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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2017)
Page 8A OFF PAGE ONE East Oregonian BRIDGE: Project has already raised $70K Continued from 1A The group convinced Union Pacific Railroad Co., which owns much of the land on the block, to demolish the dilapidated Webb’s Cold Storage building. The Pendleton Enhance- ment Project has been interested in creating a plaza and food hub in the area surrounding the railroad tracks, in addition to using the historic Eighth Street bridge as a decorative feature. Time is of the essence for the city government, which needs to mitigate or re-pur- pose the existing bridge to replace it as a part of a $7.42 million project. The city received a federal grant that covers much of the project and needs to sign an agreement with the Federal Highway Administration and the Oregon Department of Transportation before proceeding with bidding out the project. But because the bridge is considered historic, the city needs to provide the highway administration with a plan for the its re-use before the project can proceed. In a report to the city council, public works director Bob Patterson recommended the council support the Eighth Street Bridge relocation. If the council voted to support the project, Patterson said he would return with a resolution on how to grant the bridge to the Pendleton Enhancement Project and the Pendleton Downtown Association, a nonprofit that will act as the Pendleton Enhancement Project’s fiscal agent. The Pendleton Enhance- ment Project estimated that re-purposing the bridge would cost $102,000, Patterson wrote, and the organization still needs approval from Union Pacific to locate the bridge on its property. The Pendleton Enhance- ment Project has already raised $70,000 from private donors and Umatilla County and is asking for another $20,000 from the Pendleton Development Commission. One of the leaders of the Pendleton Enhancement Project, Chuck Wood, is a former commission chair and Pendleton city coun- cilor. Besides ODOT deeming the current bridge struc- turally deficient, the city is replacing the Eighth Street Bridge with hopes that it will spur development and expansion to the north. The council will also consider other issues, including: • City staff have secured a $14.9 million loan from the state for drinking water infrastructure, but they need approval from city council to seal the deal. Staff leveraged the city’s water utility increase to TWO HOURS every morning paid off my credit card debt. Become an East Oregonian Carrier. 211 SE Byers Ave. Pendleton or call: 541-276-2211 1-800-522-0255 secure the loan, which will be used for a variety of water system repairs and replacement across the city. • To accommodate the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems Range, the council will consider buying back an airport building the city sold 12 years ago. According to a report from city manager Robb Corbett, the city sold the 1906 N.W. 56th Drive building to Community Bank for use as a check and debit card processing center in 2005. The city now wants to use $395,000 from a state grant package to buy the building and turn it into a range control facility that drone companies can rent. Corbett wrote that the prospective control facility already has a $88,000 commitment from a UAS business and expects more in the future. Once completed, the new facility would also become the offices for range manager Darryl Abling. • The council will also decide whether a specific property is a nuisance or not. City attorney Nancy Kerns wrote to the council that the owners of a property at 1521 S.E. Alexander Place were cited March 8 for violating the nuisance ordi- nance by keeping several unlicensed and inoperable vehicles, car parts and other solid waste on his property. The owner, John Sullivan, filed a protest with the council over the city’s determination that his prop- erty is a nuisance. Kerns recommends the council find the Sullivan’s property a nuisance, direct him to abate it or have the city abate the property if he doesn’t do it himself. ——— Contact Antonio Sierra at asierra@eastoregonian. com or 541-966-0836. Tuesday, March 21, 2017 WIND: Winners have opportunity to compete nationally Continued from 1A of hours after school to the project. Loli’s mother, Betty Jarrette, said her son even forsook athletics to build the turbine. “Once he’s dedicated himself to something, he’s going 100 percent for it,” she said. Team Donovon, a group of five high school juniors and seniors, had a worrisome moment when its turbine crashed after the wind started. Team leader Donovon Carmack rebuilt the fan, and the team went to the duct tape to keep the turbine in place. The second time was a success. Martin Chavez, a junior, said he and his two partners put in about 24 hours to make their turbine and saw how it worked with a box fan, but the wind tunnel was a big difference. The duct tape, he said, was pretty important. Students connected their turbines to a computer Staff photo by Phil Wright Jon Roschke with the KidWind Project speaks with Martin Chavez, a junior at Riverside Junior/Senior High School, Boardman, while Chavez tests his wind turbine Saturday during the KidWind Challenge at the school. system that read their power output in milliwatts and displayed that on a large screen. Unofficial results pegged Chavez’s turbine as the biggest power producer. A pair of wind turbine engi- neers also were on hand to meet with teams after their tunnel trials to provide feed- back and tips on improving designs and performance. Jon Roschke of Portland is regional director for the KidWind Project. He led a workshop in January to kickoff the challenge. He said winning teams have the opportunity to compete at a national event and industry trade show in Anaheim, California. Last year’s was in New Orleans and drew 53 teams. While that’s exciting, Roschke said, the KidWind Challenge is about providing real-world educa- tion in science, technology, engineering and mathe- matics. Students learn, for example, that while the power the turbines produce is immediate, delivering that as energy is another matter. This was the first KidWind event in Boardman, Roschke said, and credited local sponsors Avangrid and EDP Renew- ables for making the whole thing possible. He added challenges have been going in some northwest commu- nities for years, including in Ellensburg, Washington, and in Newport, which branched out to cover other forms of renewable energy. He said his goal is to broaden the event to include teams from Irrigon and Hermiston. ——— Contact Phil Wright at pwright@eastoregonian. com or 541-966-0833. BILL: Several other states have similar laws or legislation Continued from 1A stations are concerned about the unusually broad nature of Senate Bill 248, particularly the recently released … amendments and that they may adversely impact the public’s right to know, partic- ularly if that person involved is a public trustee.” The legislation would allow prosecutors to use pseudonyms for sex crime victims and witnesses during grand jury indictment proceedings. Once a suspect was arraigned, the defen- dant’s attorney would receive the names of the victims and witnesses, but those names would still be sealed from public records. “All this bill would do is protect victims’ names from public record, associates and family members in case after case that I see where family members and associates intimidate victims and try to prevent them from coming to court, knowing that their testimony is key, especially in sexual assault crimes,” said JR Ujifusa, deputy district attorney with Mult- nomah County, who spoke on behalf of Oregon District Attorneys Association Several other states, including Minnesota, New Jersey, Maine and Texas, have similar laws or legisla- tion, Ujifusa said. This bill would provide the same information to the defense as they receive now, but that information would come several days later at the time of arraignment, he said. The Oregon legislation is unique in that it shields the names of witnesses and not just victims, said Gail Meyer of the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. “I don’t know of any other state law — I haven’t seen one — that would allow for secrecy in respect to the witnesses who testify before the grand jury,” Meyer testified. Grand jury proceedings already are shrouded in secrecy. Testimony is not required to be recorded, though SB248 in the Senate Judiciary Committee would change that. “We don’t have a clue of what goes on in a grand jury except by the name of the witnesses that appear on the indictment,” Meyer said. “That is our only clue. The clue is a big one for us because it can tell us how broad and how narrow of a focus the government is making out of the allega- tions.” Meyer and several private investigators gave examples of sex crime cases in which the name of the accuser helped investigators to find information that exonerated the defendant. “By enshrining the details of an indictment from public view in other cases, severely impacts the ability of the defense to marshal and get going on other facts as they might be disclosed,” Meyer said. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Portland, and Rep. John Huffman, R-The Dalles, and came out of a work group on victim safety.