Thursday, April 20, 2017
OFF PAGE ONE
HERMISTON: Beautification group is
Under court order, DHS will
designing a ‘pocket park’ for Main Street restore in-home care services
Page 8A
East Oregonian
Continued from 1A
the Hermiston Downtown
Association’s First Thursday
events, which offer up special
deals, later hours, refresh-
ments and entertainment on
the first Thursday of each
month to draw people down-
town. May’s First Thursday,
for example, will include 20
percent off denim at Andee’s
Boutique and a free large tote
with purchases over $100 at
Lucky Endz Gifts.
Porricolo said the action
group is working on bringing
food trucks in for July’s First
Thursday, and have worked
with businesses like Cozy
Corner Tavern to have enter-
tainment and deals later into
the evening during May’s
celebration so people don’t
just stop by at 5 p.m. and
then go somewhere else for
dinner.
“We’re saying, ‘Stay later,
have a drink, have a meal,’”
Porricolo said.
The building group has
been compiling a list of
landlords with empty or
“rough” buildings to contact
with offers of help painting,
pursuing façade grants or
making repairs.
“We hope they’ll work
with us to make it nicer,”
Porricolo said.
The beautification group
is working on designing a
“pocket park” in the court-
yard in the 200 block of Main
Street.
“They’re trying to kind of
activate that space,” Porri-
colo said. “Nothing crazy,
just maybe some benches,
flowers, things like that.”
She said she has also been
working with the downtown
association, which is now an
official 501(c)3 nonprofit, on
getting more business owners
to agree to purchase stone
flower pots to put outside
their buildings, which Porri-
colo will then help them fill
with flowers that match the
flower pots already located
on the north side of Main
Street. She said she recently
got six new businesses to
sign up.
Monday’s city council
meeting will include another
key downtown revitaliza-
tion agenda item when the
council is asked to approve
festival street designs from
the Downtown Festival
Street Committee. The city
plans to install the first phase
of the project along Second
Street in front of city hall
later this year.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
HUTCHINS: ‘I try not to harbor any anger’
Continued from 1A
Hutchins said.
Students asked her about
her family and their ability to
adjust to America.
“My mom already knew
English,” Hutchins said.
“My dad is not so good
with languages. He got a
manual labor job where he
still works today. He could
learn English at his own
pace.” She laughs. “At first
he learned mostly swear
words.”
She acknowledged how
hard it has been for her
father, who still doesn’t talk
about some of his experi-
ences serving as a soldier.
She and her family have
been back to Bosnia a few
times. But increasingly, she
said there is less to go back
to. During and after the war,
much of the country’s art
and historical artifacts were
destroyed. As they’ve built a
life here, Hutchins said they
have a harder time going to
the country where their lives
began.
“They know some things
can’t be gotten back,” she
said.
Returning has been
difficult for her, as well.
Hutchins’ hometown of
Bijeljina is now technically
within Serbian borders.
“I try not to harbor any
anger that the people who
cost me my home now own
it,” she said.
“As a country, we have
less and less to go back to,”
she said. “But I don’t want
anyone to have to go through
that, to lose what they feel
like should have been their
story.”
–——
Contact
Jayati
Ramakrishnan at 541-564-
4534 or jramakrishnan@
eastoregonian.com.
PENDLETON: Commission agreed to
award Dairy Queen a $53,237 façade grant
Continued from 1A
To make the project finan-
cially feasible, Hillenbrand
said the clinic will offer new
services like pet daycare,
luxury boarding, obedience
classes and acupuncture.
Hillenbrand’s long-term
plan is to purchase property
across the street and build
a small apartment complex
that could accommodate
intern housing and temporary
housing for veterinary staff
that need to monitor animals
overnight.
Hillenbrand said the
original estimate for the
new facility was around
$800,000, but that estimate
has since risen to just under
$1 million. She was seeking
the commission’s help in
covering that gap.
Rather than outright
approving
or
rejecting
Hillenbrand’s ask, councilor
Paul Chalmers, the chairman
of the commission, recom-
mended creating an entirely
new program to support it.
