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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 2015)
$10 OFF AT SAFEWAY Symphony opens season with ‘Scottish Fantasy’ 76/45 COUPON INSIDE REGION/3A TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2015 139th Year, No. 248 WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD Drug costs challenge corrections budget HERMISTON School bond likely for ’17 Hepatitis C treatment costs $70,000 per inmate, hard to get for those on the outside Committee will determine how much is needed for growing student body By HILLARY BORRUD Capital Bureau By SEAN HART East Oregonian With record enrollment and a steady increase projected, Hermiston School District is considering asking voters to approve a facilities bond in May 2017. After the Facility Master Planning Committee completed a Comprehensive Master Plan in June 2015 RXWOLQLQJ VLJQL¿FDQW QHHGV in the next 10 years, Deputy Superintendent Wade Smith discussed the next step in the process at the school board meeting Monday. He said the administration would recruit a diverse group of 14 community members to serve on a Citizens’ Review Committee along with two school board representatives. The group will review the Comprehensive Master Plan and the 2008 school bond outcomes to recommend a capital planning program to meet district and community needs over the next 10 years, which is expected by March 2016. If the committee recom- mends pursuing a bond, Smith said the district could begin initial community outreach and solicit feedback from March to June and could then continue outreach DQG SODQ UH¿QHPHQW XQWLO January 2017, when the school board ultimately begins considering whether to place the bond on the May 2017 ballot. Smith said alternatives, such as having two separate shifts of students at one school, were not attractive, long-term options for the district or the community. He also said if voters approve a bond by May 2017, the district may qualify for a new state grant program that would cover between $4 million and $8 million of the cost. “We are ripe for that up to $6 or $7 million,” he said. Other districts in the state competing for the $125 See BOND/8A One dollar A singular supermoon Staff photo by Kathy Aney A supermoon shines over Pendleton during Sunday’s lunar eclipse. It was the fi rst lunar eclipse since 1982 to coincide with a supermoon — when the moon makes its closest pass of Earth — and the next one won’t happen until 2033. Oregon faces budget-busting costs for expensive new treatments for hepatitis C, and the issue is not limited to the state’s Medicaid program. The prison system also faces higher costs from a new drug that cures many people of the potentially deadly disease, but costs the Department of Corrections roughly $70,000 per inmate for the 12-week treatment. The Legislature already approved an additional $3.2 million in a supplemental budget bill earlier this year to cover the drug Harvoni for inmates, after the number of inmates treated rose sharply in December. The increase was also part of the reason the Legislature boosted the Department of Corrections’ latest two-year budget for medical supplies by nearly 32 percent . $WWKHVDPHWLPHLWUHPDLQVGLI¿FXOWIRU low-income people insured under the state’s Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan, to get approved for the newer hepatitis C drugs unless they have reached the more advanced stages of the disease. Hepatitis C can eventually cause liver failure and cancer. The death rate from hepatitis C in Oregon has been higher than for HIV for more than a decade, and an average of 441 people died from the virus each year from 2009 to 2013, according to an epidemiological report released by the Oregon Health Authority this year. A majority were men and people aged 45 to 64, and blacks and Native Americans were roughly twice as likely to die from the virus. There is a higher prevalence of hepatitis C among current and former inmates, and in Oregon researchers think that 30 percent of people in state prisons might have chronic hepatitis C infections, according to the report. Although many people were infected through pre-1992 blood transfusions, UHVHDUFKHUVLGHQWL¿HGLQMHFWLRQGUXJXVHDV See HEPATITIS/7A MILTON-FREEWATER Peacemaker shares struggle of Christians in Iran Iranian minister gives glimpse of life in Iran, Armenian genocide D WLQ\ PLQRULW\ ÀRXULVKHG WKHUH XQWLO revolutionaries overthrew the Shah in 1979 and opened the way for hardliner Ayatollah Rev. Hendrik Shanazarian is a peace- Khomeini, who became the supreme reli- gious leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. maker. “After the revolution, things changed,” In promoting peace, however, the Iranian pastor must broach less-than-peaceful topics Shanazarian said. “There were limitations for Christians. They were such as murder, discrim- considered unclean.” ination and genocide. Christians couldn’t Shanazarian, engaged Go see it work in the government or by Presbyterian Church Rev. Hendrik Shanazarian as teachers. Building new USA for three weeks of will speak today at 6 p.m. churches was prohibited. traveling and speaking in the Rogers Room at the Christians increasingly DV RI¿FLDO SHDFHPDNHU First Presbyterian Church, met secretly in homes. spoke Sunday at Grace 201 S.W. Dorion Ave., Many left the country. Presbyterian Church in Pendleton. Violence touched Milton-Freewater about Shanazarian’s family Christianity in Iran and the Armenian genocide 100 years ago in about 11 years ago with the murder of his father-in-law, an outspoken Presbyterian Turkey. Shanazarian now pastors a church in minister. The popular pastor objected to southern California, but it’s obvious he such things as textbooks for religious still loves his birth country. He speaks of studies required in schools being written by Iran’s natural beauty, hospitality, history, Muslims. art and poetry. He said Christians, though See PEACE/7A By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian Staff photo by Kathy Aney Rev. Hendrik Shanazarian speaks frankly about life as a Christian in Iran on Sunday to an audience at Grace Presbyterian Church in Milton-Freewater. Oregon Republicans focusing on government accountability By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian A “listening tour” by the Oregon Republican Party is headed through Eastern Oregon, and party chairman Bill Currier said the tour signals the party’s focus on increasing government transparency and account- ability. “There should be rules in place, regardless of who is in power, to provide a check on that power,” he said. In Oregon that power resides with the Democrats, who have held the gover- QRU¶VRI¿FHVLQFHDQG are the majority in the House and the Senate. Currier said Oregonians deserve better than the “cronyism” and “quasi-nepotism” that led to the failure of projects like Cover Oregon and the Columbia River Crossing and the resignation of Governor John Kitzhaber. As a result, Currier said the Oregon Republican Party is making increased government transparency a big goal in the coming year. One way to do that is through working to imple- ment laws that require a faster turnaround between See GOP/7A
