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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2017
141st Year, No. 132
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
HERMISTON
Budget gap
may bring
big cuts to
health care
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — With about a month to go
before a critical revenue forecast, Oregon’s
budget writers released a more detailed
list of cuts Monday to address the state’s
approximately $1.6 billion budget gap if
new revenue isn’t raised.
The cuts are across the board and
intended to show what it would take
to balance the
state’s budget. For
“If you look
example,
about
at those re-
350,000 Orego-
nians would no
duction lists,
longer be eligible
Oregonians
for
coverage
under the recent
are going
Affordable Care
Act
Medicaid
to see things
expansion, and a
ballot measure to that they care
require the state about on those
to pay dropout
prevention, college lists. And with-
readiness,
and out new reve-
career and tech-
nical
education nue, we don’t
for high school
have a lot of
students
would
options.”
only be partially
funded.
— Tina Kotek,
The co-chairs
Speaker of the
of
the
Joint
House,
D-Portland
Committee
on
Ways and Means
released a similar document in January,
with fewer specifi cs. Since then, subcom-
mittees have been working on different
areas of the state’s budget to fi gure out
where agencies and programs could be cut
to make those targets.
Lawmakers face an approximately
$1.6 billion gap between what the state is
expected to realize in revenue and what
it would take to pay to maintain existing
services.
“The goal of the list is to move the
See BUDGET/10A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Hermiston resident Bryan Wolfe reads a statement imploring the Hermiston City Council to consider the will of the
people of Hermiston before voting on the fate of the Hermiston Conference Center at a special session city council
meeting Tuesday in Hermiston.
Council votes to take over
conference center operations
Chamber of commerce will move to new location in 2018
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
The city of Hermiston will
take over operation of the Herm-
iston Conference Center and the
Greater Hermiston Area Chamber
of Commerce will move to a new
location in 2018.
The city council voted 6-0 in
favor of the plan during a special
meeting Tuesday night after
hearing testimony from a stand-
ing-room only crowd that spilled
out into the lobby of city hall.
All but one of the public
comments was against the plan
to some degree, including several
current and past chamber board
members and ambassadors who
said they were disappointed to
see how strained the relationship
between the chamber and city had
become.
“At one time we were looked
at as a valued and trusted partner,”
chamber board chair Shirley
Parsons said.
City councilors and staff said
they had a great respect for the
chamber’s value to the commu-
nity and the “excellent” job that
the chamber was doing. They said
it was a problem of fi nances and
using all city facilities as effec-
tively as possible.
“It’s a question of resources,”
city councilor John Kirwan said.
The Hermiston Conference
Center was created when the
city purchased an old Safeway
building in 1994 and the commu-
nity raised $600,000 to renovate
it. The city has been paying the
chamber of commerce to run the
See HERMISTON/10A
UMATILLA
After-school classes inspire experiments
STEM Academy is free
of charge to participate
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
Even though the fi nal bell rings at
2:50 p.m., more than half of Umatilla’s
students stay for more.
The STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering
and
Mathematics)
Academy of Umatilla offers classes
after school Monday through Thursday
for all of Umatilla’s students, grades
K-12, and many students stay back
to learn about things they don’t get
to do during normal class hours. The
program is free to all Umatilla students
and is entirely federally funded.
Those things can include horticul-
ture, drama, robotics, cooking and
many other subjects.
“Over half the K-12 population
does the after-school program,” said
Umatilla Superintendent Heidi Sipe.
“Over 700 attended last year, and we
had 500 regular attendees — that’s
kids who took two programs or more.”
Each program is a minimum of
six weeks, and many are taught by
high school students who have to go
through training and an internship to
be qualifi ed to teach the class.
Umatilla’s robotics program is the
cornerstone of the STEM Academy,
with classes at the elementary, middle
and high school levels. But there are
many other types of classes, as well.
See SCHOOL/10A
Staff photo by Jayati Ramakrishnan
Middle-school students in the STEM Academy of Uma-
tilla work on a project in the after-school robotics class.
PENDLETON
Council declines
sanctuary city status
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Flash storm strikes Pendleton
A truck drives through a pool of standing water at the corner of North-
west Fourth Street and Despain Avenue after an afternoon thunder-
storm inundated the area with heavy rain Tuesday in Pendleton.
The City Council took no
action on the mostly symbolic
measure of making Pendleton a
sanctuary city.
At a Tuesday meeting, city
resident Shaindel Beers asked
the council to declare Pendleton
a sanctuary city by adopting
an American Civil Liberties
Union-endorsed list of nine poli-
cies and rules that limited local
police cooperation with federal
immigration enforcement.
Beers’ request only drew public
support from city councilor Scott
Fairley, whose motion to adopt
the policies died from a lack of a
second.
In her presentation, Beers said
that although Oregon is already
considered a “sanctuary state,”
adopting the ACLU’s policies
and rules would send a message
to undocumented immigrants that
Pendleton was a safe and inclusive
place.
“A scared population isn’t a
safe population,” she said. “If we
can make people feel safe and
See PENDLETON/10A