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East Oregonian
Friday, June 17, 2016
Congress stalemated on guns despite shooting, ilibuster
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
slaughter in Florida and an atten-
tion-grabbing ilibuster in the Senate
did little to break the election-year
stalemate in Congress over guns
Thursday, with both sides unwilling
to budge and Republicans standing
irm against any new legislation
opposed by the National Rile Asso-
ciation.
Democrats renewed their call
to action after Sen. Chris Murphy,
D-Conn., held the loor along with
colleagues in a nearly 15-hour
ilibuster that lasted into the early
hours Thursday.
“We can’t just wait, we have
to make something happen,” said
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., at an
emotional news conference where
Democrats joined family members
of people killed in recent mass
shootings. “These are people bound
by brutality, and their numbers are
growing.”
But Republicans were coolly
dismissive of Democrats’ demands.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky., derided Murphy’s ilibuster
as a “campaign talk-a-thon” that did
nothing but delay potential votes.
Noting that a few Democrats
had skipped a classiied brieing on
the Florida nightclub shooting to
participate in the ilibuster, McCo-
nnell chided: “It’s hard to think of
a clearer contrast for serious work
for solutions on the one hand, and
endless partisan campaigning on the
other.”
Democrats spoke of the need for
new gun legislation. Republicans
cited the threat posed by the Islamic
State group, to which Orlando
gunman Omar Mateen swore alle-
giance while killing 49 people in a
gay nightclub early Sunday. But the
two sides mostly talked past each
other, and efforts to forge consensus
quickly sputtered out. As a result, the
Senate faced the prospect of taking
dueling votes beginning Monday
on Democratic and GOP bills, all of
which looked destined to fail.
The back-and-forth came as
President Barack Obama visited the
victims’ families in Orlando, and
called on lawmakers to act.
“Those who defend the easy
accessibility of assault weapons
should meet these families and
explain why that makes sense,”
Obama said.
Democratic
presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton joined
Senate Democrats’ call for action.
Presumptive GOP presidential
nominee Donald Trump weighed
in with a tweet suggesting he would
meet with the NRA and support
efforts to keep guns out of the hands
of terrorists. Exactly what he would
support was unclear.
It’s the same exercise the
Senate has engaged in time and
again after mass shootings. Even
after the Newtown, Connecticut,
shootings of schoolchildren, the
Senate could not pass a bipartisan
background checks bill. Moderate
LEAD: Hermiston tested district schools in 2002-04
Continued from 1A
tested 12 locations at its
three schools: McNary
Heights Elementary School,
Clara Brown Middle School
and Umatilla High School.
Superintendent
Heidi
Sipe said the district had
relied on the city of Umatil-
la’s water report for water
safety information, but that
changed with the events in
the metro area.
According to the report,
none of the 12 locations had
unsafe levels of lead.
The Morrow County
School District is testing this
week. Superintendent Dirk
Dirksen said in an email the
district “decided as soon as
the news broke in Portland
about lead in the water, that
we need to test for lead in
drinking water.”
“Additionally,”
he
stated, “we found a need to
develop standard protocols
that provide routine safety
checks for this concern,
develop a comprehensive
response plan to address any
issues found in all schools
and facilities, including a
communication plan for
delivering the information
to parents and the commu-
nity at large.”
Hermiston
schools
Superintendent
Fred
Maiocco said in an email
“I believe the rationale is that the mu-
nicipal sources are regularly tested for
quality so schools connected to those
municipal sources should be safe.”
— Fred Maiocco, Hermiston schools Superintendent
that the district tested for
lead in 2002-04, and all
results “were much less than
the (Environmental Protec-
tion Agency) standard.” The
EPA requires public water
systems to take action once
lead levels reach 15 parts
per billion.
“I believe the rationale is
that the municipal sources
are regularly tested for
quality so schools connected
to those municipal sources
should be safe,” Maiocco
said in an email. “As a
result, we have not regularly
tested these schools.”
