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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 2016)
REGION Wednesday, January 27, 2016 East Oregonian Page 3A HERMISTON PENDLETON PGG lot picked for new skate park Teens in custody after running away for a day By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian The city of Hermiston is planning to purchase property for a new skate park across the street from the police station. On 0onday the city council authorized staff to make an offer of $40,000 for a triangular-shaped piece of property directly across South First Street from the Hermiston Safety Center, which houses the police, ¿re department and municipal court. For 2015-2016 the city had budgeted $35,000 for land acqui- sition for a skate park and another $50,000 for capital improvements. City 0anager Byron Smith said preliminary discussions with Pend- leton *rain *rowers, which owns the property, indicate that the co-op will accept an offer of $40,000. 0ayor David Drotzmann applauded staff for ¿nding a piece of land that ¿ts the needs of a new skate park, which has been a goal for the city council for years. “What an exciting opportunity for the city of Hermiston,” he said. On 0onday the council also approved a contract amendment for C&E Trenching, moving forward a crucial piece of the project to certify the Port of Umatilla’s water right and increase irrigation to local farmland. “This is the best birthday present I could ever ask for,” Northeast Oregon Water Association director J.R. Cook told the council. C&E Trenching has been under contract with the city to extend the Regional Water System to the Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center. The $664,000 contract extension approved 0onday hires the company to install an addi- tional pump at the Regional Water System’s river intake station and create a Àush system. Cook said the project should be ready for testing in 0arch. Prior to the regular city council meeting, city councilors, staff and budget committee members attended a work session titled “City Budgeting 101” to discuss the laws and policies surrounding city budgets. City ¿nance director Amy Palmer said budget requests from department heads are due 0arch 4 and the budget should be completed by April 22, with budget committee meetings on 0ay 18-19 and a public hearing June 13. ——— Contact Jade McDowell at jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4536. Courtesy Photo by Pendleton High School yearbook class Show of support Students at Pendleton High School dressed in pink and formed in the shape of a ribbon at the school gymnasium Tuesday in support of Spanish teacher Kathryn Youngman, center, who is in the midst of her third battle with cancer. Students are currently rallying behind Youngman to put her on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” using #YoungmanOnEllen on social media. Hermiston High School has joined the effort, making their own video appeal on Tuesday. Irrigon man gets two years for copper theft By KRISTIN M. KRAEMER Tri-City Herald An Irrigon man owes more than $61,000 in restitu- tion after admitting he stole a large amount of copper wire from an irrigation pump station near the Snake River. Orin A. Whitbeck, 51, was sentenced last week in Franklin County Superior Court to two years in prison. He pleaded guilty earlier this month to ¿rst-degree theft, acknowledging that damage to the property was more than three times the value of the stolen commer- cial wire. Of¿cer Chad 0c*ary was on duty for the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife the morning of Jan. 15, 2014, when he came upon a vehicle parked near the roadway on the Pasco-Kahlotus Highway, according to court docu- ments. A woman was alone in the vehicle, which had an Oregon license plate. She told 0c*ary that she was out of gas and her boyfriend had gone to get some. At that point, Whitbeck came out from behind a potato shed, identi¿ed himself, and said a friend was coming with some gas, documents said. 0c*ary left the scene but was noti¿ed a short time later by the Washington State Patrol that Whitbeck had an outstanding warrant out of Kennewick. The of¿cer returned to the area and found Whitbeck driving the SUV, so he stopped it and waited for a warrant of¿cer to arrive. Whitbeck looked through the vehicle’s windows and noticed a blanket covering the whole back of the SUV. He noted in court documents that it looked like it was covering something. Asked what was in the back, the woman said she was moving, opened the back door and gave the of¿cer permission to look, docu- ments said. 0c*ary lifted the blanket and found “a large pile of wire” that appeared to have been cut several times. Whitbeck admitted at the scene that he had stolen the wire from an irrigation pump station. He removed the wire from the SUV and placed it in the Fish & Wildlife of¿cer’s patrol vehicle. The manager of the pump station said he wanted to press charges against Whitbeck. The restitution ordered Tuesday is $58,558 to an Idaho company to cover the insurance claim and $2,500 to Flat Top Ranch in Prescott for the insurance deductible. Whitbeck was told he can serve the Franklin County sentence along with an Oregon prison term he’s been