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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 25, 2017)
LYBRAND STANFIELD, GETS 15 DAYS PENDLETON JAIL TIME ADVANCE REGION/3A 67/44 SPORTS/1B THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2017 141st Year, No. 158 WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD One dollar MILTON-FREEWATER County upgrades buildings to serve north end residents By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian Residents in the north end of Umatilla County soon will have options for getting county business done closer to home. The county is renovating two of its buildings in Milton-Freewater. County Commissioner George Murdock said building a new service center for the area was on the table, but the county is under the fi scal crunch to save money, so improving properties the county owns makes more sense with taxpayer dollars than starting new. The county budgeted $128,987 for the work at 418 N. Main St. and 707 E. Broadway Ave., according to data from Dan Lonai, administrative services director. The project has cost $61,550 so far, with more than $36,000 for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Improvements at the Main Street site include facade and roofi ng work. The building has served as a home to the sheriff’s offi ce and the Oregon State University Cooperative Exten- sion. Sharing the space will continue when the work wraps up in July, Murdock said, but the building will have an offi ce for commissioners See UPGRADES/8A Staff photo by E.J. Harris Umatilla County maintenance supervisor Mark Tanner installs a new light fi xture in the county offi ce Wednesday in Milton-Freewater. 23M more uninsured with GOP health bill, analysts say Bipartisan CBO report shows $119B reduced from federal defi cit By ALAN FRAM and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press Staff photo by E.J. Harris Pendleton senior Tommy Alberti cuts the fat off of chicken thighs while working in the kitchen Wednesday at the Prodigal Son Brewery in Pendleton. Classroom in the workplace School to Careers program puts Pendleton students in real-life job training By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian Pendleton School District budget woes or not, the School to Careers program intends to press on. A work training program for high school students in the Pendleton School District, School to Careers offi cials are looking toward outside grants to continue operations. School to Careers was established a year ago through a $390,745 career technical educa- tion grant from the state to the school district. The district used the grant to contract with Eastern Oregon Business Source and hire a program coordinator. The program aimed to hone students’ professional skills by placing them at internships and job shadows at local businesses. At a recent presentation to the Pendleton School Board, Susan Bower, the president of Eastern Oregon Business Source and the project manager for School to Career, and program coordinator Christina van der Kamp, shared the results from the program’s fi rst year. According to their presentation, School to Careers made 43 work placements across 23 work sites, fi ve times more than the year before. Work sites included Wtech- link, Riverside Veterinary Clinic, Interpath Laboratory the Oregon State Police Crime Lab. More than 50 businesses and organizations participated in the program in total, whether it was through work placements or the career days tours and panels the program sponsored. Bower and van der Kamp reported that 100 percent of the businesses who partnered with See SCHOOL/8A House approves ballot measure for state executive impeachment process By PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau SALEM — The Oregon House of Representatives voted 49-to-5 Wednesday to send a constitutional amendment to voters to create a process for impeaching the governor. Oregon is the only state in the nation that has no mechanism for executive impeachment. Rep. Jodi Hack, R-Salem, has been working on the joint resolution since 2015, the year Gov. John Kitzhaber resigned amid an infl u- ence-peddling scandal. Hack and other lawmakers intro- duced the proposal to address the lack of an impeachment process. The proposal was not a direct reaction to the Kitzhaber debacle, said Preston Mann, a spokesman for the House GOP. “I think most Oregonians would be surprised to learn that our state does not have a mechanism for exec- utive branch impeachment already in place,” Hack said. “In fact, Oregon continues to be the only state in the nation without this kind of protection against executive branch misconduct. I am of course hopeful that we would never need to pursue an impeach- ment proceeding, but we should not pretend that Oregon is immune to potential political scandals.” The measure would allow the House to impeach a statewide offi - cial on the grounds of malfeasance in offi ce, corruption, neglect of duty, felonies or misdemeanors. The process would require a three-fi fths majority vote in the House. The offi cial would then face a trial in the Senate, where conviction would require a two-thirds majority vote. The proposal was fi rst offered in 2015 but stalled in the Senate, Mann said. The resolution now heads to the Senate. If approved, the measure would appear on the 2018 general election ballot. Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, told The Oregonian in February that she won’t support adding an impeachment process to the state constitution. WASHINGTON — The health care bill Republicans recently pushed through the House would leave 23 million more Americans without insur- ance and confront others who have costly medical conditions with coverage that could prove unaffordable, Congress’ offi cial budget analysts said Wednesday. Premiums on average would fall compared with President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul — a chief goal of many Republicans — but that would be partly because policies would typically provide fewer benefi ts, said the report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offi ce. In some regions, people with pre-existing medical conditions and others who were seriously ill “would ultimately be unable to purchase” robust coverage at premiums comparable to today’s prices, “if they could purchase at all,” the report said. That was a knock on 11th-hour changes Republicans made in the bill to gain conservatives’ votes by letting states get waivers to boost premiums on the ill and reduce coverage requirements. The report said older people with lower income would dispro- portionately lose coverage. Over half of those becoming uninsured, 14 million people, would come from the bill’s $834 billion in cuts to Medicaid, which provides health coverage to poor and disabled people, over 10 years. Democrats cited the analysis as further evidence that the GOP effort to repeal Obama’s 2010 law, a staple of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and those of numerous Republican congressional candidates for years, would be destructive. It comes three weeks after the House narrowly passed the legislation with only Republican votes, and serves as a starting point for Senate Republicans trying to craft their own version, which they say will be different. “The report makes clear that Trumpcare would be a cancer on the American health care system,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., using the nickname Democrats have tried pinning on the bill. Schumer said the legislation would end up “causing costs to skyrocket, making coverage See HEALTH/8A
