REGION
Saturday, December 10, 2016
East Oregonian
Page 3A
HERMISTON
HERMISTON
Police close case
on teen’s death
without charges
‘Rich tapestry’ of people
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Hermiston Police Chief
Jason Edmiston said his
department wrapped up its
investigation into the death
of
15-year-old
Cesar Roque.
“As of right
now,” Edmiston
said, “based on
our investigation
to date, we do
not anticipate any
kind of criminal
charges
being
filed
against
Roque
anyone.”
Roque was a
sophomore at Hermiston
High School. He died
Sunday, Nov. 21 from
an alcohol overdose,
according
preliminary
findings.
Edmiston said the police
investigation
revealed
Roque “provided himself
the alcohol,” then went
to a friend’s house and
consumed it. Afterward,
he was, for the most part,
alone and sleeping.
The adults in the home
were unaware Roque was
there, he said, and a couple
of his friends checked on
him while he slept but did
not suspect any trouble. A
parent of one friend found
Roque and called 9-1-1.
Edmiston said, but the
discovery came too late.
Dr. Larry Lewman,
deputy
state
medical exam-
iner, conducted
an autopsy of the
body Nov. 22
in Portland, and
Hermiston police
detective Robert
Guerrero
was
present. Edmiston
said Lewman in
his report ruled
Roque died from
“acute alcohol intoxica-
tion,” but results from
blood toxicology tests have
yet to come back.
Shy of those results
showing other drugs or
substances in Roque’s
system, or of someone
coming forward with more
information,
Edmiston
said, the investigation is
closed.
“Based on all the state-
ments,” he said, “we don’t
believe there’s any negli-
gence on anybody else’s
part for the chain of events
that took place.”
BOARDMAN
City adopts chronic
nuisance property law
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Starting next month,
Boardman police will have
a new law on the books
to deal with “chronic
nuisance properties” in
town.
The
city
council
voted 5-1 on Tuesday to
adopt Ordinance 3-2016,
imposing
fines
and
possible eviction if three
or more nuisance activities
are documented by police
within 90 days.
“Nuisance activities”
may include a host of
crimes, such as arson,
trespassing,
disorderly
conduct, illegal gambling
and drug offenses. The
ordinance gives police
chief Rick Stokoe authority
to deem a property in
violation of the law, and
refer the case to the city
attorney.
If the court deems the
property to be a chronic
nuisance, it could be closed
and vacated for at least 30
days and up to one year.
Both landlords and renters
could also be fined $100
per day for each additional
violation after authorities
have declared a chronic
nuisance.
Stokoe previously said
the ordinance is similar to
others across the state, and
he would attempt to meet
with property owners to
abate the problem before
turning to the courts.
Councilor David Jones,
who owns Frontier Court
mobile home park, was
the lone vote against the
ordinance, which he said
was written too broadly.
The law gives Stokoe
too much power with not
enough oversight, Jones
said, and might actually
discourage people from
calling police to report a
crime, if they face possible
eviction.
“I thought we could do
better,” he said.
Councilor
Brandon
Hammond was absent
from Tuesday’s meeting.
The ordinance will take
effect Jan. 6.
———
Contact George Plaven
at
gplaven@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-966-0825.
HERMISTON
Extended navigation lock
outage begins Monday
East Oregonian
All navigation locks on
the lower Columbia and
Snake rivers will be out
of service for 14 weeks
beginning Monday, as the
U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers conducts extensive
maintenance.
The
closure
was
announced in May 2015,
and will affect 359 miles
of river from Portland to
Lewiston, Idaho.
“Aging infrastructure
sometimes
requires
extensive,
non-routine
repairs and improvements
that cannot be completed
within the traditional
two-week annual routine
maintenance
outages,”
said Hal Thomas, naviga-
tion business line manager
for the Army Corps of
Engineers Walla Walla
District. “This work will
improve the long-term
functionality and safety
of these locks, as well as
the overall reliability of
the Columbia-Snake river
navigation system as a
whole.”
Extended closures are
unusual, Thomas said,
and carefully coordinated
between districts and
industry.
Recreational
boaters, meanwhile, can
choose from more than
50 shoreline launches
managed by the Corps. For
more information, visit
www.nww.usace.army.mil.
Cultural effectiveness
conference celebrates
diversity of region
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Employees of various educational
and social service agencies filled the
Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center
on Friday for a conference on creating
cultural equity.
Umatilla Morrow County Head Start
director Maureen McGrath said the
day-long conference, titled Celebrating
Cultural Effectiveness, highlighted the
“beautiful rich tapestry” of diversity in
the region.
To get participants thinking about
their own culture, the day started with
each table answering questions about
participants’ ethnic heritage, childhood
traditions and what “diversity” looked
like in their hometowns.
Bits and pieces of conversation that
could be heard throughout the room
revealed a variety of backgrounds, with
participants talking about everything
from celebrating Kwanzaa to eating
sauerkraut for Thanksgiving.
“I always felt stuck between two
worlds because my parents are from
Mexico but I was raised in the United
States,” one woman told her table.
Throughout the day speakers shared
their own backgrounds with the crowd
of more than 300.
———
Poet Jordan Chaney told of the day
in first grade, sitting in the tiny room he
shared with his mother and brothers in
the projects, when his mother handed
him a spoon and told him to eat his
cereal. He looked at the burn marks on
the back — evidence of yet another drug
binge by his mother and her boyfriend
— and told her he wanted to go live with
his teacher.
