado and
Wa s h i n g t o n
already stated their dispensaries and
discovered
opposition and its processing facil-
in the fi rst
this — that if
fate is less certain. ities
six months after
we can’t get our
The
bill, legalization
hands around the
Senate Bill 964,
medical market,
would also set up
a licensing system for all it will undermine the recre-
medical pot businesses and ational market,” state Sen.
allow for state inspections. Ginny Burdick said.
Burdick, who is co-chair
It passed 29-1, with Sen.
Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, of a joint House-Senate
committee working on
casting the lone no vote.
With only a month left marijuana issues, traveled to
before lawmakers hope to Colorado earlier this year to
adjourn, legislators and some learn about that state’s expe-
in the marijuana industry rience with legal marijuana,
said they hope Oregon’s
See POT/8A
showdown over medical pot
By HILLARY BORRUD
Capital Bureau
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Oregon State University head football coach Gary Andersen shakes hands with Grant Kitamura of Ontario
during an OSU Beaver Nation Road Show event on Wednesday in Pendleton.
Beaver fans eager
to meet new coach
Over the past few weeks, Andersen has
been crisscrossing the state as a part of the
Beavers Road Show, traveling to Portland,
Gary Andersen is still getting to know Salem, Newport and Bend before arriving in
Pendleton.
Pendleton.
In an interview before a short speech made
7KH ¿UVW \HDU KHDG FRDFK IRU WKH 2UHJRQ
State University football team spotted a man to alumni and fans, Andersen said the intent of
wearing what he thought was a green and the tour was a way for OSU’s athletic staff to
yellow Oregon Ducks cap Tuesday at Hamley’s connect to fans.
For many Beaver fans in Eastern Oregon,
Slickfork Saloon.
After bartering with a fan for an OSU hat WKHHYHQWZDVWKHLU¿UVWH[SRVXUHWR$QGHUVHQ
she had just won in a drawing, Andersen play- who came aboard late last year amid a whirl-
fully requested the man switch out his cap, only wind of surprising developments.
Andersen was hired a week after Mike Riley,
WR¿QGRXWKHZDVZHDULQJD3HQGOHWRQ%XFNV
OSU’s head coach of 14 years, unexpectedly
hat instead.
“Hey, that’s close enough in my book,” he took the head coaching job at Nebraska. Some
said jokingly.
See BEAVERS/8A
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Andersen’s
coaching bio
1989-1991: Ricks
College (Idaho)
1992-1993:
Idaho State
1994:
Park City High
School (Utah)
1995-1996:
Northern Arizona
(Asst. Head Coach)
1997-2002,
2004-2008: Utah
2003: Southern
Utah (Head Coach)
2009-2012:
Utah State
(Head Coach)
2013-2014:
Wisconsin
(Head Coach)
Source: Oregon State University
Blackleg fungus threatens canola
certain conditions.
Blackleg is a potentially
VHULRXV GLVHDVH VSHFL¿F WR
A new type of fungus is brassica plants, including
among us in Umatilla Coun- canola, mustard, radish,
turnips, Brussels sprouts and
ty’s canola crop.
)RUWKH¿UVWWLPH2UHJRQ cabbage. It gets its name for
State University researchers the dark lesions that appear
have detected an infection on the base of stems, which
of the fungal disease known can also spread to leaves
as blackleg in local canola and pods. Lesions are dotted
¿HOGV ZKLFK FDQ FDXVH with small pepper-like struc-
heavy yield losses under tures that release spores for
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
the fungus to reproduce.
Don Wysocki, extension
soil scientist for OSU in
Pendleton, said the primary
crop of concern for the area
is canola, which can be used
in rotation with winter wheat
to break up soil diseases and
clear grassy weeds out of
¿HOGV
Though the disease
cannot spread directly to
wheat, Wysocki said it could
PDNHFDQRODDOHVVSUR¿WDEOH
option for wheat farmers
hoping to take advantage of
WKHFURS¶VURWDWLRQDOEHQH¿WV
“The fungus invades the
plant and robs it of water
and resources,” Wysocki
said. “The yield potentially
will be greatly decreased.”
The price of canola is
already sagging compared
See FUNGUS/8A
New federal rules on stream
protection hailed, criticized
Rules clarify which waters
fall under Clean Water Act
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New federal rules
designed to better protect small streams,
tributaries and wetlands — and the drinking
water of 117 million Americans — are being
criticized by Republicans and farm groups
as going too far.
The White House says the rules, issued
Wednesday, will provide much-needed
clarity for landowners about which water-
ways must be protected against pollution
and development. But House Speaker
John Boehner declared they will send
“landowners, small businesses, farmers, and
manufacturers on the road to a regulatory
and economic hell.”
The rules, issued by the Environmental
Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, aim to clarify which smaller
waterways fall under federal protection
after two Supreme Court rulings left the
reach of the Clean Water Act uncertain.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the
waters affected would be only those with a
³GLUHFWDQGVLJQL¿FDQW´FRQQHFWLRQWRODUJHU
bodies of water downstream that are already
protected.
The Supreme Court decisions in 2001
and 2006 left 60 percent of the nation’s
streams and millions of acres of wetlands
without clear federal protection, according
to EPA, causing confusion for landowners
See EPA/8A
HERMISTON
Film crew spotlights
revived West Park
as ‘shining star’
state as a “model school.”
“West Park has been a
real shining star,” said Nanci
$ ¿OP FUHZ ZRUNHG LWV Schneider, strategic school
way through classrooms at improver for Education
West Park Elementary on Northwest.
She said not only has
Wednesday in an attempt
to capture what has made the school’s turnaround
the Hermiston school the been highly impressive, but
when
principal
top-performing
Kevin
Headings
focus school in the
and learning coach
state.
Mark
Burrows
The crew was
travel to profes-
part of Education
sional development
Northwest,
a
conferences
for
regional education
focus
schools,
policy
center
they have been
contracted by the
particularly good
state of Oregon to
at articulating what
provide learning Headings
they are doing to
coaches
and
foster that improve-
support to strug-
ment. As a result they were
gling schools.
West Park used to be one asked to participate in a
of those schools. Three years video about ways to improve
ago the Oregon Department school performance that
of Education named the Education Northwest is
elementary school one of creating as part of its contract
the state’s approximately 90 with the Oregon Department
“focus schools,” meaning of Education.
“There’s 90 (focus)
its test scores and other
indicators of success were in schools and we’re high-
the bottom 15 percent for the lighting three and the one that
VWDWH$IWHULWV¿UVWWZR\HDUV immediately came to mind
of effort to improve its status, was West Park,” Schneider
West Park Elementary went said.
Principal Kevin Headings
from being rated a two out of
¿YHWRDUDWLQJRIDQGZDV
RI¿FLDOO\ UHFRJQL]HG E\ WKH
See WEST PARK/8A
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian