HEPPNER,
STANFIELD
HONORED
HAPPY
VETERANS DAY
SPECIAL SECTION INSIDE
FOOTBALL/1B
51/33
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2015
140th Year, No. 19
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
PILOT ROCK
Cit\ ¿ res its
onl\ certi¿ ed
Solice oI¿ cer
With no force of its own, will
contract with Pendleton PD
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Retired Pendleton fi refi ghter Ken Garrett served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and was stationed in Japan.
Pendleton veteran recounts time
in Japan during Korean War
Pilot Rock City Council voted 4-0 Tuesday
night to ¿ re Gary Thompson from the police
department effective immediately. The city now
has no police force of its own.
Thompson, moments after the meeting, said
he was awash in emotions but had done what he
could to prepare for the moment.
Thompson, 43, was Pilot Rock’s lone
state-certi¿ ed of¿ cer and worked for the city
since early 2015. The city suspended him Oct. 30,
and Tuesday the council held a special meeting at
6 p.m. to consider disciplining Thompson.
Thompson elected that the meeting be in
executive session. That bars most members of the
public while usually allowing reporters, though
the law limits reporting to the general nature of
the meeting.
Thompson gave an opening statement, then
Councilmen Bob Deno, Deacon Perkins and
Ray Corwin questioned Thompson. Councilman
James Hinkle had no questions for him, and
See OFFICER/10A
Plans to climb Mount Fuji again
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
State looks for
ways to avert
prison expansion
Pendleton resident Ken Garrett has experienced a lot
in his nearly 84 years — worked at a sawmill, fought a
war, led a distinguished career at the local ¿ re department,
raised a family.
In between old photographs and press clippings
collected in a binder, Garrett includes all of those facts
and more in a short memoir he wrote. But one event
speci¿ cally stands out to the Korean War veteran.
Garrett’s indelible memory concluded an ocean away,
but it was set in motion by his childhood in La Grande.
The week of Dec. 7, 1942 was a terrible one for the
then 10-year-old Ken. His dad was in the hospital with
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
Contributed photo
Ken Garrett, left, stands with his friend Lee Travis while
climbing Mount Fuji in July 1954.
See GARRETT/10A
Stan¿ eld High School students honor veterans
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Class of 2015 graduate Pfc. Payton Wright talks about
missing his hair with former classmates on Tues-
day during a Veterans Day ceremony at Stanfi eld
Secondary School. Wright joined the Marine Corps
after graduating high school.
As students at Stan¿ eld
Secondary School sat on the
gym bleachers Tuesday, respect-
fully listening to facts about the
military during a Veterans Day
assembly, one student made it
clear that the upcoming holiday
was a very personal one for her.
Emma Sanders stood before
her classmates and recounted
the moment years ago when her
father deployed to Iraq. She tried
to be brave at the airport, she
said, but she was just a little girl
and she ended up with her arms
around her father’s legs, crying
that she didn’t want him to go.
“I have my dad back,” she
More inside
Sam Boardman Elementary
School students honor
local veterans Page 3A
said. “Some people don’t get
their dad back and that hurts.”
Her father, David Sanders,
joined the Marine Corps in 1989
and also spent time in the Army
in Iraq. Emma said she remem-
bers blurry video chats with him,
but also plenty of moments in her
childhood that he missed due to
his military service.
“We used to have family
snuggle time, and since he wasn’t
there we would put his picture on
See STANFIELD/10A
SALEM —
Gov. Kate Brown urged
lawmakers, counties and state agencies Tuesday
to work together to reduce the state’s prison
population before March and avert a $9 million
emergency expansion at Deer Ridge Correctional
Institution in Madras.
Lawmakers have indicated the only way to pay
for that expansion is to raid a state fund designed
to keep offenders out of prison.
Such a move could doom Oregon’s justice
reinvestment — the concept of investing in
county-level programs that support and supervise
offenders who otherwise might be sent to prison,
Brown said.
Brown’s of¿ ce organi]ed a meeting in Salem
Tuesday of more than 300 representatives from
the state’s 36 counties to discuss options for
Tuickly decreasing the inÀ ux of prisoners.
“I’m here today because I believe there is still
a chance that this worst-case scenario will not
come to pass,” Brown said. “It requires all of us
to take a leap of faith.”
The tug-of-war between the demand for prison
space and justice reinvestment began in October
when the state Of¿ ce of Economic Analysis
projected that the male prison population would
grow faster than previously anticipated. That
unexpected growth would require the Department
of Corrections to add 150 to 200 prison beds by
See PRISON/10A
VA struggles to end homelessness, claims backlog
By KEVIN FREKING
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Though it has
made much progress, the Department
of Veterans Affairs is likely to miss its
target on two ambitious goals: ending
veteran homelessness in 2015 and
ending the backlog in disability claims.
The latest count available showed
about 50,000 homeless veterans on a
single night in January 2014. That’s
a decline of 33 percent from January
2010. Results from the January 2015
count are expected later this month.
The disability and pension claims
backlog also is on a downward
path, although not before the claims
processing system became so over-
whelmed that lawmakers and veterans
groups demanded changes at the VA.
The number of claims pending for
more than 125 days soared from about
180,000 at the start of 2010 to more
than 611,000 by March of 2013. It now
stands at about 76,000.
Those are the kind of trends that
politicians would surely like to cite
during election season.
Yet, as one crisis began to fade at
the VA, another blossomed. Reports of
thousands of veterans waiting months
and sometimes years for health care
have taken priority and colored the way
all other issues are viewed.
Investigators looking into delayed
care found that inappropriate sched-
uling practices were a nationwide
systemic problem. More than a year
after the scandal broke congressional
Republicans want to know why the
number of employees ¿ red is so low.
VA Secretary Robert McDonald faces
complaints that he has overstated the
See VETERANS/8A
Michael Lopez/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin via AP
JROTC’s Mason Christopher carries the folded fl ag to a fellow
cadet to be placed on the fallen soldier display during a Veterans
Day assembly at Walla Walla High School Tuesday.