Tuesday, June 6, 2017
OFF PAGE ONE
BUS: Obsession with buses started with a
GRADUATION: ‘It was epic, man’
Page 10A
East Oregonian
fascination with trolleys when he was young
Continued from 1A
cities I have to rent a car.”
Perpetually brimming with enthusiasm
about every aspect of bus travel, Lawrence is
the editor in chief of the Bus History Associa-
tion’s quarterly magazine about buses. He was
sampling Kayak Public Transit’s offerings on
his way to the association’s national conven-
tion in Vancouver, Washington.
When he arrived in Stanfield via Grey-
hound bus he had just finished traversing a
number of Idaho bus systems, including Boise
and Caldwell. Before his three and a half week
journey is through he plans to loop up through
Washington cities like Spokane and Yakima,
and then travel south to hit Bend for a total of
38 bus systems this trip.
Lawrence said his obsession with buses
started with a fascination with trolleys when
he was young and went from there. Over the
years he has developed three key things he
looks for in a good bus system: buses that are
clean and well-maintained, friendly drivers,
and an efficient route that incorporates a good
number of stops without causing the buses to
perpetually run late.
“The schedules need to be very carefully
planned out so they can drive the speed limit
and still get there on time,” he said.
Lawrence’s favorite bus lines tend to be
the more luxurious rides offered by private
companies such as Indian Trails in Michigan.
He enjoys finding bus systems with unique
naming systems, like Peter Pan Bus Lines in
Massachusetts, which names each bus after a
different character or place in the iconic play.
He also pays attention to how state and munic-
ipal governments prioritize public transit, and
said Oregon’s Department of Transportation
“in particular needs to be commended” for the
grants it gives to support cities in having their
own bus systems.
He said riding buses and trains tends to be
more comfortable than air travel and driving,
and he gets to meet a lot of interesting people
like the New Zealand couple he got to know
on his train ride out west.
“Some of the politicians in Washington
(D.C.) think Amtrak is losing money and we
should get rid of it, but they don’t realize how
many foreigners it draws in,” he said. “They
don’t want to see America from 30,000 feet
Staff photo by Jade McDowell
Loring Lawrence stopped by the
Hermiston Conference Center late
Friday afternoon.
and they don’t feel up to driving across a
foreign country. Almost every train trip I take
I meet travelers from another country.”
Every ride that Lawrence rides, he takes
pictures with his 1970s-era Mamiya C330
camera. It’s hard to find someone able to
develop the film, but that hasn’t stopped him
from collecting what he estimates is over
35,000 photos of buses and trains.
After the buses in Hermiston stopped for
the day, Lawrence stopped by the visitor
center in the Hermiston Conference Center.
He chatted with the staff inside, then studied
the kiosk of information in the corner of the
parking lot. He was interested to know that
Hermiston’s name came from a Robert Louis
Stevenson novel, as he once visited Steven-
son’s estate in Samoa.
“When you visit systems in cities you learn
things you didn’t know,” he said.
———
Contact Jade McDowell at jmcdowell@
eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4536.
BUDGET: Unions and other advocates are
still jostling for increased business taxes
Continued from 1A
state’s public pension system,
was contingent on passing a
“significant” revenue package.
Additionally, some changes
wouldn’t kick in until 2018, in
which case the full financial
impact on the state’s two-year
budget won’t be felt until the
cycle starting July 1, 2019.
The first proposal, SB
1067, is a collection of various
cost curbing measures, such
as combining two separate
benefit boards serving public
educators and other public
employees, limiting the
annual growth rate of health
care expenditures for public
employees and tying the rates
paid for employee health care
services to a percentage of
Medicare rates.
It’s estimated that, upon full
implementation, the measure
could save about $691 million
in the 2019-21 biennium.
Some provisions in the
legislation haven’t been
quantified, such as changing
the state’s debt collection and
contracting practices.
The second proposal, SB
1068, has to do with public
employee pension benefits.
The bill would require a
percentage of current public
employees’ annual contribu-
tions to an individual account
to go instead to a risk-sharing
account that can be used by
the Public Employee Retire-
ment System’s Board to pay
benefits accrued after July 1,
2018.
