RIVERSIDE UPCOMING
HEADED TO VETERANS
STATE FINAL DAY EVENTS
SPORTS/1B
46/38
COMMUNITY/6A
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017
142nd Year, No. 17
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Oversight
problems
endemic
at Health
Authority
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — While tech-
nical failures are to blame for
recent issues at the Oregon
Health Authority, observers
say mismanagement is likely
at the root of its problems.
Last week’s news that
OHA overpaid Medicaid
providers by $74 million
over three years was merely
the latest in a steady stream
of negative news about the
agency, which has thousands
of employees and a budget of
roughly $10 billion per year.
In addition to the overpay-
ment issue, and recent prob-
lems with verifying patient
eligibility for Medicaid, state
government is also haunted
by the specter of Cover
Oregon, a failed health insur-
ance exchange, which cost
taxpayers $300 million.
Management issues may,
in part, explain why the list of
errors is growing long, said
Steve Buckstein, founder of
the Cascade Policy Institute,
an Oregon libertarian and
free-market think tank.
“You know, in one sense
they’re software problems,”
Buckstein said. “In another
sense, they’re management
problems, because they’re
so complex, because they
don’t think through all the
problems they’ll have to deal
with.”
Problems have been
building at the agency for
some time.
“OHA has been in deep
trouble now for years, and
this feels like just a contin-
uation of problems that are
endemic to the organization,”
said Jim Moore, director of
the Tom McCall Center for
Policy Innovation at Pacifi c
University.
The fact that the governor
was reportedly not informed
of the issue when it arose
last year may speak to those
problems, Moore said.
“There’s
clearly
an
organizational
problem,”
Moore said. “As soon as
this was known by anybody
who met regularly with the
governor, they needed to tell
the governor.”
The federal Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid
Services sent a notice to the
agency about the overpay-
ment issue at some point in
See OHA/10A
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Oregon State Police Senior Trooper Dain Gardner talks to a hunter as he patrols the woods near Ukiah on Tuesday. Gardner asked to not
have a photo of his face published because of undercover work he does with the agency.
Defending the hunt
“I always wanted to
do this job. As far as
police work goes, this
is where it’s at.”
Trooper keeps things
fair in the forest
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Daylight broke Saturday morning
over the snow-dusted Blue Moun-
tains near Ukiah, where the distant
echo of rifl e blasts signaled the start
of elk season across Eastern Oregon.
Dain Gardner, senior trooper
with the Oregon State Police Fish
and Wildlife Division, began his
day at 5 a.m., noting the perfect
hunting conditions that included
below-freezing temperatures and just
enough white on the ground to easily
spy a well-trodden game trail or herd
of elk.
“This is my offi ce,” Gardner said
behind the wheel of his patrol truck.
“If you can’t enjoy the job working
out here, there’s something wrong
with you.”
Saturday marked the fi rst day
of the second season for rifl e elk
hunting in Oregon, which runs
through Sunday, Nov. 12. The fi rst
rifl e season was Oct. 25-29, while
archery season for deer and elk went
— Dain Gardner, senior
trooper with the Oregon State
Police Fish and Wildlife Division
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Oregon State Police Senior Trooper Dain Gardner talks to two
Salem hunters as he patrolled the woods near Ukiah on Tuesday.
from Aug. 26 through Sept. 24.
Elk season is a busy time for
Gardner, sending him anywhere
around the Pendleton area all the way
down to John Day, depending on the
case. He spent Saturday in the Ukiah
Wildlife Management Area where
hunting was open to spike bulls only
— bulls with unbranched antlers.
No sooner than Gardner arrived
at the Bridge Creek Wildlife Area
south of town did he encounter
his fi rst dispute of the day, as two
hunters each claimed they had shot
the same elk. Cameron Sponseller,
with the Oregon Department of Fish
& Wildlife, was already on scene to
assist with corroborating both men’s
stories.
“This happens regularly out here,”
Gardner said, joking that he ought to
swap his uniform for a referee shirt.
“We’ll get it fi gured out.”
After examining the carcass,
Gardner and Sponseller determined
that only one bullet actually hit the
elk, making it a relatively open-and-
shut case. But by simply taking the
extra time and talking to hunters,
Gardner said it helps to keep level
heads and even tempers.
“We’re just out here trying to keep
things fair,” he said.
‘I always wanted
to do this job’
Gardner, who lives in Hermiston
and graduated from Umatilla High
School in 1990, has 22 years of expe-
rience in law enforcement, including
three years with the Hermiston
See HUNT/10A
PENDLETON
Rodeo City Inn owner on notice for dangerous building
Hotel remains much
the same since
purchase in 2014
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Graffi ti can be seen through a broken window on Tuesday in a room at the Rodeo
City Inn outside of Pendleton.
Umatilla County notifi ed
the owner of the derelict
Rodeo City Inn to clean
up and secure the place or
expect to start paying fi nes.
Western Hotels & Prop-
erties, a limited-liability
company in El Centro, Cali-
fornia, bought the former
hotel a few miles west
of Pendleton in 2014 for
$379,000, after the county
shut it down due to concerns
over crime. County counsel
Doug Olsen in June reported
the owner informed him
crews would clean up the
property and get it ready to
re-open as a hotel.
Yet the hotel remains
today much like it has for
the past few years — dete-
riorating and wide open
to anyone who dares take
shelter in its square, barren
rooms. While the appearance
is horrid, the building itself
seems sound and signs point
to a bit of clean-up.
Old boxes from single-
serving microwave meals
and other trash fi ll one plastic
container in a room on the
building’s fi rst fl oor. Rubbish
fi lls a few other containers.
Someone removed carpet
from most rooms on the
bottom fl oor, but they also
lack windows and air condi-
tioners. The exterior metal
stairs are too dangerous to
climb.
See HOTEL/10A