OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Richardson accused of conflict
of interest in provider tax repeal
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
PORTLAND – The Oregon
Nurses Association has accused
Secretary of State Dennis Rich-
ardson of having a conflict of
interest in a proposed ballot measure
to repeal a health care tax plan.
The association has asked to
Richardson, who oversees all
statewide elections, to disclose any
and all political and financial ties he
has with Rep. Julie Parrish, R-West
Linn. Parrish is spearheading the
repeal initiative and is a political
consultant paid by the Richardson
campaign. The association also
demanded that Richardson recuse
himself from any business involving
the proposed repeal.
“It is unusual and possibly
unprecedented for a sitting secretary
of state and a state legislator who
is also a political consultant and
chief petitioner of a referendum,
which the secretary will oversee, to
have significant financial ties,” the
association stated in a July 24 letter
to Richardson. “This combination
of personal, political and financial
connections poses a potential conflict
of interest that the Secretary of State’s
Office must immediately address.”
Richardson said the association’s
“allegation of conflicts of interest
are specious and unfounded.”
“I am committed to fairness to all
and favoritism to none in the conduct
of Oregon elections,” Richardson
said in a statement Monday, July 24.
He added that his staff in the elections
divisions “are fair and unbiased.”
Richardson reported payments
to Parrish’s political consulting
firm of nearly $330,000 during his
campaign for Secretary of State. His
campaign continues to pay Parrish a
$1,000 monthly retainer for political
consulting services, ONA noted.
Parrish’s firm also donated more than
$20,000 to Richardson’s campaign.
Parrish claimed the association’s
accusations of a conflict of interest
are politically motivated. She noted
that Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland,
who sits on the legislative committee
that sponsored the health care tax
plan, is an employee of ONA. The
ONA “spent thousands of dollars
to seat” Nosse and ONA political
action committee board member
Rep. Sheri Malstrom, D-Beaverton.
“It’s unfortunate to see the
WEDDING: Couple
will live in Hermiston
Oregon Nurses Association bring
politics to a new low,” Parrish said
in a statement Monday.
The Oregon Legislature enacted
the $550 million health care tax
plan as a way to offset a $1.4 billion
shortfall in the state’s two-year
budget. Lawmakers from both
parties supported the tax scheme,
saying it would allow thousands of
low-income residents to remain in
the state Medicaid program.
The plan hikes taxes on hospitals
and levies a new tax on health insur-
ance plans. Gov. Kate Brown signed
the legislation into law July 3.
Parrish said ONA benefits from
the legislation because there is an
exemption from the insurance tax
for unions that self-insure.
Rachel Prusak, a Portland
nurse practitioner and member of
ONA, said the association wants
all of the correspondence and other
documents showing a relationship
between Richardson and Parrish to
be available for public viewing. She
said the letter sent Monday was not
a formal public records request, but
such a request could be a secondary
measure if Richardson doesn’t publi-
cize the records on his own accord.
Sunday morning as the two professed their love.
Abell said she and Cripe first got to know
each at the tender ages of four and six. Later,
they shared a fleeting stint as boyfriend and
girlfriend during their seventh- and eighth-
grade years at the Hermiston Junior Academy in
Hermiston. They stayed pals for decades. Abell
lost her husband to cancer a couple of years
ago. Cripe, hoping to buoy her spirits, invited
his friend to last year’s Bike Week.
By Saturday of Bike Week 2016, their
relationship had shifted into overdrive. Neither
quite understood how it happened and they
didn’t waste much time trying to figure it out.
“It just is,” Cripe said.
It seemed natural, he said, to tie the knot
during Bike Week amid leather-clad bikers and
the throaty growls of their motorcycles eddying
around them.
Though the wedding was unconventional,
when officiant Sandy Smith pronounced the
couple husband and wife, Abell and Cripe
responded in the time-honored way. They
embraced and kissed. Then they fist-pumped,
and the guests cheered.
The couple will live in Hermiston, where
Cripe does custodial and grounds maintenance
work at Hermiston’s branch of Blue Mountain
Community College.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@eastorego-
nian.com or call 541-966-0810.
MOONEY: ‘We have a little healing
and rebuilding to do as a staff’
Continued from 1A
In 2008, Mooney moved to the
Pendleton School District to serve
as the director of human resources,
and was hired as assistant superin-
tendent there in 2009. She returned
to the Hermiston School District
last year.
Mooney said her priority for the
district was to guide it through a
transitional period.
“We have a little healing and
rebuilding to do as a staff,” she
said.