Casey White-Zollman,
vice president of communi-
cations for BMCC, reported
the city of Pendleton
“handles all water testing
since (BMCC) utilizes city
water on campus, so that’s
not something we maintain
the records for. Since the
city handles it, that means
we also wouldn’t have a
policy pertaining to the
testing.” She said the city
tests 30 random locations
each year for lead, and there
has been no lead reported in
city water.
The Pendleton School
District also lacks a board
policy on testing for lead in
water, according to assis-
tant superintendent Tricia
Mooney, and the district
plans to test this summer.
The city of Helix supplies
schools there with water,
but Helix Superintendent
Darrick Cope said in an
email “once it reached our
premises, it is hard telling
what happens to it as it lows
through our pipes.”
Helix schools started
testing this week and Ione,
Milton-Freewater and other
districts reported they plan
to test and some will create
new policies for future
testing.
Chemist Beth Read
owns Table Rock Analytical
Laboratory,
Pendleton,
which is helping the local
districts. The lab is state
certiied to test drinking
water, but not for lead. So
Table Rock is working with
two other certiied labs that
can conduct those tests,
Read said.
Table Rock provides
everything for testing, she
said, from the 250 milliliter
bottles to couriers, “so
nobody has to worry about
anything except taking their
samples.”
Tests costs $20-$25
depending on the number
of samples, she said, and
the lab offers a discount for
volume. Labs try to provide
results in 10 business days,
Read said, but an increasing
number of tests has caused a
backlog.
She also said Table Rock
has been busier than usual
with lead tests. The upswing
started with private citizens
who own older homes and
grew concerned after seeing
news reports.
Mulvihill said the schools
do not yet know how
much it will cost, but state
lawmakers in September
plan to ask the Legislative
Emergency Board to pay
for the testing. And testing
for harmful elements is
not stopping there. School
districts have until Sept. 1 to
submit plans to the Oregon
Health Authority to test for
radon.
——
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0833.
TRAINS: State has no effective way to inspect track bolts
Continued from 1A
derailment failed to reveal
the defects.
“Until the underlying
cause of the bolt failures
is understood and a means
of detecting this defect is
developed, we request a
moratorium on running
unit oil trains over sections
of track that contain track
fasteners of this material
within the state of Oregon,”
Hal Gard, administrator of
the state’s Rail and Public
Transit Division, wrote in a
June 8 letter to the Federal
Railroad Administration.
Despite hiring four addi-
tional inspectors last year, the
state has no effective way to
inspect and test the integrity
of those bolts. State inspec-
tors conduct only visual
inspections, and defects in
the kind of bolts used along
the Columbia Gorge are not
visible when looking from
above, said Matthew Garrett,
director of the state transpor-
tation department.
Union Paciic conducts
a stress test of those metal
fasteners, called lag bolts,
once every 18 months, using
a special vehicle that tests
the strength of the bolts, said
Justin Jacobs, a spokesman
for Union Paciic.
“What that vehicle does is
it is designed to go down the
tracks and put lateral pres-
sure on rails so if there is a
broken bolt, it will detect it,”
Jacobs said. “That vehicle
provides equivalent pressure
of a locomotive to the rails.”
That specialized equip-
ment is “above and beyond”
what the Federal Railroad
Administration and the
ODOT does in their inspec-
tions, Garrett said.
Union Paciic now plans
to use that vehicle to inspect
the bolts four times a year
and plans to replace the older
bolts with spiked bolts in
the Columbia Gorge by end
of year and across the state
within the next two years, he
said.
The spiked bolts are
easier for state inspectors to
see, Gard said.
State transportation ofi-
cials have requested Union
Paciic’s inspection records,
data on the last stress test on
the Columbia Gorge line and
construction plans. Gard said
he wants rail trafic to stop
until the Federal Railroad
Administration and his
agency can verify that Union
Paciic’s plans are suficient
to keep people safe.
“I need to be able to stand
with straight face and say this
track is as safe as it possibly
can be,” Gard said.