Legislators consulted with
unions in developing that
proposal.
According to the Senate
President’s Office, the nonpar-
tisan Legislative Fiscal office
says the PERS measure could
save employers — such as
school districts and counties
— about $106.7 million in the
upcoming two-year budget,
and $434 million in the
2019-21 cycle, although that
includes all funds, not just the
general and lottery funds.
The risk-sharing account
could only address costs of the
system going forward, and not
the unfunded liability of the
system, which corresponds to
the amount the state owes that
has already been accrued by
public employees and is esti-
mated to be at least $21 billion.
Legally, the state cannot
reduce benefits employees
have already accrued.
Speaker of the House
Tina Kotek, D-Portland, said
Monday that the proposals
represented a “serious attempt
to do cost containment.”
Business groups, such as the
Brighter Oregon coalition,
have repeatedly called for
reductions to the cost of the
public pension system and
other costs before they’ll get
on board with changes to the
state’s tax structure.
With about a month to
go before the Legislature
adjourns, unions and other
advocates are still jostling for
increased business taxes.
While lawmakers consider
switching from a corporate
income tax to a tax on gross
business sales, the Oregon
Education Association filed
a ballot measure Friday that
would create a gross receipts
tax on businesses with annual
sales of at least $5 million.
Another OEA proposed
measure would allow the
Legislature to raise business
taxes by simple majority vote
if certain school funding levels
aren’t met.
Senate Minority Leader
Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, said
the PERS proposal unveiled
Monday was insufficient. He
argued for “robust restruc-
turing” of the system.
Earlier legislative proposals
on PERS, such as one that
would have placed a $100,000
limit on the final average
salary used in an employee’s
benefits calculation, appear
unlikely to move forward.
Rebecca Tweed, a coor-
dinator for Brighter Oregon,
said that both proposals
represented a step in the right
direction, but were not enough
to right the state’s finances.
While calling the cost-sharing
provisions
“important,”
Tweed said that the proposal
“would do little to slow the
runaway increases schools
and state agencies must pay
into PERS.”
Continued from 1A
seemed like two years ago
that she first dropped off her
son, Peter Wallace, for his
first day of kindergarten.
Now he stood beside
her with his high school
diploma and a plan to attend
Blue Mountain Community
College, where he’ll study
forensics.
Lidwinner Machado was
trying to grab a few pictures
of her son, Stephen Jr., as
he and his friends congrat-
ulated each other.
“It was exhilarating and it
was exciting” to see her son
walk the stage, Lidwinner
said. She added that it was
a “smooth journey” toward
graduation, with Stephen Jr.
obtaining his diploma with
“high honors,” a designa-
tion for students with a 3.75
GPA or higher.
Stephen Jr. will carry
those honors to Oregon
State University, where
he’ll major in biology.
Mike Gillam said his
daughter, Daysha Denight,
was raised by her mother in
Pendleton while he lived in
Oklahoma.
Gillam traveled from
Oklahoma to see his daughter
graduate with honors, and
although there were chal-
lenges during high school, he
said the future University of
Oregon freshman’s journey
was only starting.
“It was wonderful,”
Gillam said about the grad-
uation. “It was epic, man.”
While many parents and
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Sebaztian Corona gives Administrative Secretary
Becky Anderson a hug as he and his fellow 2017 Pend-
leton High School graduates wait to process into the
Round-Up Grounds on Saturday morning. Corona is
flanked by Fernando Gomez and Anthony Coleman.
seniors were already starting
to discuss the future, there
was also time to reflect on
the past.
Several students took the
to the podium to remember
Buckaroo playoff runs,
the
#YoungmanOnEllen
campaign and all the PHS
staff that helped them make
it to graduation.
Class speaker Brayden
Pulver said future classes
might be able to drop the
Pendleton-Hermiston rivalry,
with Hermiston High School
set to play in a different
competition class next year.
Although he envisioned
trips to Dutch Bros. Coffee
in Hermiston where both
sides could be friendly, he
couldn’t resist ending his
speech with a little extra
ribbing.
