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East Oregonian
PENDLETON: Wants to renovate the Happy Canyon Room
Continued from 1A
because the convention
center is among the most
visited facilities in town on a
year-round basis. In his first
100 days on the job, staff
recorded 56 events spanning
79 event days that brought
3,600 attendees through the
lobby.
Beard’s ambitions don’t
stop at the current spate
of improvements. He also
wants to renovate the Happy
Canyon Room, a conces-
sions area toward the back
of the building that Beard
said wasn’t inviting enough.
“It’s kind of hard to have
fun in an elementary school
cafeteria,” he said.
Beard’s vision includes a
revamped bar and floor that
would fit better thematically
with the Happy Canyon
arena, which shares a set of
doors with the room.
Beard said his goal is
to not only bring events to
the arena, but for conven-
tion-goers to utilize the rest
of Pendleton.
Growing
Pendleton’s
tourism industry is in the
center’s best interest: it relies
on two separate hotel room
taxes — the transient room
tax and the tourism promo-
tion assessment charge — to
fund its operations.
The city has used those
funds to heavily reinvest
in the convention center.
According to Pendleton
budget documents, the
assessment charge fund
has spent $1.4 million from
2006-2015 on outlays like
heating, ventilation and air
conditioning replacement,
new kitchen equipment and
an expansion of the east side
rooms.
TRAILS: Similar planning
process underway for west
end of Umatilla County
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The Pendleton Convention Center staff would like to remodel their existing conces-
sions area to make it a more inviting area for guests.
“We will be putting dollars to our dreams and asking
for money from you to supplement some of the things we
need. But we believe it’s an investment, not a sinkhole.”
— Jayne Clarke, the chairwoman of the Pendleton Convention Center Commission
For the current fiscal year,
the city budgeted $124,000
for replacing the convention
center roof. But the lowest
bid came in $61,000 above
the city’s estimate and staff
were forced to delay a few
convention center purchases
and a city hall window
replacement project to cover
the gap.
Smaller projects, like
the $35,828 paint job, were
covered out of the convention
center’s operations budget.
Jayne Clarke, the chair-
woman of the Pendleton
Convention Center Commis-
sion, told the council that
staff has to come up with
creative ways to fund some
of the recent projects.
The department paid for
the production of a promo-
tional video by having some
of the businesses featured in
the clip cover the costs. The
video will play at a kiosk in
the lobby during events to
advertise Pendleton’s ameni-
ties.
Instead of trying to make
it fit into a future budget,
Beard plans to partner with
the Happy Canyon organiza-
tion and seek out grants and
private donors to cover the
cost of the upgrades.
That doesn’t mean the
convention center won’t rely
on traditional sources to fuel
more improvements.
Clarke said she would
return to the council with a
list of capital expenses and
cost estimates.
“We will be putting
dollars to our dreams and
asking for money from you
to supplement some of the
things we need,” she said.
“But we believe it’s an
investment, not a sinkhole.”
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
RESTAURANTS: Rare for department to issue ‘fail to comply’
Continued from 1A
illnesses, such as food
temperature or not washing
hands. Each violation in that
category costs the restaurant
five points.
Priority foundation viola-
tions are those that don’t
directly lead to foodborne
illness, but can quickly
become a problem. Failure to
have testing strips for chem-
icals is a priority foundation
violation. Each of those
errors costs the restaurant
three points.
Code violations are
facility-based and do not
impact food safety — such
as a small hole in the corner
of the ceiling. They do not
have a point value attached
to them.
“Theoretically, you could
get 100 percent and still have
violations,” Fiumara said.
If a restaurant has any
repeated violation from their
previous inspection, the
restaurant is docked twice as
many points — they can lose
up to 10 points on one item.
If a restaurant has any
priority or priority founda-
tion violations, no matter
their overall scores, they
have to correct them either
on the spot, or the depart-
ment will follow up within
14 days.
If a facility scores lower
than 70, they are issued a
“fail to comply” sticker,
which has to be posted on the
restaurant’s entrance. Then,
they are given 30 days to
correct the violations before
the department conducts a
re-inspection.
“There are only two
results of a re-check,”
Fiumara said. “Compliance
or closure.”
He said that in the two
years he’s worked at the
department, he has not seen
any restaurants close because
of a failure to comply.
“It’s very rare for us to
issue a ‘fail to comply’ in the
first place,” he said.
He said in the last
round of inspections, all
the restaurants in Umatilla
and Morrow County were
in compliance. In the one
before that, he said two failed
to comply — Kwong’s Cafe
in Pendleton, and Fortune
Garden
in
Hermiston.
Kwong’s has since closed,
of their own accord, and
Fortune Garden was re-in-
spected shortly after and was
found in compliance.
Fiumara
said
it’s
uncommon to see a restau-
rant score 100, unless it’s a
small establishment.
But some restaurants do.
The Midway Bar and Grill,
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A cook, who did not want to be identified, takes dishes out of the dishwasher at the
Midway Bar and Grill on Tuesday in Hermiston.
