Page 8A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Thursday, October 6, 2016
COUNCIL: Primmer’s biggest goal is improving public transportation
Continued from 1A
balloon festival and recruiting
entertainment to the Eastern
Oregon Trade and Event Center.
A third focus is mental health
in the community, which he hopes
the city can improve by recruiting
more private sector providers to
the area and working with state
representatives to improve laws
and funding.
Manuel Gutierrez
Gutierrez is inishing his
irst full four-year term as a city
councilor (he previously served
part of a term before resigning
in 2008 because he had planned
to move outside city limits). He
works as an advocate at Domestic
Violence Services and represents
the council on city committees,
including the Hispanic Advisory
Committee.
Gutierrez said water has been,
and will continue to be, one of his
top priorities for the city. Herm-
iston has invested in new water
infrastructure in recent years and
helped secure legislation to pull
more water out of the Columbia
River for agriculture, but he said
it will be important to stay vigilant
on the issue.
He also said the city needs to
focus on economic development,
particularly in “bringing Main
Street alive” and being “aggres-
sive” in working to bring new
businesses to the area through
initiatives such as tax breaks and
creating a city-owned natural gas
company.
Gutierrez said he supports the
city’s planned $1.5 million festival
street, connected to the new senior
center, as a means of bringing
more life to downtown.
Rod Hardin
Hardin, who serves as principal
of Hermiston Christian School,
irst joined the city council in 1992
and is its longest-serving member.
He said he hopes to have the
opportunity for one more term to
see current projects such as the
new bus route to completion, and
also to provide stability and insti-
tutional memory while Hermiston
City Manager Byron Smith, who
just started his second year on the
job, continues to settle in.
Hardin sits on the small cities
steering committee for the National
League of Cities and said the posi-
tion gives him an opportunity to
visit and stay in contact with other
small cities around the country and
see how they are handling similar
issues as are facing Hermiston.
Hardin said he has always
been concerned with making sure
Hermiston’s streets are properly
maintained and hopes to continue
to work toward the goal of having
no unpaved roads in city limits.
Hardin also said urban renewal,
code enforcement, transportation
and inishing the Eastern Oregon
Trade and Event Center are all
priorities for him.
John Kirwan
Kirwan is in his irst term as
city councilor, and said in the
nearly four years he has sat on the
council the city’s transparency and
relationship with its citizens has
greatly improved. Council meet-
ings have gone from 10 minute
cursory sit-downs where little was
discussed to meetings that usually
stretch over an hour, he said, and
there is less discontent on the
council and in the city.
Kirwan said during that time
the city has completed a long list
of major projects, from rewriting
the city’s charter to creation of the
urban renewal district downtown.
Now the city has formed a
committee to create a prioritized
list of needed capital improve-
ments. Kirwan said a major focus
of his, should he be re-elected, will
be making sure the city has the
infrastructure it needs to keep up
with its rapid growth and attract
new economic development.
He said another big focus
for the city council has been
improving Hermiston’s livability
through a robust parks and recre-
ation department and investment
in projects like the senior center.
OIL: Three local
cities will vote
in Nov. to allow
marijuana sales
He hopes to be able to see those
projects through.
Doug Primmer
Primmer said one of his biggest
goals when joining the city council
four years ago was to improve
public transportation, so he is
pleased to help the city plan a free
ixed bus route through town in
partnership with Kayak Transit
and the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation that
will begin in 2017.
Primmer, who has worked for
the Department of Corrections
for 27 years and is also a reserve
deputy for the Umatilla Sheriff’s
Department, also pointed out that
the city council’s accountability
has been much improved during
his time on the council.
He said making sure EOTEC
is inished on time needs to be a
priority for the city in the coming
year, while also preserving the
Hermiston Conference Center as
a public asset. He is also anxious
to see the new senior center built
in 2017.
Primmer said he works hard
to listen to citizens’ point of view,
gathering feedback through social
media and on the street, and will
continue to do so if re-elected.
———
Contact Jade McDowell at
jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com or
541-564-4536.
Continued from 1A
said the labs are a threat to police
and ire personnel, as well as to the
general public. He said it would
be one thing if the Oregon Liquor
Control Commission, the state’s
regulator for recreational marijuana
sales, or the legislature decided to
allow a few companies to make the
oil in a safe environment. But the
labs police are inding, he said, are
“entirely different beasts.”
Pendleton,
Hermiston
and
Milton-Freewater will vote in
November to allow marijuana sales.
