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East Oregonian
STANFIELD: Needs to find sources of additional revenue
Continued from 1A
“responsive government” to
something more broad about
being development-friendly,
change “cultural opportuni-
ties” to language about being
inclusive, and add a phrase
about being a safe commu-
nity.
With that in mind, coun-
cilors and city staff began
bringing up ideas for goals.
Public Works
Councilor Jason Sperr
said he would like to see
more things to do at city
parks, such as adding a play-
ground or disc golf course.
“I like the park down
here, but there’s not really
much to do,” he said.
Councilors also liked
the idea of pursuing a bike
path between Feedville
Road and the Pilot service
station, and getting more
sidewalks installed to make
the community more pedes-
trian-friendly.
They also focused on
historical preservation. They
agreed the old water tower
north of Coe Avenue, while
unused, was still a unique
feature they would like to see
preserved as a landmark for
years to come.
Right now city hall, the
public works shop, police
station, public library and
council chambers are spread
across multiple facilities.
Library director Cecily
Longhorn said she would
like to see city hall moved
from prime commercial real
estate on Main Street into
one of the city’s remaining
historical buildings, with
room to combine services.
“It’s a good goal to have
it all in one building,” Larsen
agreed. “It’s definitely a
long-term goal, and not
anything we will achieve
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Consolidation of the city’s numerous facilities was
also a point of discussion at the city council meeting
Tuesday in Stanfield.
very soon, but I think we
should have it on our radar.”
For the library, Sperr and
public works director Scott
Morris said the “awful”
lighting needed to be
replaced, as well as the worn
carpet, and mayor Thomas
McCann said he would like
to see the library open for
more hours.
Administration
To achieve goals like new
lighting in the library, the
city must come up with the
funds to do so. Longhorn
said her budget is so tight
that something like new
carpet or lighting is out of
reach without a grant or
money from the city general
fund.
McCann said he wanted
to see city staff actively
exploring new financial
options.
“We need to continue to
research sources of addi-
tional revenue,” he said.
Some sources of revenue
discussed included grants,
fundraisers, raising fran-
chise fees on companies,
increasing citizen fees like
the public safety fee or
looking at bonds or levies.
New
councilor
Susan
Whelan said she wanted
to see staffing at city hall
realigned to have someone
focused
on
economic
outreach and development so
the city could possibly gain
revenue through growth.
Larsen said one of Stan-
field’s biggest challenges was
the difficulty of competing
with Hermiston for housing
and business development,
but one thing Stanfield has
that Hermiston doesn’t is an
interchange on Interstate 84
where businesses like restau-
rants could lure travelers into
stopping.
“We need to capitalize
on that,” he said, noting it
was a goal of his to expand
the city’s urban growth
boundary all the way to the
interchange.
Other administrative goals
discussed included doing
more longterm financial
forecasting instead of just
looking at the budget year
to year, doing wage studies
to see if the city is staying
competitive in its hiring and
having metrics to measure
each department’s successes
and areas of weakness.
Police Department
On Tuesday the council
also discussed goals for the
police department.
Police
chief
Bryon
Zumwalt said both Stanfield
and Echo school districts had
expressed interest in helping
fund a “community resource
officer” that would spend
time in the schools with
students. He said Stanfield’s
current code enforcement
officer has a full-time job in
Hermiston and thus spends
limited time doing code
enforcement in Stanfield.
The hope would be to turn
her position into more of a
full-time opportunity where
she would spend part of her
time in the schools and then
increase her time spent on
code enforcement.
“She’d be used every-
where, to fill in the holes,” he
said.
Councilors expressed a
desire to see more positive
public relations for the police
department after it gained
a “black eye” for the city
with an Oregon Department
of Justice investigation into
department members in
2015. Zumwalt said since
then the department has been
in a “rebuilding phase” and is
doing much better.
Larsen suggested police
participation in community
events like National Night
Out could help build relation-
ships and a positive image for
the department. He said the
police committee had also
suggested goals for making
police salaries more compet-
itive with surrounding agen-
cies and creating a regular
replacement schedule for
equipment and vehicles.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at
jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
PENDLETON: Rivoli project could be complete in 2021
Continued from 1A
County contributed $7,500
from
economic
and
community
development
for the work, and Picken
said another $12,000 came
from a state grant. The rest
— roughly 86 percent —
came from individuals and
foundations.
More grant funds could
be on the way, thanks to
the relationship with the
Pendleton Downtown Asso-
ciation, a nonprofit member
organization for downtown
merchants.
