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East Oregonian
OSU: 25 of 36 counties have service districts
Continued from 1A
tion, and $10 per $1,000 for
general government.
If the cap is exceeded, a
taxpayer’s payment to each
entity gets squeezed down in
a process known as compres-
sion. Pelleberg said the city is
already bumping against the
cap, and levying an additional
tax could impact funding
for other projects to support
growth and development.
“There are a lot of major
projects on the books,”
Pelleberg said. “I think the
council members ultimately
decided any additional
taxes that would burden our
community should benefit
the entire community, not
just a portion of it.”
The decision was not
unanimous.
Councilors
Selene Torres-Medrano and
Roak TenEyck both voted in
favor of sending the district to
the voters. Instead, Corp said
the city would be excluded
from the district boundaries
if it passes.
“If they want services
from Extension Service in
that city, there would be
some sort of additional fee
associated with it, since they
would no longer be providing
tax dollars in support of that
district,” Corp said.
Heidi Sipe, Umatilla
School District superinten-
dent, said the district does
partner with OSU Extension
Service on after-school and
nutrition programs that may
be affected.
“If those services are not
provided to Umatilla schools,
that definitely leaves a gap,”
Sipe said.
Sipe said the school
district was not consulted by
the city prior to its vote, but
they will respect the decision
moving forward.
Stable funding
According
to
OSU
figures,
the
Extension
Service districts would raise
more than $1 million annu-
ally in Umatilla County and
$462,000 in Morrow County.
Corp said that would help
provide stable funding not
only for the extension offices
in both counties, but for
the Hermiston Agricultural
Research and Extension
Center and Columbia Basin
Agricultural Research Center
north of Pendleton.
Between 4-H, Extension
Service and the two research
stations, OSU estimates its
programs receive 99,000
contacts every year across
both counties. However,
Corp said they are struggling
to keep up due to declining
state and federal support.
If the service district
passes in Umatilla County,
Corp said OSU Extension
would be able to take two
part-time positions in the
4-H and master gardener
programs and make them full
time, which would increase
their offerings and outreach.
Claire Sponseller, county
leader with OSU Extension
and 4-H youth development,
said she serves just under 600
kids and 175-200 volunteers.
“Really, that would be
huge, just to have another
hand to help deliver
programs,” Sponseller said.
4-H is more than just tradi-
tional livestock and cooking
classes, Sponseller said. Kids
can participate in everything
from entrepreneurial clubs to
fly tying clubs and shooting
sports. She said kids who
participate in 4-H are proven
to excel beyond their peers in
school, and develop life skills
to serve their community as
adults.
extension agent for Malheur
County, said voters passed
the district by close to 60
percent, charging 23 cents
per $1,000 of assessed value.
Funding goes to support both
the OSU Extension office
and Malheur Experiment
Station based in Ontario.
“There were real concerns
about the experiment station
here being potentially closed,
or just not having enough
funding from the state and
university,” Reitz said.
Agriculture is the life-
blood of the county, Reitz
said, and the station is critical
to helping growers maximize
their production in a unique
high desert climate.
The service district also
“That’s who employs the people who buy
houses in your community, that pay property
taxes, that send kids to your school, that buy
groceries at your local grocery store.”
— Mary Corp, OSU Extension regional administrator,
on impact of agriculture on the economy
“That’s something we’re
pretty proud of,” she said.
Funding collected by both
county-wide districts would
also go toward supporting
CBARC and HAREC, Corp
said. The agricultural experi-
ment stations conduct multi-
year projects to help farmers
improve their efficiency, stew-
ardship and bottom line, with
CBARC focused primarily on
dryland wheat and HAREC
on irrigated potatoes.
In 2008, OSU decided that
25 percent of each station’s
budget must come from local
dollars. Since then, CBARC
and HAREC have cobbled
support from stakeholders
and industry groups. With
the service districts, Corp
said they can be sure the
facilities will have the staff
and resources they need.
Corp, who also serves as
CBARC director, is quick
to point out that agriculture
is the dominant industry
in Umatilla and Morrow
counties,
generating
a
half-billion dollars in farm
gate value every year. That
total increases to $1 billion
after factoring in the value
of support industries, like
trucking and food processing.
“That’s who employs the
people who buy houses in
your community, that pay
property taxes, that send
kids to your school, that buy
groceries at your local grocery
store,” Corp said. “I think this
is really about choosing to
make an investment locally
in the value of research and
community development.”
Other districts
Statewide, 25 of the
36 counties have already
implemented OSU Extension
Service districts, including
Malheur County in 2012 and
Klamath County in 2015.
Stuart
Reitz,
OSU
pays for a second crop
specialist with the extension
office, which Reitz said helps
tremendously to cover the
9,930-square-mile county.
