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East Oregonian
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WALDEN: Around 100 people attended the Wallowa town hall
Continued from 1A
input, he added “they’re not
perfect.”
“It’s important, but it’s not
the only tool we use,” Walden
said.
A recurring issue raised by
the public involved how the
AHCA would — or would
not — cover patients with
preexisting medical condi-
tions. The law does allow
states to apply for a waiver
to the current rules requiring
that insurers accept those
with preexisting conditions
and charge them the same
premiums as healthy people
of the same age.
Joe Hayes, 34, of La
Grande, attended the hearing
in Baker City where he told
the story of his daughter
born with a rare genetic
disorder. Hayes, who served
eight years in the U.S. Army
from 2002 to 2010, said his
daughter spent the first month
of her life in the hospital
hooked up to medical equip-
ment with a hole in her throat
to breathe and a hole in her
stomach to eat.
Though she died seven
months later, Hayes said the
Affordable Care Act helped
to extend his daughter’s life
and spared their family from
financial ruin. Hayes told
Walden he is concerned that,
under the AHCA, children
like his daughter might be
denied coverage for having a
preexisting condition.
“The last thing you want to
worry about is how you will
pay for emergency procedures
and equipment that cost more
than a house,” Hayes said.
Walden
sympathized
with Hayes and others, but
expressed confidence the
AHCA would be able to
cover vulnerable populations.
He said the bill includes
more than $130 billion in
federal money set aside to
fund high-risk pools over the
next decade. Most recently,
Republicans added another
Photo by Paul Wahl for the EO Media Group
Wallowa County Sheriff’s deputy Kevin McQuead
speaks with a woman in the crowd at Monday’s ap-
pearance by U.S. Rep. Greg Walden in Wallowa. The
woman and another individual went nose-to-nose in a
shouting match and McQuead intervened.
$8 billion to help cover
preexisting conditions.
More changes to the bill
are also likely to come in the
Senate, Walden added.
“I care deeply about
people with preexisting
conditions. I care deeply
about people with disabili-
ties,” Walden said. “This bill
will take care of them.”
In other issues, Walden
continued to advocate for
active forest management to
reduce the risk of destructive
wildfires and create jobs in
Eastern Oregon. He also
said he does not support an
independent investigation for
Russian interference in the
election at this time, instead
preferring the matter be dealt
with in the House and Senate
intelligence committees.
“I don’t want any country
interfering in our elections,
period,” he said. “I think the
Russians are deeply involved
in a lot of this stuff. But
they’re not the only ones.”
After his stop in Baker
City, Walden traveled to Elgin
where he addressed another
100-plus people at Stella
Mayfield School, where he
again fielded questions and
comments about health care.
He said the bill is designed
to fix the problems in the
individual insurance markets,
detailing how rates have gone
up 40 percent in 11 states.
“In many states, there are
fewer and fewer insurers to
choose from,” he said. “I want
efficiency, I want choice, I
want lower premiums and I
want coverage.”
At one point, Walden
asked the crowd directly how
many people would support
a universal, government-run
health care system. The audi-
torium erupted in cheers and
applause.
Not everyone agreed. Ted
Atkinson, a professor emeritus
of business from Eastern Oregon
University, said he believes
individuals need to start taking
responsibility for their own
health care. He said too many
people suffer from self-inflicted
health problems, such as alco-
holism or obesity, and expect the
government to pay.
Atkinson also agreed with
Walden on the need for active
management in local forests.
“People in rural areas have
been locked out of economic
growth
for
decades,”
Atkinson said.
Members of Health Care
for All Oregon, a statewide
group advocating for publicly
funded universal health care,
attended all three Walden
town halls Monday. Bill
Whitaker, a professor emeritus
from Boise State University
who now lives in La Grande,
argued against the AHCA and
said the money Republicans
are promising for preexisting
conditions is not enough.
“The sum total of these
funds is far less than what
Republicans are saying they
would do,” Whitaker said.
At Wallowa Elementary
School, Walden’s last stop
of the day, the proceedings
reached a boiling point when
two women sitting in the same
row went nose-to-nose in a
shouting match. The two were
separated by Wallowa County
deputy Kevin McQuead.
