53/35
NCAA/1B
TRIO OF
FIRES KEEP
CREWS BUSY
REGION/3A
OREGON
‘TALL FIRS’
AND THE
1ST TOURNEY
Who’s
gonna pay
for the wall?
NATION/8A
THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2017
141st Year, No. 118
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
PENDLETON
Engle helps imaginations roam
New children’s museum director has
history of getting non-profi ts off the ground
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Joanna Engle is the new executive director of the Eastern
Oregon Children’s Museum in Pendleton.
Every land of make-be-
lieve needs a good fairy or
level-headed older sister.
At the Children’s Museum
of Eastern Oregon, that’s
Joanna Engle.
Last
month,
Engle
drove her car through the
icy Columbia Gorge and
arrived in Pendleton during
a snowstorm. Her reception,
however, was warm. Engle
plunged into her new life
as the museum’s executive
director. These days, she
spends a lot of time smiling.
This is a happy place, she
said, that feeds the soul.
On Wednesday morning,
about a dozen children
roamed the place. In a faux
grocery store, one boy
piled plastic croissants,
pineapple, corn, asparagus
and apples into his cart and
headed to the cash register
where another boy acted
as checker. In a loft, a little
girl poured imaginary tea
for a pink elephant sitting
in a high chair. Downstairs,
fi ve youngsters scrambled
around the deck of a sailing
ship, a boat that if one
squints just right, becomes
a Conestoga wagon or
an aircraft carrier. Engle
smiled at the scene.
“This becomes a pirate
See ENGLE/10A
HERMISTON
Brown sacks
majority of
DEQ oversight
commission
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Gov. Kate Brown has
offered only a vague explanation for
Wednesday’s dismissal of three of the
fi ve-member Environmental Quality
Commission.
The same day Brown removed chair-
woman Colleen Johnson and Commis-
sioners Morgan Rider and Melinda Eden,
she also announced nominees to replace
them.
The trio was unavailable for comment
Wednesday, but Johnson said they plan to
issue a statement Thursday.
The governor believes her new picks
will bring new perspectives to the commis-
sion and work more collaboratively with
her offi ce, said Brown’s spokesman Bryan
Hockaday.
“As an oversight body, Oregonians
expect the EQC to take decisive action
to create rules and guide policies that are
protective of human health and preserve
vital habitats of diverse species by ensuring
our air and water is clean and available to
future generations of Oregonians,” Brown
said in a statement. “Amid uncertainty
at the federal level, these goals could be
at risk. It’s essential that the EQC work
collaboratively with the Governor’s Offi ce
in meeting these new challenges.”
The new nominees are Kathleen
George, a member of the Grande Ronde
Tribal Council; Wade Mosby, a founding
member of the Forest Stewardship
Council; and Molly Kile, an associate
professor at Oregon State University. If
confi rmed by the Senate April 26, they will
start their new positions May 3.
The change in leadership comes after
the commission on Feb. 15 selected
Brown’s natural resources adviser, Richard
Whitman, as DEQ director. Whitman, who
had been adviser to Gov. John Kitzhaber
and then Brown, had served as interim
director since October. That month, former
Director Dick Pedersen resigned amid
scandal over the agency’s response to
heave metal emissions in the Portland area.
Commissioners Sam Baraso and Ed
Armstrong will remain on the commission,
according to Brown’s offi ce.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Members of the Hermiston Kiwanis Club unload refuse from a pickup truck into a dumpster on Wednesday off of Northeast
Theater Lane in Hermiston. More than a dozen club members volunteered their time to remove garbage from this popular
illegal dump site.
Citizens clean up illegal dump
Theater Lane site for new school if bond passes
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Members of the Hermiston Kiwanis Club scour the
fi eld north of Theater Lane looking for garbage during
a volunteer cleanup Wednesday in Hermiston.
At 12:30 Wednesday after-
noon, the Kiwanis Club members
cleaning up property on Theater
Lane had fi lled the 29-foot cubic
dumpster more than halfway with
mattresses, tires and abandoned
furniture.
They’d only been there about
half an hour.
About 12 volunteers showed up
to clean up the property, including
a couple of high schoolers. After
clearing debris and large items
from the area closest to the road,
several volunteers with pickup
trucks drove up the hill where they
found abandoned rolls of carpet,
more tires and the shell of a pickup
truck.
“All that stuff we found is
just from the road,” said Blaine
Hendrickson, the organizer of the
event.
The site, on Theater Lane and
8th Street, will be the location of
a new elementary school if the
upcoming bond issue passes. It
is near two of the city’s newer
housing developments.
See DUMP/10A
Bill would create tax credits for
wildfi re buffers around homes
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Oregonians who live in and around
the forest may receive a tax credit for
establishing wildfi re buffers around
their property under a proposed bill in
Salem.
Senate Bill 1017 calls upon the
state forester to set new guidelines for
buffers, encouraging the removal of all
trees within 300 feet of any residential
structure. Homeowners who comply
with the standard would be granted an
annual tax credit, though the amount
has not yet been specifi ed.
Sen. Ted Ferrioli (R-John Day) is
sponsoring the bill, which received a
hearing Wednesday before the Senate
Environment and Natural Resources
Committee. Ferrioli’s district was
“We can save money and
increase defensible buffers,
but most importantly, we
can help Oregonians better
avoid grief and suffering as-
sociated with property loss.”
— Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day,
sponsor of the bill
ravaged by wildfi re in 2015, when the
Canyon Creek Complex burned more
than 110,000 acres and destroyed 43
homes.
“Oregonians have been hard hit
by damaging wildfi res and this bill
See BUFFERS/10A
The Oregonian/AP fi le photo
In this Aug. 2015 fi le photo, the Canyon Creek Complex fi re burns
towards a rural subdivision of John Day. A proposed bill would cre-
ate tax credits for homeowners who live near forests and establish
wildfi re buffers around their property.