“The district has been
a way to supplement those
scarcer and scarcer state
funds,” he said.
Meanwhile in Klamath
County, the 2008 recession
forced county commissioners
to shift more of its budget to
mandated services and away
from OSU Extension and the
Klamath Basin Research and
Extension Center.
A group of stakeholders
and volunteers called KBREC
Success gathered the signa-
tures needed to petition and
campaign for the formation
of a service district, which
charges 15 cents per $1,000 of
assessed value. Willie Riggs,
KBREC director and regional
administrator for Extension
Service in Klamath, Lake
and Harney counties, said
the district provides local
base support and has helped
the station to hire back three
faculty positions that were lost
during the recession.
“It’s tough in a rural,
conservative community to
ask people to pay more in
taxes. Nobody likes to see
something new come onto
their tax statement,” Riggs
said. “For us, this was the
only option we had left to
keep this organization in
Klamath County.”
Corp said she knows it will
take plenty of education to
pass the districts in Umatilla
and Morrow counties, but is
encouraged by the feedback
and support so far.
“The credibility of our
scientists and faculty is
really strong in the commu-
nity,” Corp said. “It’s nice
to see (people) making the
connection.”
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
LGBTQ: ‘You lose friends, you lose family’
Continued from 1A
echo their leaders, he
said, or can make LGBTQ
community
members
worry their leaders will set
discriminatory policies or
be prejudiced against them.
“If somebody is an
elected official, it means
they have a soapbox, a
platform, to say things,” he
said.
Nakapalau did not return
a Facebook message, email
or voicemail asking for
comment, and Echo city
administrator Diane Berry
declined to comment.
Nakapalau, a Vietnam
war veteran, was sworn
in as a new city councilor
in January after receiving
the most write-in votes for
an uncontested seat in the
town of about 700.
The exchange between
Wilson, who lives in
Hawaii, and Nakapalau
happened on the “Kumu
Hina” Facebook page,
named after a documen-
tary Wilson released in
2014 about a transgender
Hawaiian woman. Wilson
had posted an article about
the Trump administration’s
statement that transgender
workers are not protected
by federal anti-discrim-
ination laws. Nakapalau
commented that trans-
gender people already have
rights and he’s “Sick of the
LBGTQ crowd shoving
their ho keyed up agenda
down my throat.”
Wilson
responded
by calling Nakapalau
“sad” and said that the
Confederate flag on his
profile “says it all.” As the
men continued to argue,
Nakapalau called Wilson
a profanity and said he has
“relatives that are LBGTQ
whom l love and I’ll defend
them to my last breath” but
didn’t want to be forced
to support something he
didn’t believe in, while
Wilson accused Nakapalau
of bigotry and said “no one
is trying to shove anything
down your throat, though
your protests indicate that
that is what you would
likely most enjoy.” That’s
when Nakapalau said he
would spit on Wilson’s
grave.
Wilson said his quip
was trying to use “humor
and mocking” to show
the comments weren’t
welcome.
He
said
comments like Nakapa-
lau’s, and silence from
others in response, has a
chilling effect on members
of the LGBTQ community
coming out. Wilson said
the incident was especially
jarring because in 2010 he
visited nearby Hermiston
and Pendleton to screen his
film “Out In the Silence,”
about the experience of
being openly gay in a
small, rural town.
Haley
Talamontes
knows what it’s like being
gay in a small town. She
said her experience living
in Hermiston has included
wonderful people, but also
closed-minded people. A
few years ago when she
volunteered at a booth at
the Umatilla County Fair
for Umatilla Morrow Alter-
natives, a since-disbanded
group that advocated for
equality for minorities, she
said a few people called
her homophobic names in
front of her children or told
her she was “not right in
the head.”
She said when she
came out as a lesbian she
finally felt truly free. But
it didn’t come without
consequences.
“You lose friends, you
lose family,” she said. “My
mom doesn’t talk to me.”
In November Presi-
dent Donald Trump told
CBS he was “fine” with
gay marriage, and years
before becoming president
indicated his support of
the LGBTQ community
numerous times, including
a 2000 interview in which
he said he would support
adding sexual orientation
to the 1964 Civil Rights
Act. But some in his
administration, including
Vice President Mike Pence,
have been vocal opponents
of gay marriage, and since
Trump became president
his administration has
announced a ban on trans-
gender soldiers in the mili-
tary and argued in court
that federal law does not
protect gay or transgender
workers from discrimina-
tion by employers.
Talamontes said the
Trump
administration’s
attitudes toward LGBTQ
issues has caused some
people to treat their sexual
orientation more carefully,
similar to undocumented
immigrants
who
are
now more careful about
revealing their status.