The Federal Railroad
Administration plans to start
a technical investigation
speciically into the bolts
and is conducting intense
inspections on both sides of
the Columbia River. Gard
said he has yet to receive
word on whether the federal
agency will grant his request
for a moratorium on train
trafic until then.
Union Paciic has a history
of violations in the state.
Nationwide, the company
has paid more in penalties in
the last two years than any
other railroad, according to
The Oregonian. None of the
Oregon violations concerned
defective railroad bolts,
which caused the Mosier
derailment, the newspaper
reported June 10.
Several state leaders
earlier last week also
requested a moratorium
on oil trains in the state,
including Oregon Senators
Ron Wyden and Jeff Merley,
Gov. Kate Brown, and
Reps. Earl Blumenauer and
Suzanne Bonamici.
In the meantime, Union
Paciic trains continue to
carry products through the
Gorge.
———
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO
Media Group and Pamplin
Media Group.
MEETING: Brown’s calendar lists two redacted meetings that Sunday
Continued from 1A
adding that the union-backed
tax measure “has been a part
of our discussions for quite
awhile. I’m gonna tell you
that because I don’t want to
make a mistake.”
But the acknowledgment
of the meeting — and its
mysterious agenda — adds
to the touchy politics around
the measure, which could
raise as much as $3 billion
a year if it survives an
expensive campaign ight
from some leading Oregon
businesses.
Courtney conirmed that
the two had been discussing
for weeks whether Brown
should call lawmakers back
to the Capitol. Courtney,
who last year compared the
measure with the Civil War
and called for compromise,
said he talks to Brown all the
time and “the issue of” the
tax measure “and the special
session, that’s been there for
weeks now.”
He also said Brown has
yet to rule out a special
session, at least not when
they’ve discussed it. For
many observers, Brown’s
announcement of a spending
plan signaled she’d given up
on plans to gather lawmakers
before the November elec-
tion.
The
revelation
that
Brown and Courtney were
discussing a possible special
session at all is somewhat
surprising, given that Brown
told reporters in March she
did not plan to call one.
House Speaker Tina Kotek,
D-Portland, also has said
she’s not interested in a
special session.
“The governor has never
said to me ‘I will not call a
special session,’ in all the
times I’ve talked about (an
Initiative Petition 28) special
session,” Courtney said.
Yet neither Brown nor
Courtney would disclose
what they talked about
in that particular Sunday
meeting, which Brown’s
ofice said likely took place
May 22. Brown’s calendar
lists two redacted meetings
that
Sunday.
Brown’s
spokeswoman,
Kristen
Grainger, said neither of
those was the meeting with
Courtney.
Grainger wrote in an
email that Brown “said she
hadn’t really talked with him
informally since the session
ended in March, so it was
just a general check-in, no
speciic agenda. She said
they had a wide ranging
discussion.”
On June 3, Brown shared
her thoughts for how to
spend the estimated $3
billion in annual tax revenue
from Initiative Petition 28.
The measure would raise
the corporate minimum tax
by charging certain corpo-
rations a 2.5 percent tax on
their sales in Oregon above
$25 million annually.
And while it’s not
unusual for governors to
visit Courtney at his home
overlooking the Willamette
River, a special visit from
Brown has, apparently, been
less common.
“I don’t talk to the
governor a lot except in a
conference room,” Courtney
said.
“We wish you
a Great
Summer!”
H ibbert
D ental
1100 Southgate, Suite 3 Pendleton, OR 97801
www.hibbertdental.com • 541-612-3707
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of
Maine criticized the state of affairs
as “Groundhog Day.”
After the shooting in San
Bernardino, California, last year,
the effort was downgraded to trying
to pass a bill by Sen. Dianne Fein-
stein, D-Calif., to keep people on
a government terrorism watch list
or other suspected terrorists from
buying guns, but that too failed.
This time, Feinstein is seeking
a revote on her bill. Republicans
will offer an alternative by Sen.