She cited her familiarity with
the district, staff and community
as positives, as well as her invest-
ment in the schools as both a staff
member and parent.
Mooney also discussed her
experience with employee hand-
books and evaluations, policy
review and union negotiations.
“I’m passionate about the
district,” she said. “I have the
ability to look at things from
different perspectives.”
Mooney said it is important to
support teachers and staff as they
face growing class sizes, while
continuing to explore the possi-
bility of re-introducing a bond to
upgrade facilities.
“We’ve begun that process
and gone out to the community,”
she said. “We know we might
have some bigger class sizes ... at
this point some trust needs to be
rebuilt.”
When board members asked
Mooney whether she had any
questions for them, she asked what
they were looking for in an interim
superintendent.
Board members said they hoped
to find someone who would not just
maintain the district, but actively
move it forward.
“I want someone who will help
us be in a better spot 18 months
from now,” said board member
Ginny Holthus.
The other two candidates
interviewed via Skype. The first,
Richard Rundhaug, is an education
consultant in Phoenix, Arizona. He
had previously served as a super-
intendent for the Willcox Unified
School District, and an assistant
superintendent for the Coolidge
Unified School District.
Brazeau was the principal of
Hermiston High School from July
2007 to June 2012, and recently
retired as the superintendent of
the Central School District 13J in
Independence.
New events provide summer boon for local businesses
One event has dominated
Pendleton for so long that
the town’s nickname is the
Round-Up city.
Although no event is likely
to match the cultural importance
of the world-famous rodeo, the
one-two punch of the Pendleton
Whisky Music Fest and Pend-
leton Bike Week is starting to
see the same kind of tourism
impact outside of September.
Pendleton
Bike
Week
co-founder Eric Folkestad was
still crunching the numbers
the day after the multi-day
motorcycle rally ended, but he
estimated that there was a 25
percent increase in registrations
from the year before. In 2016,
16,000 people participated in
bike week over four days.
By the time whisky fest
welcomed Maroon 5 and a
slew of openers July 15, the
concert’s organizers had already
announced it was sold-out show,
the 16,500 tickets sold repre-
senting a 30 percent increase
from the inaugural event.
Some local businesses are
reaping the rewards from the
larger crowd.
Prodigal Son Pub & Brewery
owner Tim Guenther said there’s
always been more to Pendleton
then Round-Up, with whisky
fest and bike week representing
the latest addition to the event
calendar.
Since whisky fest is mostly
condensed into one day, Guen-
ther said the concert was the
closest to matching the fervor
of the Round-Up, although bike
week was also creating business
that was competitive with the
rodeo.
Guenther said both the
motorcycle rally and the concert
are all-hands-on-deck events
that require Prodigal Son to
pare down its menu to meet the
demands of the customer surge.
“They’re focused more on
production and less on your
creativity,” he said.
For Pendleton Convention
Center Manager Pat Beard,
these are exactly the type of
events he would like to see in
Pendleton.
“It’s how I would like it to
function on a regular basis,” he
said.
The convention center hosted
bike week and is also next door
to the whisky fest venue at the
Round-Up arena. Regardless of
whether the convention center
hosts anything or not, the fact
that both events attracted signif-
icant out-of-town visitors meant
the center saw a benefit through
the city’s two hotel room taxes.
Beard compared the July
events to the ongoing wheat
harvest — it might be noisier
and busier than usual around
the area, but the outcome means
more economic benefits for
Pendleton.
With both events still
relatively new (whisky fest is
two years old while bike week
just wrapped up its third year),
Beard said there are still some
kinks for Pendleton to work out,
like some of the traffic issues
and convincing local businesses
to stay open longer during the
events.
In the meantime, organizers
for both bike week and whisky
fest are happy with their 2017
results.
Folkestad, the bike week
organizer, said both new sponsor
Harley Davidson and concert
OMSI: Plans to return to the SAGE Center next year
Continued from 1A
blueberry juice change in color.
Rebecca Reilly, OMSI’s
food science educator, has a
background in middle school
education, giving her experience
coming up with science-themed
activities in short time frames.
Reilly said this was OMSI’s
first year coming to Boardman
and was using their SAGE
Center trip as a trial run for
its new agricultural exhibits.
They’ll continue to tour with
these exhibits at the county
fairs in Lincoln and Benton
counties before returning to
Portland.
Using feedback from the first
year, OMSI plans to return to
the SAGE Center next year with
bigger and better exhibits. Reilly
said this was all in the interest of
getting kids interested in where
their food comes from.
