36/23
SECURITY
ADVISER
RESIGNS
DAWGS SWIM
TEAM WINS
DISTRICT TITLE
NATION/8A
SPORTS/1B
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2017
141st Year, No. 86
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
PENDLETON
Schools superintendent steps down
Will stay on for rest of school year during search for replacement
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Andy Kovach
Seven months into the job, super-
intendent Andy Kovach announced
his resignation from the Pendleton
School District.
The Pendleton School Board
unanimously accepted his resignation
at a meeting Tuesday. His resignation
is effective June 30, giving the board
time to fi nd a replacement before the
new school year.
“My resignation is for personal
reasons and this decision was made
in consultation with my family,” he
said in a prepared statement toward
the end of the meeting.
In a brief interview after the
meeting, Kovach declined to elabo-
rate on the reason for his departure.
Board chairwoman Debbie McBee
thanked Kovach for his service but
didn’t comment further during the
meeting. No other board members
made statements either.
Kovach’s sudden resignation
comes a few weeks after the school
board met with him behind closed
doors to discuss his mid-year eval-
uation, the latest of three “executive
session” meetings the board held to
talk about Kovach’s job performance
since he started July 1.
In a previous interview, board
chairwoman Debbie McBee said the
numerous discussions were meant to
provide as much feedback as possible
for the fi rst-time superintendent.
Kovach was set to participate in
two more closed-door meetings in
March and May, the latter being the
district’s standard year-end evalua-
tion.
A public records request by
the East Oregonian for Kovach’s
mid-year evaluation is still pending.
Prior to being hired by the Pend-
leton School District, Kovach had
25 years experience as a teacher and
administrator in Crane, Nyssa and
Ontario. Kovach had been the prin-
cipal of Ontario High School for four
years before coming to Pendleton.
Kovach has a bachelor’s degree in
history from Oregon State University
and a master’s degree in teaching
See KOVACH/10A
HERMISTON
City bundles
$6.8 million
in bonds
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
The Hermiston city council approved
issuance of up to $6.8 million in bonds on
Monday night, but the city won’t create new
taxes to pay for them.
The bonds will pay for four separate
projects, each with a different revenue
stream to pay them off. City manager Byron
Smith said that each set of bonds will be
accounted for separately, but issuing them
at the same time saves tens of thousands of
dollars in attorney fees and is expected to get
the city a more favorable interest rate.
Between $1.75 million and $2.15 million
will be directed toward construction at the
See BONDS/10A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Smoke, fog
lead to I-84
smash-up
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Pendleton Fire Department reservists Patrick Williamson and Melissa Griffi n braved snow, ice and whiteout driving
conditions to get a patient through the Columbia River Gorge on Jan. 17 for surgery at Oregon Health & Science
University in Portland.
Ambulance drive from Pendleton to Portland during winter took more than nine hours
Smoke and fog Monday night drifting
over Interstate 84 near Boardman contrib-
uted to a multi-vehicle crash that tempo-
rarily shut down the freeway.
Early reports of crashes came over
emergency radio calls starting around 8:30
p.m. Later transmissions indicated as many
as six people were injured. Emergency
dispatchers called for an air ambulance, but
reports soon after said the weather would
not permit the fl ight.
The severity of the injuries was not
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Two
Pendleton
Fire
Department reservists braved
the worst of January’s winter
weather to deliver a patient to
Portland.
Melissa Griffi n and Patrick
Williamson said getting their
charge safe to Oregon Health
& Science University for
surgery took almost 10 hours,
including a stay in Hood River
before fi nding a way around a
shut down Interstate 84,
Pendleton fi re chief Mike
Ciraulo said the journey
began with a request. St.
Anthony Hospital, Pendleton,
called on Jan. 17 and asked
the city fi re and ambulance
service to transport a patient
to the university hospital, the
top medical center in Oregon.
The patient suffered a broken
femur near the attachment to
her artifi cial hip and needed
surgery.
“They needed a specialist
to connect the parts that were
artifi cial with the real bone
that was broken,” he said.
The same day, a major
winter storm rolled over
Oregon, dumping snow and
freezing rain that led the
Oregon Department of Trans-
portation to shut down much
of Interstate 84.
Shawn Penninger, assis-
tant Pendleton fi re chief, said
staff called the state road
department to fi nd out if the
Columbia River Gorge was
even open. The state agency,
See AMBULANCE/10A
See CRASH/10A
Public employees blast proposed PERS reforms
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — In a demonstration
of the fraught political territory
lawmakers enter when they scru-
tinize the state’s public pension
system, fi refi ghters, nurses, and
teachers Monday testifi ed against
two Oregon Senate bills aimed at
reducing the costs of that system.
The bills, both sponsored by Sen.
Tim Knopp, R-Bend, are the latest
round in the Legislature’s seem-
ingly perennial battle with the costs
of PERS, the unfunded liability of
which has been estimated to be at
least $21.8 billion.
Senate Bill 559 would require
that retirement benefi ts be calcu-
lated using the average salary from
the fi nal fi ve years of employment,
instead of the current three years.
Senate Bill 560 would take
the 6 percent of salary employees
contribute, or have contributed on
their behalf, to a defi ned contri-
bution plan called the Individual
Account Program and redirect it to
their retirement benefi ts. The bill
also caps the amount of salary used
in benefi ts calculations at $100,000.
In 2015, the Oregon Supreme
Court scuttled most of a package of
PERS cost reforms the Legislature
passed in 2013. That decision, in a
case called Moro v. Oregon, essen-
tially said that the Legislature could
not make cuts to benefi ts already
accrued. Therefore, lawmakers can
only alter benefi ts not yet earned.
The Legislature faces a compli-
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cated balancing act, one that attorney
William Gary, who represented the
Oregon School Boards Association
in the Moro case, compares to a
game of three-dimensional chess.
Gary told lawmakers last week
that they’ll have to balance sound
public policy, political demands and
the requirements of the law.
Some school offi cials, such as
Cheri Helt, the chair of the Bend-La
Pine School Board, said Tuesday
See PERS/10A