“It was because my teacher was the
only functioning adult I knew,” he said.
“She had a job and a car.”
While his older brother turned to
crime and drugs, Chaney turned to
poetry to express the difficulties of
living a poverty-stricken life. By his
sophomore year he was a teenage father
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By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
A six-inch layer of snow
did not keep contractors
from working on the Eastern
Oregon Trade and Event
Center Friday.
It didn’t keep the EOTEC
board from meeting Friday
morning, either.
Carl Hendon, CFO of
Hendon Construction, told
the board if the temperature
doesn’t rise above freezing
for weeks at a time, it could
delay work on the rodeo
arena. But “as of now it has
not slowed us down.” Later
that morning workers could
be seen moving equipment
around the 12-foot concrete
walls that were recently
erected on the site.
“We’re still on schedule,
believe it or not,” Hendon
said.
Meanwhile
John
Eckhardt, project manager
for Knerr Construction, said
the company’s latest schedule
shows work putting up the
barns should start on Jan.
30 and be complete by July
14. He said the snow might
keep the company from
getting the fencing complete
before Christmas as planned.
McLaughlin Landscaping of
Pendleton was the low bidder
on the landscaping package,
and Knerr Construction is
releasing bid packages for
other subcontractors soon.
On the operations side,
board chair Byron Smith
noted that EOTEC admin-
istrative assistant Cyndie
Driscoll was hired by the
county to coordinate spon-
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Work on the rodeo arena at the Eastern Oregon Trade
and Event Center continued Friday despite the snow.
sorships and activities for
the Umatilla County Fair. He
said he and business manager
Heather Cannell were putting
together a job listing seeking
someone to replace Driscoll.
They are also looking for a
company willing to handle
maintenance for EOTEC on
a contract basis.
The board agreed to a
request by Umatilla County
emergency manager Tom
Roberts, Hermiston School
District operations manager
Mike Kay, members of law
enforcement and others who
went through a recent FEMA
training to form a committee
to put together a safety plan
for EOTEC.
The committee will look
at where public address
systems and security cameras
should go, plan evacuation
routes and put together
plans for using EOTEC in
emergency situations such as
reunification of students and
parents after a school crisis.
Board member Dan
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Dorran said he would work
with rodeo board member
David Bothum to get together
a plan for signs within the
next couple of weeks so
that the banners currently
marking EOTEC can be
replaced with something
more permanent.
“The stuff out there is
getting rattier every day and
it needs torn down,” Dorran
said.
Smith told the board
that the Rotary Club has
approached
him
about
providing volunteer labor for
landscaping around the event
center. Board members noted
that the Bureau of Labor
and Industries won’t allow
volunteer construction labor
on a project paid for by state
and federal funds, but said
certain things like planting
trees around the already-fin-
ished event center might be
considered separate from
construction.
Board member Don
Miller said that just because
volunteers can’t be actively
helping with construction
right now, it doesn’t mean
they can’t be used in other
ways now or after construc-
tion is complete. He said
groups just need to work with
the board to make sure they
are helping in a legal way.
“We don’t want the
message out there that we
can’t use volunteers,” he
said. “I think we can.”
On Friday the board also
heard from Rick Stoddard of
Barnett & Moro, who said
that EOTEC had a clean
audit.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
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In a list of skills most important for
successfully handling multicultural
situations, Reyes said 50 intercultural
experts ranked “to be aware of one’s own
culture” and “to be aware of one’s own
limitations” as the two most important.
“If you do that work all the other
things begin to fall into place,” he said.
———
In addition to speakers, the confer-
ence also featured foods from different
cultures, a segment on celebrating
culture through dance with members of
the Pyramid Lake Paiute/Colville Tribe,
time for self-reflection and a hands-on
activity that encouraged groups to draw
comic strips about cultural experiences
they had in the last year.
Sponsors of the conference were
Blue Mountain Early Learning Hub,
Umatilla Morrow County Head Start,
InterMountain Education Service
District, Department of Human Services
and Greater Oregon Behavioral Health
Inc.
———
Contact Jade McDowell at
jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com
or
541-564-4536.
Work on EOTEC continues through snow
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living in a drug house and working two
jobs, but he also had a 3.7 GPA and
perfect attendance.
He told attendees that it was important
for them to realize that some students or
clients they worked with were struggling
against immense difficulties at home
but felt they couldn’t confide in anyone
because Child Protective Services might
come and split up their family.
———
Keynote speaker Dr. Raymond
Reyes, a professor at Gonzaga Univer-
sity, said culture is a mix of biology and
biography. He said even in a group of
people born into the same demographics
— a room of straight white women, for
example — there is always going to be
enough difference in life experience
for each to picture something slightly
different if he said a word like “dog “
or “road.”
“Every human encounter is a cultural
encounter,” he said.
Some of those cultural differences
might be more obvious than others,
causing people to feel unsure, confused
or nervous. Reyes led the group in a
discussion of how to handle such situa-
tions. They agreed it was important to do
research ahead of time where possible,
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Staff photo by Jade McDowell
Members of the Pyramid Lake Pauite/Colville Tribe and participants in the
Celebrating Cultural Effectiveness conference dance together in Hermis-
ton on Friday.
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