Faith-based
concert in
Baker City 7A
PENDLETON SENIORS
DOMINATE OPENER
CROSS COUNTY/1B
FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2015
139th Year, No. 226
WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
Your Weekend
•
•
•
Bikers Against Child
Abuse Bug Run
IMAC fundraiser
breakfast in Ione
The Jim Pepper Project
at Tamastslikt
For times and places
see Coming Events, 5A
Catch a movie
The Weinstein Company via AP
A white American family
tries to escape a violent
coup in an unnamed Asian
country in “No Escape.”
For showtime, Page 5A
For review, Weekend EO
Weekend Weather
Fri
Sat
Sun
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Local artist Jason Hogge paints one of the backdrops for the Happy Canyon Night Show on Wednesday at the Happy Canyon Arena in
Pendleton. Hogge’s repainting project will span from now until next summer in preparation for next year’s Happy Canyon Centennial.
85/65
80/55
74/53
Judge halts
Obama’s
new ‘clean
water’ rule
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)
— A federal judge in North
Dakota on Thursday blocked
a new Obama administration
rule that would give the
federal government juris-
diction over some smaller
waterways just hours before
it was set to go into effect.
U.S. District Judge Ralph
Erickson in Fargo issued
a temporary injunction
requested by North Dakota
and 12 other states halting
the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and
Army Corps of Engineers
from regulating some small
streams, tributaries and
wetlands under the Clean
Water Act. The rule, which
has prompted ¿ erce criticism
from farmers among others,
was scheduled to take effect
Friday.
North Dakota Attorney
General Wayne Stenehjem,
who ¿ led the injunction
request, said his reading
See WATER/10A
Repainting a classic
Local artist goes
for realism on new
Happy Canyon
backdrops
By JONATHAN BACH
East Oregonian
By JONATHAN BACH
East Oregonian
Paint roller in hand, Jason Hogge
kneels under a stretch of shade on the
Happy Canyon set’s second level.
The sun burns overhead, and
Hogge, 43, paints a large, contoured
rock onto the wooden façade, one part
of a foothill that rolls almost the length
of the famous arena’s background.
Without two painted-on metal
extrusions that jut out from both sides
of the Wild West town scene, the set
runs about 160 feet from side to side,
according to Rebeca Waggoner, who is
authoring a book on Happy Canyon’s
history. With them, the distance is right
at 200 feet, laterally.
At summer’s start, Hogge began a
project to give this set a makeover for
$1.5M
mezzanine
project
complete
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Jason Hogge uses reference photos of scenic shots he has taken from
throughout the area for guidance to give his backdrops a more authen-
tic appearance.
next year’s centennial Happy Canyon
Night Show. How will he do it? With
an emphasis on shadow and perspec-
tive, in order to lend realism to the
old murals. As a guide for the portion
he’s coating this Wednesday afternoon,
he traveled around and photographed
foothills of Eastern Oregon.
“I want to try to pull it together and
give it a more realistic feel,” he said.
Some paintings on the pasto-
See PAINT/10A
The Happy Canyon
board emphasized three
things with the completion
of its $1.5 million mezza-
nine project at the famous
nighttime show’s arena:
safety, access and the
potential for other groups
to more readily take
advantage of the space.
The addition of a
long,
stadium-style
walkway part way up
the grandstands allows
for more seating options
for patrons with limited
mobility, so those in
wheelchairs can be next
to their companions, said
Happy Canyon Publicity
Director Corey Neistadt.
Previously, there were 32
See MEZZANINE/10A
Well-connected
¿
rm
got
Teacher-student
affair began on tax credit rules changed
IRRIGON
graduation day
By SEAN HART
East Oregonian
A former Irrigon High School student told detectives
she had sex on the morning of her graduation with a teacher
who is now being investigated by
the Teacher Standards and Practices
Commission.
Jake McElligott, who taught at
Armand Larive Middle School and
coached the Hermiston High School
boys basketball team last year, is on
paid administrative leave during an
unspeci¿ ed commission investigation,
according to school district of¿ cials.
The 35-year-old teacher previously McElligot
worked for Morrow County School
District and was the subject of a
Morrow County Sheriff¶s Of¿ ce investigation involving a
possible sex crime that did not result in criminal charges.
See TEACHER/10A
By HILLARY BORRUD
Capital Bureau
“We didn’t seek it out. Our experience was
our clients had a problem. And their
SALEM — It’s not every
problem was (Oregon Department of
business that can convince Energy) wasn’t selling their credits for them.”
state government to change
regulations on its behalf.
But that is what a small
Portland ¿ rm called Blue
Tree Strategies did earlier
this year.
The
well-connected
green energy consultancy
developed
a
lucrative
business brokering sales of
Oregon energy tax credits,
and its clients wanted to
sell the credits below the
state-mandated price. When
an employee at Oregon
Department of Energy
objected, agency director
Michael Kaplan stepped in.
“Effective immediately,
please begin honoring all
request (sic) for transfers of
— Aaron Berg, Blue Tree Strategies founder
tax credits where the parties
have negotiated the trans-
action price,” Kaplan wrote
in a Feb. 17, 2015 email to
employees at the energy
agency. The department
would sort out the details
later, including changing its
rules to retroactively elimi-
nate price regulations.
That
change
gave
Blue Tree and its clients a
competitive advantage over
others selling the credits, an
analysis of public records
and emails by EO Media
Group and Pamplin Media
Group reveal.
Oregon issues tax credits
to renewable energy and
ef¿ ciency projects to help
offset capital costs. Recipi-
ents can use them to reduce
taxes, or sell them to raise
cash.
The Legislature has
passed laws intended to
ensure sellers receive close
to the full value of the
tax credit. At the time of
Kaplan’s email, state rules
still called for one of the tax
credits to be sold for nearly
91 cents on the dollar, not 79
See CREDITS/8A