REGION
Saturday, December 9, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 3A
PENDLETON
County to defer
Happy Canyon introduces 2018 princesses
sending juveniles
to NORCOR
East Oregonian
The Happy Canyon
Board of Directors recently
announced that Tayler Craig
and Sequoia Conner have
been chosen as the 2018
princesses.
The
two
Pendleton
women will serve as
ambassadors for the 2018
Happy Canyon Night Show.
Celebrating its centennial
anniversary in 2016, Happy
Canyon is Oregon’s official
outdoor night pageant.
“We are excited to have
these two well-rounded,
talented young women repre-
sent Happy Canyon this next
year,” said Corey Neistadt,
Happy Canyon president.
“Their family roots run
deep in Happy Canyon, so
we’re honored to have them
serve as our representatives
throughout the region.”
The daughter of Fermore
Craig Jr. and Rachel
Hoptowit, Craig is an
enrolled member of the
Contributed by Shana Bailey Photography
Contributed by Shana Bailey Photography
Sequoia Conner
Tayler Craig
Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation.
She graduated from Pend-
leton High School, where she
played basketball, softball
and volleyball. Craig walked
away with top honors at the
American Indian Beauty
Pageant during the 2017
Pendleton Round-Up.
Craig currently works
at the Yellowhawk Tribal
Health Clinic and attends
Blue Mountain Community
College. She plans to further
her education, including
completing a medical school
program to become a physi-
cian’s assistant.
Many of Craig’s family
members have served as past
Happy Canyon princesses.
Conner is the daughter
of Marcus Conner and Terri
Carnes. Her dad and brother
are enrolled members of the
Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation,
and Conner and her mother
are enrolled members of the
San Carlos Apache Tribe in
San Carlos, Arizona.
Conner graduated from
Pendleton High School,
where she participated in
basketball and softball. In
addition, she served two
years on the school’s Native
American board of represen-
tatives as a member at large
and as secretary.
She currently attends
Blue Mountain Community
College and plans to transfer
to the University of Oregon
to obtain a bachelor’s degree
in business management
with a minor in art.
The 2018 Happy Canyon
Indian Pageant and Wild
West Show is presented
nightly Sept. 12-15 during
Pendleton
Round-Up.
Advance tickets, which
are available year-round,
are $15-$24. They can
be purchased by calling
800-457-6336 or via a link at
www.happycanyon.com.
HERMISTON
New Hope girls tackle 64 gingerbread houses
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
The sugar highs were
palpable as dozens of
teenage girls decorated 64
gingerbread houses at New
Hope Community Church
on Friday night.
The houses were baked
by Shawn Lockwood, after
youth pastor Tim Beal
asked her to expand what
has always been a family
Christmas tradition in the
Lockwood home.
“We invited his family
over to decorate houses with
us one year and he asked,
‘Would you do it with the
youth group?’” she said,
adding that several of them
had also brought friends
from school.
Girls each got a house
of their own and a plate to
fill up with colorful piles of
candy from several tables’
worth of gumdrops, mints,
Skittles and a variety of
other treats. Walls and roofs
were soon laden with candy,
but plenty of it made it into
the teens’ mouths, too.
Clair Anderson, who
used colorful sticks of gum
to create shingles on her
roof, said she “just grabbed
stuff” from the table and
East Oregonian
After a report of
inhumane treatment at the
juvenile jail at the Northern
Oregon Regional Correc-
tional Facility, Umatilla
County has decided to stop
sending youth detainees to
The Dalles facility.
According to a Friday
email sent by Umatilla
County
Community
Justice Director Dale
Primmer, youth in county
custody will be directed to
other facilities “until the
complaints are evaluated
and, if necessary, reme-
died.”
During this period, juve-
niles will be sent to either
the Walla Walla County
Juvenile Justice Center
or a facility in Deschutes
County.
“The most common
placement is Walla Walla,”
Primmer said in an inter-
view.
Primmer said the county
would continue to send
many of its detainees to
Walla Walla while juveniles
charged with more serious
crimes or in need of a long-
term treatment program
would be sent to Deschutes
County or another facility.
He said the county has
no current detainees from
Umatilla County at either
NORCOR or Walla Walla.
The Oregon Youth
Authority also announced
Friday it would stop
sending children to facility.
“Some of the allegations
in the report are certainly
concerning because they
suggest that the approach
is far more focused on
punishment
than
on
rehabilitation,” Benjamin
Chambers, spokesperson
for OYA, told Oregon
Public Broadcasting.
At NORCOR, offenders
as young as 12 faced disci-
pline including isolation
for minor infractions,
according to the report
from Disability Rights
Oregon.
