REGION
Friday, May 26, 2017
East Oregonian
PENDLETON
Page 3A
MILTON-FREEWATER
Drive-by shooting
called gang related,
leads to attempted
murder charges
East Oregonian
Photo by Antonio Sierra
John McBee Sr. sits on the Pioneer Park bench that was dedicated in his honor by the Pendleton Foundation Trust
Wednesday.
McBee takes a seat
Retired dentist gets a bench at Pioneer Park after 43 years on Pendleton Foundation Trust
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Courtesy of John McBee
Sr.’s 43 years of service on
the Pendleton Foundation
Trust, citizens can now have
a front-row seat at the Pioneer
Park playground.
Joined by McBee’s friends,
family, and the Pendleton
Chamber of Commerce
ambassadors, the Pendleton
Foundation Trust celebrated
McBee’s four decades on its
board by dedicating a bench
at Pioneer Park Wednesday
afternoon.
Without their trademark
scissors, the ambassadors
handed McBee a knife to cut
through the ribbon, officially
opening the bench to the
public.
Since retiring from the
board, McBee told the crowd
that he recently read the Pend-
leton Record and approved of
all of the foundation’s grants in
absentia.
Rather than any single
thing, the retired dentist and
former Pendleton School
Board member said he’s proud
of the foundation’s cumulative
efforts to support civic projects
across town.
“Just about anything done
in Pendleton was due to the
foundation,” he said in an
interview.
Kevin Hale, the foundation
board’s current chairman, said
McBee had been on the board
for nearly half of the founda-
tion’s existence.
Established in 1928 by Roy
Raley, the Pendleton Founda-
tion Trust board is composed
of four at-large members and
three members appointed by
the school district, the city and
the chamber of commerce.
When McBee joined the
board in 1973, Hale said the
foundation gave out a total of
$3,040 to organizations like the
Umatilla County Library and
the Pendleton Little League.
Today, many individual
donations the foundation
makes to groups around town
surpass that figure.
Hale said the foundation
donates about $200,000 per
year and has donated about $4
million in the past eight or nine
years, all from interest off a $5
million trust.
Recent donations include
$25,575 to Neighbor 2
Neighbor Pendleton to replace
the roof on the warming
stations and $6,770 to Veterans
of Foreign Wars Let’er
Buck Post 922 to purchase
a commercial dishwasher,
update the electrical hook-up,
and expand their storage
building at Stillman Park.
When the foundation was
scouting out a site for the new
bench at the park, McBee said
he noticed a “crappy” bench
on the north side of the park
facing Despain Avenue that
should be removed.
Upon closer inspection of
the old wooden bench, they
found out who placed it there
in the first place — the Pend-
leton Foundation Trust.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
Milton-Freewater Police Chief Doug Boedigheimer
announced two men face attempted murder and other
charges from a May 10 drive-by shooting.
Boedigheimer in the written statement said a
Umatilla County grand jury Wednesday indicted
Francisco Javier Palacios-Garcia, 23, of Milton-Free-
water, and Clemente Garcia-Cerda, 21, of Walla
Walla, on the following: attempted murder, two
counts of unlawful use of a weapon and eight counts
of recklessly endangering another person. Garcia-
Cerda also faces one count of felon in possession of
a firearm.
At around midnight May 10, the pair were in
a car that drove by the home at 905 N. Main St.,
Milton-Freewater, according to Boedigheimer. Eric
Rodriguez, 21, lived there and was in the front yard,
standing mere feet from the vehicle when Pala-
cios-Garcia and Garcia-Cerda opened fire. Rodriguez
was their “apparent target,” the police chief stated,
but he was not hit.
Several adults and children were in the home at
the time, and while bullets penetrated the residence
no one was injured.
Milton-Freewater police were on the scene within
minutes, and after determining what had occurred,
called in two Milton-Freewater detectives, who
collected evidence and worked the case.
Milton-Freewater police informed the Walla Walla
Police Department about the shooting. Walla Walla
police at 1:27 a.m. found a vehicle matching the
description and arrested its occupants on Walla Walla
and Washington charges.
