REGION
Saturday, July 15, 2017
East Oregonian
EO wins top prize in state newspaper contest
Plaven, Harris, McDowell,
Trainor win individual
first place awards
East Oregonian
The East Oregonian took home
seven first place honors including the
top prize — General Excellence — at
the Oregon Newspaper Publishers
Association conference in Bend.
The contest was judged by news-
papers in Pennsylvania and the EO
competed against other daily Oregon
newspapers with circulations less
than 10,000.
Reporter George Plaven and
photojournalist E.J. Harris each
earned two individual top honors for
work done in 2016.
Plaven’s awards came for person-
ality feature “Westward Tow!” and
government reporting in “Dock
Dumped.”
In the personality feature, Plaven
profiled tow truck driver Chris
Clark, who patrolled Pendleton in
the early morning hours before the
iconic Westward Ho! parade during
Round-Up week on “barely two
hours of sleep and a travel mug filled
with coffee.” With some help, Clark
took 52 cars off the street that would
have disrupted the parade.
In the government reporting cate-
gory, Plaven wrote about an ill-fated
barge dock on the Columbia River in
Gilliam County that was supposed to
collect trash from Portland and Seattle
to send to Waste Management’s
Columbia Ridge Landfill south of
Arlington. After a clumsy go-ahead
from the federal government, the dock
was later determined to interfere with
tribal fisheries had to be removed,
with the Port of Arlington stuck with
a $2 million bill for construction and
engineering work.
Harris swept the news photography
category, including first place for
the photo of a wreck that shut down
Highway 730 near Hat Rock, and won
the sports reporting category for his
coverage of the Pendleton Round-Up.
Jade McDowell claimed the top
award for spot news reporting for
Page 3A
Non-ag
burn ban
likely for
Umatilla
County
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Bullfighter Dusty Tuckness attempts to distract the bull White Clay while Tim Brigham of Honeyville,
Utah, attempts to free himself from his rigging during bull riding Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, at the Pendleton
Round-Up. This picture won best sports photo at the 2017 ONPA awards.
Plaven
Harris
her coverage of a fire on the Umatilla
Army Depot that covered nearby
Interstate 82 in smoke, resulting in a
series of serious wrecks. McDowell
was one of the first people on scene
and applied first aid to an injured
motorcyclist. She included a column
with the news report about the expe-
rience and the dilemma of becoming
part of the story.
Opinion page editor Tim Trainor
won the best editorial award for work
McDowell
on the topics of the Malheur Wildlife
Refuge standoff, legalized marijuana
in Pendleton and the growing number
of wolves in Oregon.
The General Excellence award,
which the EO has won in six of the
past seven years, is judged based on
the overall product, from news and
editorial content to photos and design
to advertising and reproduction. The
samples are taken from three random
editions throughout the year.
PILOT ROCK
City considers fines
for unsterilized cats
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Allowing unsterilized cats to roam
free in Pilot Rock could get expensive.
The city council plans to consider
regulations dealing with the town’s
growing population of stray cats when
it meets Tuesday at 7 p.m.
The council on June 6 heard from
citizens concerned about strays, and
Cindy Spiess of the Pendleton Animal
Welfare Shelter and Cat Utopia
suggested the town adopt a local law
akin to Pendleton’s. Pilot Rock city
recorder Teri Porter in a memo to the
council stated that staff relied on Pend-
leton’s regulations to develop the plan.
The new regulations would make it
unlawful to allow an unsterilized cat
five months or older to remain outdoors
in Pilot Rock. The first offense carries
a fine of $25-$125, the second carries
a fine of $50-$250, and a third hits the
wallet for $50-$500.
The council heard the first reading
for the new law on June 20.
Dogs are also on the council’s
agenda. Nicole Grimes of Pilot Rock
wants to talk to the council about an
issue with the town’s dog licensing
requirements, which exempt guide dogs
for the blind from licensing but not
other service dogs.
The council also is voting on a reso-
lution to authorize the city to receive a
loan of more than $3.9 million from the
United States Department of Agriculture
for the wastewater lagoon projects. And
contracting with the Umatilla County
Sheriff’s Office for dispatch services
also is up for a vote. Under the deal,
Pilot Rock would pay $9,000 this year
for the services, and then $3,000 more
each year until the city is paying its full
amount of approximately $20,641.
Trainor
“In many ways the news business
has changed dramatically in the past
decade,” said managing editor Daniel
Wattenburger. “I’m proud to be part
of a team that continues to commit to
a high-quality print newspaper week
in and week out, year after year.”
Kathryn Brown, publisher of the
EO, said she was impressed by the
variety of work that was awarded,
which included news videos and
websites, photography and writing.
The EO earned second place
awards in headline writing (Drew
Langton), best writing (Kathy
Aney), multimedia element (E.J.
Harris) and third place awards for
best special section (Round-Up
magazine), business and economic
reporting (George Plaven), lifestyle
coverage (Phil Wright), photo essay
(E.J. Harris) and web project (Happy
Canyon specialty site).
UMATILLA
City council to vote on rezoning 190 acres
Would create space for
development by Amazon
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
The Umatilla City Council
will consider two actions Tuesday
that would help clear the way for
new development by Amazon.
Vadata, the subsidiary under
which Amazon does business in
Umatilla County, has requested
that the city annex 269 acres off
Lind Road into the city limits and
rezone 190 of those acres from
Umatilla County’s classification
of F-1 exclusive farm use to the
city’s light industrial zone desig-
nation.
