BUCKS BEAT
BULLDOGS
Red, white
and Adams
TENNIS/1B
76/47
REGION/3A
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015
139th Year, No. 133
WINNER OF THE 2013 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
Umatilla County Budget
Consolidation
gives county
wiggle room
Sheriff will ask
for funding for
two more deputies
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Griswold High School documentary fl immakers Bradey Cope and Paden Flerchinger will be competing at
this years’ National History Day Contest with their historical documentary about Walter W. Waters and the
Bonus Army.
HISTORY IN HELIX
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By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
More online
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last year dubbed tiny Griswold High
School “a farm team for the History
Channel.”
Located in Helix, population 184,
the school is a perennial power at the
state National History Day competi-
tion in Portland. Helix students have
traveled to Washington, D.C., for the
national competition the last 13 years
in a row where the Helix documen-
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regularity.
This year, two Helix teams will
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To view past documentaries
produced by Helix students,
go to mrkspages.weebly.com/
documentary-archive.html. This
year’s documentaries will be
posted this summer after the
National History Day Contest in
Washington D.C.
documentary Saturday at the state
competition at the Oregon Historical
Society in Portland. The winning duo,
Bradey Cope and Paden Flerchinger,
also earned the competition’s Best
Entry Award among the almost 100
participants in multiple categories.
The team won airfare to D.C.
With their 10-minute video, the
young documentarians introduce
viewers to a man named Walter W.
Waters. The World War I veteran
from Burns led a protest in Washing-
ton, D.C., that some say eventually
led to creation of the G.I. Bill, a law
that provides education and low-cost
loans to service members.
Waters had returned home from
war and looked for work. As with
many other men who had fought in
WWI, his savings were depleted and
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authorized a one-time payment to
veterans, but it wouldn’t be given un-
til years later.
See HISTORY/8A
Umatilla County’s pro-
posed budget of $68.9 mil-
lion for 2015-16 holds the
line on staff and services. The
county begins budget discus-
sions Wednesday morning.
County
Commission-
er George Murdock, chief
budget writer for the county,
said cuts to administrative
positions during the past two
years have helped the county
balance revenue with expen-
ditures. The commission-
ers’ executive director job
is gone, as is the economic
development director. The
county board of commission-
ers also combined the direc-
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“Other more modest
changes have been made
within departments to con-
solidate functions,” Murdock
states in his budget message.
“We anticipate further chang-
es during the coming year.”
County departments be-
gan working with commis-
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year’s budget in December.
Murdock said that is why he
does not anticipate many sur-
prises.
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going to push for two posi-
tions the county may not be
able to cover in the proposed
Umatilla County
Total budget
2014-15: ........ $66.2M
Proposed: ....... $68.9M
General fund
2014-15: ........ $25.4M
Proposed: ....... $26.6M
Budget revenues:
Beginning: ...... $19.8M
Property tax*: . $14.8M
Local: ............. $12.7M
State: ............ $16.9M
Federal: ............ $4.6M
Budget hearings
Wednesday: 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Thursday: 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Friday: 8 a.m.-noon
Umatilla County Court-
house, 216 S.E. Fourth
St., Pendleton
*And Payment in Lieu of Taxes
Source: Umatilla County
prosed budget 2015-16
$26.6 million general fund.
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tracts each year to provide
the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers law enforcement
services on land adjacent to
the Columbia River at plac-
es such as McNary Beach.
Sheriff Terry Rowan said the
contracts usually cover about
six months of a year, from
early or mid-May to about
the middle of September. He
said he is going to ask the
county to provide enough
money to make that a year-
round position.
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cers knowing it is just a short
window of time versus hav-
ing the ability to hire a full
See BUDGET/8A
PENDLETON
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By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Organizers of the Pendle-
ton Real West Festival were
encouraged by the early
returns from the inaugural
showing while acknowledg-
ing more work is needed if
they want to turn the festival
into a Round-Up City main-
stay.
Festival Director Thomas
Phillipson said he will take
the next couple of months to
evaluate the festival before
committing to another event
ed screen delayed the opening
screening of “The Winding
River” at the Pendleton Elks
Lodge by an hour, requiring a
planned post-screening con-
cert from Portland country
band The Earnest Lovers to
—Thomas Phillipson, be moved up to before the
festival director movie.
Despite the hiccup, Phil-
lipson said the premiere was
next year.
$OWKRXJK H[DFW ¿JXUHV able to withstand the hand-
haven’t been calculated yet, ful of refunds, with the rest
Phillipson said expenses out- of the weekend’s screenings
weighed returns in the festi- running smoothly.
Solid crowds showed up
val’s initial go-round.
Instead of the short three IRU PDQ\ RI WKH ¿OPV ZLWK
months he used to organize a Friday afternoon screening
the festival this year, Phillip- of rockabilly documentary
son said he’s attracted to the “Welcome to the Club” play-
idea of getting a whole year ing to a sold-out crowd at the
Prodigal Son Brewery & Pub.
to plan the next one.
Pat Beard, Travel Pendle-
“If we’re going to do it
next year, we’re going to do it ton’s event recruiter, said he’s
received solid feedback from
twice as big,” he said.
Besides advertising in the the business community.
Beard said high turnout
East Oregonian and on social
media, the festival was short for a Saturday night screen-
on publicity, meaning the au- LQJRIWKH¿OP³-RKQQ\
dience was mostly limited to Guitar” at Hamley’s Slick-
Pendleton and the surround- fork Saloon was a pleasant
surprise for Hamley’s man-
ing area.
Phillipson, who works agement.
Beard also met a Portland
full-time at the Northwest
Film Center in Portland, said couple who stayed for the
he wants to recruit a Pendle- weekend after initially com-
ton native to work on public- mitting to only staying for the
ity and attract more festival premiere.
“Those are the things you
sponsors, which would allow
the festival to be less reliant can’t measure with atten-
dance,” he said.
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———
The event’s execution
Contact Antonio Sierra at
didn’t proceed without the
asierra@eastoregonian.com
occasional hitch, either.
A missing part from a rent- or 541-966-0836.
“If we’re going
to do it next year,
we’re going to do
it twice as big.”
Cozy cub
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A fox cub pokes its head out of a hole in southwest Pendleton.
Only one staffer works on fuel standard
More hires to come for program
By HILLARY BORRUD
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon has just eight
months to launch its low-carbon fuel pro-
gram and so far, only one employee to do
the work.
The Department of Environmental
Quality has started the process to hire one
full-time and one part-time employee to
implement the program but for now, all
that work still falls to air quality manager
Cory-Ann Wind.
The goal of the program is to reduce
the carbon content of transportation fu-
els by 10 percent over the next decade
through a combination of blending clean-
er biofuels into gasoline and diesel and
purchasing carbon credits. Although Or-
egon adopted the standard in 2009, it was
never implemented and was on track to
sunset this year until lawmakers passed a
bill in March to make the program per-
manent.
Lawmakers did not set aside addition-
al money for the state to implement the
program. Rather, the Department of En-
vironmental Quality will hire two new
employees to work on the program using
money already budgeted for jobs that are
currently vacant.
“The primary thing we’re doing now
is reaching out to fuel importers to make
sure the right people are doing the right
See FUEL/8A