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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 27, 2016)
REGION Wednesday, April 27, 2016 East Oregonian HERMISTON Plant sale fundraiser beneits FFA Hermiston man jailed after assaulting wife By JENNIFER COLTON Staff Writer By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian Thousands of plants will be up for grabs this weekend for the annual Hermiston FFA Plant Sale. Flowers, herbs, vegeta- bles and even cacti will be on sale for the fundraiser, and each plant represents weeks or months of work from Hermiston High School students. The process begins in January, when students begin to start products from seed. About 60 students — 20 in each of Hermiston High’s horticulture and propaga- tion classes — maintain the greenhouse, and two greenhouse managers, also students, take care of the weekend watering and fertil- izing. “In an average week, we spend about 70 percent of our classroom time out here watering, fertilizing, pinching, transporting and just taking care of plants,” agriculture educator Alyssa Davies said. This week, student have put inishing touches on the plants and hanging baskets A Hermiston man faces felony domestic violence charges after beating his wife with a tree branch while camping. Morrow County District Attorney Justin Nelson also said his ofice arraigned John Alexander Brown, 29, on one count of second-degree assault, two counts of fourth-degree assault and two counts of felon in possession of a irearm. The assault charges all Brown relate to domestic violence. Brown, his 27-year-old wife and their daughters, ages 6 and 7, were camping in mountains above Blake’s Ranch south of Heppner, according to a written statement from the Morrow County Sheriff’s Ofice. The wife called 9-1-1 at about 8:30 Saturday night and reported her husband assaulted her. She also said he took off on foot and she did not know where he went. Nelson said Brown used a large “branch/stick” to strike his wife, leaving her with bruises and cuts, and their children were present during the assault. He said her injuries could have been worse given the size of the weapon. Law enforcement was concerned with tracking Brown through the forest Staff photo by Jennifer Colton Freshman Ethan Atkinson and junior Ellery Jones pinch yellow leaves off geraniums Monday in the greenhouse at Hermiston High School. The student-raised plants will be on sale to the public this Friday and Saturday. to make sure products are ready when the sale opens on Friday. “Students put in a lot of hard work and effort for these plants, and it’s a visual representation of what we’ve learned and what we’ve accomplished,” said Ellery Jones, a junior. “We’re learning skills for the future.” Thirteen different types of lowers and six different types of vegetables will be available in the sale. Most plants cost about $2, and hanging baskets cost $30. “I think our community takes a lot of pride in the fact students have grown these,” Davies said. “This is a great learning tool for these students, and the community supports that.” All proceeds from the sale will go toward the Hermiston FFA program. The sale runs from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Friday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. HERMISTON EOTEC added to transient room tax fund By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian Money from Hermiston’s tax on hotel rooms will now help cover operational costs for the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center. The city council voted Monday to approve adding EOTEC to the list of approved uses for the transient room tax, but left the exact amount of money lexible. The city is responsible for splitting any needed subsidies for EOTEC’s operations budget with Umatilla County, but because the center is not yet open those costs remain largely unknown. The ordinance passed Monday night adds EOTEC to the “event center” category, where the Hermiston Confer- ence Center has been getting approximately 28 percent of the transient room tax reve- nues. City Manager Byron Smith said for many years that percentage was not enough to cover the conference center’s operating costs, and the city had also been using its general fund to subsidize its opera- tion. However, in recent years substantial growth in room tax revenue has resulted in more funds being earmarked for the conference center than are needed. This year the room tax is expected to generate $161,000 for the conference center, while only $90,000 is needed. The new ordinance means the extra money can go to EOTEC instead of into the general fund, meaning EOTEC’s operations will be supported by the out-of-town visitors the project is meant to attract, instead of local property taxes. “We’re not proposing at all not to fund the conference center,” Smith said, clarifying that the intent wasn’t to reduce the money put toward the center. The ordinance also rounded all of the numbers in the room tax to lat percent- ages, adding the leftover frac- tions of roughly 1.5 percent into a fund that will put more than $8,000 a year toward maintenance of the Hermiston Family Aquatic Center. Other actions taken at Monday’s city council meeting include: • The council approved a new stop sign at the intersection of Joshua Court and Southwest 10th Street. Smith said the cost would be minimal because the sign could be afixed to a street sign pole already in place. • The council adopted a summary report of a January goal-setting session they participated in. City goals set at that meeting are to revitalize downtown, develop more parks and recreation opportunities, create an infrastructure master plan, create a public transportation plan, perform an assessment of city facilities, support economic development, see EOTEC to completion, create a capital improvement plan, perform an assessment of city service levels and