Chalmers proposed the
“fresh start” grant program,
which would provide 10
percent of a project’s cost
up to $100,000 for newly
constructed buildings or
buildings that take the place
of a demolished structure.
Thirty percent of the grant is
dispersed once the building’s
foundation is set and the other
70 percent is granted once
a certificate of occupancy is
issued.
Chalmers suggested that
the program be made avail-
able beginning April 1 —
more than two weeks prior.
That meant approving “fresh
start” and the Pendleton
Veterinary Clinic project
could essentially become a
package deal.
The commission unan-
imously voted to send the
recommendation
to
its
advisory committee, which
would flesh out the program
before sending back to
the commission for final
approval.
———
The Pendleton Downtown
Association initially wanted
a long-term commitment to
provide $55,000 per year for
operating expenses and to
retain its program manager.
What the commission ended
up giving the association was
much shorter.
As association employee
Molly Turner transitioned
from an intern to a full-
time executive director,
association president Fred
Bradbury said the nonprofit
needed a consistent source of
funding to cover her salary
and continue to support the
downtown area.
Financial support from
the commission would allow
Bradbury time to find a more
permanent source of revenue
to cover the executive direc-
tor’s salary and he requested
the commission provide
funding through 2023, the
year the urban renewal
district dissolves.
Councilor John Brenne
said the association needed
to chip in some of its own
money rather than solely rely
on the commission.
Bradbury
said
the
$100,000 grant the asso-
ciation used to get started
is starting to run out and
revenue from membership
fees wasn’t sufficient to
support the association.
Councilor Scott Fairley
made a motion to reduce the
scope of the commission’s
commitment — the associ-
ation would get $55,000 for
one year before returning to
the commission with a report
on their efforts to secure
permanent funding — but
even that almost ended in
defeat.
The commission passed
Fairley’s motion 5-4, with
Brenne, Chalmers and coun-
cilors McKennon McDonald
and Neil Brown voting
against.
———
The commission also
loosened its purse strings
to businesses looking to
access its standard funding
programs.
The commission agreed to
award Dairy Queen a $53,237
façade grant, which will help
fund nearly $313,000 in inte-
rior and exterior renovations.
Oregon Grain Growers
Brand Distillery received
a $23,533 Jump Start loan
after getting approval from
the commission. The loan
will cover half the cost of
a sprinkler system, which
is a necessary component
of planned renovations that
include a kitchen and an
improved tasting room.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — The Oregon
Department of Human
Services will temporarily
restore previous levels of
in-home care services to
people with intellectual and
developmental disabilities
under a court order won by
plaintiffs who filed a federal
lawsuit contesting recent
cuts.
DHS determines every
year how many hours of
in-home care someone with
an intellectual or develop-
mental disability is eligible
for.
Disability Rights Oregon,
an advocacy organization
that filed the suit last week,
objects to how those deci-
sions are made, saying the
process is opaque.
The lawsuit alleges
that under federal law, the
agency violated the civil
and due process rights of
Oregonians receiving these
services, as well as the
Medicaid requirement that
the Office of Developmental
Disabilities Services must
provide such services “as
needed.”
Last year, the agency
implemented a new assess-
ment method on a rolling
basis, which the lawsuit
argues resulted in a reduction
of in-home care hours for
many people — although the
amount of help they needed
at home had not changed.
Not all people receiving
in-home care services have
yet felt reductions, because
the changes have been
implemented gradually.
Tom Stenson, litigation
attorney with Disability
Rights Oregon, said Wednes-
day’s order means any new
assessment method DHS
wants to use “effectively
requires” court approval.
The lawsuit is still
ongoing. DHS is “working
on (its) plan to implement the
agreement,” a spokeswoman
said in an email.
Bob Joondeph, the
group’s executive director,
said that his organization
also wants to make sure
families had a transparent
avenue to challenge a needs
assessment.
“It’s great if they change
the formula to work better,”
said Joondeph, “But at the
end of the day, what we want
is that even with the new
formula, we’d be able to
explain to people why there’s
a change and give them an
opportunity to contest it.”
Joondeph said his orga-
nization had raised the issue
and proposed solutions in
private meetings with the
agency, but filed a lawsuit
after the agency did not act.
