OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A vehicle crosses the bridge over the Umatilla River at Nolin Grade Road on the first day of fall Friday east of Echo.
CASON: ‘This is such a positive place’ HOSPITAL: Was estimated
to cost $4.3 million to build
Continued from 1A
other members of the non-profit’s
board secured a site and designed
the facility, modeled after the
Dougy Center.
On Sunday, more than 250
people attended an open house
at the center at 1416 SE Court.
Visitors drove from as far away
as Arlington, Ione and Walla
Walla to tour the facility, which
provides peer support groups
for grieving children, teens and
family members.
In the cozy reception room
hangs a photo of Cason and his
sister Lydia, showing from behind
the siblings with their arms around
each other. The image inspired the
Cason’s Place logo.
On one side of the building is
a “talking room” for teens. On
the other side, younger children
will gather twice-monthly to share
difficult feelings with other kids
who are in the same boat. Parents
meet in the building’s conference
room.
The teen talking room, an
oasis of comfy couches, offers a
safe place to share. The room for
younger children has oversized
pillows and teddy bears.
After a chat of 20 minutes or
so, the kids move to activity rooms
designed for their age group and
then regroup for another talking
session.
The Volcano Room offers
teens a place to release tension
by yelling, stomping on bubble
wrap, warring with pool noodles
and engaging in other physical
activity. In another room, they
can don boxing gloves and hit a
punching bag. In the game room,
they play air hockey, foosball or
darts. There’s also an art room.
Spaces designed for younger
children include a volcano room,
art area, paint splatter room,
theater, Lego and sand table room
and a faux hospital room stocked
with toy stethoscopes, syringes,
bandages and scrubs. Different
community members sponsored
each room and helped design
them.
Retired Pendleton High School
counselor Vickie Read, who came
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The elementary art room at Cason’s Place was designed by a
pair of local high school students. The facility offers guests 19
differently themed rooms for grief counseling.
to the open house, marveled at the
center.
“This is such a positive place,”
Read said. “Every room is dedi-
cated to a piece of the healing
process.”
Lydia Terjeson traveled from
her home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho,
for the open house. She hopes
Cason’s Place will help others
heal just as the Dougy Center
aided her and her parents. After
Cason’s death, she felt isolated.
“Most of my friends hadn’t
even had a grandparent die, much
less a brother they saw every
single day. They didn’t know what
to say,” she said. “It was a lonely
feeling.”
Her load lightened at the
Dougy Center. Kids shared their
grief, she said, and no one judged.
Emotions ran the gamut. One girl
who had lost her mother cried a
lot, but also laughed and smiled.
“I learned that grief and happi-
ness aren’t mutually exclusive,”
Lydia said.
Cason’s parents had also gone
to a dark place where just getting
up and getting dressed took
Herculean effort. After work, they
sometimes grabbed blankets and
went to separate corners to nap.
When they started attending an
adult support group at the Dougy
Center, they discovered peers who
understood. The fog started to lift.
“The Dougy Center really
saved our lives,” Lydia said.
Mary Len Rees, of Helix, was
a facilitator at the Dougy Center
and will serve the same role at
Cason’s Place. She finds that
grieving adults and kids find relief
in telling their own stories to peers
who know similar pain.
“Saying it out loud is healing,”
Rees said. “You release emotions
that get trapped like a pressure
cooker. Kids learn to speak about
their loss and then move forward.”
Talking
isn’t
required,
however.
“You can talk or you can pass,”
Matt Terjeson said.
He said Rees is one of 11
facilitators who are ready to go,
though more are needed. The next
training session is Oct. 21-22.
To register for groups, go to
www.casonsplace.org.
Select
“Our Services” and click on “Join
Our Support Group.”
Matt often gets emotional as
he looks around the center named
after his son. He couldn’t be
happier with how it turned out.
“It’s not a big scary place,” he
said. “It’s a welcoming place.”
A place where everybody
knows your name.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@
eastoregonian.com
or
call
541-966-0810.
HERMISTON: Working on improvement plan for infrastructure
Continued from 1A
were increased by 10 percent in
each zone, with a single family
dwelling in an R-1 zone now
allowed to take up 40 percent of
the lot instead of 30, plus another
10 percent for a porch, gazebo or
patio. Front yard setbacks were
also reduced. While garages must
still be 20 feet from the front of a
property, other parts of the home
can now come within 15 feet and
covered porches can come within
10.
Spencer had previously called
Hermiston’s standards more
conservative than in many other
cities, and the planning commis-
sion recommended the changes
the council adopted.
For “infill” properties inside
the city that are surrounded by
other development but face some
constraint such as an unusual
shape, the council adopted a new
program in which owners can
more easily apply for variances.
Spencer said he often sees
properties where an additional
house could be added, but owners
lose interest when they find out
they would face a long process
with
multiple
applications,
multiple hearings and a $420 fee
per variance.
“The cost of doing it is so high
they just walk away,” he said.