Edmiston said he is worried about
the “trickle down impacts” of mari-
juana to public safety, particularly to
youth.
Roberts said as long as marijuana
is legal, police and the public are
going to have to contend with the
hash oil “right here in river city.”
TAX: Contributions
came from Comcast
and Fred Meyer
Continued from 1A
the Legislative Revenue Ofice that
show that the tax would increase
prices and slow job growth in the
state. A legislative lawyer also
issued an opinion stating that legis-
lators are not restricted to using the
money for purposes Our Oregon
intended.
Both big corporations and local
business groups have opposed the
measure. Some of the opponents’
recent contributions came from
out-of-state mega corporations
such as Comcast and Kroger/Fred
Meyer, but the Craft Brew Alliance
and Portland-based Jive Software
also are among the contributors.
The campaign for the measure
received contributions from the
American Federation of Teachers
and their Oregon chapter, the
Oregon Education Association and
Oregon AFSCME Council 75.
Fundraising could slow if there
is any consistent polling showing
the measure will be defeated,
Moore said. So far, polls largely
have shown the measure will
pass, but the most recent poll by
Portland-based Hoffman Research
Group showed the measure would
fail 47-to-41.
AUTHOR: Main work as a biologist was saving the red wolf from extinction
Continued from 1A
elephants, wild cats or
wolves are often taken
from his detailed, irst-hand
knowledge of their behavior.
Smith’s irst book, for
example, published in 1990,
is a noniction story called
Sea Otter Rescue. It is based
on his months-long experi-
ences rescuing hundreds of
sea otters from the Exxon
Valdez oil spill.
Smith said sea otters,
unlike many other marine
creatures, cannot get away
from oil spills because they
can’t leave the shoreline. To
survive, an adult sea otter
must eat 25 pounds of shell-
ish per day, but can only
dive up to 50 feet to reach
them. Oil on their fur breaks
its water-proof protection
and results in hypothermia,
which is why a team of
scientists led by Smith had
to quickly capture as many
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Oregon author Roland Smith answers questions
from the audience while speaking at Armand Larive
Middle School on Wednesday in Hermiston.
sea otters as they could,
wash them, and keep them
protected from the oil
until they could safely be
released back into the wild.
Smith said his main
work as a biologist,
however, was saving the red
wolf from extinction. At one
point only 17 red wolves, or
Florida wolves, existed in
the world. Smith and other
scientists captured all 17
and treated them for mange
and heartworm, eventually
getting the population up
over 200 and becoming the
irst program to successfully
reintroduce
endangered
carnivores into the wild
after taking them all into
captivity.
Later he worked with
elephants, his favorite
animal.
“I love elephants,” he
said. “I’ve written a lot of
books about elephants.”
One of those books,
“Thunder Cave,” details the
adventures of a 14-year-old
boy who travels to Kenya
and ends up tangling with
poachers. Smith said if the
world doesn’t do more to
stop poaching, elephants
will go extinct in the wild
within the audience’s life-
time.
“I don’t know about you,
but I think the ivory looks a
lot better on the elephant’s
face than on someone’s
shelf,” he said.
Smith’s Paciic North-
west home often enters
his writing, which have
included such famous
incidents as the Mount Saint
Helens eruption, the D.B.
Cooper hijacking and the
journey of Lewis and Clark.
Smith arrived in Herm-
iston on Tuesday and will
continue his week-long
presentations at schools,
made possible thanks to
grants from the Hermiston
Education
Foundation,
Altrusa International and
each school’s PTO. He told
students and parents gath-
ered at Armand Larive for
parent night that he writes
every day, so “when my
new book comes out, you’ll
know some of it was written
right here in Hermiston.”
Kristi Smalley, a media
specialist for Hermiston
School District, said students
have been reading Smith’s
books in preparation for his
visit, and have been visiting
the library to get more.
“It’s not often they get
to see the person behind the
books,” she said.
They’ve served our country with
courage and honor. They’ve left
behind loved ones to risk their lives
in protecting their country. They’ve
defended our freedoms and ideals.
They make us proud to be
Americans.
Join us for Veterans Day
Wednesday, November 9 in the
Hermiston Herald and Friday,
November 11 in the East Oregonian,
as we honor the men and women of
the U.S. Military. Their courage,
hard work and sacrifice are the
backbone of our nation, protecting
freedom, liberty, justice and all we
hold dear.
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Love Evelyn,
Joe and Cheryl
J OSEPH B. D AVIS
J OSEPH S MITH
Thank you for
your service!
Love always
Marcy, Julie &
Emily