Page 14A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, October 7, 2017
RIVER: Riverfront Park is next to Oxbow site GUNS: Democrats
prepare for legislature
Continued from 1A
invasive garlic mustard —
not to mention old barbed
wire fences and litter — from
the site on a regular basis.
The bureau welcomes help
from any group willing to
take on a service project on
the Oxbow site.
“There has been a lot of
behind-the-scenes work that
didn’t get much recognition,”
he said.
There have been other
people who have been detri-
mental to the area, however.
Illegal homeless camps along
the river disrupt habitats, and
this summer a group of chil-
dren allegedly sparked a fire
that burned near the Oxbow
Trail, which allows some
recreational use through a
piece of the Oxbow site.
Beyond planting trees and
fighting weeds, the bureau
would like to create a wetland
enhancement area on Umatilla
River’s former path, where
water still rushes during a
flood. The bureau has mostly
left the river itself alone, other
than an in-stream lease that
keeps some of the bureau’s
water in the river.
Next door to the Oxbow
site is Riverfront Park, where
manicured lawns and asphalt
trails place the emphasis
on recreation. Tai Ly, who
was making his way slowly
around the trail on Tuesday
while using the exercise
stations, said he spends about
an hour and a half at the park
multiple times per week. He
enjoys the health benefits
provided by the park.
“I just found out about
it three years ago,” he said.
“Before that I just go to work
and come home.”
On the south side of
Riverfront Park lies a stretch
of riverbank known as Steel-
head Park, which the city of
Hermiston recently acquired
from the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife. Parks
and recreation director Larry
Fetter said it was a “big
victory for Hermiston” to
open up another half mile
of land along the Umatilla
Continued from 1A
in this manner.
Another would expand
the types of relationships
that qualify for gun dispos-
session after a domestic
violence conviction, which
would close what is often
called the “boyfriend” or
“dating partner” loophole.
The governor’s proposal
would also prohibit people
convicted of misdemeanor
stalking from buying fire-
arms.
“I look forward to
working with the Legisla-
ture to finish what we started
last session and close the
Charleston and boyfriend
loopholes for good,” Brown
said in a written statement
to the press Friday morning.
“These policies will keep
guns out of the wrong hands
and help keep our promise
to families across the state
to keep our communities
safe.”
Brown, a Democrat, is
running for re-election in
2018.
Oregon House Majority
Leader Jennifer Williamson,
D-Portland, indicated her
support for the governor’s
proposals Friday.
“For the safety of every
Oregonian, it is vital that
we ensure guns do not
end up in the hands of
individuals who would
do harm to themselves or
others,” Wiliamson said
in a prepared statement. “I
look forward to working
with Gov. Brown in the
coming months to close the
Charleston and boyfriend
loopholes.”
A
spokesman
for
Williamson said she was
“out of pocket” and unavail-
able to comment Friday on
the viability of the legisla-
tion in the upcoming short
session, or why it failed in
2017.
A spokesman for Senate
President Peter Courtney,
D-Salem, did not respond to
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Pine trees grow in a stand on the Oxbow site west of Hermiston. The trees were
part of a planting of 7,000 meant to help rehabilitate the property.
River to public access.
“We live in an arid, dry
area and so people want to
enjoy what access to water
they can,” Fetter said.
Unlike Riverfront Park,
Fetter said development
of Steelhead Park will be
more passive, leaving most
of the property untamed for
activities like fishing and
nature walks. There will be
some parking, and one of
the conditions of ODFW
relinquishing the land to the
city was that the city would
create an access point for
people to bring innertubes,
kayaks, paddleboards and
other recreational equipment
into the river.
Fetter said the city will
create a companion access
ramp near the Recycled
Water Treatment Plant
roughly three miles down-
stream for people floating
down the river to exit again
on public property.
One of the city’s primary
reasons for taking over owner-
ship of the five-acre stretch
of riverbank was to build the
planned Highland Extension
trail through the edge of the
park that sits under the Bridge
Road bridge. The pedestrian
trail will run parallel to High-
land Avenue. Looping the trail
under the bridge will allow
users to connect with the
Riverfront Park and Oxbow
trail systems without crossing
the road.
Fetter said having the trail
through there should help
deter illicit activity, including
homeless camps and graffiti.
The city will remove some
vegetation on that edge of
the property to make it more
visible to the road, increasing
safety for park users. But
Fetter said beyond replacing
some of the invasive plant
species with native ones,
much of the vegetation at
Steelhead Park will remain in
order to preserve habitat for
wildlife and shade the river.
Several miles down-
stream, the city of Umatilla
is working on a parks master
plan that includes projects
along the river. Community
development director Tamra
Mabbott said the city would
like to add more trails to the
one that runs behind the high
school as well as “informal
footpaths.” The city also
plans to use a $5,000 grant
from Umatilla County Public
Health to remove some
Russian olive trees.
“Through town is some
of the most popular fishing
areas, and this will open up
more access along there,”
Mabbott said.
Since Russian olive trees
do help shade the river and
foster fish habitat, Mabbott
said any work to tear up vege-
tation along the river would
be done in consultation with
the tribes and ODFW to
make sure the project isn’t
doing more harm than good.
Elected officials over
the years, including city
manager Russ Pelleberg and
county commissioner Larry
Givens, have had a dream of
connecting Echo, Stanfield,
Hermiston and Umatilla
with one long trail along the
Umatilla River. Mabbott said
that dream is still a long ways
off, and faces a lot of poten-
tial roadblocks, particularly
along River Road.
“I don’t think physically
a trail could fit between the
roadway and river in some
places,” she said.
She said she welcomes
comments from the public,
however, on how a potential
trail might look.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
requests seeking comment
about why the legislation
did not pass in 2017.
