Police arrest fourth
Aryan gang member
KNIGHTS BEAT
BUCKS AT BUZZER
BOYS BASKETBALL/1B
40/28
REGION/3A
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2015
139th Year, No. 69
WINNER OF THE 2013 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
What
would
pot ban
mean?
State
of the
Union
President Barack
Obama
shakes
hands with House
Speaker John Boeh-
ner as he arrives to
deliver his State of
the Union address
to a joint session of
Congress on Capitol
Hill on Tuesday in
Washington.
For excerpts from
President Obama’s
speech see page 4A.
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Opting out of Oregon’s new recre-
ational marijuana law is generating some
AP Photo/Mandel Ngan, Pool
Scott Winkles of the League of Oregon
Cities said Measure 91 created four cat-
egories for commercial sales of marijua-
na: retail businesses where someone 21
or older can buy
the drug; creating Listening session
value-added mar- Thursday, 7 p.m.
ijuana items, such at the Pendleton
as the substance Convention Center
in edible form;
the wholesaling
of marijuana to retail shops; and marijua-
na growers.
The law also allows communities to
gather enough signatures to place an ini-
tiative on the ballot of the next general
election for voters to consider banning
PENDLETON
See MARIJUANA/6A
Sen. Hansell
gets attacked
from right
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Charles Denight has been named the associate director for the Pendleton Development Commission.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Former Wildhorse marketing director to revitalize city’s core
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
The man who has helped put
Wildhorse Resort and Casino on
the map for the past 13 years will
turn his attention to a new task:
promoting Pendleton’s urban re-
newal district.
The Pendleton Develop-
ment Commission hired Charles
the district’s 12-year history.
Working for the public sector
who accepted the associate di-
rector position after spending the
previous 43 years in marketing.
The part-time job, which pays
a salary of $35,000 a year, is the
only position paid for by the ur-
ban renewal district.
City Councilman Chuck
Wood, who chairs the commis-
sion, said the city needed some-
one dedicated to promoting the
district.
With City Manager Robb
Corbett and Economic Develop-
ment Director Steve Chrisman
an advisory committee recom-
mended targeting a retiree will-
ing to work part time on promot-
ing downtown Pendleton.
That made Denight an ideal
At the time of his hiring,
Denight had recently retired af-
ter working for the Wildhorse
Resort and Casino in various
marketing capacities.
See DOWNTOWN/6A
Sen. Bill Hansell still hasn’t seen the
full-page ad that attempts to skewer his
voting record in the
Oregon Legislature.
The
freshman
Republican senator
from Athena is 14
time zones away in
Myanmar. Hansell
traveled there earlier
this month as part of a
three-man team train-
ing government lead- Hansell
ers who are moving
from military dicta-
torship to democracy.
The attack ads,
which
appeared
in Saturday’s East
Oregonian and La
Grande
Observer
and aired on several
area radio stations,
accuse Hansell of Kropf
forsaking his constit-
uents and slam him for supporting a ballot
initiative to allow undocumented immi-
See HANSELL/6A
Survey shows 81 percent of agencies ill-equipped
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Though a recent survey shows
ments are not equipped to handle
an oil train accident, emergency
responders in Pendleton and Herm-
iston say they are in a relatively for-
tunate position.
The region’s Hazardous Mate-
rials Response Team is based right
out of Hermiston and able to reach
Pendleton within 45 minutes —
covering both cities through which
sands of carloads of volatile crude
oil per year.
Glen Phillips, hazmat team co-
ordinator and operations chief for
Hermiston Fire & Emergency Ser-
vices, said they have 16 technicians
trained to use specialized equipment
in case of a derailment or other di-
foam, absorbent booms for water-
ways and air quality monitors.
Hazmat team members could
respond quickly to contain an oil
spill and protect the community un-
til additional resources arrive from
state agencies or the railroad itself,
Phillips said.
“We could function, and we
could get things going,” Phillips
said. “Obviously, we would need
See SPILL/6A
AP fi le photo
A BNSF Railway train hauls crude oil near Wolf Point, Mont., in 2013.
Railroads went from hauling 9,500 carloads of crude oil in 2008 to
435,560 in 2014.