That’s why she caused
a scene at the doctor’s
office the other day when
the nurse insisted her
12-year-old daughter had
to answer a question about
her sexual orientation
as part of a well child
check-up. Talamontes said
her daughter isn’t gay,
but Talamontes worries
for young people who are
and may have parents who
would kick them out of the
house or abuse them if they
found out.
She also worries that
if she were the patient,
answering the question
truthfully could cause
her problems later if she
moved to a state with
fewer anti-discrimination
protections and any nurse
or insurance agent could
pull up that information.
Talamontes said she
just wants to be loved and
respected and not treated
like she has some sort of
“grotesque disease” that
someone may catch from
standing too close.
For members of the
LGBTQ community or
their friends and family
who are looking for
support, Pendleton has
a chapter of PFLAG,
short for Parents, Family
and Friends of Lesbians
and Gays. They can be
contacted at 541-966-
8414, pflag.pendleton.or@
gmail.com or the PFLAG
Pendleton Oregon Chapter
Facebook page.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
Shriners Hospitals for Children ® — Portland
Pendleton Outreach Clinic
October 20 th ,
Appointments from:
8:00 AM - 1:00 PM
SMELL: Several residents said they are concerned
about property values decreasing in the town
Continued from 1A
Both executives apolo-
gized for the discomfort the
factory’s operations have
caused residents.
“We ran the plant probably
before it was ready to run,”
Johnson said. “Then we
had the fire. We tried to get
it up and running as fast as
possible, but put in the wrong
equipment.”
Citizens still had many
concerns about how the smell
was affecting their health and
property values.
One Stanfield resident,
who said he has lung prob-
lems, asked why the smell
was so bad last Friday.
“That was 100 percent our
fault,” Johnson said. “What
we should have been blending
was a dry material strain with
a wet one. However, our oper-
ators were blending a very dry
strain with a very dry strain.
There was not enough water
to take out, and so it basically
started baking — that’s what
was causing the odors.”
Stanfield residents asked
why the issues with odors
weren’t worked out before the
plant began to operate.
Both Andreson
and
Johnson said they were rela-
tively new to the company
— Andreson was hired in
January, and Johnson in
May — but that as far as they
knew, the plant had always
been within its permits.
“We’re taking these steps,
and we’re about 45 days
away from getting to that,”
Andreson said.
Kathryn Davis asked
about the company’s history
in Wisconsin and in Burley,
Idaho, where it has other
factories.
“If those places don’t have
smells, why aren’t you able
to use those facilities as your
prototype?” she asked.
Johnson said both of those
places have systems in place
that they are trying to imple-
ment in Stanfield, such as a
scrubber of the proper size,
and a cover on the receiving
yard.
“That’s the structure we’re
talking about here,” he said.
The company has had
problems with smells in
Burley, and faced criminal
charges in 2016, with two
misdemeanor counts of
non-permitted use, and two
counts of failure to conform
to permitted use require-
ments, according to southern
Idaho newspaper the Magic
Valley Times-News. The
company pleaded not guilty
on all counts.
In Wisconsin Rapids in
2016, there were reports of
the factory emitting a smell
many compared to “bad
cheese,” but by 2017, the
smells were reported to have
disappeared.
Several residents said
they were concerned about
property values decreasing
in the town, and some said
they had been facing trouble
selling property.
“I have property for sale
by the tracks,” said Bill
Barrett. “People won’t buy it
because of the smell.”
Tom Bohm, fire marshal
of the Umatilla County
Fire District, said he had
been pleased with how the
company had responded to
his requests. He said he now
goes to the plant about once
a week. The factory does not
have a connection from a fire
hydrant to a water main.
“A lot of the planning
(for fire safety) gets done in
Salem,” Bohm said. “Not
from people who live here,
which is part of the problem.
There is no water on that side,
but they’re going to get the
water in for us. They’ve done
everything I’ve asked them. I
think they’re here to work.”
Johnson said the company
has been in regular contact
with the city of Stanfield
and the Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality, and got a
surprise visit from the DEQ
Monday morning.
He said the company had
put in a request to the Union
Pacific Railroad to access
the water main that’s located
under the railroad tracks, but
does not have an estimated
time for when they’ll be
able to do so. Until then, the
factory has a retention pond
from which they can draw in
case of a fire.
Citizens asked how they
could be sure these steps
would improve the odors.
“I can say it will be greatly
minimized,” Johnson said. “I
can’t stand here and promise
you’ll never smell it.”
The Portland Shriners Hospital will be in your
neighborhood to provide expert pediatric
orthopedic care through its outreach clinic on
October 20 th !
To schedule an appointment please contact:
503-221-3422
2461 SW Perkins Ave.
Pendleton, OR 97801
http://www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org/
Locations/portland