State
Sen.
Ginny
Burdick, D-Portland, a
leading advocate for gun
control, was unavailable for
comment Friday afternoon,
a spokesman said.
Burdick told Oregon
Public Broadcasting on
Friday that “we should be
aiming for bills that have
broad bipartisan support,”
but that she would vote
for the proposals if they
reached the Senate floor.
Penny Okamoto, exec-
utive director of CeaseFire
Oregon, a group that advo-
cates for stricter standards
for gun ownership and gun
safety, said it wasn’t clear to
her why the legislation did
not pass in 2017.
“I could not tell you
why a Democratic gover-
nor’s priority could not
get through a Democratic
House and a Democratic
Senate,” Okamoto said
Friday. Democrats hold the
majority in both chambers.
In the 2017 session,
which concluded in July,
lawmakers passed a bill that
created a process for tempo-
rarily taking firearms away
from people who were at
risk of committing suicide.
Despite passing both
chambers, it was not
without objection.
Two
Republican
lawmakers sought to refer
the legislation to the ballot,
but announced Thursday
they had not gathered
sufficient signatures in time
for the Secretary of State’s
deadline.
Brown’s main chal-
lenger, State Rep. Knute
Buehler, R-Bend, was
quoted in The Bulletin —
the paper of record in Bend
— this week saying that
“deranged madmen won’t
be deterred by another new
law no matter how well-in-
tended.”
JOBS: ‘Those servers need work 24 hours. It’s shift work’
Continued from 1A
McMichael said they have
programs that can help
students get into that field,
such as industrial mainte-
nance.
“A lot of people want to
be electricians, and there’s a
lot of need, but somehow that
doesn’t match up,” he said.
“A lot of people choose an
electrician out of their main-
tenance department. One
way to get into the field is
to get into maintenance, and
be poised and ready as soon
as an electrical internship
comes open.”
McMichael
said
an
introductory class will give
students an overview of the
types of careers available
to them, but they don’t start
doing hands-on work until
they pick a specific program.
But the program is open
to those still exploring their
options, too.
“That’s part of the way
we designed the program,”
he said. “There are very few
prerequisites. You can do a
two-year program, or you can
take one class. We’re really
trying to be accessible — the
majority of our students are
working full-time.”
McMichael said the
Industrial Systems Tech-
nology program is in its third
year, but really only became
fully functional this fall.
He
also
discussed
BMCC’s industrial auto-
mation program, showing
students a robot that uses
a mechanical arm to drop
metal or plastic pucks into a
cylinder, and uses sensors to
sort them by size.
“Industry, for better or
for worse, doesn’t like to
hire people,” he said. “It’s
expensive. If they can do an
automated system instead of
a living person, they’re going
to do that instead.”
The problem, he said, is
that those systems are not
completely automated —
they still need someone to
push a button to turn the
machine on.
And, the students discov-
ered, to deal with glitches.
“System malfunction,”
McMichael
observed.
“That’s why they need main-
tenance techs.”
The students then heard
Staff photo by Jayati Ramakrishnan
Caitlyn Scrivner takes apart a computer at Manufac-
turing Day at the Port of Morrow. High schoolers from
around the county learned about different industrial
jobs in the area.
from Pete Hernberg, a
math and computer science
instructor who oversees
BMCC’s data center tech-
nician program. Hernberg
explained the purpose of a data
center, and showed students a
small one on site at the Work-
force Training Center.
“If you think about all the
apps on your phone, when
you like a photo on Face-
book, search for something
on Google or buy something
on Amazon — all those apps
are talking to servers in some
data center somewhere,”
he said. “Those servers are
talking to your phone, and
keep data.”
It’s not just apps, he
added. Data centers are used
for everything from health
care to government services.
“All of those depend on
these data centers,” he said.
Though the server on the
Workforce Training Center
campus only took up one
rack, Hernberg told students
most data centers will have
tens of thousands of them,
filling buildings the size of
football fields.
“But the basic compo-
nents are all here,” he said.
“Network cabling, power
distribution.”
Students who go through
the program will emerge
Staff photo by Jayati Ramakrishnan
Students from around Morrow County observe a robot to
learn about industrial automation at Manufacturing Day.
qualified for entry level
information technology jobs,
Hernberg said.
To give them an idea
of what they’d be dealing
with, Hernberg had supplied
several computers, and had
groups of students take them
apart to see the functions and
locations of different parts.
He showed them the heat
sink, which distributes the
heat a computer generates.
He had them find, and
remove, the two sticks of
RAM, or Random Access
Memory, the computer’s
short-term memory.
Though they couldn’t
access the hard drive, Hern-
berg handed them each a
separate one and asked them
to find a way to connect it to
the computer.
Ruben Leon, an Irrigon
student, quickly connected
his hard drive to the correct
cables.
“I build my own PCs,”
he said. “I like computers. I
want to go into IT.”
His deskmate, Roberto
Ayala, had different plans.
“I want to go into an elec-
trician apprenticeship,” he
said. “I like hands-on stuff, I
like being out and interacting
with people.”
Hernberg also talked to
students about some of the
pros and cons of the field.
“I think students really
appreciate a place where you
can get an entry-level job
and it pays well,” he said.
“If you’re a 23-year-old and
you’re getting paid $25 an
hour, it feels pretty good.”
But those in the field may
find themselves working odd
hours.
“Facebook
runs
24
hours,” he said. “Those
servers need work 24 hours.
It is shiftwork.”
The event gave students a
chance to start thinking about
what’s available to them, even
if they have a few years to go.
“Basically, I want to work
with people, and to know
about the things I do every
day,” said Caitlyn Scrivner,
a junior from Heppner. “I use
my phone every day. I want
to know about it.”
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