“If we weren’t Bucka-
FORKLIFT: Operator with best score won $500
Continued from 1A
cally put a contestant in the
winner’s circle.
“Speed isn’t as important
as safety,” Long said.
Employees
from
Overton Safety Training of
Aloha were monitoring the
courses, deducting points
from competitors for unsafe
practices like bumping into
objects, reversing the fork-
lifts without turning their
heads around, and failing to
use a seatbelt.
Although they may not
place within the top three
in terms of time, Long said
rodeo winners often make
up for it with their safe
maneuvers.
Maneuvering
wasn’t
a simple task in the two
obstacle courses.
One course had contes-
tants use the forklift to pick
up a plank with a pipe on
it before driving it through
narrow brackets, a test of
the competitors’ spacial
reasoning.
The other course had the
operators pick up and drop
off wooden planks from one
designated spot to another
before circling barrels in a
narrow corral.
People weren’t just
competing for the pride
of being the safest forklift
operator in Eastern Oregon.
The person with the best
score earned $500, while the
second and third best earned
$400 and $300, respectively.
The top three also received
belt buckles with a forklift
design.
Although it was mostly
smiles at the rodeo, work-
place safety can be a life-or-
death matter.
According to the Oregon
OSHA, there were 61
workplace deaths in 2016.
Vehicle crashes were the
leading cause of fatalities
while contact with objects
came in second.
Four people died while on
the clock in Umatilla County
last year — one in a trans-
portation farming incident,
one in an explosion related
to agriculture or forestry
D a r l i n gs !
This special section will be fi lled with photos of and
messages for adorable little darlings from Umatilla County.
Families will want to keep this special keepsake for
their child and family for years to come.
PUBLISHES:
June 28, 2017
DEADLINES:
June 08, 2017
SATURDAY, JUNE 10TH • 9:00 AM - 3:30PM • ROOMS 1 & 2
WHO: Potential babysitters grades 6 and above.
Cost: $30 ~ Includes book and lunch
To Register ~ 541
541-278-2627
278 2627 or emilysmith@chiwest.com
Deadline for registration is Thursday, June 8th
and two after coming into
contact with objects. One
person died in a Morrow
County workplace in 2016, a
transportation-related death.
Conference
attendees
were also given an up-close-
and-personal example of
unsafe practices right in front
of the convention center.
The Oregon Department of
Transportation loaned out
the wreckage from a drunk
driving occurrence 2009,
where a teenager from Idaho
with a blood-alcohol level
of 0.21 fatally crashed into
an electric pole in Annex,
Oregon.
While the safe practice
of manual labor isn’t always
rewarded, it spurred plaudits
and cash prizes at the forklift
rodeo.
Chris Evans of Boise
Cascade Elgin Plywood
took home the top prize
while Juan Cambero of
the Lamb Weston plant
in Boardman was a close
second. Rounding out the
top three was Juan Silva,
also of Lamb Weston.
L i t t le
Safe Sitter Class
•Safety Skills •First Aid and Rescue Skills
•Child Care Skills •Life and Business Skills
roos, then we’d be Bulldogs,
and no one wants that,” he
said.
Pendleton High School
Principal Dan Greenough
also paid tribute to the kids,
highlighting the four boys
who had made Eagle Scout
by the end of their high
school career, the student
who was earning a BMCC
degree along with her
diploma, and the hundreds
of scholarships students
had received to help pay for
college.
After each name was
read and the caps were
thrown (although many
students were inhibited
by the canopy used to
shade them from the sun),
Greenough presented the
class of 2017, which earned
a single, unified standing
ovation from the audience.
Olivia,
t.
I loved you from the very star
heart.
my
ed
rac
emb
,
You stole my breath
un.
beg
just
has
er
Our life togeth
.
You’re part of me, my little one
Love, Mom
Send in, or drop by, a
full color high resolution
photo, your child’s name
and a message to
your child today!
Little Darlings
211 SE Byers, Pendleton, OR 97801
333 E. Main, Hermiston, OR 97838
or email
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Child’s Name:
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