HUMVEE
ROLLS
ON I-84
SPORTS/1B
BLAZERS DROP A BIG ONE IN DENVER
REGION/3A
FEDS RAID
TRUMP’S
ATTORNEY
NATION/7A
TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018
142nd Year, No. 123
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
Brown’s
special
session in
question
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Some observers say Gov.
Kate Brown’s call for a special legislative
session has more to do with politics than
making the Oregon tax code more equi-
table.
Brown, a Democrat running for
reelection this year, said Friday she’ll call
a special session sometime before the end
of June to extend to owners of sole propri-
etorships the special tax rates passed in
2013 for owners of other small businesses.
At the same time, she announced she’d
sign Senate Bill 1528, a bill that prevents
owners of certain businesses — sole
proprietorships, LLCs, partnerships and
S-corporations — whose business income
“passes through” to their personal income
taxes from taking a new federal tax deduc-
tion on their state taxes.
Supporters say that bill was necessary
to plug a budget hole caused by federal tax
reform. It’s critics call the measure a $244
million tax hike.
Brown said it’s not fair to give another
break to LLCs, partnerships and S-corpo-
rations when sole proprietorships can’t get
the favorable tax rates passed by the state
in 2013.
But Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, sees
the special session as a political gambit.
“This is about politics not policy,”
Boquist wrote in an email to the EO/
Pamplin Capital Bureau on Monday.
Staff photos by E.J. Harris
City of trees
ABOVE: A honey bee flies up to harvest nectar from a cherry
blossom in a tree Monday on Main Street in Pendleton. At an
April 3 Pendleton City Council meeting, Katie Lompa of the
Oregon Department of Forestry granted the city a Tree City
USA Award for 2017. To be given the award, the city needed
to establish a tree board or department, pass a tree care or-
dinance, create a community foresty program with an annual
budget of at least $2 per capita and an Arbor Day observation
and proclamation. Pendleton joins 63 other Oregon commu-
nities as a Tree City USA. LEFT: Cherry trees in full bloom line
Main Street in downtown Pendleton.
See SESSION/8A
PENDLETON
UMATILLA
Witness: UAV crashed Growing museum captures town’s history
from hundreds of feet
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Harold Nelson was out
on the airfield around 11:10
a.m. on March 31, when
he saw the PAE Resolute
Eagle, a unmanned vehicle
that weighs well over 100
pounds, flying from east to
west.
This sight wasn’t unusual
to Nelson, who owns and
operates Pendleton Aircraft
Service, an airplane and
helicopter repair business,
near the Pendleton airport.
But according to Nelson,
the drone’s flight looked
“wobbly” before it suddenly
veered north, “away from
the center of the airport,”
and crashed to the ground
from a height of about 200
to 400 feet.
“It looked like a loss of
power and control,” he said
Monday.
PAE, the Federal Avia-
tion Administration and
the Pendleton Unmanned
Aerial System Range have
all confirmed that the crash
caused a small fire. No
one was hurt and nothing
was damaged during the
incident.
The drone crashed in a
wheat field on airport prop-
erty and a picture Nelson
took from his plane shows a
black, scorched blot where
the wheat caught fire.
Despite
confirmation
from the range, the company
and the federal government,
official details on the crash
remain scarce beyond the
basic sequence of events.
Range Manager Darryl
Abling said PAE is still
reviewing data on the inci-
dent and holds daily meet-
ings with range officials to
discuss the crash. Although
PAE is expected to provide
a report to the test range
with the cause of the crash
and the measures it will take
to prevent it from happening
in the future, Abling
declined to comment until
it’s released.
Although the Pendleton
Fire Department was the
agency that extinguished
the fire caused by the crash,
Fire Chief Mike Ciraulo
See WITNESS/8A
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Robert Robertson peered
from behind the jail house
bars while Judy Simmons
took his photo. Maybe it
would help, she said, if he
opened the door and stepped
forward into more light.
Robertson slid the door
open and stood in the metal
frame. Simmons said that
was better.
Robertson was one of
several visitors Saturday to
the jail and other exhibits at
the Umatilla Museum’s open
house to celebrate a cleaner
look and new displays. That
small jail cell in the former
police station held memories
for Robertson.
“I’m the last guy that got
to stay in the jail,” Robertson
said, but that was 20 years
and a different life ago.
He had to do 21 days,
probably for “noncompli-
ance,” he said, then the city
found the jail was “unfit
for human life.” Even so,
the city let him finish his
sentence.
During work days the
police let him out to wash
patrol cars or lend muscle
to other city work, he said.
Weekends, however, were
all inside the jail.
Golf played on a small
black-and-white TV the
cops set outside the jail’s
two cells, he said, and the
bunk mattress was the same
as when he was there. And
there was the food.
“Swanson TV dinners,”
Robertson said. “They used
to feed us TV dinners three
Staff photos by Phil Wright
Umatilla Museum & Historical Foundation member Sam Nobles talks about some
of the museum’s upgraded exhibits Saturday during its open house in Umatilla.
Umatilla Museum & Historical Foundation member
Judy Simmons takes a photo of Robert Robertson
in the old city jail exhibit during the museum’s open
house Saturday in Umatilla. Robertson was the jail’s
last inmate.
times a day. I didn’t eat TV
dinners for a long time after
that.”
Simmons said Robertson
was a key reason for the open
house. She is a member and
volunteer of the Umatilla
Museum & Historical Foun-
dation, the nonprofit that
took on the task of recording
the
community’s
156
years of history. Robertson
popped into the museum last
year, Simmons said, glanced
around and announced it
looked like nothing had ever
changed.
“That lit a fire under us,”
she said.
Fellow museum and
foundation member Sam
Nobles said for years people
brought in old items to the
museum, but much of that
piled up. He and others
worked to separate the junk
from the historical and tidy
up the place.
See MUSEUM/8A