KEVIN McCLENAHEN
OF UMATILLA
Enjoy a free
peppermint
mocha at
Bloomz
Coffee Bar in
Hermiston
SIX FILE FOR SEAT
ON CTUIR BOARD
HERMISTON, PENDLETON
OPEN SEASON
WITH WINS
REGION/3A
BASKETBALL/3A
46/34
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2016
141st Year, No. 33
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
HERMISTON
Farm Fair blossoms at EOTEC
More space means
more seminars, vendors
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
The 43rd annual Hermiston Farm Fair
debuted Wednesday at its new home at the
Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center with
a series of lectures on potato research in the
Columbia Basin. And despite setting out
more than 200 chairs in two meeting rooms,
space was still limited to standing room only.
It is a testament to how much the event
and trade show has grown over the decades.
When the Farm Fair was created in 1974,
its original location was at Thompson Hall
before moving into the larger Hermiston
Conference Center. Now, the agricultural
showcase has moved once again to EOTEC
in search of expansion.
Phil Hamm, director of the Hermiston
Agricultural Research and Extension Center
and member of the Farm Fair Committee,
said having a bigger building means they can
host more vendors and presentations, which
in turn draws more people to learn about
Eastern Oregon’s farm industries.
“This is a great place,” Hamm said of
EOTEC. “We have more sessions and more
opportunities for learning.”
One of those additions included Wednes-
day’s fi rst-ever seminar targeted specifi cally
to small farmers. The lineup featured talks on
beekeeping, how to apply pesticides without
harming pollinators and integrating chickens
onto a small farm.
Colleen Sanders, who coordinates the
Umatilla County Master Gardener Program
for Oregon State University Extension
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The 43rd annual Hermiston Farm Fair moved into its new home at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center on Wednesday
in Hermiston.
Service, organized the session and said she
was impressed by the turnout. In particular,
she said there has been a growing interest in
bees over the past few years, both as pollina-
tors and for making honey and beeswax.
Likewise, chickens can help out small
farmers not only by producing eggs and
meat, but by naturally tilling the ground and
See FARM/8A
PENDLETON
Commissioners try to
Utility fee paves handful of streets in fi rst year keep fair in the black
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
With street repair season winding
down as winter approaches, Pendleton
city offi cials are already starting to
look ahead.
2016 was the fi rst full year the city
committed to a new approach to fi xing
the city’s aging street system.
Following a petition from
Southwest Perkins Avenue residents
requesting action on the poor quality
of their street, city council and staff
spent much of 2015 formulating ways
to boost funding for roads.
Although voters shot down a city
ballot measure to institute a 5-cent
gas tax, city council passed a $5 street
utility fee at the end of 2015. Offi cials
said it would bring in $481,000 in
additional street funding per year.
Staff members then compiled a
two-year, rolling list of streets that
needed repair and subdivided the
revenue garnered from the utility fee
— 70 percent went to maintaining the
city’s better-kept neighborhood roads
while the other 30 percent was set aside
to rehab streets in poor condition.
From that list, which comprised
dozens of street segments across the
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A street closed sign blocks a section of Southeast Byers Avenue where
work crews are replacing a water line in Pendleton.
city, the council approved a $588,373
bid from Pioneer Asphalt to pave eight
of them.
According to the city website, six
streets were prepped and paved this
year, including Southwest Perkins.
Although uncertain of the exact
sections that did not get fi nished,
public works director Bob Patterson
said contractors weren’t able to fi nish
all eight because of budget constraints.
Patterson said Pioneer Asphalt won’t
undertake any new pavement projects
for the city this year but will continue
See STREET/8A
Umatilla County commis-
sioners are looking closely at
costs for the annual county
fair, hoping to avoid losing
money on the event when it
moves to the Eastern Oregon
Trade and Event Center next
year.
Part of that involves the
entertainment budget.
The fair board spent
$65,000 to book Creedence
Clearwater Revisited for the
last night of the 2016 fair,
almost half of the overall
entertainment
budget.
County Commissioner Larry
Givens at the recent meeting
of the board of commis-
sioners said Lucas Wagner,
chairman of the fair board,
considered the deal a losing
proposition.
Wagner, though, said
Wednesday he did not know
if it was possible to quantify
if Creedence was a good use
of fair funds.
“The concert area was the
fullest I’ve ever seen it,” he
said. Wagner noted there was
no way to determine what
each person spent while at
the show.
Still, he said, the fair is
considering if spending less
on local and regional could
draw similar crowds and be
better for the bottom line.
Those acts can costs thou-
sands of dollars but don’t
carry the hefty sticker price
of a band like CCR.
The move would not
happen until 2018 at the
earliest. Wagner said the fair
is working with the same-
sized entertainment budget
for 2017 and aiming for a
similar caliber of acts.
Robert Pahl, the coun-
ty’s chief fi nancial offi cer,
advised the county board of
commissioners that the fair’s
entertainment budget does
not look sustainable. He dug
into numbers Wednesday and
See FAIR/8A
Marijuana testing poses regulatory quandaries
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Bureau
WILSONVILLE — Marijuana
testing is creating several quandaries
for Oregon regulators at a time of
overall uncertainty for the newly
legalized crop, according to a state
offi cial.
Testing for pesticides poses
one challenge, as the necessary
instrumentation is expensive and
complicated, said Jeff Rhoades,
senior adviser on marijuana policy
for Gov. Kate Brown.
While state regulators want to
protect public health, testing is a
large barrier to entry into the legal
recreational marijuana market, he
said during the Oregon Board of
Agriculture meeting in Wilsonville,
Ore., on Nov. 30.
An overly strict testing regime
would be a disadvantage to small
growers while favoring large out-of-
state companies, Rhoades said.
“It’s a very delicate balance with
testing here,” he said.
One pesticide that’s commonly
used on grapes, for example, breaks
down into hydrogen cyanide when
set afl ame, he said.
Meanwhile, marijuana is sold not
just as a fl ower, but also in the form
of various tinctures and extracts that
require specifi c testing methods,
Rhoades said.
“It can’t be just a one-size-fi ts-all
approach,” he said.
There are also no federally
approved pesticides that are specifi c
to the psychoactive crop, Rhoades
said.
See TEST/8A
EO Media Group
Marijuana testing is creating several quandaries for regulators
at a time of overall uncertainty for the newly legalized crop. Ore-
gon is now one of just four states that has legalized marijuana for
recreational use.