In 2013, after the expan-
sion of Medicaid under the
Affordable Care Act, and
a specific federal funding
option called the Commu-
nity First Choice Plan that
provided funds so people
with disabilities could access
community-based services,
there
were
significant
increases in those eligible for
in-home care — and in costs
to the state.
In 2015, Oregon legis-
lators agreed to pay for the
unanticipated costs in the
upcoming budget cycle, but
asked DHS to come up with
a way to contain the rate of
cost growth in the future.
That became the method
that advocates are now
contesting in court.
The Department of
Human Services makes up
a significant chunk of the
state’s approximately $20
billion general fund budget,
which lawmakers are busy
trying to balance in the face
of an approximately $1.6
billion shortfall.
Reducing in-home care
for people with intellectual
and developmental disabil-
ities by 30 percent, as DHS
had planned prior to the
court order, would have
saved the state’s general fund
$6 million in the upcoming
two-year budget.
Astronomers find another Earth-like planet
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Astronomers have found yet
another planet that seems to
have just the right Goldilocks
combination for life: Not so
hot and not so cold. It’s not
so far away, either.
This new, big, dense
planet is rocky, like Earth,
and has the right tempera-
tures for water, putting it
in the habitable zone for
life, according to a study
published Wednesday in the
journal Nature .
It’s the fifth such life-pos-
sible planet outside our solar
system revealed in less than
a year, but still relatively
nearby Earth. Rocky planets
within that habitable zone
of a star are considered the
best place to find evidence of
some form of life.
“It is astonishing to live
in a time when discovery of
potentially habitable worlds
is not only commonplace
but proliferating,” said MIT
astronomer Sara Seager, who
wasn’t part of the study.
The first planet outside our
solar system was discovered
in 1995, but thanks to new
techniques and especially
NASA’s
planet-hunting
Kepler telescope, the number
of them has exploded in
recent years. Astronomers
have now identified 52
potentially habitable planets
and more than 3,600 planets
outside our solar system.
The latest discovery,
called LHS 1140b, regularly
passes in front of its star,
allowing astronomers to
measure its size and mass.
That makes astronomers
more confident that this one
is rocky, compared to other
recent discoveries.
In the next several years,
new telescopes should be
able to use the planet’s path
to spy its atmosphere in what
could be the best-aimed
search for signs of life, said
Harvard astronomer David
Charbonneau, a co-author
of the study. If scientists
see both oxygen and some
carbon in an atmosphere,
that’s a promising sign that
something could be living.
Outside astronomers have
already put this new planet
near the top of their must-see
lists for new ground and
space-based telescopes.
“This is the first one
where we actually know it’s
rocky,” Charbonneau said.
“We found a planet that we
can actually study that might
be actually Earth-like.”
Make that super-sized,
because it belongs to a class
of planets called super-Earths
that are more massive than
Earth but not quite the size of
giants Neptune or Jupiter.
Compared to Earth, the
new planet is big, pushing
near the size limit for rocky
planets. It’s 40 percent wider
than Earth but it has 6.6
times Earth’s mass, giving
it a gravitational pull three
times stronger, Charbonneau
said. A person weighing 167
pounds would feel like 500
pounds on this planet.
While many super-Earths
are too big to have the right
environment for life, 1140b
is just small enough to
make it a good candidate.
Thirty-two of the potentially
habitable planets found so far
are considered super-Earth
sized.
BUTTE CHALLENGE
TWO
HOURS
every
morning
paid off
my credit
card debt.
SATURDAY , MAY 6 , 2017
5K Run, 5K Walk, 10K Run, Kid's Butte Scoot
All races begin & end at Hermiston's Butte Park
DRAWINGS • FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
Become an
East Oregonian
Carrier.
211 SE Byers Ave.
Pendleton
or call:
541-276-2211
1-800-522-0255
Online registration & race information at
WWW.BUTTECHALLENGE.COM
Register online by April 22nd to order a
custom technical race T-Shirt
All proceeds benefi t THE HERMISTON
CROSS COUNTRY PROGRAM
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!