Approximately
100
people attended the Wallowa
town hall, mostly to protest
the AHCA. Questioners
accused Walden of voting to
scuttle Obamacare to give
fellow Republican President
Donald Trump a victory and
said he lied to Oregonians by
voting for a bill that withdrew
some protections for people
with preexisting conditions.
“Did you read the bill
before you voted for it?”
asked Ruby Boyd of Joseph.
Walden assured Boyd he
had and argued repeatedly
that the Republican-spon-
sored measure was a better
plan since it allowed states
to tailor health care spending
to their unique needs. He
admitted that older people pay
more for health care under the
new law, but explained it was
designed to bring younger
people back into the plan.
Walden
said
under
Obama’s plan, younger
individuals paid a dispro-
portionate share of health
insurance costs to subsidize
older participants.
———
Pall Wahl contributed to
this report.
SCHOOL: Board voted to formally offer superintendent position to Fritsch
Continued from 1A
report cards and graduation
rates, all of those documents
and figures would be under
the Pendleton High School
name.
Yoshioka said that a
reconfiguration had other
questions that a procedural
move wouldn’t answer, like
whether Hawthorne would
retain its name, or if it would
stay in its current location at
the Pendleton Technology
and Trades Center or move
down the hill to the main high
school campus.
In an interview after
the meeting, Yoshioka said
district staff hadn’t calculated
the cost savings of combining
the two programs under one
building, but he estimated it
would be “minor.”
Despite the uncertainties,
Yoshioka would need an
answer from the board soon
if they wanted to start the
reconfiguration process this
year — the Oregon Depart-
ment of Education’s deadline
is May 15.
With several question
marks
surrounding
the
merger, the board was reticent
to take action.
“I don’t like voting
on something in the 11th
hour,” board member Steve
Umbarger said.
Keeping Hawthorne as it
is, at least temporarily, also
received a passionate defense
from people associated with
the school.
Hawthorne
student
Mikeighla
Velasquez
explained to the board how
she struggled with anxiety
and following directions as a
PHS freshman.
Since
switching
to
Hawthorne as a sophomore,
Velasquez said she has taken
an interest in robotics and
completed 13 credits in a
year. That’s more than half
the amount needed to meet
Oregon’s minimum gradua-
tion standards.
Velasquez argued that main-
taining each school’s separate
identities was important to
Hawthorne students.
Hawthorne paraprofes-
sional Teri McCoy said
Hawthorne was important to
students who didn’t fit in or
had trouble excelling in the
same way other high school
students do, and thanks to
school staff, 16-18 students
were set to graduate this year.
McCoy said Hawthorne
students had already been
through a couple of moves
in the past few years and
wanted input from the
incoming
superintendent
before the district committed
to uprooting students from a
newly renovated facility.
Dale Freeman, a board
member and retired teacher,
sympathized with the argu-
ment.
“I’ve worked with a lot of
those kids for a long time,” he
said. “And three years of my
teaching experience with those
kids, they need that separate
identity. They really do.”
With no other regular
board meetings sched-
uled before the deadline,
Hawthorne Alternative High
School is all but assured
another school year.
Yoshioka said the board
can reconsider reconfigura-
tion again ahead of the next
deadline in 2018.
In other board action, the
board unanimously voted
to formally offer Longview
Public Schools assistant super-
intendent Chris Fritsch the
vacant superintendent position.
Although he wasn’t present for
the meeting, Fritsch is expected
to be in town Tuesday to
further meet with district staff
and attend the board’s strategic
planning meeting.
With Fritsch expected to
accept the district’s offer,
he’s set to earn $135,500 per
year when he assumes the
position July 1, taking over
for interim superintendent
Matt Yoshioka.
The board also approved
a new collective bargaining
agreement between the
district and the classified
employees union, which
will run from 2017-2020.
Classified employees include
educational assistants, para-
professionals and secretaries.
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Tuesday, May 9, 2017
ROADS: Plan raises about
$509M per year in additional
transportation funding
Continued from 1A
out there for people to
respond to.”
The money for the
plan would come from a
combination of hikes in
the gas tax and registration
and license fees, tolls and
new taxes on payroll and
purchases of new vehicles
and bicycles.
