Page 8A
East Oregonian
OFF PAGE ONE
Thursday, August 25, 2016
COBA: Water
supply, quality
a high priority
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A family gathers around a sign reading “Forever Missed Ken V”
during a candlelight vigil Wednesday in Hermiston.
Hundreds gather in McKenzie Park for a candlelight vigil to remem-
ber the lives of James “JJ” Hurtado and Ken Valdez on Wednesday.
VIGIL: Valdez worked with a program to keep students out of gangs
Continued from 1A
Haight spoke of the Biblical
story of Job, who lost everything he
owned, his family and health. His
friends responded irst with support
but later with accusations of blame.
“We as a community don’t want
to make the same mistake,” Haight
said. “We do not want to cast shame
on anyone. We need to reach out
and unconditionally love anyone
who was closely affected.”
Many of those who were closely
affected were present at the park,
including the Valdez family and
Bye. Teenagers who went to school
with Hurtado or were coached by
Valdez and Huston were present in
force, wearing Hermiston wrestling
gear or T-shirts honoring Hurtado.
Three of his classmates —
Janelle Almaguer,
Samantha
Atilano and Aidan Villarreal —
were selling the shirts as a way to
raise money for Hurtado’s family.
They said they plan to sell them
outside Hermiston High School
after school next week. The shirts
showed pictures of Hurtado with
what they said was his favorite
saying: “Start unknown, inish
unforgettable.”
“JJ was a really good friend of
ours, and we wanted to do it for
his family,” Atilano said. “He was
always smiling, and always there
for us.”
Other friends of the victims
shared their memories with the
group after the moment of silence,
eliciting smiles and tears in turn.
One girl remembered how
Hurtado would always show up to
support his little sister at her dance
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Aiden Villarreal, right, and Janelle Almaguer, center, sell t-shirts along with friend Samantha
Atilano, not seen, to help raise money for the family of James “JJ” Hurtado before a candlelight vigil
at McKenzie Park on Wednesday in Hermiston.
competitions, and drew chuckles
when she described how he lirted
with the other girls on the team and
told them they were pretty.
A teacher in the school district
described Valdez’s work with a
program to help students stay out
of gangs and other trouble, calling
him the “MVP volunteer.”
“Ken is a teddy bear,” he said.
“His heart is so, so gentle and the
kids gravitated toward him.”
Another woman, a nursing
student of Bye’s at Blue Mountain
Community College, told the group
how Bye would always start class
with a funny story about her chil-
dren, including Hurtado.
“You made it so that he was our
kid, too,” she told Bye.
After the remembrances, a long
line of people came up and hugged
Bye. When the night was over,
organizer Bonnie Grifith said she
was surprised and grateful to see
such a large turnout to honor her
former classmate Valdez and the
others.
“He was a nice guy. The sweetest
guy,” she said through tears. “I
never heard anyone say anything
bad about him.”
———
Contact Jade McDowell at
jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com or
541-564-4536.
NBBJ image
The various departments in the new Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center will radiate out from a center courtyard that will serve as a spirit
room where patients can wait and contemplate.
YELLOWHAWK: Will strive for net-zero energy use
Continued from 1A
Departments currently squeezed
into ive separate structures will
come together into a village-themed
health center, entwining health care,
tribal culture and the latest in green
technology.
Sometime in the winter 2017,
patients will stroll through the build-
ing’s entrance into a circular village
of health care services. A glassed-in
hallway will ring a courtyard bathed
in natural light — a space for waiting
and contemplation.
The design beat out at least
eight others. Another favored idea
included water lowing through the
facility. The design, fondly dubbed
“The River Runs Through It,”
eventually got edged out by “The
Village.”
At the beginning of the process,
the 10-member project team toured
eight other tribal health facilities in
places such as Coeur d’Alene and
Wasilla, Alaska, to garner ideas.
At home, the team honed its vision
for the clinic as a place of light and
air and patient-centered care. They
vetted and ranked architects, inally
selecting Seattle-based NBBJ.
The irm has designed some
high-octane structures including
the Bill & Melinda Gates Founda-
tion headquarters, Massachusetts
General Hospital, Pauley Pavilion
and a trio of 100-foot-tall crystal
spheres for Amazon’s Seattle
campus that feature suspension
bridges and meeting spaces designed
to feel like birds’ nests in trees. The
same architect that designed the
spheres, Dale Alberta, also headed
the Yellowhawk design project.
To get their heads in the game,
eight NBBJ team members mari-
nated in tribal culture before ever
revving up their design software.
JoMarie Tessman, a historian and
member of the planning team,
helped acclimate the architects by
leading a culture day. She dressed in
regalia, let them inspect and touch
artifacts and guided a tour of the
Tamastslikt Cultural Institute.
“We exposed the architects to
cultural nuances,” said Yellow-
hawk Chief Executive Oficer Tim
Gilbert. “They were sponges.”
NBBJ project manager Neil
Piistanen said he and his colleagues
went into the day ready to learn.
“Our biggest design strategy is
just listening,” Piistanen said.
From the tour and sessions with
the Yellowhawk planning team, he
and the other architects were able to
incorporate important tribal symbols
and practices into the design, such
as tule mats, ire and huckleberries.
The clinic’s walls will be layered
with thin cement panels engraved
with the pattern of the tule mats
once used to cover tule mat lodges.