Most
youth
reported spending three to
six hours per day locked
in their cells. Youth could
spend weeks “on disci-
plinary status,” according
to Disability Rights Oregon
attorney Sarah Radcliffe,
in which they could not
participate in any group
activities, had to eat alone,
received solitary education
in their housing unit and
could have phone calls or
visits from family.
NORCOR
Director
Bryan
Brandenburg
disputed much of the
report, but admitted some
of the rules were “silly”
and would be replaced
or changed. He also
committed to better docu-
menting isolation incidents
and creating grievance and
appeals processes for juve-
niles that get into trouble.
On Wednesday, the
Wasco County Board of
Commissioners
called
for an investigation and
a transfer of control to an
oversight committee.
HERMISTON
Downtown value increased
by $8 million in four years
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Staff photo by Jade McDowell
Megan Joyce, left, Claire Anderson, Emily Sharon and Chloe Samms decorate
gingerbread houses at New Hope Community Church.
then decided where it would
go once she started laying
down frosting.
Megan
Joyce
was
outlining her roof in purple
jawbreakers, giving it what
she described as a “Hansel
and Gretel” theme.
“My favorite part of
decorating
gingerbread
houses is you get to make
it just creatively, and make
it whatever you want,” she
said.
Cidney Estes was busy
poking the candy into
the green frosting — her
favorite color — that she
had spread liberally all over
her house.
Her favorite part?
“That I get to eat along
the way,” she said.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
BRIEFLY
May take ‘weeks’ for info
on police shooting
City council to discuss
public records fees
Ten days after a Pendleton police
officer shot a man running from the
Walmart parking lot, the public still
does not who that officer is, who they
shot and how the suspect was armed.
And Baker County District
Attorney Matt Shirtcliff, who was put
in charge of the investigation Dec.
5, said it could take “weeks” for that
information to be released.
Shirtcliff said Thursday that he is still
reviewing information and that Oregon
State Police continues to investigate.
Shirtcliff did say that the man
who was shot has been moved out of
intensive care at Oregon Health and
Science University hospital in Portland
and his condition has been upgraded.
HERMISTON — The Hermiston
City Council has its final meeting of
the year Monday.
The council will discuss a proposal
to change the city’s fee structure for
public records requests to include a
$35 per hour processing fee — paid
in increments of 15 minutes — for
“lengthy” public records requests that
take more than 15 minutes to complete.
According to information in the
council’s agenda packet, the city
spends approximately $21,000 per
year of staff time fulfilling public
records requests, some of which take
hours to fulfill. Since the city’s current
fee schedule charges for physical
copies and most are now delivered
electronically, the city has had requests
that cost up to $2,000 to fill and yet
did not cost the person requesting the
records anything because they were
given electronically.
The proposed processing fee would
help recover costs for such lengthy
requests, particularly in light of the
fact that the legislature passed a bill
this summer setting a 10-day time-
frame for fulfilling most requests.
On Monday the council will also
discuss a resolution bringing city
building codes in line with updated
state ones. The meeting begins at 7
p.m. at city hall, 180 NE Second St.
———
Briefs are compiled from staff and
wire reports, and press releases. Email
press releases to news@eastoregonian.
com
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2237 Southwest • Court Place
Pendleton, OR 97801
541-276-5053
Hermiston’s
urban
renewal
district
has
increased in value by more
than $8 million during its
first four years of exis-
tence.
The Hermiston Urban
Renewal Agency began
in 2014 to promote
downtown Hermiston by
re-investing property tax
growth back into enhance-
ments to the downtown
core. The area covered by
HURA has increased in
value by 20 percent, from
$42.2 million to $50.5
million.
Assistant city manager
Mark Morgan said in a
news release that much
of the growth has come
from the new Holiday Inn
Express. HURA’s revenue
has increased by $100,000
in the first year of the
hotel’s operation. The
hotel was given a $36,400
façade grant from HURA
and $50,000 for sewer
improvements from the
city of Hermiston.
Other investments of
HURA back into down-
town have also helped
raise property values,
including façade grants to
various businesses and a
private-public partnership
with Mitco Investments
to create a new 50-space
parking lot open to the
public that can be counted
toward parking require-
ments for future commer-
cial development nearby.
“If the main goals of an
Urban Renewal Agency
are to increase the taxable
value
and
eliminate
barriers to new private
investment, then I think
we can safely say we’re
hitting it out of the park so
far,” Morgan wrote.
The city plans to begin
building a new festival
street next to city hall
using
urban
renewal
funds this spring, and a
new senior center being
built at the end of the
street is expected to draw
more traffic downtown.
Morgan said projects in the
downtown area were about
contributing to “critical
mass.”
“The more people we
can get to come downtown
on a daily basis, the more
viable it makes the area
for investment by private
businesses which depend
on passing traffic,” he said.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.