PENDLETON
SHUTS OUT
ST. HELENS
TRUMP FLOATS USING
MILITARY BUDGET TO
PAY FOR BORDER WALL
NATION/8A
SPORTS/1B
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018
142nd Year, No. 114
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Governor signs
addiction bills,
executive order
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Tyree Houfmuse listens to his defense at-
torney Kara Davis during a pre-trial hear-
ing on Tuesday at the Stafford Hansell
Government Center in Hermiston.
conditioning units at Sunridge.
Jon York is the Kirby Nagelhout project
superintendent. He said crews have removed
walls, stage arches and more. Much of that
took place on two mechanical lifts, the largest
capable of raising workers more than 50 feet
in the air. The bigger machine is battery
powered and weighs about 5,200 pounds,
PORTLAND — Gov. Kate Brown on
Tuesday declared drug addiction a public
health crisis and signed two pieces of
addiction-related legislation into law.
“Unfortunately, right now, our federal
government is recognizing the problem,
but it is certainly focused on punishment,”
Brown said. “That leaves us, the states,
to right the wrongs of a war on drugs that
has done absolutely nothing to address the
issues that drive this public health crisis
while our prisons
and our foster care
systems are filled
to capacity with its
victims.”
The declaration
is part of an exec-
utive order she
issued Tuesday that
charges the state
Alcohol and Drug
Policy Commis-
Gov. Brown
sion and certain
state
agencies
with developing a
‘The
statewide strategic
plan for addiction
criminal
prevention, treat-
justice
ment and recovery.
Addiction
is
system
the main driver of
should not
foster care place-
ments in Oregon,
be Oregon’s
Brown said.
Nearly
60
safety net
percent of children
for persons
in foster care have
at least one parent
suffering
with a substance
from the
abuse
disorder.
Addiction
also
disease of
heavily contributes
to the nation’s high
addiction.’
rate of incarcera-
excerpt from the
tion.
executive order
“The criminal
justice
system
should not be
Oregon’s safety net for persons suffering
from the disease of addiction,” the execu-
tive order states.
Reducing barriers to comprehensive
behavior health care could help “lift a
burden” off of families, hospitals, law
enforcement, prisons and the state foster
care system, Brown said.
The governor signed the executive
order and signed House Bills 4143 and
4137 during an event at Lines for Life,
a Southwest Portland-based nonprofit
agency that provides a 24-hour substance
abuse and suicide crisis line.
House Bill 4143, proposed by Gov.
Brown, is the work of her Opioid Epidemic
Task Force, which began convening in
September.
Among other things, the bill requires
medical providers to register with the
Oregon Health Authority’s prescription
drug monitoring program. The monitoring
system allows physicians to look up
patients to find out if they have misused
opioids or have been shopping for a doctor
See RIVOLI/8A
See BILLS/8A
Houfmuse
pushes for
his release
Hermiston man claims he
shot Cragun in self defense
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
A Hermiston man accused of murder
and jailed for nearly a year could be free
next month. Attorney Kara Davis claims
Tyree Houfmuse was acting in self-de-
fense during a fatal confrontation with a
man who threatened to kill him.
Houfmuse, 35, has been in the Umatilla
County Jail, Pendleton, since his arrest in
June 2017 following the fatal shooting of
James Cragun at a Hermiston apartment
complex over Memorial Day weekend.
A hearing that began Tuesday is circuit
court in Hermiston will continue April 18.
Judge Eva Temple will consider releasing
Houfmuse, who faces charges of murder,
manslaughter, and felon in possession of
a firearm.
His trial was originally scheduled for
late April, but in February the district
attorney’s office requested to postpone
until November as prosecutors waited
for results from the state crime lab. Davis
said if the trial is postponed, Houfmuse
will have been in jail for more than a year
while presumptively innocent.
Temple allowed both sides to give
opening statements Tuesday but said
hearing had to conclude another day due
to the amount of evidence. Temple said
she has to review more than 14 hours of
video, audio and written evidence. That
includes interviews with witnesses who
were with Houfmuse the night of the
shooting, Hermiston police as well as
Houfmuse himself. She also will review
text messages between various parties,
including between Cragun and his ex-girl-
friend, who was with Houfmuse the night
Cragun died.
