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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 2018)
REGION Saturday, April 14, 2018 East Oregonian Page 3A Inmate dies at TRCI on Thursday UAS officials East Oregonian An inmate at Two Rivers Correc- tional Institution in Umatilla died early Thursday morning, though the cause has not been released. Oregon State Police is investigating the unexpected death of Le Huang, 51, which TRCI spokesman Sherry Iles said happened at about 2 a.m. Huang’s family was notified Thursday, but OSP Sgt. Tim Spicknall said he had no additional information Friday. “As an agency, we are responsible for the care and custody of 14,700 men and women who are incar- cerated in the 14 institutions across the state,” wrote Huang Jennifer Black, the communications manager for the Department of Corrections in a press release. “When an in-custody death occurs, we take it seriously.” Huang began serving a nearly 20-year sentence in 2014 for killing his wife in Southeast Portland. His expected release date was December 3, 2032. The prison has a population of about 1,800 and this is the first reported death in 2018. Four inmates died unexpectedly at the prison in 2017, according to reporting in the East Oregonian. Staff photo by E.J. Harris The Lost Valley Dairy outside of Boardman has been order to sell their cattle to pay off debtors. Judge orders dairy to cooperate with auction Lost Valley Farm may still file for bankruptcy protection By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI EO Media Group A judge has ordered a controversial Boardman dairy not to interfere with the liquidation sale of its cattle herd to satisfy the demands of a creditor. Morrow County Circuit Judge Jon Lieuallen has entered a preliminary injunc- tion requiring Greg te Velde, owner of Lost Valley Farm in Boardman, to cooperate with the preparation of an auction scheduled for April 27. The injunction was requested by Rabobank, a major farm lender that filed a lawsuit seeking to foreclose on the dairy’s assets, which serve as collateral for $60 million in defaulted loans. However, it’s possible the preliminary injunction won’t be the last word on the proposed auction of 10,500 cows and 4,000 replacement heifers, which is to be conducted by the Toppenish Livestock Commission. Lieuallen said the order doesn’t prohibit the dairy from filing a petition for bankruptcy protection from its creditors. The dairy’s obligations to cooperate with the auction would be suspended if the company files for bankruptcy protection, unless Rabobank obtains relief from the auto- matic stay on debt collection, the judge said. Lost Valley Farm was controversial even before it began operating a year ago, with environmental groups and others arguing the facility will cause air and water pollution. Citing unauthorized manure discharge and other violations, the Oregon Department of Agriculture fined the dairy more than $10,000 earlier this year and then filed a lawsuit to stop the facility from generating waste — which would effectively shut down its operations. That lawsuit was settled when the dairy agreed to generate less than 65,000 gallons of waste a day and maintain open capacity in its manure lagoons. Lost Valley Farm’s trou- bles convinced the Tillamook County Creamery Association to terminate a milk-buying contract with the facility. Even so, Tillamook has continued to buy milk from the dairy to avoid the “envi- ronmental and animal health risk” of suddenly halting its operations, though the creamery is requiring addi- tional safety testing. PENDLETON talk about the future of drones By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian While the thought of Pendleton becoming a hub for drone testing might have been difficult to imagine five years ago, experts in the unmanned aerial systems field say the next 25 years will see the industry continue to expand. UAS officials from across the country said the next quarter century will see drones integrated into everyday life in multiple ways. Marke Gibson has exten- sive experience with UAS, having served as a former senior advisor on UAS integration to the deputy secretary of the FAA. Now the CEO of the Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alli- ance, a nonprofit comprised of 200 private and public entities and academic institutions who oversee New York’s UAS systems, Gibson said the develop- ment and integration of unmanned systems will accelerate in the next decade or so. In the near future, Gibson sees drones not only in the air but also in land and sea-based vehicles. “Almost everything will be run by (artificial intel- ligence) ... we’re pulling humans out,” he said. Brett Kanda, the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems’ business devel- opment director, foresees the UAS tackling all the tasks that are considered dangerous for human beings, such as infrastruc- ture repair. Nevada’s UAS program has included product delivery tests, but it was Nicholas Flom, the exec- utive director of North Dakota’s Northern Plains UAS Test Site, who homed in on product delivery as a task that will be taken over by drones within the next couple of decades. Amazon has unveiled plans to eventually deliver packages via UAS. And in the future, Flom predicted that many drones will be owned and operated by Photo courtesy of A^3 A^3 tested their air taxi vehicle for the first time at the Pendleton UAS Range on January 31. corporations and companies rather than individuals. But perhaps the most important future application for drones in Pendleton is the air taxi concept. An affiliate of Airbus is developing Project Vahana, a drone capable of trans- porting passengers through the air in an urban environ- ment without the assistance of a pilot. The team behind Vahana starting testing the UAS in February, and local officials hope a successful project will lead to Airbus’ perma- nent presence in Pendleton and further economic devel- opment. Airbus isn’t the only company interested in developing a passenger drone: Cora, an air taxi project backed by Google founder Larry Page, debuted in New Zealand in March. According to Fast Company, more than 20 companies are also in the air taxi race, including other aviation giants like Bell Helicopter. Of the four UAS offi- cials interviewed for the story, only Flom thought unmanned passenger flights won’t happen within the next 25 years, saying automated driving must to be mastered before people could look toward aircraft. As the Pendleton UAS Range manager, Darryl Abling has frequent contact with the Project Vahana team members as they spend the year testing their vehicle. He is also confident that passenger drones will be a part of daily life in the next 25 years, although he doesn’t expect any large scale passenger UAS similar to the Boeing 777 to be ready yet. City manager makes second pitch for PDA funding East Oregonian Two weeks after the Pendleton City Council declined to put it to a vote, City Manager Robb Corbett is coming back to the council with another proposal to permanently fund the Pendleton Down- town Association. The council will consider Corbett and the association’s latest proposal at meeting Tuesday. According to a staff report written by Corbett, the city would pay the association $55,000 for operational expenses for the first two years before decreasing its contribution by 10 percent annually in years three through five. Starting in year six, the city’s contribution would be set at $25,000. The payout to the association is similar to the association’s last proposal, but how the city pays for it is different. Rather than splitting the cost between the city’s general fund and the urban renewal district, the latest proposal would have the urban renewal district paying the entire $55,000 in Year 1. The second year would be split 72-27 between the urban renewal district and the general fund, the latter’s contribution offset by a reduction in the transfer of business license fees taken out of the fund to pay for economic development. As the city’s contribution drops from $50,000 in year 3 to $40,000 in year 5, the urban renewal portion will drop by $10,000 each year as the business license fee portion rises by $5,000. From year 6 and beyond, the business license fees will pay for the entirety of the city’s $25,000 contribution. Despite Corbett’s backing at the April 3 council meeting, council members raised enough concerns over the general fund and a lack of financial support from the association that Mayor John Turner didn’t even put it to a vote. Corbett wrote in his report that city staff, representa- tives from the Pendleton Downtown Association and councilors Scott Fairley and Dale Primmer met after the previous meeting and nego- tiated the current proposal, which the group believed had enough support to pass the council. Acting as the Pendleton Development Commis- sion, the council narrowly approved funding the associ- ation’s operational expenses in 2017, but haven’t taken any action since then. Molly Turner, the association’s executive director, has said the nonprofit organization will run out of money by early next year if it doesn’t get more financial support. The council will also meet to discuss preserving riparian land along the Umatilla River and selling its remaining interest in the Round-Up Grounds to the rodeo’s holding company for $13,000. The council will meet at 7 p.m. at the council chambers in city hall, 500 S.W. 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