A ire pit at the center of the inner
courtyard honors the tribal tradition
of gathering around a community
ire to share stories. Aluminum
panels cut with a pattern of huck-
leberries will catch sun entering the
courtyard and create shading that
resembles dappled light through
huckleberry bushes. The building’s
main entrance faces east where the
sun rises.
Piistanen said the health center
is one of the most energy eficient
they have attempted. Energy
Oregon Trust granted $450,000 to
the project in exchange for Yellow-
hawk’s commitment to strive for
net-zero energy use. Tiistanen said
the facility will use the electrical
grid for storage of energy gained
through solar panels and a small
wind turbine. Energy usage will be
reduced by such things as super-
thick insulation, strategic placement
of windows, eficient cooling and
heating systems, LED lighting and
general orientation of the building to
optimize solar exposure.
Tessman said the community
weighed in during the design phase.
Employees helped decide the layout
of the facility and the location of
each department.
“It wasn’t just the team in
splendid isolation making all these
decisions,” Tessman said.
Though this building might
seem dwarfed by some of NBBJ’s
glitzier projects, Piistanen said he
and his colleagues are excited about
Yellowhawk.
“We’re into doing things that
make a difference for a community,”
he said. “These are people that are
pushing the envelope of what health
care means.”
Golden shovels will bite into
the construction site this afternoon
at 4:30 p.m. The groundbreaking,
complete with barbecue, doubles
as a celebration of the 20th anniver-
sary of Yellowhawk’s beginning of
self-governance.
“In April of 1996, the CTUIR
signed a compact with the federal
government to assume management
of all health care functions for the
tribes,” Gilbert said. “That gave the
tribes a lot more control.”
The list of key players involved
in the Yellowhawk project includes
Wenaha’s Dave Fischel, in the role
of owner’s representative, who
helped guide the planning process.
General contractor is Bend-based
Kirby Nagelhout Construction.
Funding for the $26.3 million
facility comes through a variety
of sources that include loans, a
$3.1 million settlement from the
government and up to $6.5 million
in Yellowhawk investment earnings.
The CTUIR Board of Trustees
meets Monday to authorize tribal
funds.
Tessman trusts that all these
years of planning and visioning will
be worth the headache. She said,
“I believe once this clinic is done,
we’ll be one of the leading Indian
clinics in the region.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@
eastoregonian.com or call 541-966-
0810.
political science.
In 1985, Coba joined her
father as a legislative assistant
for one session before heading
off into the executive branch of
state government, where she’s
stayed. From 1989 to 1995,
Coba was a special assistant in
the Department of Agriculture,
and from 1995 to 2003 she
served as a policy advisor to
former Gov. John Kitzhaber
during his irst administration.
When former Gov. Ted
Kulongoski took ofice in 2003,
he appointed Coba as director
of ODA, promoting Oregon
goods to regional, domestic and
international markets.
“Oregon agriculture is very
diverse, which is a strength we
have, but it also brings a lot of
challenges,” Coba said.
Looking
ahead,
Coba
said Oregon still needs to
ind ways for agriculture to
coexist, including genetically
engineered versus organic
crops. Climate change has
also reduced snowpack across
the state, which Coba said has
raised alarm about water supply
and quality for farms.
“Having water for agri-
culture is going to be a high
priority, without diminishing
water quality,” she said.
ODA’s deputy director, Lisa
Charpilloz Hanson, will serve
as interim director starting
Oct. 1, until a successor to
Coba is appointed. Mean-
while, a number of industry
groups released statements
Wednesday wishing Coba well
and lamenting her loss to the
department.
“I had the pleasure of serving
on the Board of Agriculture for
four years under Katy Coba,”
said Jerome Rosa, executive
director for the Oregon Cattle-
men’s Association. “Katy
had great marketing abilities,
organizing many trade missions
beneiting commodities in
Oregon. She was always acces-
sible with an open door policy
that we greatly appreciated.”
In an interview with the
Capital Press, Dave Dillon,
executive vice president of
the Oregon Farm Bureau, said
Coba was a successful director
because she understood the
industry, collaborated with
producers and kept the depart-
ment from being politicized.
Ivan Maluski, policy director
for Friends of Family Farmers,
said they are looking forward to
working with Gov. Brown and
her staff on the search for a new
ODA director.
“While we have not always
agreed with Coba’s decisions
or the stances of the Oregon
Department of Agriculture
during her tenure, we’ve appre-
ciated being able to raise issues
of importance to sustainable,
family-scale farmers in Oregon
and wish her well in this new
position,” Maluski said.
Coba takes over for George
Naughton, who has been
the interim director of the
Department of Administrative
Services since March 2015.
Naughton
was
appointed
interim director when Michael
Jordan, the chief operating
oficer under former Gov.
John Kitzhaber, announced his
resignation, effective April 1 of
that year.
In a prepared statement, Gov.
Brown said Coba has a proven
track record of leadership
and is “committed to making
government work better for all
Oregonians.”
Coba said the governor has
already identiied a number
of priorities they will address
together, including training and
development for department
heads to better communicate
more complex issues with the
public.
Despite living in Salem,
Coba said she visits Pendleton
regularly, and her friends and
neighbors are not shy about
telling her what isn’t working
in state government.
“We need to think about how
we connect with Oregonians
in a different way so we don’t
have that level of mistrust,”
Coba said.
The last year has been a
whirlwind for Coba. She was
diagnosed with breast cancer
last October, and has undergone
several rounds of treatment on
the road to recovery. While
initially reluctant to leave the
ODA, Coba said she has been
blessed in her career and looks
forward to another opportunity.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0825.