Tuesday, December 5, 2017
OFF PAGE ONE
MONUMENTS: Native American leaders said they expect to file a lawsuit
Page 8A
East Oregonian
Continued from 1A
guess what? They’re wrong.”
Roughly 3,000 demonstra-
tors lined up near the State
Capitol to protest Trump’s
announcement. Some held
signs that said, “Keep your
tiny hands off our public
lands,” and they chanted,
“Lock him up!” A smaller
group gathered in support,
including some who said they
favor potential drilling or
mining there that could create
jobs. Bears Ears has no oil
or gas, Zinke told reporters,
though Grand Staircase-Es-
calante has coal.
“Your timeless bond with
the outdoors should not be
replaced with the whims of
regulators thousands and
thousands of miles away,”
Trump said. “I’ve come to
Utah to take a very historic
action to reverse federal over-
reach and restore the rights of
this land to your citizens.”
Bears Ears, created last
December by President
Barack Obama, will be
reduced by about 85 percent,
to 201,876 acres.
Grand
Staircase-Es-
calante, designated in 1996
by President Bill Clinton,
will be reduced from nearly
1.9 million acres to 1,003,863
acres.
Supreme Court allows full
enforcement of Trump travel ban
Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, File
This May 8 photo shows Arch Canyon within Bears Ears National Monument in
Utah.
Both were among a group
of 27 monuments that Trump
ordered Zinke to review this
year.
Zinke accompanied Trump
aboard Air Force One, as did
Utah’s Republican U.S. sena-
tors, Orrin Hatch and Mike
Lee. Hatch and other Utah
Republican leaders pushed
Trump to launch the review,
saying
the
monuments
designated by the former
Democratic presidents locked
up too much federal land.
Trump framed the deci-
sion as returning power to
the state, saying, “You know
and love this land the best
and you know the best how
to take care of your land.” He
said the decision would “give
back your voice.”
“Public lands will once
again be for public use,”
Trump said to cheers.
Hatch, who introduced
Trump, said that when “you
talk, this president listens” and
that Trump promised to help
him with “federal overreach.”
Earthjustice filed the first
of several expected lawsuits
Monday, calling the reduction
of Grand Staircase-Escalante
an abuse of the president’s
power that jeopardizes a
“Dinosaur Shangri-la” full of
fossils. Some of the dinosaur
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on
Monday allowed the Trump administration to fully
enforce a ban on travel to the United States by residents
of six mostly Muslim countries.
This is not a final ruling on the travel ban:
Challenges to the policy are winding through the
federal courts, and the justices themselves ultimately
are expected to rule on its legality.
But the action indicates that the high court might
eventually approve the latest version of the ban, announced
by President Donald Trump in September. Lower courts
have continued to find problems with the policy.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said the
White House is “not surprised by today’s Supreme
Court decision permitting immediate enforcement of the
President’s proclamation limiting travel from countries
presenting heightened risks of terrorism.”
Opponents of this and previous versions of the ban
say they show a bias against Muslims. They say that
was reinforced most recently by Trump’s retweets of
anti-Muslim videos.
fossils sit on a plateau that is
home to one of the country’s
largest known coal reserves,
which could now be open to
mining. The organization is
representing eight conserva-
tion groups.
Native American leaders
said they expect to file a
lawsuit challenging the Bears
Ears decision soon.
Patagonia President and
CEO Rose Marcario said the
SHELTER: Was open 103 nights straight during last year’s winter
“I feel like I’m doing
something for the
greater good. I’m not
just throwing money
at the problem, I’m
putting time in.”
Continued from 1A
volunteer KaSandra Williams read
a list of ground rules as part of the
intake process.
“You are not allowed to possess
or use alcohol, marijuana or
non-prescribed drugs in or around
the warming station,” Williams
intoned. “No weapons are allowed.
…”
She ticked off behaviors that
would result in expulsion: refusing
to follow instructions, physical
coercion, tampering with any of the
16 surveillance cameras, repeated
use of profanity, disruptive behavior
and entering the staff area, among
others.
