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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2016)
MARCHING BAND SWEEPS AWARDS REGION/3A FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2016 140th Year, No. 55 One dollar WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD More duii arrests in 2015 Hermiston only local agency to arrest fewer than year before Duii arrests by the numbers By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian Arrests for impaired drivers in 2015 took a dive for Hermiston police but jumped for Pendleton and Milton-Freewater police and the Umatilla County Sheriff’s Of¿ ce. Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston reported his depart- ment made 81 arrests for driving under the inÀ uence of into[icants from Jan. 1 through Dec. 20. During all of 2014, Hermiston police made 102 arrests. “I truly have no glaring or obvious reason for the DUII arrests being down as we still receive grant monies for DUII Spout Springs Ski Area opens for the season By GEORGE PLAVEN East Oregonian The gentle slopes near Tollgate sparkled white on a bright, sunny Thursday at Spout Springs Ski Area, where snowboarding instructor Jacquelyn Waggoner prepared to give her ¿ rst lesson of the morning. Waggoner, 15, lives in nearby Weston and has been coming to Spout Springs since she was 6. This is her home resort, she said. This is the place where she was raised to board. “It’s amazing to come up here and call this place home,” Waggoner said. For two years, Spout Springs struggled to open, due to mild weather and lackluster snow. The 1,400-acre resort managed just one weekend last season before À urries turned to rain. But Old Man Winter came back with a vengeance in December, dumping 3 feet of snow at the resort along Highway 204 near Tollgate. Spout Springs opened on Dec. 26 and owner John Murray said people have come from as far as the Tri-Cities and Enterprise to play in the powder. “Opening day was just stunning,” Murray said. “People seem to be very happy.” Spout Springs is the closest downhill ski area to Pendleton and Hermiston in the Blue Mountains. Murray, who runs a dry dock in Portland, has owned the resort since 1999, though he is currently looking to sell the property for $1.25 million. Still, Murray promised to open this winter if conditions allowed. His standard cutoff is 30 inches of packed snow to ensure customers can ski and ride safely. In 17 seasons, he said he’s enforcement and will have people out in that capacity over the holidays,” Edmiston stated in a recent email. “Addition- ally, our traf¿ c stops are up 28 percent (6,439 as compared to 5,039), which could be an indicator we are e[periencing See DUII/8A Agency Pendleton Hermiston Umatilla County Sheriff Milton-Freewater Umatilla Boardman Total 2014 91 102 30 16 19 11 269 2015 111 81 42 25 20 11 290 Source: Each individual law enforcement agency provided its statistics through Dec. 23 Fresh snow for the new year See SKI/3A “I was just completely thrilled when I heard it was reopening this year. I think the snow’s pretty good.” — Jake Campbell, of Summerville Staff photo by E.J. Harris Kyler Lunny of Pendleton carves an edge while snowboarding Thursday at Spout Springs Ski Area near Tollgate. Data breach worries remain Employment Dept. computers still vulnerable a year after data leak By HILLARY BORRUD Capital Bureau SALEM — Computer systems at the Oregon Employment Department remain vulnerable more than a year after a major data breach at the agency, according to a state audit released this week. State employees have taken steps to tighten the Employment Department’s cyber security, but auditors found that problems remain. These include a lack of control and tracking of which state employees can access data, and ongoing security À aws at the state data center where the Employment Department systems are housed. The data breach at the Employment Department in October 2014 affected more than 800,000 people. An anonymous tipster alerted the state that hackers had accessed information including names, addresses and social security numbers of people who were looking for work. People who received unemployment insurance also received notices they might be affected. Many of the problems cited in the audit stem from the Employment Depart- ment’s use of mainframe computer programs from the 1990s, housed at the Department of Adminis- trative Services’ state data center. The agency started the process to replace the systems, which it uses to collect employment ta[es and disburse bene¿ ts, but it will take a decade to complete, said Legislative and Public Affairs Manager Andrea Fogue. By then, the systems will be at least 30 years old. As a result, employees have to do a lot of work manually. “It is a long, ongoing process so it’s happening as quickly as it can,” Fogue said. See DATA/8A Home health director ¿ nds Hermiston µjust right’ By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian After years of living in Oregon cities that were too big or too small, Margaret Rystrom thinks she may have found her just-right “Goldilocks moment” in moving to Hermiston. “I don’t belong in a big city, but I couldn’t ¿ nd the opportunities I needed in a little town,” she said. That feeling is what prompted her to apply for Good Shepherd Health Care System’s director of home health. She moved to Hermiston from Enterprise and started the job in September. Rystrom said she and her family adored Enterprise and its natural beauty. The decision to move was dif¿ cult, she said, and one that she and her husband Brian Walker discussed for months. But the opportunities for career advance- ment tend to be limited in a town of Our New Neighbors 4LL[,HZ[LYU6YLNVU»Z UL^LZ[YLZPKLU[Z 1,800 and Rystrom was craving an opportunity to use her master’s degree in nursing to greater effect. Becoming the director of home health allows her to still spend some time with patients, but also be able to think more broadly about ways to implement evidence-based practices to improve care. “The government is trying to reduce the number of inpatient days and returns (to the hospital), and this is where home health is really ¿ lling in the gap,” she said. “The goal is to keep them at home, keep them healthy, keep them out of the See NEIGHBOR/3A Staff photo by Jade McDowell Margaret Rystrom, director of home health for Good Shepherd Health Care System, prefers to stand while working at her desk in Hermiston.