According to witness accounts from
that night, detailed in a search warrant
affidavit from Hermiston police, Cragun
came to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment
and charged toward her. Houfmuse and
Cragun fought, the accounts stated, and a
gun went off in Cragun’s hand while they
were fighting.
Davis said Houfmuse was within his
rights because he acted in self-defense.
She cited case law that details what a
person is allowed to do if they feel their
See HOUFMUSE/8A
BRINGING THE
HOUSE DOWN
Staff photos by E.J. Harris
Jamie Salazar, with Kirby Nagelhout Construction Co., pulls down parts of the
wooden ceiling from a man-lift in the Rivoli Theater on Tuesday in Pendleton.
Demolition underway at Pendleton’s
Rivoli — with a second act in store
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
P
iles of boards, beams and plaster
cover either side of the basement of
the old Rivoli Theater in downtown
Pendleton. Some of that includes what had
been the ground floor.
The place is all but gutted.
Andrew Picken, president of the Historic
Rivoli Theater Performing Arts Center
Restoration Coalition, said the project is in
full demolition mode.
“I’d say nearly 70 percent done now, and
we hope to complete demolition by April
15,” Picken said. “That’s getting it all down.”
Volunteers started the demolition last
year. The nonprofit coalition also hired
Kirby Nagelhout Construction Co. to handle
the tough parts. The Bend-based business
staffs an office in Pendleton and built the
Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center, and
in 2015 handled the security upgrades at
Pendleton High School and Sunridge Middle
School, as well as the installation of larger air
The demolition at the Rivoli Theater
is 70 percent done with the goal for a
completion date of April 15.
ODOT plans $11 million safety projects on Interstate 84
Construction will begin
in 2019 and is expected
to conclude in 2020
East Oregonian
The Oregon Department of
Transportation announced plans this
week for a series of construction
projects along Interstate 84 between
Pendleton and La Grande to make
the stretch of freeway safer for
motorists.
The work is based on the Inter-
state 84 Corridor Management Plan,
a study that looked at road safety
between Boardman and Ontario. It
determined a high need to reduce
speed-related crashes, crash severity
and distracted driving on the entire
stretch of roadway, and to add better
real-time information on weather and
traffic.
The first phase includes $11
million worth of projects, including
$4 million funded by the transporta-
tion bill passed at the end of the 2017
Legislative session. Work will begin
in 2019 and is expected to conclude
in 2020.
Projects include:
• More than a dozen new message
boards mounted above the interstate.
According to a press release from
ODOT, some will be linked to
sensors to display real time informa-
tion, including temperature, presence
of ice or fog, and chain requirements.
• Ten additional road and weather
sensors.
• Nine miles of cable barrier
between eastbound and westbound
lanes along two stretches to prevent
crossover crashes (roughly between
mileposts 229 and 238 and mileposts
249 to 250.)
• Twenty LED lights along two
miles of the downhill, westbound
curves of Cabbage Hill east of
Pendleton, with more lights added
as funding allows. There will also be
more than 12 miles of yellow reflec-
tive markers attached to guardrail in
that area.
• A new road camera (westbound
MP 247.4), snow zone sign (east-
bound MP 220.6), and ramp gate
(westbound Exit 224 at Poverty
Flats).
• More than 10 miles of buried
power line to support these enhance-
ments and future upgrades.
• Twelve curve warning signs with
flashing beacons in the Grande Ronde
River Canyon west of La Grande.
A separate project will add a third
lane for eastbound trucks in Ladd
Canyon, east of La Grande, in the
coming years. The stretch is closed
often as trucks spin out and there is
not enough room for traffic to get
around disabled vehicles.
The corridor management plan
has a list of goals it hopes to accom-
plish by 2025, including reducing
serious and speed-related crashes
by 20 percent and weather related
crashes by 25 percent, communi-
cating dangerous road conditions
to all travelers within five minutes
of the condition being recognized
and preventing truck parking from
spilling back onto freeways.
The study also notes that during
the summer a key cause of severe
crashes is speed, while in the winter a
key cause is following too close.