Boedigheimer reported his detectives within
the first few hours of the investigation conducted
multiple interviews and followed leads that pointed to
Palacios-Garcia and Garcia-Cerda as suspects.
By the weekend of May 13, and with assistance
from Walla Walla police detectives, Milton-Freewater
detectives developed probable cause and delivered
the investigation to the Umatilla County District
Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors took the case to a
grand jury, which handed up indictments against the
two suspects, leading to warrants for their arrests.
Police served the warrants at the Walla Walla
County Jail, Walla Walla, where Palacios-Garcia and
Garcia-Cerda remain on Washington charges.
Boedigheimer also reported police determined this
was a gang-related shooting.
Sheriff’s office says no
foul play in fire death
BRIEFLY
East Oregonian
Pendleton fire conducts
wildland training near
Wal-Mart
Good Shepherd receives
national award for
patient safety
PENDLETON — The Pendleton
Fire Department announced it will
conduct a wildland training burn
Tuesday from about 6-8 p.m. on the
vacant field just west of Wal-Mart.
“This area of the city has a history
of grass fires, especially during the
Fourth of July fireworks celebration,”
according to the announcement.
Conducting the burn in cooperation
with the property owner mitigates
the annual fire hazard and provides
valuable training experience to
personnel.
The training burn is subject to the
weather, and if conditions are not ideal,
the department will postpone the burn.
HERMISTON — Hermiston’s
Good Shepherd Health Care System
has received an award for its superior
performance in preventing the
occurrence of serious, potentially
avoidable health complications
during hospital stays. The hospital
has been awarded the Healthgrades
2017 Patient Safety Excellence award,
putting it in the top 10 percent of
short-term acute care facilities.
The hospital was included in a
two-year-long study by Healthgrades,
which found that patients treated
in the hospitals that received those
awards were on average 40 percent
less likely to experience an accidental
puncture or laceration during a
procedure, and 54 percent less
likely to experience catheter-related
bloodstream infections acquired at the
hospital.
“Keeping our patients safe is a
top priority of Good Shepherd,” said
Theresa Brock, the hospital’s vice
president of nursing, in response to
the award.
Hospital representatives added
that in 2016, all employees received
a training workshop to emphasize
the importance of empathy and
compassion in the patient care
experience — a training they felt
contributed to receiving the award.
———
Briefs are compiled from staff and wire
reports, and press releases. Email press
releases to news@eastoregonian.com
The Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office reported its
ongoing investigation into the death of Marcos Jesus
Gutierrez-Rodriguez has not revealed any foul play.
Firefighters and police found Gutierrez-Rodriguez’s
body after extinguishing an outdoor fire around 2 a.m.
Monday under the Eastside Bridge along the Walla
Walla River in Milton-Freewater.
The sheriff’s office in a written statement Thursday
reported fire and arson investigators from the sheriff’s
office, the state fire marshal and the Oregon State Police
examined the scene, and the state medical examiner in
Clackamas completed an autopsy Wednesday, though
toxicology reports will not be available for several
weeks.
“At this time, no overt signs of criminal activity
have been found,” according to the sheriff’s office.
“We will continue to investigate all relevant leads, and
await the results of laboratory tests from items at the
scene and the post-mortem exam.”
The sheriff’s office also emphasized anyone with
information regarding this case should contact the
dispatch center at 541-966-3651.
WATER: Since 1950, the Walla Walla subbasin has seen a 100-foot decline in its basalt aquifer
Continued from 1A
The restrictions on new wells
do not apply for exempt uses,
such as drinking water or livestock
watering.
“We’re
seeing
significant
declines across the valley,” Iverson
explained. “We wanted to stop the
problem from getting worse.”
In addition, farmers and
ranchers with basalt wells have
until Jan. 1, 2019 to install flow
meters and report water usage
to regulators. The deadline was
recently extended by a year, and
OWRD is considering cost-share
programs to help farmers pay for
meters, which may run $2,000 to
$4,000 a pop.
One possible option may be
through the Natural Resource
Conservation Service, where
groundwater monitoring is now
an approved conservation strategy
between the agency and land-
owners.
“That being said, the funding is
still up in the air,” Iverson said.