The 190 acres, located
between Lind Road and Umatilla
River Road just south of Power
City, are inside the city’s urban
growth boundary and had been
designated in the city’s compre-
hensive plan for residential and
natural resource use.
The city’s planning commis-
sion held a hearing June 27,
and the city council will hold
one Tuesday during its 7 p.m.
meeting at city hall.
Online retail powerhouse
Amazon has been adding new
data centers around Umatilla
County and Morrow County at
a rapid pace. Each new center
provides roughly 40 jobs with
an average salary of $68,000 per
year.
Earlier this year the company
purchased land off of Westland
Road west of Hermiston, and the
Umatilla County Commission
approved a change of zone there
from exclusive farm use to light
industrial. If the property off Lind
Road is annexed into the city of
Umatilla, the city won’t need
the county’s approval to make
a similar zoning adjustment.
Annexation will also move
the property from the Umatilla
County Sheriff’s Office to the city
of Umatilla’s police department.
In the city manager’s report
attached to the July 18 agenda,
city manager Russ Pelleberg
recommended passage of the
annexation and rezoning/plan
amendment ordinances to help
“a major company looking to
build within the city limits of
Umatilla.”
The city council will also hold
a work session at 5:30 p.m. to do
training on the “legal powers and
impediments affecting elected
officials.”
———
Contact Jade McDowell at
jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com
or 541-564-4536.
Edward Jones wins award for client innovation
East Oregonian
The financial services firm
Edward Jones won the technology
category for large broker/dealers
at the 2016 WealthManagement.
com Industry Awards.
The award recognized Edward
Jones for being the first large
financial services firm to introduce
two-way texting with clients
that meets industry regulations,
a challenge some in the industry
assumed insurmountable. The
organization introduced two-way
texting with clients in late 2015,
leveraging existing messaging
features available to branches.
After clients verify their phone
number and opt in to their preferred
services, they can begin texting
with Edward Jones, receive alerts
and get appointment reminders on
their cell phones. Nearly half of
financial advisors now have texted
with clients, with all communica-
tions archived and monitored for
compliance purposes.
“This is something our clients,
especially younger clients, want,”
said Kacie Levy of Hermiston.
Edward Jones, Levy said, seeks
to deliver excellent service by
meeting client needs, including
communicating and doing busi-
ness in ways that are most conve-
A A A O R E G O N/I DA H O 2 01 8 P R E S I D E NT ’ S C R U I S E
CAPTIVATING RHINE RIVER
nient for clients. By doing this, she
said it helps clients in meeting their
most important financial goals.
The 2016 WealthManagement.
com Industry Awards recognize
outstanding achievement, innova-
tion and support among vendors
and suppliers serving the financial
advisor industry. In its second year,
the awards were distributed to 51
firms in the wealth management
and asset management space, out
of 300 companies that applied and
400 nominations.
There are several Edward Jones
financial advisors in Hermiston
and Pendleton. To learn more, visit
www.edwardjones.com.
The Board of Commis-
sioners will consider passing
a non-agriculture burn ban in
Umatilla County.
Gina Miller, the staff
liaison for the county’s smoke
management
committee,
asked the board in a memo
to impose the ban as soon as
possible.
The county is experi-
encing wildfire conditions,
Miller said, and Pendleton,
the Umatilla Indian Reser-
vation and Umatilla County
Fire District have burn bans
in place now.
The
board
meets
Wednesday at 9 a.m. in room
130 at the Umatilla County
Courthouse, 216 S.E. Fourth
St., Pendleton.
The county board also will
consider an order transferring
ambulance services from the
East Umatilla County Health
District to the new East
Umatilla County Ambulance
Area Health District, which
voters approved in the
November election.
And the board will
consider approving the
county’s four-year plan for
preventative maintenance.
Commissioner
George
Murdock is keen on the plan.
He has said local government
during times of tight budgets
too often ignore maintenance,
which leads to more expen-
sive repairs later.
Under the plan, the county
would spend $151,000 this
fiscal year on 18 maintenance
projects, ranging from a low
end of $150 for parking lot
striping to highs of $25,000
for a new roof on the main-
tenance shop and $50,000
to replacing the parking lot
there.
For fiscal year 2018-19,
the county projected spending
$197,100 on 11 projects,
including $114,000 to replace
the floor at the Umatilla
County Sheriff’s Office. And
for 2019-20, seven projects
would costs $109,560, with
painting the exterior of the
county jail topping the list at
$34,480.
The fourth year of the plan
has one project: replacing
the roof at the county jail for
$350,000.
Hermiston-area
businesses invited
to Chamber 101
East Oregonian
Hermiston-area business
owners who are not sure
if a chamber of commerce
membership is right for them
are invited to a Chamber 101
event next Thursday.
The event is for prospective
Greater Hermiston Area
Chamber of Commerce
members who want to learn
more about how a chamber
of commerce can help their
business, and for current
chamber members who are
looking for ways to better use
their membership benefits.
The workshop will be
from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at the
Hermiston Conference Center,
415 S. Highway 395. To RSVP
call 541-567-6151 or visit
www.hermistonchamber.com.
They each won a prize package to
see Maroon 5 in concert at the
Pendleton Whisky Music Fest .
Thank you to everyone who entered our sweepstakes!
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Cathy Williams,
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Aubbree Padilla, Hermiston,
(her friend Whitney Paul pictured)
Audrey Harshman,
Hermiston
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