serving since 0arch 2014 for two counts of possessing stolen vehicles and posses- sion of methamphetamine. His criminal history also includes possessing and manufacturing controlled substances, burglary and theft. A majority of his crimes are out of Umatilla and 0orrow counties. HERMISTON Chamber provides tips on handling succession in family businesses By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian Hermiston Chamber of Commerce members got advice about tackling the challenges of a family-owned business from Carl Sohn of Northwest Farm Credit Services. Sohn was the speaker at January’s Business to Busi- ness luncheon, and discussed his work with family busi- nesses to create succession plans. He described a family where ¿ve siblings owned equal shares in a ranch after the parents died, but only one of the siblings was living and working on the ranch. When the other four wanted to sell off the property to raise cash for one sibling’s medical bills, the sibling who had been working the ranch was angry that they wanted to destroy the family legacy their parents had left them, and soon everyone was talking to attorneys. He said it was important not only to have a business plan, but also a succession plan (who is going to run the business next?) and an estate plan (what will happen to the assets?) all in alignment with each other. He compared running the business to driving a bus, and said if different family members are taking turns driving the bus it won’t turn out so well if they have different ideas of where they are going, where they started out from or what route they should use. That can get even more complicated, he said, when the parties involved have a family relationship in addi- tion to a business one. Small resentments that have been building since childhood can carry over into the business side of things, and Sohn said he has seen issues like who got the top bunk growing up surface during business disputes. He said he once saw a company in which the two brothers who ran it had gotten to the point where they only communicated by letter despite working across the hall from each other. When they ¿nally got to a point where they enjoyed working with each other again the business grew. To help businesses get to that point — or avoid a breakdown in the ¿rst place — Sohn said Northwest Farm Credit Services helps teach better communication skills. It’s important to have the dif¿cult conversations right away when there is a problem, he said, and it is also important to approach those conversations in the right way at the right time. Once families master those skills they are ready to work on aligning their business plans, succession plans and estate STUDENT OF THE WEEK Ryan Hahn A RLINGTON H IGH S CHOOL Ryan works hard and helps other students by encouraging them to do well. He is out for multiple sports and involved in many activities both in and out of school. Ryan works locally for the Arlington Child Care Center and really likes his job and the children. Ryan is Senior class president and successful in his college prep classes. He enjoys playing video games and building stuff. Ryan is headed for college somewhere in Oregon fall of 2016 with a goal to study career opportunities Proudly Sponsored by — WINE WEDNESDAY— BOTTLE BLOWOUT H AMLEY S TEAK H OUSE & S aloon COURT & MAIN, PENDLETON • 541.278.1100 Coffee freshly roasted in your neck of the woods. www.HomeTownCoffeeRoasters.com plans into a united vision for the future. By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian Two Pendleton High School freshman are in custody after running away for a day. A 15-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy took off from the high school 0onday at about noon, Pendleton police Chief Stuart Roberts said, but a call Tuesday helped of¿cers ¿nd the pair. Roberts said Pend- leton police received a report 0onday at 428 p.m. that the students did not go home after school. And the boy’s mother, who teaches at the high school, reported her 1999 Ford F-150 was missing. Roberts said video from the school showed the two left in the pickup. The boy at some point dropped his mother’s purse at home, but kept $20. They also did not seem to have any credit cards, Roberts said, and no cellphones. The pickup also did not have a satellite-based navigation system. That left police in a pinch for tracking down the teens using modern technology. Police questioned friends of the teens and searched social media, but those efforts also did not help. Roberts said the parents signed the two as runaways, and Pend- leton police noti¿ed law enforcement throughout the region to be on the lookout for the youth and the vehicle. The teens kept off police radar for almost 24 hours. Roberts said the Umatilla County dispatch center in Pend- leton took a call Tuesday at 1154 a.m. from a concerned citizen who reported seeing what looked liked the missing pickup 0onday near the Little League Park on the 1900 block of Southeast Byers Avenue. Of¿cers responded 10 minutes later, he said, and soon took the teens into protective custody. Police also told their parents, the high school and cleared information from law enforcement databases. ——— Contact Phil Wright at pwright@eastoregonian. com or 541-966-0833.