Carter listened, nodding. He
signed a form agreeing to abide by
each rule. Another volunteer led
him to a storage room, where he
stashed his backpack. The volunteer
gave him sheets, pillow case and a
blanket and led him to his bunk. He
grinned at the pillow case — last
year, he’d been issued a Barbie
pillowcase. This new bedding, a gift
from the Pendleton High School
CommuniCare Club, all matched.
There wasn’t a Barbie in sight.
Bedding wasn’t the only upgrade
at the warming station. Gone were
the tarps and buckets set out last
winter to collect rain leaking
through a porous, deteriorating roof.
Instead of mats and cots, bunkbeds
populated the two sleeping rooms
— one for men and the other for
women — with sleeping space for
25.
The warming station moved
just prior to last season from a
city-owned house near Washington
Elementary School into the new
location at 715 S.E. Court Ave. The
approximately 3,000-square-foot
building, gifted by St. Anthony
Hospital, had good bones, but also
the leaky roof, plumbing issues, a
cantankerous heating system and
the beginnings of dry rot. Space
heaters helped when the heating
system sporadically went on the
fritz.
“We limped through the season,”
— KaSandra Williams,
warming station volunteer
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Jon Dickerson with Pendleton Electric installs wiring for a fan in a
shower room at the Pendleton Warming Station.
said Chris Clemons, chairman of the
Neighbor 2 Neighbor board, which
oversees the warming station.
Clemons, also pastor of the
Pendleton Church of the Nazarene,
praised the community for stepping
up. A $25,575 Pendleton Foun-
dation Trust grant financed a new
roof. Wildhorse Foundation granted
$10,000 for new heat pumps.
CAPECO paid for bunkbeds. Other
smaller grants and community
donations funded the installation
of a shower and a third toilet and
other improvements. Community
tradesmen donated services.
Clemons and other volunteers
worked hundreds of hours getting
the place ready to open for the
2017 season, painting, spackling,
assembling bunkbeds and finishing
numerous other projects.
During last season’s harsh
winter, the warming station opened
103 nights straight and sheltered
101 different people from the cold.
Thirty-seven volunteers worked at
the facility.
“We could easily use twice that
many,” Clemons said. “We won’t
open without at least two volunteers
on site.”
The Pendleton Warming Station
is one of two such shelters in
Umatilla County. The Hermiston
Warming Station opened on Nov.
20 and has served six to eight guests
each night. Volunteer Trish Roselle
said 30 different people have stayed
so far and she expects that number
to hit 100 by the end of February
when the warming station closes.
On this first night of the season
in Pendleton, the warming station
welcomed four guests — three men
and one woman. On Sunday, seven
people stayed the night. The census
should rise as word spreads.
Each guest gets a warm meal.
Clemons praised eateries such as
Big John’s, the Sundown Bar and
Grill and PHS culinary students for
regularly bringing food.
KaSandra Williams said she
volunteered at the facility for some-
thing to do and fell in love with it.
“I feel like I’m doing something
for the greater good,” she said. “I’m
not just throwing money at the
problem, I’m putting time in.”
She genuinely likes the people
who come out of the cold into this
place.
“These guys and gals are pretty
awesome,” Williams said.
She urged anyone interested in
volunteering to attend one of the
periodic trainings.
The shelter’s lodgers can’t all
be put into the same box. Neighbor
2 Neighbor vice chairman Dwight
Johnson has volunteered at the
warming station since near the
beginning of the facility’s history
seven years ago. He said some of
the guests are simply down on their
luck. Others struggle with substance
abuse or mental illness — or both.
Sometimes the two are so entwined
that they can’t be teased apart or
ordered.
“Do they develop mental illness
because of substance abuse, or did
substance abuse lead to mental
illness?” Johnson said.
