DAY
INSIDE TO
Area cowboys
rope lead in
Hermiston
RODEO 1B
LIFESTYLES:
Doolittle Raid and the
Pendleton airport 1C
OUTSIDE:
Best wildfl ower hikes
in the Gorge 10C
APRIL 25-26, 2015
139th Year, No. 137
WINNER OF THE 2013 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
$1.50
Bill sets rules for use of police body cams
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discretion should be
included in law
By PETER WONG
Capital Bureau
SALEM — A negotiated bill
will set the rules for how police
may use body cameras to record
their interactions with the public.
Under the bill, which the House
Judiciary Committee approved
on a 7-2 vote
Tuesday,
videos can be
released if they
are determined
to be in the
public interest
— but only if
faces are made
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Edmiston
Portland is
considering the
issue, and the Columbia County
sheriff and Hermiston police have
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cers with cameras.
Committee Chairman Jeff
Barker, a Democrat from Aloha
and a retired Portland police lieu-
tenant, said House Bill 2571 does
not require agencies to use body
cameras. He said its intent is to
set uniform rules for agencies that
choose to do so.
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“continuously” upon reasonable
suspicion or probable cause that
a crime or violation is being
committed. The cameras can be
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ipation ends.
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body camera is in use unless doing
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safety or unreasonably impair a
criminal investigation.
A defendant can have access to
the video, but such recordings can
otherwise be used only for law
enforcement purposes. Agencies
can use third-party vendors for
storage, but the records belong to
the agencies.
The bill does provide an excep-
tion if public interest in disclosure
of the video outweighs the need
to shield it. This balancing test is
similar to what is applied to other
Lawmakers
ask for more
help when
wolves attack
Kindergarten
teacher Lacey
Sharp reviews
some
vocabulary
with her class
Thursday
at Stanfi eld
Elementary
School.
Stanfi eld
switched to
offering
full-day
kindergarten
this school
year.
Barreto, Hansell signed
as chief sponsors
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Eastern Oregon ranchers say they fully
expect another lawsuit from conservation
groups if gray wolves are removed from
the state endangered
species list later this
year.
In the meantime,
they are asking
lawmakers in Salem
for larger compensa-
tion for missing and
killed livestock.
The
Oregon
Cattlemen’s Associ- Hansell
ation is behind a bill
that would expand
tax
credits
for
producers to offset
the cost of wolf-live-
stock
damages
and apply toward
“above-normal”
losses attributed to
wolves.
House Bill 3514
would also preserve Barreto
the credits if the
Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission
ultimately decides to delist wolves east
of highways 395, 78 and 95, as was
discussed Friday at the commission’s
monthly meeting in Bend.
Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove, and Sen.
Bill Hansell, R-Athena, are co-chief
sponsors on HB3514, which passed
Tuesday out of the House Committee
on Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Barreto, who serves on that committee,
said the bill would give ranchers more
See WOLVES/14A
materials under Oregon’s public
records law.
But requests must be “reason-
ably tailored” to the approximate
date and time of an incident, and
the video must be edited to make all
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Disclosure is still barred if a
judge orders the sealing of records
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the video off-limits.
Hermiston Police Chief Jason
Edmiston said he has concerns
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point of “reasonable suspicion.”
See CAMS:/14A
Staff photo by
PAYING FOR ALL DAY
Large districts’ budgets hit harder by full-day kindergarten law
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
As school districts gear up for Oregon’s
switch to universal full-day kindergarten next
year, some Eastern Oregon districts are being
hit hard while others are responding with a
shrug.
Umatilla School District superintendent
Heidi Sipe has been particularly vocal about the
combined impact of the switch to full days and
the underwhelming $7.255 billion education
budget passed last week by the state legislature.
“We’ll make it happen but it won’t be
easy,” she said.
The state legislature passed a bill in 2011
requiring schools to transition to free full-day
kindergarten for all students by the 2015-2016
school year. At the time about 36 percent of
Oregon kindergarten students were attending
for a full day.
By Sipe’s calculations, implementing the
switch to full days will cost her district an
extra $326,478 next year. That’s a big chunk
of change for a district that will also lose more
than half a million dollars in state revenue
under the legislative budget, plus federal
dollars that were going to support a full-day
kindergarten pilot program for some students.
Umatilla County’s other three largest
districts — Hermiston, Pendleton and
Milton-Freewater — are facing similarly
painful decisions about what to cut to make
room for the new classes created by full-day
kindergarten.
The area’s smaller districts? Not so much.
Most of those schools have been offering
full-day kindergarten since well before the
state started to emphasize its importance.
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for several years in cities like Pilot Rock and
Echo, and Morrow County School District
has had full-day kindergarten since 1995.
In the smallest districts, offering full-day
kindergarten didn’t come with any noticeable
costs.
“We’re already offering it, but we’re only
talking one kid,” Ukiah superintendent Dan
Korber said.
Athena-Weston School District has also
offered full-day kindergarten for several
years, necessitating two kindergarten teachers
instead of one. Superintendent Jerry Copeland
said his district sees the state mandate is a
positive development.
See ALL DAY/14A
Umatilla Electric CEO Steve Eldrige announces plans to retire
A legacy of electricity
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Staff photo by George Plaven
Steve Eldrige announced he will retire as general
manager and CEO of the Umatilla Electric Cooper-
ative in 2016.
Steve Eldrige began his career nearly 44
years ago as an engineer with the Umatilla
Electric Cooperative before working his way
up to general manager and CEO.
During that time, he’s had a unique vantage
point for watching Hermiston and Boardman
blossom from the desert.
After all, none of the region’s explosive
growth in irrigated agriculture would be
possible without a steady, reliable source of
electricity to pump water onto the farm. It
was Eldrige who designed the substations and
routed transmission lines to bring power to the
pivots, and would later lobby Salem to keep
customer rates affordable.
With the co-op’s fortunes on the rise, Eldrige,
66, said he is now ready to retire, making the
announcement Saturday, April 18 at the annual
membership meeting in Hermiston. He will
remain in position until early next year when
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recruiting his replacement from a nationwide
search.
“I felt this was the right time to retire,”
Eldrige said in an interview with the East
Oregonian. “I’ve loved this job, but I can leave
without regret and with the belief we’re ready
for whatever comes.”
Board president Jeff Wenholz said they have
already reached out to two different recruiting
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new manager hired by March 2016.
Eldrige will be missed especially for his
leadership and political savvy, Wenholz said.
“Steve’s always the person who stands up
and asks the questions everybody else is afraid
See ELDRIGE/12A