Page 10A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Thursday, May 4, 2017
CANDIDATES: Chavez praised the technical education program
Continued from 1A
(student population: 100),
to a superintendent position
at Brewster School District
(1,000), before moving to the
Wahluke School District, a
Central Washington school
district of 2,450 students that
he’s led as superintendent
since 2010.
Brewster was in a tough
spot when he got there,
Chavez said, requiring him
to pilot the district through
the aftermath of a lost
discrimination lawsuit and
the budget fallout from the
2008 recession.
When he moved to
Wahluke, he said the district
was among the bottom 50
schools in the state.
The district was able to
improve, Chavez said, by
doing a significant reconfig-
uration of the school system.
Chavez said he’s now
looking for a new challenge
in a larger district.
He praised Pendleton’s
career technical education
program and its drone
classes, adding that Amazon
was making investments in
unmanned aerial vehicles in
package delivery.
“To me that’s super cool
and cutting edge,” he said,
and Pendleton needed to
make sure it advertised that
fact.
Chavez has a bachelor’s
degree in social science
from Eastern Washington
University and a master’s in
administration from Heritage
University in Toppenish,
Washington.
• Chris Fritsch, the
assistant superintendent at
Longview Public Schools
has covered nearly every
management role a district
can offer.
He told the audience that
he has experience in human
resources,
transportation,
facilities, business and oper-
ations.
“The point of my career is
that I’ve had an opportunity
to wear a lot of hats,” he said.
Fritsch said he’s looking
to end his career as a super-
intendent and was looking
for a district with strong
community support in a rural
area.
“Pendleton checked those
really important boxes for
us,” he said about him and
his wife.
Like Pendleton, Fritsch
said Longview went through
a period of declining enroll-
ment.
The district addressed
this issue by expanding their
online options and creating a
distinctly separate alternative
high school.
Fritsch said he was
proud of contributing to the
creation of the alt school,
which he said grew from “a
four-person operation” to a
school with an administrator,
counselor and six teachers.
Fritsch is the only finalist
currently serving in a school
district larger than Pendle-
ton’s — the 6,500-student
Longview Public Schools
system in southwestern
Washington.
He was a social studies
teacher for 15 years, serving
stints as a football and wres-
tling coach before he became
a Longview administrator.
Six years as a high school
principal and three years
as the executive director
of leadership and learning
preceded his hiring as assis-
tant superintendent, a job he
has had since 2011.
Fritsch holds a bachelor’s
degree in social sciences
and legal study from Pacific
Lutheran University in
Tacoma, Washington and a
master’s degree in school
administration from Portland
State University.
• J.T. Stroder has criss-
crossed the country to gain
his administrative experi-
ence.
Stroder spent five years as
the superintendent/principal
of the 250-student Camas
County School District in
Idaho and three years as the
superintendent of the 1,100-
student Ingram Independent
School District in Texas.
Since 2012, he’s been the
superintendent of Gardiner
Public Schools, a 250-student
school district in Montana
just north of Yellowstone
National Park.
Stroder started his career
by teaching at-risk youth,
and he soon graduated to
leading at-risk districts.
He said two districts
faced steep budget cuts when
he entered, and the Camas
County School District was
in the bottom third in the state
in terms of performance.
While he was able to
help turn around the districts
financially and academically,
he was in a completely
different situation when
he moved from Ingram to
Gardiner to be closer to his
father in Wyoming.
Stroder said Gardiner
is consistently one of the
top performing schools in
Montana, despite not having
much of an administrative
team to work with.
“Nobody works harder
than small school superinten-
dents,” he said.
Stroder said he’s not eager
to get out of Gardiner, so he
can be picky with the districts
he’s applying to.
Stroder’s children are
National Junior Olympic
athletes and thinks Oregon
would be a place that would
offer more opportunities for
them.
He has a bachelor’s
degree in earth science and a
master’s degree in education
from Baylor University in
Waco, Texas and an educa-
tion specialist’s degree in
education leadership at the
University of Idaho. He is
also enrolled in a doctorate
program
in
education
leadership at Montana State
University.
• Up until now, Jim
Wagner’s life and career has
been based in Minnesota.
BMCC: Student enrollment numbers are down
Continued from 1A
“Those revenue projec-
tions will be the foundation
on which the budget is
based,” said Sen. Bill
Hansell, R-Athena. “The
budget process goes into
overdrive at that point.”