continue with ongoing projects such as adopting a new city brand. • The council received an update on EOTEC. Rob Drier of Frew Development said the event center will be ready for an open house on May 13 from 3-7 p.m. with a ceremony at 4:30 p.m. The irst event scheduled after that is a League of Oregon Cities meeting on May 18. •The council discussed the April 9 community recycling event, which Mayor David Drotzmann called “an event the community can be proud of.” Approximately 270 people brought in 83 tons of junk to be recycled, up from 200 people and 61 tons in 2016. BRIEFLY ‘Listen to Her’ will gauge women’s experience PENDLETON — Those who care about the issues that affect women and girls are encouraged to attend the “Listen to Her” town hall Wednesday, April 27, at BMCC. The event will provide an opportunity for the Women’s Foundation of Oregon to gather the experiences of women to show the stories behind the statistics. Information gathered from statewide town halls will appear in a comprehensive research report to be released in the fall. The event is 5:30-7 p.m., Wednesday, in BMCC’s Science & Technology building, room 200. The foundation will host a smaller gathering the next morning for community leaders. irrigation agriculture center on the campus of Oregon State University’s Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center. The project is one of three approved by the BMCC bond measure which voters passed in 2015. The college will also build a new workforce training center in Boardman and rebuild its facility for agricultural resource management later this year. The precision irrigated agriculture center will train students how to use technology like GPS, satellites, drones and smartphones to make agriculture more eficient. Precision irrigation focuses on the idea of using just the right amount of water and fertilizer at just the right time to maximize yields while conserving resources. The public is invited to a groundbreaking ceremony, which will start at 2 p.m. HAREC is located at 2121 S. First St. in Hermiston. BMCC to hold groundbreaking for Family History bond project Center holds open HERMISTON — Blue house Saturday Mountain Community College will break ground Thursday on its new precision HERMISTON — An open house celebrating the new look of the Family History Center will be held Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the center, 850 S.W. 11th St., adjacent to the Hermiston Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The open house will feature 20-minute presentations at the top of every hour, tours of the facility and refreshments. Visitors also are encouraged to bring family photos and a lash drive for a quick lesson in scanning. The Family History Center is a genealogical research library that serves communities in western Umatilla County and Morrow County. In addition to online computers with access to Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and Find-A-Grave.com, printers and scanners are available to digitize your genealogical records for no charge. The center also has microilm and microiche readers with more than 6,000 ilm items on site, and millions more available to order. And staff is available for one-on-one assistance during the center’s regular hours: Tuesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT CLASS Oregon - Utah - Valid 35 States HERMISTON from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Thursday from 6-9 p.m. In addition, monthly workshops are offered on the fourth Saturday of the month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. On May 28, the center will host a workshop on the intricacies of Ancestry.com For more information, call 541-567-6067 during open hours or 541-561-5137. at night, Nelson said, particularly after inding two irearms at the camp. Rather than take the unnec- essary risk, the sheriff’s ofice protected the wife and children and got them to an ambulance bound for Pioneer Memorial Hospital, Heppner, which released them the next day, Nelson also said the mother and her children now are safe. Deputies caught Brown on Sunday as he was leaving with the pickup and camp trailer. The sheriff’s ofice reported Brown did not ight during the arrest. Nelson said Brown did not use the guns in the assault but instead ired them in the woods. Still, Nelson said, Brown has felony convictions in Cali- fornia, so it is unlawful for him to have guns. Local circuit court records also show Brown has four open cases in Umatilla County — one for burglary, two for contempt of court and one for failure to appear. All involve the same victim. Brown pleaded not guilty on Monday to the initial charges stemming from the assault. Nelson said he is taking the case to a grand jury this week. Brown remains in the Umatilla County Jail, Pendleton, in lieu of $150,000 bail. Inmate dies at TRCI Fourth inmate death in 3 months state prisons. Next of kin has been notiied, and no other details are available at this East Oregonian time. Woodrum is the fourth An inmate at Two Rivers TRCI inmate to die in three Correctional Institution months. died unexpectedly Monday On April 3, inmate morning. Shawn McMillian, 44, Avis Woodrum, 60, was incarcerated out of Lane being treated in County, was TRCI’s Health transported to Services Unit a local hospital when he was for medical care pronounced and died early deceased at 8:53 on April 4. On a.m. Monday. March 20, inmate Wo o d r u m Ronald Marcus, entered Oregon 60, out of Mult- Department nomah County, of Corrections was found unre- custody on Aug. Woodrum sponsive in his 30, 2011 on one cell and later died. count of kidnapping in And on Feb. 27, inmate the second degree out of Joel Abbot, 60, was found Marion County. His earliest unresponsive in his cell and release date was March 25, lown to a Portland hospital, 2017. where he later died. 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