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
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plans into a united vision for
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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.