Molly Turner, the asso-
ciation’s program manager,
said she and Picken put in
hours of hard work on an
application for a $100,000
Oregon
Main
Street
Revitalization Grant. Only
official Oregon Main Street
organizations can apply,
she said, and the downtown
association is one.
“It’s a very competitive
process,” she said. “There’s
45 applicants.”
The application was due
March 17, and Turner said
they will hear back in May
about the outcome.
Picken said if the money
comes through, the Rivoli
project will be in good shape
to proceed with demolition
this summer and kick off the
first of three construction
phases. He estimated the
whole Rivoli project could
wrap up in 2021.
As he told the county
board, the limiting factor
used to be belief in the
project, and now it’s cold,
hard cash — a solvable
problem.
As an example, Picken
brought up in an interview
a recent success of the
Pendleton
Downtown
Association. Jill and Mike
Thorne, Pendleton wheat
farmers who have long been
active in local politics and
community, promised to
give $50,000 to the down-
town association if it could
raise an equal match. Picken
said Fred Bradbury, the
PDA’s president, took that
on and got it done.
The revitalization efforts
come from the people who
live here, Picken said, and
they build on each other.
The money can come
from far and wide, and
suggestions and input from
outside the community, but
the people who are going to
help Pendleton live in town.
Given that the Rivoli
restoration is a multi-million
dollar undertaking, Picken
said the only feasible way
the project could get done is
through a local nonprofit.
Without the political
pressures of a public body
or the profit concerns of a
private company, Picken
said the Rivoli coalition has
greater flexibility to achieve
its goal.
Pendleton
Enhancement Project
The Pendleton Enhance-
ment Project is traveling in
many of the same circles as
the Rivoli coalition.
In its quest to move
the historic Eighth Street
Bridge from its current
location to South Main
Street, the enhancement
project has secured funding
from Umatilla County and
the Pendleton Development
Commission.
The group is comprised of
about 30 local government
March 25th
7PM
No Cover
officials and nonprofits, but
the enhancement project has
a core group of five leaders
— Fred Bradbury, George
Murdock, the chairman of
the Umatilla County Board
of Commissioners, Chuck
Wood, a former Pendleton
city councilor and chairman
of the development commis-
sion, Charles Denight,
associate director of the
development commission
and Paula Hall, CEO of the
Community Action Program
of East Central Oregon.
Having come together in
support of demolishing the
old Webb’s Cold Storage
building, the enhancement
project is now focusing on
making civic improvements
through incremental steps.
According to an inter-
view with the group’s
leaders, getting smaller
projects done in a relatively
short period of time is
important for the enhance-
ment project’s reputation
with the public.
“You can come up with
grand schemes that cost a
fortune,” Murdock said.
“Consequently, you get
nothing done.”
Once the bridge project
is complete, the organiza-
tion literally has a list of
proposals to consider.
The enhancement project
held a meeting in December
where they solicited ideas
from members of the public
about things they would like
to see in Pendleton.
Not every idea is small.
Among the most ambi-
tious is a food hub, a multi-
purpose building that could
include a grocery store, a
food co-op, a commercial
kitchen and other features.
Currently being considered
for the space where Webb’s
Cold Storage used to be,
Hall said a feasibility study
would be the next step.
Enhancement
project
leaders said their various
expertises and connections
give their group an advan-
tage over a single entity.
For example, Murdock
assigned one of his county
staffers to help coordinate
the group. Additionally,
the enhancement project
has received assistance
from Umatilla County’s
assessment and taxation and
planning departments.
To help them with
further planning efforts,
the enhancement project
is going to enlist students
from the Pacific Northwest
College of Art in Portland,
a connection the group
made through Denight and
Pendleton Center for the
Arts director Roberta Lava-
dour, another member of the
group.
“We’re like-minded but
we’re from different areas,”
Hall said.
To avoid falling by the
wayside, Wood said the
enhancement project will
need to continue to meet
and collaborate.
Before managing Trump campaign,
Manafort worked to aid Putin
WASHINGTON (AP)
— Before signing up with
Donald Trump, former
campaign manager Paul
Manafort secretly worked
for a Russian billionaire with
a plan to “greatly benefit
the Putin Government,”
The Associated Press has
learned. The White House
attempted to brush the report
aside Wednesday, but it
quickly raised fresh alarms
in Congress about Russian
links to Trump associates.