Since 1950, the Walla Walla
subbasin has seen a 100-foot decline
in its basalt aquifer, including 1 to 4
feet per year over the past decade.
The shallow alluvial aquifer is also
declining, but not as rapidly, at
about a quarter-foot to 1 foot per
year.
Iverson said the OWRD is not
targeting alluvial aquifers now, but
may consider doing so in the future.
“I’m not saying that’s not an
issue,” he said.
The Walla Walla Basin Water-
shed Council did, however, receive
EO file photo
Water is diverted out of one of the Stanfield Irrigation District’s
canals in April 2016 northeast of Stanfield.
a $346,746 from the Oregon Water-
shed Enhancement Board earlier
this month to build five new gravel
aquifer recharge sites around the
area using water diverted from the
river during high flows. Recharge
sites can either take the form of an
infiltration basin — essentially a
large pond — or infiltration gallery,
with perforated pipe buried under-
ground.
Once groundwater levels are
stabilized, Iverson said the next step
is for the community to develop
a voluntary, holistic approach to
reversing the declines. He said the
OWRD will continue gathering
data around the subbasin, and plans
to share its findings across state
lines with the Washington Depart-
ment of Ecology.
NOWA update
J.R. Cook, founder and director
of the Northeast Oregon Water
Association, was on hand earlier
Thursday to provide an update
about his group’s effort to deliver
mitigated Columbia River water to
irrigators in western Umatilla and
northern Morrow counties.
As it stands, Cook said the
pipeline designs are finished and
permitting is “well underway” in
Salem. Project developers now
have until April 2019 to spend $11
million in state funding that was
awarded by the Legislature in 2015.
The challenge is no longer
convincing environmental groups
or westside lawmakers, Cook said.
If nothing gets built, the basin will
only have itself to blame.
“It’s our fault,” Cook said. “We
haven’t spent the money. We don’t
have a project in the ground.”
Cook alluded to the Central
Project, which had been first in
line to begin construction until the
Westland Irrigation District decided
to pull out Monday due to a pending
lawsuit in Umatilla County Circuit
Court filed by patrons.
The east and west region projects
are making progress, Cook said,
though those pipelines would cover
larger areas and cost more money to
build. If successful, the Columbia
River water supplies figure to
add billions of dollars to the local
economy, along with thousands of
jobs, and also alleviate stress on
groundwater aquifers.
Water taken from the Columbia
River will be replaced, at least
temporarily, by municipal water
rights left in-stream. But those
rights are only good for 30 years,
Cook said. Beyond that, NOWA
is looking to develop a permanent
mitigation program that would
include basalt bank recovery and
upstream storage or restoration
work.
None of that means anything
unless these projects first get built,
he said.
“If we keep showing we can’t
take advantage of the opportunity
the state keeps giving us, they’re
going to stop listening,” Cook said.
Legislative update
Several other bills are also up for
consideration at the Legislature that
may have an effect on the region.
David Filippi, an attorney with
Stoel Rives LLP in Portland, specif-
ically mentioned Senate Bill 865,
which would require local govern-
ments to notify irrigation districts of
a proposed subdivision if it crosses
into the district’s boundary.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Bill
Hansell (R-Athena), would not give
irrigation districts any veto power,
Filippi said, but allow them an
opportunity in advance to review
the project for public safety or
other liability. It passed the Oregon
Senate unanimously and is currently
awaiting a vote in the House.
Filippi also mentioned Senate
Bill 866 — also sponsored by
Hansell — that would require cities
take “reasonable steps” to ensure
water discharged into an irrigation
canal meets water quality standards.
That bill has not budged from the
Senate Environment and Natural
Resources Committee, and appears
to be dead.
Marika Sitz, who was hired as
the new coordinator for the Oregon
Water Coalition in January, said
she was pleased with the turnout
at Thursday’s meeting, which
included both coalition members
and representatives of partner
agencies.
The coalition was formed in
1992, but nearly dissolved a year
ago before it was reinvigorated to
keep farmers abreast of regional
water news.
“The goal has always been to
provide education to members,”
Sitz said.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or
541-966-0825.