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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 2, 2016)
WEEKEND EDITION LIFESTYLES/1C PLAYER OF THE YEAR ALL EO BASKETBALL/1B ANCIENT TOWN BEARS A DAY IN THE LIFE OF EMERGENCY RESPONDERS SCARS OF ISIS WORLD/9A APRIL 2-3, 2016 140th Year, No. 121 PENDLETON City takes crack DW¿UH bond $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD MENTAL ILLNESS BEHIND BARS County Mail serves as de facto mental institution New ¿ retrucks, ¿ re hall in plan By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian As Pendleton’s last remaining bond is set to expire, the city council will consider asking voters to add a new one to the tax rolls and revamp the ¿ re department. At the council’s Tuesday meeting, Fire Chief Mike Ciraulo will ask council members to place a $9.76 million bond on the November ballot to build a new Fire Station No. 1 at the old St. Anthony Hospital site and replace or repair old equipment. Ciraulo is currently in discussions with St. Anthony of¿ cials to donate 1.6 acres on the west side of the property at 1601 S.E. Court Ave., valued at $384,450, to the city for the ¿ re station. In an assessment conducted by a consul- tant last year, the old St. Anthony site was deemed the best location over the Pendleton Elks Lodge, the Baxter’s Auto Parts parking lot and the ¿ re department’s current location at 911 S.W. Court Ave. Ciraulo included in his report to the city council a breakdown of the proMects the bond would cover, which includes ¿ re and rescue equipment replacement in addition to the ¿ re station costs. • $8.2 million to replace Fire Station No. 1 • $900,000 to replace two Type 1 ¿ re engines • $280,000 to refur- bish and remount two ambulances • $145,000 to replace a See BOND/10A Staff photo by E.J. Harris Umatilla County Sheriff’s deputy Lu Morse operates the closed circuit video camera system from the control room at the Umatilla County Jail in Pendleton. Mental health coordinator works with inmates to help turn lives around By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian At ¿ rst glance, the Umatilla County Jail seems a place of despair. Jail of¿ cials estimate that more than 90 percent of inmates deal with some kind of mental health issue. The Mail’s two suicide watch cells are almost always full. The laundry list of mental illnesses represented here is long and comprehensive, including everything from anxiety and depression to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. On a recent day, notes scrawled on a large dry erase board near the intake area alerted Mail personnel to behavioral challenges. Smiley face symbols next to names denoted inmates with severe mental health issues. Next to the name of one female inmate was a warning that the woman spits at anyone who gets close. A spit mask, a mesh hood worn by the inmate that protects Mail employees from volleys of saliva, was advised. “They are people who have dug some really big holes that they have to dig themselves out of.” — Ed Taylor, Umatilla County Jail’s mental health coordinator Staff photo by E.J. Harris Ed Taylor is the Umatilla County Sheriff’s department’s mental health coordinator. He deals with the mental challenges of inmates in the county jail in Pendleton. In a suicide watch cell of¿ cially called a constant observation room) on the horseshoe-shaped cellblock, a twenty-something man with a buzz cut, goatee and tattooed devil horns stared blankly through the see-through acrylic wall. Among the only items in the small cell were a bolted-down bed and desk, toilet, blanket and silicon mug that merely bounces off the wall when thrown. In the other suicide watch cell, a disheveled women with gray hair and yellow prison garb bent over her See JAIL/10A New alternatives proposed for forest plan Aim to increase restoration activity By GEORGE PLAVEN East Oregonian The U.S. Forest Service is crafting two new alternatives for its revised Blue Mountains Forest Plan, based on a year’s worth of feedback from the public. Details are sketchy, but supervisors on the Umatilla, Wallowa-Whitman and Malheur national forests say these alternatives will emphasize restoration in order to keep the woods healthy and lower the risk of poten- tially devastating wild¿ res. Each alternative will be fully analyzed in the agency’s ¿ nal Envi- ronmental Impact Statement, due out later this fall. A draft EIS for the Forest Plan was released in 2014, which was so thoroughly criticized that the feds spent all of 2015 re-en- gaging with local communities on how to improve the documents. Tom Montoya, Wallowa-Whitman forest supervisor, said a recurring theme in those meetings was to adopt a more “hands-on” approach to land management that would make the forests safer, more resilient and productive. “These alternatives really try to do that, and they try to do it at a different pace and scale,” Montoya said. Comments made at the public meetings also emphasized the need to protect watersheds and the envi- ronment, Montoya said. Any new restoration proposals would still have to comply with existing laws, making forest management an exercise in compromise. Forest plans are the guiding script for achieving goals and desired conditions in each national forest. Though the Blue Mountains Forest Plan is being authored under one umbrella, each forest will have its own individual plan. All together, the Blue Mountain forests comprise 4.9 million acres across Eastern Oregon and southeast Washington. The plan has three stated goals: to promote ecological integrity, social well-being and economic bene¿ ts. While it does not approve any speci¿ c management proMects, it does set numerous desired conditions for things like ¿ re protection, recreation, access, scenery and timber harvest. The Forest Service typically updates forest plans every 10-15 years to account for new science. However, the current Blue Mountains plan hasn’t been revised since 1990. In its draft EIS, the three forests came up with six total alternatives that try different ways to bring the myriad of forest uses into balance. It didn’t go well. Of the 1,100 written comments that were submitted, most were overwhelm- ingly negative. At that point, the forest supervisors decided to hold a series of 24 meetings with more than 700 people from around the region See FOREST/2A