For such properties there
will now be a single process in
which all of the applications for
the needed variances could be
combined into one streamlined
process costing $475.
Spencer said the infill program
would only be available for
properties where applicants have
shown that they cannot develop
the property without multiple
variances.
“They have to come in and say
‘There’s no way I can do x, y and
z,’” he said.
Spencer said the other two
barriers that Hermiston faces for
residential development are crit-
ical infrastructure needs and the
high cost of skilled labor. The city
is currently working on a capital
improvement plan for infrastruc-
ture, and Spencer said they were
looking at what they could do for
the labor problem, which is made
difficult by the lack of license
reciprocity agreements between
Oregon and Washington to allow
contractors licensed in one state to
work in the other.
———
Contact Jade McDowell at
jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com
or 541-564-4536.
health system, which has helped
treat people in rural areas, or those
who live too far away to regularly
come to in-person appointments.
“This project will fully round
out and encompass the spectrum
of health care in our community,”
she said.
Robert McGuirk, a consultant
for Lifeways as they prepared
their certificate of need, said it
wasn’t feasible for either of the
hospitals within 50 miles of the
proposed facility (Good Shepherd
in Hermiston and St. Anthony
in Pendleton) to have their own
psychiatric facility.
“It will not have an adverse
impact on existing hospitals,”
he said. “It will contribute to
the overall health of the hospital
system.”
Construction on the facility at
1212 W. Linda Ave., Hermiston is
nearing completion. The building
is on land leased to Lifeways
by Good Shepherd. When first
announced, the project was
estimated to cost $4.3 million to
build and $2.8 million to operate.
Cordeniz said they received seed
money from several entities, as
well as grants, but they would
continue to seek funds for initial
operating costs and furnishing the
building.
The room was crowded with
people from Ontario, Baker City,
The Dalles and La Grande — and
several locals — most of whom
spoke up in support of the facility.
Sarah Sherman, a community
health worker at St. Alphonsus
Medical Center in Ontario, said
many times, their patients have to
be taken 200 or 300 miles away
from home to be treated.
“We lack resources for a mental
health impatient setting,” she
said. “Hermiston is not exactly in
our back yard, but it gives them
another option.”
Two Umatilla County commis-
sioners, Bill Elfering and George
Murdock, spoke in support of
the facility, noting the strain law
enforcement services face without
adequate places to treat mental
health patients.
“Since the facility (Blue
Mountain Recover Center) in
Pendleton closed, hospitals have
some means of taking care, but
most often, they end up in our
holding cells,” Elfering said. “I
think (Aspen Springs’) existence
in the community would prevent
people from getting into situa-
tions if they had a place to go to
be treated.”
The panel also heard from Bob
Joondeph, the executive director
of Disability Rights Oregon. Joon-
deph, who is based in Portland, said
he was not speaking for or against
the facility, but asked the panel to
consider some things before they
decide.
“Our primary attention is to
people’s legal rights,” he said.
“Are care and residential facilities
up to snuff? Can people get out in a
timely manner, and into the appro-
priate service? That can prevent a
person from spiraling into crisis.”
Joondeph said he knew the cost
of services for the facility would be
a major factor, and asked the panel
to consider if the facility was the
best use of funds.
“Is a hospital level of care
absolutely necessary to address
the crisis needs of people in this
area? Will investment in that area
limit services in other areas such
as crisis services? I don’t know
the answer to these questions,” he
said. “But I think they should be
addressed.”
The OHA will accept written
comments about the facility until
Oct. 3 at 5 p.m.
–——
Contact Jayati Ramakrishnan at
541-564-4534 or jramakrishnan@
eastoregonian.com.
UMATILLA: Latest plan for
the transfer of the land is Dec. 1
Continued from 1A
completing all of the necessary
environmental impact studies. But
until the Army transfers the land,
the National Guard is a tenant and
not the property’s owner.
Camp Umatilla is one of four
training centers in the state, all
overseen by Oregon Training
Command. According to the U.S.
Army’s website, it is the “Oregon
National Guard’s 1st Infantry
Training Battalion of the 249th
Regional Training Institute and
the only certified Army infantry
training academy west of the
Mississippi River in the continental
United States.”
Hoback said the land transfer will
likely lead to a moderate increase in
staffing and other activity out at the
camp, including some units doing
their annual training there during
the summer.
“I think it’s going to be good for
the community,” he said.
He said the people using the base
will be Oregonians’ “neighbors and
friends” instead of people coming
in from out of state.
After years of delays, the latest
plan is for the transfer of the depot
land to happen on Dec. 1. About
7,400 acres will go to the Oregon
Military Department, while about
5,600 acres will become a wildlife
refuge and approximately 4,000
acres will be used for industrial,
agricultural and right of way
development. The transportation
package passed by the state legis-
lature this year sets aside money
for the Columbia Development
Authority to improve access to the
depot from Interstate 82.
———
Contact Jade McDowell at
jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com or
541-564-4536.