REGION
THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2022
THE OBSERVER — A3
BMCC faculty implore board not to accept budget proposal
Budget committee holds
off any decisions
BMCC 2022-23 BUDGET
Blue Mountain Community College’s
budget document is available online at
www.bluecc.edu/about/administration/
fi nance.
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Faculty of
Blue Mountain Community Col-
lege, Pendleton, took a unifi ed
stance Monday, April 25, against
the budget proposal calling for
numerous layoff s and program
cuts at the college.
The budget committee, though,
held off on making any decision
after meeting for the better part of
three hours.
BMCC instructors gathered at
the Pendleton campus before the
committee discussed the college
administration’s proposal to elim-
inate 10 full-time teaching posi-
tions, several part-time positions
in multiple disciplines and elim-
inating criminal justice, college
prep and industrial systems tech-
nology programs. They had pre-
pared statements to deliver to the
committee, the rest of the college
board and the administration. The
East Oregonian obtained several
of the statements.
Just getting into the board-
room took some eff ort. The col-
lege was not going to let instruc-
tors into the meeting. BMCC
President Mark Browning in the
hallway outside the room agreed
faculty could go on one at a
time to address the board. Math
instructor Bob Hillenbrand went
fi rst.
He told the committee and
Browning that a similar sce-
nario played out in 2002-03, when
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Gary Parker, who teaches mathematics and computer science at Blue Mountain
Community College, Pendleton, speaks Monday, April 25, 2022, to the college
budget committee and board of education, imploring them not to cut 10 full-time
faculty positions. BMCC President Mark Browning stands behind Parker.
Travis Kirkland was president of
the college.
“Just like then, we’re hearing
now claims of the imminent
demise of the college,” Hillen-
brand said, “a false pretext for
radical action from someone
who just arrived primed with an
anti-faculty agenda.”
But 20 years later, Blue Moun-
tain continues operating. He
warned this fi ght will end up in
arbitration and the outcome will
be the same as it was then. The
college spent nearly $500,000
fi ghting legal challenges during
Kirkland’s tenure, Hillenbrand
said, and lost all of them.
“Don’t waste precious college
funds on lawyers,” he urged.
Hillenbrand also said
Browning was deceptive in his
use of fi gures and obscured facts,
such as the 39 classifi ed and
administration positions the col-
lege cut in recent years. Those
were “paper people that existed
only on the pages of the budget,”
he said, and had no eff ect on the
actual ending fund balance nor on
students served.
“Most of the real cuts were
classifi ed,” he continued. “I know
of 14. By grouping classifi ed
together with administration he
obscures the fact that only a small
number of FT administrators were
actually relieved of their posi-
tions. I know of only two.”
Science instructor Sascha
McKeon provided the board
with a “broad compilation of the
beginning year revenues and top
fi ve expenditures for the last fi ve
years.” She said there has been
a drastic reduction in faculty
wages and questioned why faculty
should “shoulder the burden of
low enrollment?”
She told the committee the
projected revenue for next year
is down 6%, yet the administra-
tion is seeking to cut 33% of the
faculty.
“That does not track, when
revenue is projected to be up next
year by $300,000,” McKeon said.
Gary Parker, Blue Moun-
tain math and computer science
coach, told the board, “Many of
the programs scheduled to be
cut have low overhead and gen-
erate excess revenue,” including
math, English and adult basic
education. And if Blue Mountain
doesn’t have what students want,
they will not come here.
A number of other faculty also
spoke, but for the public tuning
in via the streaming platform
Zoom, this portion of the meeting
was diffi cult to follow. The audio
was poor in quality and there
was no video. After instructors
made their presentations, the col-
lege restarted the Zoom meeting,
which then had video showing
the boardroom and the rest of the
meeting.
For the next two hours the
budget committee, the rest of the
college board, Browning and sev-
eral administrators discussed the
budget proposal and kicked its
tires, including its $17.2 million
general fund.
During the course of the dis-
cussion, the board asked about
roughly $627,000 in money
from Amazon the college was to
receive from Morrow County. The
board of commissioners there,
however, voted last week not to
send the money to Blue Mountain.
Board member Chris Brown, who
represents Morrow County, asked
the administration to explain what
happened.
Browning said Morrow County
commissioners on a 2-1 vote
pulled the plug on providing the
funds to the college because they
wanted to keep the money in
Morrow County.