The plan identifies a few
specific projects to ease
congestion, but other proj-
ects would be prioritized
by the Oregon Transporta-
tion Commission. Specific
projects would:
• Add lanes on Interstate
5 near Portland’s Rose
Quarter from Interstate 84
to Interstate 405.
• Add northbound
and southbound lanes on
Highway 217 through the
Portland metro area.
• Widen Interstate 205
to six lanes from Oregon
City to Stafford Road.
• Widen and seismically
reinforce Interstate 205’s
Abernethy Bridge.
The plan raises about
$509 million per year in
additional transportation
funding. A transportation
package that failed in 2015
would have raised consid-
erably less, about $300
million a year.
The money would come
from increases in the gas
tax and vehicle fees and a
set of new taxes over the
next 10 years, including:
• Gas tax increase from
30 cents to 44 cents.
RESCUE: Drone delivered
jerky and home-made cookies
Continued from 1A
vehicle.
They ran into cliffs,
Johnson said, and tried to
cross the river. Both went
in at different points but
couldn’t cross.
They called a relative for
help, and at 10:06 p.m. he
called the sheriff’s office,
relayed their situation and
said they were below the
Lick Creek trail head and
could not get out.
Johnson said he got
to the area around 11:30
or midnight and reached
the men on radio. They
reported they were wet,
cold, and hungry, he said,
but not injured.
Johnson said he assessed
the situation and while the
river is not wide where
they were, crossing in the
dark during the swift spring
runoff was too treacherous.
He said the pair’s biggest
issue was the cold, but they
were able to start a fire.
“We told them hunker
down for the night,”
Johnson said.
1. Enrollment Growth
Proposed Solution: Expansion of Hermiston
High School and addition of new elementary
school on district owned Theater Lane property.
2. Safety & Security
Proposed Solution: Replace Highland Hills El-
ementary School on same site; improve emer-
gency access and parking at HHS.
3. Old Buildings
Proposed Solution: Replace Rocky Heights Ele-
mentary School on same site; address deferred
maintenance and obsolete, failing heating and
cooling systems at Sandstone Middle School
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registration starts at 5:30
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Bike ride/walk, garden planting event:
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Thursday, May 11 • 6pm
Information or to register
call (541) 667-3509
or email
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www.gshealth.org
The sheriff’s office does
not have swift-water rescue
team, but Wallowa County
does, and Johnson said he
called for their help Sunday
around 4 a.m.
The sheriff’s office also
deployed its latest tool to
help the hunters. Johnson
said Tom Roberts, the
Umatilla County’s emer-
gency manager, operated
the search and rescue drone
to fly them jerky and even
home-made cookies.
The swift-water team
arrived around 10:45 that
morning, Johnson said,
and threw a line to the
men across the river, then
brought them over one
at a time on an inflatable
kayak. By about 12:15 p.m.
Sunday, they were safe.
They even had a bit of
an audience, he said, as the
men’s wives and one of their
mothers witnessed the rescue.
Bolin and Perry declined
to comment for the story.
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0836.
Mother’s Day
6 weekly classes
Tuesdays • 6:00 - 8:00pm
May 16 through June 20
• Tiered increase in
title and registration fees,
with higher increases for
fuel-efficient
vehicles,
which pay less in gas taxes.
• Statewide payroll tax
of one-tenth of 1 percent to
pay for mass transit.
• Tolls to be determined.
• Bicycle excise tax of 5
percent.
• Dealer privilege tax of
1 percent on new vehicle
purchases.
The state spends about
$1.3 billion a year on
transportation
system
maintenance and upgrades.
This proposal would bring
that amount up to about
$1.8 billion.
The proposal came
on the same day a
KATU-commissioned poll
indicated tepid interest in
raising the gas tax, which is
the mechanism for funding
transportation in Oregon.
Forty-nine percent of
675 adult respondents indi-
cated a gas tax hike was a
step in the wrong direction,
while 30 percent showed
strong support for an
increase, according to the
poll conducted last month
by Survey USA.
The 14 lawmakers on
the Joint Committee on
Transportation Preserva-
tion and Modernization will
convene on Wednesday,
May 10, to discuss poten-
tial changes to the proposal
before it is written into
legislation. Public hearings
on the proposal would
likely be held in June.
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