Although not officially apart
of its food science exhibits,
a digital upgrade to a classic
school science project was also
taking its first tour around the
state.
Instead of grocery store-
bought products and the poten-
tial for mess, OMSI’s egg drop
incorporates weighted, plastic
eggs that kids are instructed to
drop onto a swatch of carpet.
Once the egg is dropped, sensors
in the egg transmit information
on the height and velocity of the
egg to a computer that provides
a readout on whether the egg
survived the fall or not.
The egg drop rarely saw
time where it wasn’t being
used, as kids tried to use the
paper plates, pipe cleaners and
other protective products to try
to save their plastic eggs from
digitally cracking.
Along with some of its new
exhibits, OMSI also displayed
some of its old favorites like
an animal fur and skeleton
touching station, a small replica
dinosaur skeleton that can be
taken apart and reassembled
and a variety of brain teasers
Page 9A
PENDLETON
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Continued from 1A
East Oregonian
headliner Grand Funk Railroad
were pleased with the reception
they got at the rally.
Bikers were apparently happy
as well, filling the convention
center to a standing-room only
capacity for the final day of the
poker run drawing, Folkestad
said
The 2018 bike week is
already set to start July 18.
Whisky fest co-organizer
Doug Corey said it was unclear
how Pendleton would react
to a non-country act, but with
a sellout crowd showing up
for Maroon 5, organizers are
already planning for another
whisky fest in 2018.
Besides selling more tickets,
organizers were also able to
iron out the alcohol vendor wait
times and accessibility issues
that sometimes plagued the
concert last year.
Having already received
questions about how whisky
fest will top this year’s event,
Corey said the goal is to at least
match the experience.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com or
541-966-0836.
PERS: Gov. Brown
has suggested
selling state assets
Continued from 1A
Photo by Antonio Sierra
OMSI outreach educator Brad Alston helps reassemble a replica dinosaur skeleton model at
the SAGE Center Saturday.
Photo by Antonio Sierra
Conner Burleson of Hermiston looks at his dropped eggs as
his father Josh watches at the SAGE Center Saturday.
that stump adults and children
alike.
OMSI outreach educator
Brad Alston said some adults
will stick with a brain teaser
— like an exhibit that requires
people to try to fit a bunch of
T-shaped plates into a square —
all day to solve it.
“They’ll come up to me and
say, ‘Please tell me the answer
so I can go home,’” he said.
Regardless of their difficulty,
parents and children alike
signaled their approval for the
OMSI event.
Abbigail Burleson, 7, of
Hermiston said she liked the
berry ink exhibit and the egg
drop in addition to the tractor
downstairs in the SAGE Center
museum.
As Jane Waldher of Athena
watched her two-year-old son
Luke play with some magnetic
rings in an exhibit, she said agri-
cultural education was a must
for the children of the region.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com or
541-966-0836.
The group faces one aspect of what’s been
a pernicious point of contention for state
policymakers in the past two decades.
The 2017 legislative session concluded
earlier this month without significant
modifications to PERS — a casualty of a
contentious session where many Republi-
cans called primarily for spending reforms,
including curtailing public employee benefits,
while many Democrats sought business tax
increases.
Legislators, for their part, can only make
changes to the system going forward.
The governor’s task force, though, is not
addressing the issue of what public employees
will receive in the future.
Rather, it is looking at how the state can
pay down a chunk of what it expects to owe,
a sizable amount of which public employees
have already earned and lawmakers cannot
modify.
The group has divided the system into
roughly seven “buckets” — universities and
community colleges; K-12 schools; public
corporations such as the Oregon Liquor
Control Commission; state agencies; cities;
counties; and special districts, fire districts
and transit.
Brown has suggested selling state assets,
although she has said certain properties, such
as prisons and state parks, are off the table.
Possible assets could include properties such
as the “buffer zones” around state prisons or
youth correctional facilities.
It’s also possible that the state could also
enter into public-private partnerships or cut
back on property costs in other ways, such
as by moving certain state offices to lower-
rent areas.
And the task force is also looking at the
financial feasibility of specific revenue streams,
such as a dedicated surcharge on certain license
fees, to help pay down the system’s obligations.
Task force members appeared to agree
Monday that they should focus their work
— expected to culminate in a report due to
the governor by Nov. 1 — on big-ticket items
that can reduce the liability significantly, in
order to get to the $5 billion figure.
The next meeting of the PERS unfunded
actuarial liability task force is scheduled for
Aug. 28.