Legislators are trying to
stop a speeding train — an
annual growth of the state
budget of around 15 percent.
“It’s not sustainable,”
Hansell said.
Hope exists as the revenue
committee looks to carve out
“a revenue package with
legs” or “finding efficiencies
in one department that can be
passed along to another,” he
said.
The final reveal will likely
come in June and certainly
before July 10, the last day
the Legislature can constitu-
tionally meet.
The recent BMCC discus-
sion about whether to hike
tuition brought much anxiety,
said Casey White-Zollman,
vice president of public
relations.
“It was a very difficult
decision for the board and for
the entire college,” White-
Zollman said. “This was a
decision that was not made
lightly.”
The board got support
for the increase from an
unexpected
quarter
—
the Associated Student
Government. ASG President
Kristine Bivins presented a
letter of support at the April
board of education meeting,
lamenting BMCC’s possible
$2.5 million shortfall and
offering understanding.
“ASG understands that
to be able to function as an
organization, BMCC will
need to increase tuition for
our students,” the letter said.
“Although this is not desir-
able to anyone, we all have to
come to a mutual agreement
that it is the best option under
the circumstance.”
“This wasn’t the ASG
deciding on their own,”
White-Zollman said. “They
were out there talking with
other students. As a whole,
the student body supported
this, understanding the
position the college is in with
increases that are out of our
control.”
A factor that complicates
matters is the decline in
student numbers as the
economy improves and
people go back to work.
BMCC enrollment is down
from its 2010 peak of
10,823 (for both credit and
non-credit students). Last
year’s headcount was 8,243.
Full-time equivalent students
dropped from roughly 3,000
to 2,000 in the past five years.
“As the economy gets
better, we dip,” Preus said.
“We’re in a dip now.”
That, of course, means
revenue from student tuition
is dropping as well.
Colleges get income for
their general funds from
three sources: the state
appropriation, income taxes
and tuition/fees. Though
BMCC passed a $23 million
bond two years ago, that
money only funds capital
construction and infrastruc-
ture projects outlined to
voters.
Preus said the college will
go forward one carefully
thought-out step at a time
— all contingent on what
the Legislature decides. The
school will analyze enroll-
ment in each program and
critically eye travel expenses.
If a position is vacated by
attrition, the need for the
position will be evaluated.
“We made the choice
not to hurry into reductions
or layoffs,” she said. “We
want to take a thoughtful,
evidence-based approach.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
SHOOTING: ‘He decided to solve
that personal issue with gunfire’
The superintendent of
Kimball Area Schools in
the central part of that state,
Wagner said he sought an
opportunity outside the area
because he said Minnesota
had very little middle ground
between
“mega-districts”
and the smaller, rural school
systems.
With his four school-age
kids involved in a number
of activities, Wagner said he
was looking for a district that
wasn’t too big but had more
opportunities.
“(Pendleton) looked like a
spot that would work for us,”
he said.
Wagner had nine years
as a science teacher and five
years in various leadership
positions before taking a high
school principal position for
a school district in Albert
Lea, Minnesota.
He left the 3,200-student
school district to take the
helm at Kimball three years
ago.
When he started at
Kimball, the district was in
debt, had declining enroll-
ment and a bad reputation.
“My district was viewed
by outside districts as the
armpit of central Minnesota,”
he said.
Under his direction,
Kimball began an aggressive
advertising campaign that
included mailers to outlying
areas and a billboard
promoting the district and the
community.
Kimball Area Schools
eventually grew from 654
students to 800 students,
larger than it was before
enrollment started to decline
and is now out of debt.
He holds a master’s
degree in education curric-
ulum from St. Scholastica
College in Minnesota and
superintendent’s
certifi-
cation from St. Mary’s
College of Minnesowta.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra
at asierra@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0836.
Continued from 1A
woman when she got a call
from an unknown number.
The call was from Lemus,
whom Rodriguez told to
stop calling and the two got
in a verbal altercation.
Later that day Rodriguez
said he saw Lemus in
another car at an intersection
and felt he was taunting
him. He followed Lemus
to Funland at Butte Park,
where the two parked next
to each other.
Rodriguez
said
he
thought Lemus had a gun
and was rolling the window
of his vehicle down.
“I panicked, and thought
he’d shoot, so I ducked,”
Rodriguez said. He had a
handgun on the floor of his
vehicle. “So I loaded my
gun and I shot a round. I
didn’t see where I shot.”
It was later discovered
that Lemus did not have a
gun in his possession at the
time of the incident.
