WEEKEND EDITION
GAMES
GO ON
DESPITE
RAIN
THE CONDOR BAND SOARS JENNY DON’T AND THE
SPURS ENTERTAINMENT/3C
WITH SONG LIFESTYLES/1C
SPORTS/1B
MARCH 18-19, 2017
141st Year, No. 110
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
PENDLETON
J.C. Penney to close downtown store
One of 138 stores nationwide to shut down
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
After 106 years in the same loca-
tion, the Pendleton J.C. Penney will
close this year.
The department store is one of
138 J.C. Penney locations on a list
of closures released Friday. It is
the oldest J.C. Penney branch in its
original location in the United States.
The closure will affect 20 associates
in Pendleton.
Gary Vaughn of Jager Develop-
ment, which owns the building, said
that J.C. Penney has had a great run
over more than a century in Pendleton
and has been a “class act to work
with.”
“We’re all very sad,” he said.
The store has played an important
part in downtown Pendleton, Vaughn
said, and was successful there. Jager
Development is now in the market
for a new tenant in the Main Street
building that will similarly comple-
ment downtown.
Pendleton economic development
director Steve Chrisman said he
wasn’t surprised by the closure,
adding that the store has long been at
risk.
Chrisman said modern consumers
value convenience, meaning online
retailers and shopping centers like
Melanie Square are better equipped
to attract the high-volume customer
base needed to support a large retail
brand.
Downtown areas are more suited
for specialized stores, Chrisman said,
and he was confi dent the space would
be fi lled again soon.
According to a news release from
J.C. Penney Company, Inc., most of
the stores being closed will begin
liquidation of their inventory on April
17.
The closures affect approximately
5,000 employees across the country.
J.C. Penney Company, Inc.
announced it “is in the process of
See CLOSURE/12A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A customer walks into the J.C. Penney store Friday on Main
Street in Pendleton.
PENDLETON
Trump budget
scraps subsidy
for rural fl ights
Pendleton airport would lose
funding for ‘essential’ service
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
to expand at the Port of Umatilla
and Port of Morrow industrial
parks along the Columbia River.
Though they look like nonde-
script warehouses, the buildings
are home to racks of computer
servers that host everything from
email to streaming movies, or in
this case, internet shopping. It
Pendleton’s commercial air service
spent much of 2016 in the frying pan, but
2017 could send it straight into the fi re.
President Donald Trump’s budget
proposal calls for the elimination of the
Essential Air Service program, a subsidy
that funds daily fl ights from Pendleton’s
Eastern Oregon Regional Airport to Port-
land International Airport.
The reasoning behind the cut — part of a
13 percent decrease in the U.S. Department
of Transportation’s budget — seemed to
disagree with the notion that the subsidy
was “essential.”
“EAS fl ights are not full and have high
subsidy costs per passenger,” the budget
proposal states. “Several EAS-eligible
communities are relatively close to major
airports, and communities that have EAS
could be served by other existing modes of
transportation.”
Trump’s staff estimates the federal
government could save $175 million by
eliminating the program.
By Friday, offi cials from the city of
Pendleton and its air service provider,
Boutique Air, were already pushing back
against the proposal.
In an interview, Chrisman explained how
the EAS program was created in the wake
of the passage of the Airline Deregulation
Act in 1978, which no longer required large
airlines to funnel traffi c through smaller
markets like Pendleton.
Today, Pendleton is one of 113 rural
See DATA/12A
See FLIGHT/12A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Construction is underway on an expansion of the Amazon data center at the Port of Umatilla on Friday in Umatilla.
Amazon plans four new data centers near Hermiston
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Another batch of data centers
is in the works for Umatilla
County.
Online retail giant Amazon,
which operates two server farms
near Boardman and one near
Umatilla, is proposing a third
complex west of Hermiston
consisting of four additional data
centers. The company recently
purchased about 120 acres of
land between Westland and
Cottonwood Bend roads, adja-
cent to the Hermiston Gener-
ating Plant near the intersection
interstates 84 and 82.
Data centers arrived on the
scene locally in 2011, and since
then Amazon — doing business
through a holding company
called Vadata — has continued
Umatilla River overfl ows banks, fl oods Hermiston park
“The last time there was
a fl ood like this was four
The lower Umatilla River over- years ago when we were
fl owed its banks at several places
late this week, submerging a park building the Oxbow Trail.”
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
and baseball fi eld.
At Hermiston’s Riverfront Park,
the parking lot, playground, and
entrance to the Oxbow Trail were
covered in several inches of water
Friday morning.
“The park isn’t closed, but people
have to access it from somewhere
other than the parking lot,” said
parks director Larry Fetter.“The
More online
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Flood waters from the Umatilla River cut a path through the Oxbow
Property near Riverfront Park on Friday in Hermiston.
For video of the
fl ooded river visit
eastoregonian.com
— Larry Fetter,
Hermiston parks director
last time there was a fl ood like this
was four years ago when we were
building the Oxbow Trail.”
Fetter said the water was chan-
neling northeast past the parking
lot, and cut a corner just to the north
of the trail.
He said the fl ood was incon-
venient, but didn’t appear to be
causing any major damage so far.
“As soon as the water clears,
See FLOOD/3A