“I think there was some poli-
tics in play with some of this,” he
said, “and the information in the
wind didn’t help.”
An Independent
Insurance Agency
Future of WWII guardhouses up in the air
By JOHN TILLMAN
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — The
World War II-era guard-
houses at the Eastern
Oregon Regional Airport
in Pendleton are not going
anywhere any time soon,
Airport Manager John
Honemann said.
But how to preserve the
shacks remains open-ended.
The 11-member air-
port commission dis-
cussed the preservation
of the guardhouses at its
meeting Wednesday, April
20. Honemann said it’s
been some time since the
commission discussed the
structures.
“I’ve been the airport
manager for nine and a half
months and the preservation
of the shacks is a new topic
of public interest,” he said.
The agenda item was
there to facilitate discus-
sion about the historical
1941 Pendleton Army air
base guardhouses that are
rapidly deteriorating due
to decades of neglect. The
structures also are pos-
sibly under threat from the
construction of the adja-
cent Radisson Hotel and
increased traffi c at the
airport.
Honemann said the
board overwhelmingly sup-
ports preserving the shacks
to showcase the historic sig-
nifi cance of the airport and
Pendleton in the country’s
eff orts in World War II.
“At this point, I don’t
know exactly what that will
look like,” he said, “but rest
assured, the airport is not
demolishing or getting rid
of the guard shacks.”
Preservation options
The Pendleton Air
Museum has promoted pre-
serving the buildings. PAM
board member retired U.S.
Army Col. Tim Kelly pre-
sented the commission
with three options for the
guardhouses: tear them
down, move them to pre-
serve them or preserve
them in place. Kelly said
the museum recommends
restoring the shacks where
they have always been.
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
A World War II-vintage guardhouse, one of two at the entrance
to Airport Road south of the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport,
Pendleton, sits near construction of a Radisson Hotel on Thursday,
April 21, 2022. The airport commission is keen to preserve the shacks,
but there is no plan on how to do that.
“Moving the con-
crete, stone masonry and
hewn timber guardhouses
would be more diffi cult
and expensive than trans-
porting smaller, lighter
wooden buildings,” he said.
“The process would risk
damage to the 81-year-old
structures.”
He also spoke against
rerouting traffi c around the
venerable structures.
“Let people drive
between them as was
intended in 1941,” he said.
“Set up a truck route to
avoid them, with vehicle
weight or length limits.”
Airport Commission
Chair Jim Webster said
there was “a lot of good
information from Pend-
leton Air Museum folks
and other members of the
public” during the meeting,
and a good number of
people “with a long his-
tory in Pendleton showed
up in favor of keeping and
improving the guardhouses,
and stating why they’re
important. There was sup-
port for maintaining the
history.”
But, he added, the com-
mission has not received
a statement from the city
or planning department
requesting an opinion.
“That’s usually the
direction discussions fl ow,”
he said. “So we’re not at a
decision point yet.”
Kelly, however, said he
was under the impression
the airport commission
could initiate and forward a
recommendation to the city
for approval.
“If we have to go to
the city planning depart-
ment fi rst, then the city
council, we will,” he said.
“We could come up with a
detailed proposal.”
Decades since last
work on shacks
Honemann said he
would like to form a group
or committee from a cross
section of stakeholders to
determine the way forward,
work on funding grants and
preserve the town’s history.
Kelly said he would
prefer to keep such a
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project local, use volun-
teers, online fundraising
and donations of equip-
ment and labor from Pend-
leton construction compa-
nies. Surveyors, engineers
or architects could donate
blueprints and visual-
izations to present to the
planning department and
council. Going this route,
he asserted, the project
would wrap up in six
months to a year.
“If we get governments
involved, and apply for
grants to fund the project,
it could take two years or
more,” he said.
Harold Nelson of Pend-
leton Aircraft Services
off ered a similar sugges-
tion, at least for renovating
the guard shacks, if not
improving their environs.
“This community can
come together and take care
of them, without city sup-
port,” he said. “Local log
house builders might well
donate logs to replace those
most damaged, or all of
them.”
He said the last mainte-
nance work on the shacks
probably was Chris Demi-
anew’s Eagle Scout project
about 30 years ago.
Demianew, now a
teacher at Sunridge Middle
School, Pendleton, said his
project was to replace the
guard shacks’ roofi ng.
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