Manafort proposed in a
confidential strategy plan
as early as June 2005 that
he would influence politics,
business dealings and
news coverage inside the
United States, Europe and
former Soviet republics to
benefit President Vladimir
Putin’s government, even
as U.S.-Russia relations
under Republican President
George W. Bush grew
worse.
Manafort pitched the
plans to aluminum magnate
Oleg Deripaska, a close
Putin ally with whom
Li f e
Continued from 1A
fully use their water rights.
“When they shut you
off, you still have to
pay that bill,” said Tom
Mallams, a rancher and
Klamath County commis-
sioner.
House Bill 2705, a
companion
proposal
requiring the installation
of water measurement
devices at irrigation diver-
sions, also drew objections
from irrigators at the
hearing.
Complying with the
requirement would be
expensive and the Oregon
Water Resources Depart-
ment doesn’t have enough
staff to analyze the new
information anyway, said
John O’Keeffe, president
of the Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association.
“Additional data for the
sake of data does not solve
any problem,” O’Keeffe
said.
It would be more real-
istic to ensure that water-
masters — who can already
order water measurements
when necessary — are
properly equipped to do
their jobs, he said.
Installing
water
measurement devices also
isn’t practical for farmers
who rely on flood irrigation
and divert water directly
from streams onto fields,
according to opponents.
Some opponents also
questioned the fairness
and wisdom of exempting
domestic well users from
the bill.
“If you’re going to
manage water, I don’t
know how you’re going to
do that without looking at
private wells,” said Irene
Gilbert of La Grande, Ore.
Water
conservation
groups argued that a new
funding source is needed
because OWRD’s cost of
administering water rights
is largely borne by state
taxpayers.
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M ONTE B ECKMAN
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A "No Host" celebration of Monte's life will take place at
The Rainbow Cafe in Pendleton on Sat. March 25, from 3 - 5pm
EO Media Group
He proudly served in the U.S. Air Force. After making his fi rst saddle in 1980
a passion was born. He came to Pendleton to build saddles for the Woods' at
Hamley's and was an incredibly talented and sought after artist.
He never turned away a soul in need.
In lieu of fl owers, donations will be accepted to help the family with fi nal expenses.
The private interests
who primarily benefit from
the system, meanwhile,
only pay a one-time appli-
cation fee to establish water
rights, said Kimberley
Priestley, senior policy
analyst with WaterWatch
of Oregon.
“This is the public’s
water. The public is
currently paying through
the general fund for the
management of its water,”
said Priestley.
An annual management
fee has already been iden-
tified as a stable source
of funding by the Oregon
Water Resources Commis-
sion, which oversees
OWRD, she said.
As for measurement
devices, the requirement is
needed because “what gets
measured gets managed,”
Priestley said.
Proponents
claim
that only 20 percent of
Oregon’s water rights
holders currently measure
and report their usage,
since this is a requirement
for irrigation districts,
governments and those
with rights issued since
1993.
Despite
recognition
by the Oregon Water
Resources Commission as
a key management tool,
there has been limited prog-
ress in expanding water
measurement, according to
bill supporters.
“We can no longer
afford to put our heads
in the sand and pretend
water management issues
will just go away,” said
Joe Furia, general counsel
for the Freshwater Trust
nonprofit.
The committee’s chair,
Ken Helm, D-Beaverton,
said the bills were “conver-
sation starters” and would
likely change in response
to input from a “broad
stakeholder group” he’s
convened, which includes
agriculture and environ-
mental groups.
MULTI-MEDIA SALES
THE
He is survived by his sons Dale, Levi, Isaac, and Walker,
14 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. His son Jared passed away in 2015.
Manafort eventually signed
a $10 million annual
contract beginning in 2006,
according to interviews with
several people familiar with
payments to Manafort and
business records obtained
by the AP. Manafort and
Deripaska maintained a
business relationship until
at least 2009, according to
one person familiar with the
work.
“We are now of the
belief that this model can
greatly benefit the Putin
Government if employed at
the correct levels with the
appropriate commitment
to success,” Manafort
wrote in the 2005 memo
to Deripaska. The effort,
Manafort wrote, “will be
offering a great service that
can re-focus, both internally
and externally, the policies
of the Putin government.”
White House spokesman
Sean Spicer said Wednesday
that
President
Trump
had not been aware of
Manafort’s work on behalf
of Deripaska.
WATER: Opponents questioned
the fairness of exempting
domestic well users from the bill
Celebrating
Monte was born on Dec. 14, 1949 in Rapid City, SD and passed away on
Feb. 27 2017 in Enterprise.
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