Rodriguez said he left the
scene and went to his home
in Umatilla, where he put
the gun in a crawlspace in
his house.
“I was in panic mode,
I was shocked,” he said. “I
saw the hole, and shoved the
gun into the hole (under the
house).”
Hermiston and Umatilla
police officers later obtained
a search warrant and
retrieved the handgun from
Rodriguez’s home. They
also recovered a stolen
shotgun from a Umatilla
County Sheriff’s Office
case.
Rodriguez said he and
Lemus have a history of
conflict. He said the two
had a falling out and have
not spoken for several years,
but that a few years ago, the
two got into a dispute over
another woman. Rodriguez
said Lemus showed up at
his house and assaulted him,
hitting him over the head
with a bottle.
“He split my head,”
Rodriguez said.
But prosecutor Jaclyn
Jenkins said Rodriguez
had failed to bring up that
incident during his initial
interview with a police
detective.
“Relationships are hard,”
she said. “This case is not.
What happened is simple.
The defendant wanted to
get back with his girlfriend.
She was talking to another
guy. So he shot that guy.
It’s that simple. There was
no self-defense. He decided
to solve that personal issue
with gunfire.”
Defense attorney Thomas
Gray told jurors that Lemus
had demonstrated aggres-
siveness, both by seeking
out a confrontation with
Rodriguez and by following
him after he was shot.
“If you look at the totality,
Mr. Lemus was instrumental
in what happened here,” he
said.
Jenkins said Rodriguez’s
actions were not the result
of a split-second decision to
defend himself.
“This was a series of
bad decisions made by the
defendant,” she said. “You
don’t pull the handgun
off the floor of the car if
you’re just going to meet
someone. He knows the
individual didn’t carry guns.
He testified that they’d had
problems before, but didn’t
tell (the detective). This is a
series of decisions. It wasn’t
a surprise. The defendant
did exactly what he set out
to do.”
Rodriguez admitted that
he had made a mistake,
and that he shouldn’t have
followed Lemus to the park.
–——
Contact
Jayati
Ramakrishnan at 541-564-
4534 or jramakrishnan@
eastoregonian.com.
CARTY: More than 100 signed petition against the project
Continued from 1A
“We’re
looking
at
everything that’s out there,”
Schmidt said. “We’re trying
to find opportunities that are
cost-effective.”
During a recent confer-
ence call with senior exec-
utives, CEO Jim Piro said
he hopes to negotiate power
purchase agreements within
the next few months. Carty
expansions,
meanwhile,
remain on the table as a
potential backstop.
A number of organiza-
tions, including the Sierra
Club and Columbia River-
keeper, have pushed back
on the proposal to expand
at Carty. More than 100
people also signed a local
petition against the project,
spearheaded by tribal activ-
ists on the Umatilla Indian
Reservation.
Located in the shadow
of the Boardman Coal Plant
on Tower Road, the Carty
Generating Station uses
gas-powered turbines to
generate 440 megawatts.
PGE has applied with the
Oregon Energy Facility
Siting Council to build two
new units at the site: one
that could add up to 530
megawatts, and another at
330 megawatts.
The goal is to balance the
energy grid with so-called
“flexible capacity resources”
that can be ramped up and
down quickly, working in
concert with wind and solar
farms when the wind isn’t
blowing or the sun isn’t
shining.
PGE’s
Integrated
Resource Plan also calls for
another 175 average mega-
watts of renewable energy
to keep pace with the state
mandate.
Schmidt said the IRP is
the result of 18 months of
stakeholder meetings. Nine
parties filed comments on
the plan after it was filed,
in which they encouraged
PGE to acquire capacity
in the marketplace from
existing resources, in partic-
ular hydro power.
PGE responded to the
comments on March 31,
agreeing that it makes sense
to consider those options,
“particularly while market
prices are historically low.”
The utility’s own research
shows
that
volumes
between 100-400 mega-
watts may be available from
multiple potential sellers,
for contracts that could run
between five and 15 years.
Amy Hojnowski, senior
campaign
representative
for the Sierra Club, said
the move by PGE “clearly
demonstrates that the utility
is feeling the pressure
from their customers not to
commit to 40 years of fossil
fuel infrastructure Oregon
doesn’t need.”
Hojnowski said the
group will continue to
monitor the situation. PGE
hopes to have its resource
plan acknowledged by the
Public Utility Commission
by the end of August.
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
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