Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 30, 2017)
HERMISTON WATERMELONS ON THEIR WAY TRAVEL BAN TAKES EFFECT Whisky Fest passes 2016 ticket sales REGION/3A NATION/7A REGION/3A FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2017 141st Year, No. 184 WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD Your Weekend • • • One dollar BOARDMAN Wildhorse Pow Wow all weekend at the casino Murder mystery dinner theater in Hermiston Ultimate Youth Smash at Bard Park, Stanfi eld For times and places see Coming Events, 5A Catch a movie Wilson Webb/Sony/TriStar via AP A young getaway driver takes one last job to make a clean break from crime, but things don’t go exactly as planned in “Baby Driver.” For showtime, Page 5A For review, Weekend EO Weekend Weather Fri Sat Sun Staff photo by E.J. Harris A whirlpool feature and a waterslide are two of the main attractions of the indoor pool at the new Boardman Pool and Recreation Center. 90/63 88/58 90/61 Oregon Legislature passes worker scheduling bill By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press SALEM — Workers in Oregon for large companies will know their schedules in advance, saving them from scrambling to arrange child care and enabling them to have more orderly lives, under a bill the state Legisla- ture passed on Thursday. The bill was described as being a fi rst among U.S. states. Rep. Ann Lininger, D-Lake Oswego, one of its sponsors, said it could become a national model. Under the bill, passed by the House on Thursday and previously approved by the Senate, retailers, food services establishments and hospitals that have 500 or more employees worldwide must give notice of schedules at least seven days in advance as of July 2018, and at least 14 days in advance as of July 2020. Get ready to recreate “I think it’s not just the local community (that will use it). We’ve had a lot of questions from Hermiston and even Pendleton.” Pool and Recreation Center grand opening this weekend By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian A project dreamed up more than 30 years ago will begin drawing people to Boardman this weekend. The Boardman Pool and Recre- ation Center’s grand opening is Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The center features an indoor pool, gyms, exercise equipment and a climbing wall. Parks and Recreation board member Ray Michael said the fi rst plans for the center were drawn up in the 1980s. “Everyone wanted to have it,” he said. “But no one knew how to pay for it,” chimed in parks and recreation secretary Lynn Prag. Building the 43,000-square-foot center would require a bond, but the — Ray Michael, Parks and Recreation board member Staff photo by E.J. Harris The Boardman recreation center’s multi-court gymnasium features a fl oating hardwood fl oor and numerous basketball hoops. hard part was fi guring out how to pay for the center’s yearly operating costs once it was built. In 2013 the parks district commissioned a feasi- bility study and began working with consultants on a plan. In November 2014 the community approved a $12.39 million bond, and the district created a fund using money from sponsors and memberships to pay the center’s operating costs. Boardman only has about 3,400 residents, but booming businesses at the Port of Morrow bring in thousands more commuters during the workweek. Many of the new recreation center’s rooms bear the names of those businesses, and the port itself donated most of the exercise equip- ment. But Prag said there are still naming rights left for some rooms and smaller items. “Our goal was to raise $300,000 and we’re approaching that,” she said. See POOL/8A Don’t let your Fourth go up in fl ames State has struggled to profi t off rangeland By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian See SCHEDULE/2A Fire marshal Tom Bohm said he suspects illegal fi reworks sparked the brush fi re Monday in Hermiston that led to the destruction of a duplex. Witnesses reported hearing what sounded like loud popping or fi re crackers before the blaze, he said, and that would mean they were illegal in Oregon. The Oregon Offi ce of State Fire Marshal in conjunction with the June 23 opening of fi reworks sales in Oregon warned state law “prohibits possession, use, or sale of any fi rework that fl ies into the air, explodes, or travels more than 12 feet horizontally on the ground” without a permit from the state fi re agency. That covers bottle rockets, Roman Candles, and fi recrackers. Cami Satterwhite of Pendleton sells fi reworks and put it this way: “Nothing in Oregon can fl y or go ‘boom.’” Satterwhite operates the fi re- works tent in the parking lot of the By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau doesn’t have bottle rockets or the like, she said she explains to them its the law. They understand, she said, but often ask if she knows where they can buy the illegal fi reworks. SALEM — The nearly 600,000 acres of state rangeland leased to ranchers to graze livestock have struggled quietly to generate a profi t for decades, even as similar management issues involving the Elliott State Forest are a higher priority and have erupted in public controversy. But state lands offi cials say they continue to explore strategies to yield larger returns on eastern grazing lands. In the 2016 fi scal year, it cost the state $1.2 million more to manage its rangeland — a term that can denote grasslands as well as Eastern Oregon’s iconic stretches of sagebrush — than it See SAFETY/8A See LAND/8A Staff photo by E.J. Harris Alaina Mildenberger of Athena hands a fi rework to her daughter, Sydney Carey, 7, as her other daughter, Addison Carey, 10, shops at the fi reworks stand in the Walmart parking lot Thursday in Pendleton. Pendleton Walmart for the Pend- leton Lighthouse Church. She said the church gets all of the fi reworks it sells from two distributors in the Portland area and that helps ensure the pyrotechnics are legal. When customers ask why she