Hermiston received a 100 at
their last inspection, a score
owner Stuart Rice said they
expect.
“We have house policies
and procedures, and we set
the standard high,” Rice
said. “My mom always said,
‘If you have time to lean,
you have time to clean,’ so
I always expect people to
clean if they’re not busy.”
Rice said their policies
exceed those set by the
county health department.
“If they come in and
want something adjusted,
we adopt that immediately,”
she said. “We don’t mess
around.”
At the last inspection,
the Midway had one code
violation, a thermometer that
was showing an incorrect
temperature.
“We had another one
within two hours,” Rice said.
Fiumara said common
violations included tempera-
ture control, such as not
keeping hot food hot, or cold
food cold. Other issues that
appeared for many restau-
rants included improper
storing of food, when to wash
hands, improper marking of
food, and chemical sanitzers
with inadequate pH.
Fiumara said scores can
also vary depending on the
inspectors.
“When you get new
people going into facilities,
things get seen that weren’t
seen before, or were over-
looked,” he said.
He said the county also
does inspections for the
school district’s food service
on a contract basis, but they
don’t get scores because it’s
not a public food service.
For
businesses
that
primarily have food for
off-site consumption, such
as grocery stores, the inspec-
tion becomes the responsi-
bility of the Department of
Agriculture.
Restaurant
scores
are available at https://
healthspace.com/Clients/
Oregon/Umatilla/Web.nsf/
home.xsp.
grants for trails are not
available,”
Waldher
said. “We haven’t even
attempted to apply for
trails grants because of
that.”
Inspiration for the Blue
Mountain Region Trails
plan can be traced back
to Community Council,
a nonprofit organization
based in Walla Walla that
gathers residents to study
broad, regional issues such
as food insecurity and
reducing gang member-
ship.
In 2015, Community
Council issued a 25-page
report on how to enhance
outdoor
recreation.
One of the committee’s
recommendations
was
to “connect the public
to
communities
and
landmarks via a network
of trails in the region,” a
proposal that caught on
quickly with local plan-
ners.
Mary
Campbell,
executive director of
Community Council, said
the proposal has garnered
support
from
cities,
counties, ports, health
departments, state and
federal natural resource
agencies, the Walla Walla
Valley Metropolitan Plan-
ning Organization and the
Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion.
“It’s been a really huge
collaboration,” Campbell
said. “The synergy was
just there. It was really
exciting.”
With that kind of
support, Campbell said
they were able to apply
for and receive a technical
assistance grant from the
National Park Service’s
Rivers, Trails, and Conser-
vation Assistance Program
in October 2016.
Dan Miller, who works
as a community planner
with the RTCA in Port-
land, was assigned to work
with the Blue Mountain
Region Trails group and
provide expertise. Miller
said the Park Service was
initially very excited about
the project application,
and he was thoroughly
impressed by the level of
public involvement.
“I’ve been doing this
type of work since 2000,
and this is one of the more
impressively attended and
participated processes that
I’ve seen,” Miller said.
“They’re doing a really
good and comprehensive
job, and the communities
seem to be embracing it.
“I’m fully confident
there will be action from
this planning process,”
Miller added.
The first round of public
input kicked off Jan. 30
through Feb. 2, with a
series of four meetings
held in Milton-Freewater
as well as Dayton, Walla
Walla and Burbank in
Washington.
Campbell
said the group received
nearly 1,000 suggestions
regarding potential trails
connections
throughout
the region. At least 80
people signed in at the
meeting in Milton-Free-
water, she said.
A second round of meet-
ings was also held May
1-4 at the same locations
to refine and prioritize
projects in the plan. A third
and final public comment
period was held online
through October, with
comments ranging from
missing sidewalks to a
multi-use trail connecting
Dayton and Waitsburg.
Closer to Milton-Free-
water, Waldher said the
project area does include
Harris Park, which is
managed by the county
public works department.
Waldher said the county
may consider building
equestrian facilities at the
park, making it easier for
horseback riders to park
their trailers and access
trails.
Waldher said residents
also discussed routes
connecting Milton-Free-
water to Walla Walla, the
Blue Mountains and the
Columbia River.
“We like to say
Umatilla County is a great
place to live, work and
play, and if we have more
of that infrastructure it can
help maintain that overall
quality of living,” he said.
Outdoor recreation and
trails are not only key to
public health, but to the
region’s economic health,
Waldher said. He pointed
to the growing trend of
“agritourism” in Eastern
Oregon, including a new
farm loop between Pend-
leton and Milton-Free-
water developed recently
by the Eastern Oregon
Visitors Association.
A similar planning
process for trails is now
underway on the west
end of Umatilla County
as well, Waldher said,
bringing together city
leaders in Hermiston,
Umatilla, Stanfield and
Echo.
“Ideally, we’d like to do
something similar in the
west part of the county,”
he said. “I think it could be
a real asset to the overall
quality of life.”
———
Contact George Plaven
at
gplaven@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-966-
0825.
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