WEEKEND EDITION
Students
BUCKAROOS
invest in
DEMOLISH
doughnuts
THE DALLES
LIFESTYLES 1C
FOOTBALL/1B
NATION: Inside a
poaching warehouse 9A
OCTOBER 24-25, 2015
140 Year, No. 7
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Want to
believe?
Local UFO sightings
¿WQDWLRQDOLQFUHDVH
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
It was 4:30 in the morning,
but Ivan Dame swears he was
wide awake when he saw an
XQLGHQWL¿HGÀ\LQJREMHFW
He knows what drones
look like, he said. This was
no drone.
“This was way bigger than
drones,” he said, noting that
he does see unmanned aerial
vehicles hovering above his
property from time to time.
³,W¶V WKH ¿UVW WLPH ,¶YH VHHQ
that particular one.”
The lights, shaped like
an upside-down “U” with
square corners, appeared Oct.
ÀRDWLQJDERXWIHHWLQ
the air over Townsend Road
in Hermiston, according to
Dame. He said the formation
didn’t correspond to any
man-made aircraft he had
ever seen.
The lights were — tech-
QLFDOO\ ² XQLGHQWL¿HG E\
'DPHÀ\LQJDQGDQREMHFW
“I read all I can about
UFOs and stuff, I just never
thought I’d get a chance to
see one,” he said.
,W¶V QRW WKH ¿UVW WLPH D
Umatilla County resident
has reported seeing a UFO,
and it probably won’t be
the last. Peter Davenport,
director of the National UFO
Reporting Center, said there
has been a “marked increase”
in reported UFO sightings
across the country in recent
years.
He didn’t think that the
trend was based on the rise of
unmanned aerial vehicles, or
even necessarily an increase
in alien visitors to Earth. He
said it could just as easily be
based on an increased interest
in presentations and articles
on the Internet about UFOs,
or a “host of other factors.”
“I doubt that drones have
D VLJQL¿FDQW HIIHFW RQ RXU
work,” he wrote in an email.
³,I WKH\ DUH ÀRZQ DW QLJKW
they have to have standard
lighting, as required by the
Federal Aviation Regula-
tions, so they probably would
be recognized as an aircraft.”
On the National UFO
Reporting Center’s website
are several local sightings.
One anonymous reporter,
describing himself as a truck
driver, said he saw a diamond-
shaped light hovering in the
See UFO/12A
MAKAD & MORROW
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The Makad Corp. built a 31 megawatt electrical generation facility at the Port of Morrow in 2001 but only produced power for a short time
before it was shuttered.
Lawsuit, unbuilt projects checker corporation’s past
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Before the Pendleton City
Council unanimously approved a
30-year ground lease on Airport
Road for a $45 million data center,
Mayor Phillip Houk touted Makad
Corp.’s history of developing proj-
ects in Eastern Oregon.
But a series of failed projects and
a lawsuit in a neighboring commu-
nity casts doubt on that assertion.
In an earlier version of the Makad
Corp. website, the corporation
touted three collaborative projects
at the Port of Morrow. The business
partner was Monsanto Enviro-Chem
Systems Inc., a subsidiary of the
agrochemical giant.
Two out of those three projects
— a fertilizer plant and ethanol
plant — never came to fruition.
The project that did see comple-
tion was a 31-megawatt power
SODQW EXW GHVSLWH EHLQJ ¿QLVKHG LQ
2001, it hasn’t run in years and was
the subject of a lawsuit between
MECS and Morrow Power LLC, the
subsidiary created by Makad Corp.
to manage the plant.
On April 4, 2007, Portland
DWWRUQH\ 'RXJODV 3DKO ¿OHG D
motion on behalf of Monsanto Envi-
ro-Chem Systems — which had
since changed its name to MECS
Inc. when it split off from Monsanto
Co. in 2005 — in Morrow County
Circuit Court to appoint a receiver
for the power plant property. A
receiver is a neutral party appointed
by a judge to take charge of property
DQG EXVLQHVVHV DQG KROG SUR¿WV
while the rightful owner of the
SUR¿WVLVGHFLGHGE\DFRXUW
In a declaration supporting the
motion, former MECS vice presi-
dent of administration John Merz
detailed the deal: in exchange for
covering the costs of building the
multi-million dollar power plant,
Makad Corp. would operate the
plant and pay back MECS.
The agreement got off to an
inauspicious start.
On Dec. 5, 2002, MECS agreed
to extend the date when Morrow
Power would have to pay back the
full cost of the plant from March 15,
2002 to Feb. 28, 2003.
Morrow Power took out a
$650,000 loan from Columbia
See MAKAD/10A
DOC looks
Building hundreds of homes
to open
to keep up with job growth prison
70 percent of port
workers commute
in Madras
BOARDMAN
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Just shy of a year after breaking
ground, Boardman’s new Tuscany
subdivision
celebrated
the
FRPSOHWLRQRILWV¿UVWWZRKRXVHV
Friday on South Main Street and
Wilson Lane.
The development marks a
major step forward for a city in
dire need of housing to accommo-
date a rapidly growing workforce.
Employees of businesses at the
nearby Port of Morrow now
outrank the city’s overall popu-
lation, and estimates show 68
percent of those workers commute
from other areas.
Riverwood
Homes,
of
Meridian, Idaho, began devel-
oping the Tuscany and Chaparral
Park subdivisions late last year
to capitalize on the market in
Boardman. Two homes are
¿QLVKHG LQ 7XVFDQ\ DQG IRXQGD
tions laid for two more. Fourteen
ORWVDUHVODWHGIRUWKHSURMHFW¶V¿UVW
building phase.
Greg Johnson, president of
Riverwood Homes, said one of the
¿QLVKHG KRXVHV KDV DOUHDG\ VROG
Residents were invited Friday
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Two homes have been completed so far in the fi rst phase of
building at the Tuscany subdivision in Boardman. The completed
subdivision could add as many as 160 homes to the city.
“The ball is rolling, but it’s not an avalanche.”
— Barry Beyeler, community development director
afternoon for an open house to
tour the two-story, 2,406-square-
foot model.
Meanwhile, Johnson said two
PRUHKRPHVZLOOEH¿QLVKHGLQWKH
next 60 days at Chaparral Park,
located west of city hall at the end
of Kinkade Road. Another four
homes will begin construction
there before the end of the year.
The neighborhood will include
units for rent.
Their goal, Johnson said, is to
provide higher quality housing
at Tuscany and more moderately
priced townhouses at Chaparral
Park. With more options available,
Johnson said some port workers
might decide to live locally instead
of driving from Hermiston or the
See HOUSING/12A
State lawmakers say they may have
to take more than $9 million from a
state fund designed to keep offenders
out of prison to pay for expanding
prison space.
$ ODZ LQWHQGHG WR ÀDWOLQH
growth in the state prison population
has been less successful than antici-
pated. The state is projected to have
150 more prisoners in March than
previously forecast, according to the
2I¿FHRI(FRQRPLF$QDO\VLV
The Department of Corrections
plans to accommodate the extra
prisoners by opening a vacant medi-
um-security facility at Deer Creek
Correctional Institution in Madras, said
Colette Peters, department director.
Executing the plan by March would
cost about $9.5 million, she said.
The department plans had called for
opening that facility in 2019.
House Majority Leader Rep.
Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland, said
the only option for covering that cost
is to siphon the money from the Justice
Reinvestment Fund.
The Justice Reinvestment Fund was
See PRISON/12A