He shrugged. It doesn’t really
matter, at least in respect to the
warming station’s mission. A guest
is a guest — someone who needs
to get out of the cold and doesn’t
have a home or money for a hotel
room. The warming station board
maintains laser-like focus on its
reason for existence.
“We offer shelter for anyone
who needs a place to stay on a cold
winter night,” Clemons said. “We
don’t want anyone freezing on the
street.”
The mission, he said, is simple,
narrow and basic. The warming
station offers people a chance to
sleep in a warm bed and live to see
another day.
“They’ll have tomorrow and
they’ll walk away with a little bit of
hope,” Clemons said.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@
eastoregonian.com or 941-966-
0810.
outdoor-apparel
company
will join an expected court
fight against the monument
reduction,
which
she
described as the “largest
elimination of protected land
in American history.”
No president has tried
to eliminate a monument,
but some have reduced or
redrawn the boundaries on 18
occasions, according to the
National Park Service.
TREE: Will
be adding extra
lighting to the
area this year
Continued from 1A
This year’s tree comes
from Victory Square Park,
where parks and recreation
director Larry Fetter said it
was crowding out a number
of smaller trees and needed
to be removed.
“It’s a cedar,” he said. “It’s
a really nice shape, and it’s
got a great color to it.”
Vehicle traffic on Second
Street between Gladys
Avenue and Main Street will
be blocked during the month
of December while the tree is
in place. In the spring the city
plans to begin turning that
block into a festival street
featuring decorative brick-
work, landscaping, lighting
and other features.
“I’m hoping construction
on the festival plaza is done
for next year,” Fetter said.
“Looking at the schedule, it
looks like it will be, otherwise
I’ll have to find a temporary
spot for this.”
On Monday morning the
tree traveled across town in
horizontal position on the
back of a UEC truck before
arriving in front of city hall,
where about six feet of trunk
was lowered into the hole in
the street and packed in with
dirt.
Fetter said the city will
be adding extra lighting
to the tree and the street
surrounding it this year after
people commented it could
use more. This is the third
year the city has placed a
giant tree on Second Street.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
DEFICIT: $21B unfunded liability
in the public retirement system
Continued from 1A
more than 350,000 low-in-
come Oregonians. Its repeal
would compel state leaders
to come up with a way to
offset the loss in revenue,
including the possibility of
reducing subsidies for health
coverage.
Any state tax overhaul
conversation likely would
spark calls for the state to
curtail employee benefit
costs and up employee
contributions to the Public
Employees
Retirement
System to help offset a $21
billion unfunded liability in
the system.
“I think the role of the
state is to make sure that
we are incenting local
employers … on paying
down their (unfunded actu-
arial liability) so the entire
number comes down,”
Brown said. “That will even-
tually reduce employer rates
and enable us to put more
money into classrooms …
and services that vulnerable
Oregonians need.”
She said she also could
ask employees to “have some
skin in the game.”
“We are looking at cost
sharing/risk sharing,” she
said.
Her staffers also are
examining recommendations
by a PERS task force to come
up with policy proposals for
February.
“I have asked my team
to put together a handful of
options and I look forward
to working with the business
community on what those
look like,” Brown said.
The 15th annual summit
— founded by U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden — drew more than
1,200 businesspeople, policy
wonks, politicians and others
to the Oregon Convention
Center.
The event also serves
as the vehicle for unveiling
the annual Oregon Business
Plan, a policy roadmap for
stimulating the economy and
supporting business in the
state.
GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
Please join us for a...
Holiday Celebration
Dinner
Tuesday, December 5th
5:00 - 7:00pm
The menu will include:
Prime rib and ham, bourbon sweet potatoes, vegetable du jour & pumpkin and
pecan pie for dessert.
Adults - $10.00, children 6-12 - $5.00, under 5 - FREE
We will honor November and December Birthdays, as well as Resident and Staff of
the Month. ***Please RSVP by November 30th***
McKay Creek Estates
1601 Southgate Place
Pendleton, OR 97801
(541) 276-1987