John Cornyn, R-Texas, that would
allow the government to delay a gun
sale to a suspected terrorist for 72
hours, but require prosecutors to go
to court to show probable cause to
block the sale permanently.
PETERSON: Biggest
achievement is the $55M
bond that passed in 2013
Continued from 1A
He
needed
some
convincing from other
staff members to apply for
the high school’s athletic
director position, but once
he took the job in 1998, his
administrative career took
off.
From
2003-2009,
Peterson was the principal
of Lincoln Primary School,
West Hills Intermediate
School,
Washington
Elementary School and
Sunridge Middle School.
Still, Peterson wasn’t
keen when the superin-
tendent position opened
up, thinking that he would
inish out his career as a
building principal.
The late David Baetkey,
a school board member
and former Pendleton
High School teacher, was
one of Peterson’s earliest
supporters for the superin-
tendent job.
InterMountain Educa-
tion Service District Mark
Mulvihill also stepped in to
offer encouragement.
Mulvihill said Peterson
was the kind of leader the
district needed at the time
— a “master of relation-
ships” and native son who
always manages to keep the
focus away from himself.
Peterson
eventually
relented and was hired for
the top post in 2009, kicking
off a tenure that saw him
rally local support for the
district’s initiatives while
struggling to get the same
commitment from the state.
The centerpiece of Peter-
son’s achievement is the
$55 million bond the district
passed in 2013, which
provided money for two
new elementary schools, a
renovated alternative school
that was turned into the
Pendleton Early Learning
Center, a career technical
education center and infra-
structure
improvements
across the district.
“My familiarity with the
community, having grown
up here, was a deinite
beneit,” he said. “I know
a lot of people in Pendleton
and I think I was able to
have a lot of individualized
conversations during that
time to explain why we
were going out for a bond.”
The district was not as
successful securing state
funding during that time.
Peterson said he still
inds it “infuriating” that
the state didn’t provide
more during his time as
superintendent, as crowded
classrooms and program
cuts plagued Pendleton
schools and others around
the state.
But overall, Peterson
views the last seven years
positively and is looking
forward to the longterm
rewards of the district’s
recent focus on American
Indian and early childhood
education.
While he’s open to
offering himself as a
resource to his replacement,
Ontario
High
School
Principal Andy Kovach, he
wants to give him enough
space to make his own mark
on the district.
“Change is good,” he
said. “We’re in a position
to take a step up and I think
the time is right for new
leadership.”
And even though he’s
leaving the Pendleton
School District, he tech-
nically won’t stop being a
superintendent.
Starting July 1, Peterson
said he’ll provide super-
intendent services on a
contract basis to the Ione
School District, whose
own superintendent is also
retiring. He’ll also begin
working part-time as the
director of strategic services
at the IMESD starting
Jan. 1, and oversee some
of the IMESD’s longterm
investments like the Blue
Mountain Early Learning
Hub.
Mulvihill described it as
a “jack-of-all-trades” posi-
tion that was created to take
advantage of the strengths
Peterson established when
he worked for Pendleton.
After cutting 11 admin-
istrative positions since
coming to the IMESD in
2008, Mulvihill said he’s
been looking to rebuild his
administration with experi-
enced talents like Peterson’s
who are already familiar
with the area.
“Every kid in this town
knows him,” Mulvihill said.
The part-time nature of
the job will also give more
time to spend with his wife,
Shelli, his Seattle-based
daughter Taylor, and his
son Jack, a student at the
College of Idaho in Cald-
well.
And when he’s not
out-of-state to visit his chil-
dren or in Ione to provide
guidance for its school
system, Peterson will be in
Pendleton and working in
education, the same as it has
been for the past 26 years.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra
at asierra@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0836.
Veronica Zapata
Auto
Health
Home
Life
habla español
541/289-3300 • 800/225-2521
The Stratton Agency
Hermiston / Pendleton • stratton-insurance.com
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Family Insurance Agent