OFF PAGE ONE
Thursday, June 28, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 3A
Port of Umatilla adopts a $5.6 million 2018-2019 budget
By JAYATI
RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
The Port of Umatilla Com-
mission adopted its 2018-2019
budget this month, capping
what manager Kim Puzey said
had been a positive year at the
port.
The
commissioners
approved a budget of $5.6 mil-
lion. Puzey said there were
no major changes to the bud-
get, but there has been some
growth despite having a major
disadvantage.
“Geography is our biggest
challenge,” Puzey said, not-
ing that the port is situated on
basalt, which he said makes it
expensive to develop.
He said the construction of
data centers on port property
has been the biggest driver of
growth.
“There are good prospects
for future data centers — that’s
a once-in-a-generation eco-
nomic development opportu-
nity for the region,” he said.
Puzey said while the way
data centers are counted can be
variable, he counts five on port
property, and said more could
be developed.
The port has also tapped
into some other opportunities
for economic development,
Puzey said. He said a business
out of Portland has an option
to purchase 160 acres to con-
struct solar arrays.
Puzey said he has spent
much of his energy in the
past two years working with a
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
In 2004, the Port of Umatilla installed a new $3.8 crane
at the facility on the Columbia River.
water users group comprised
of local farmers. The group is
leasing a portion of the port’s
water rights in order to use
some of the water for agricul-
tural purposes.
He said the port anticipates
$200,000 in revenue from that
group this year, and $400,000
from them in the following
year.
“That’s water infrastructure
we didn’t previously have,” he
said.
The port’s budget is
divided into seven different
funds: general, container dock,
marina, grants and appropria-
tions, strategic reserve, water
rights and regional water.
The port commission
adopted a general fund of $3.1
million. That number includes
an estimated $832,000 that
will be collected in taxes. The
port district levies a tax of
$0.015 per $1,000 assessed
value on its constituents.
The marina fund remains
open, but the port has not oper-
ated a marina since September
2013, and will closed the fund
in 2019.
The port’s container dock
fund is $464,862. Cargo ship-
ping is divided into three main
categories — bulk, break-bulk,
and container. Puzey said the
Port of Umatilla imports bulk
products like fuel, and exports
wheat, another bulk product.
Puzey said container ship-
ping is now nonexistent at the
Port of Umatilla, a trend at
almost all Pacific Northwest
ports.
He noted that the port is
the fiscal agent of a $1 mil-
lion grant to the Hermiston
Chamber of Commerce. The
port also received $2 million
in the transportation package
from the 2016-2017 legisla-
tive session.
Puzey said the port bud-
get has continued to increase
annually. He said things were
largely as he expected while
creating the budget for next
fiscal year.
“I have a good grasp of
where we are,” he said. “I
didn’t have any huge disap-
pointments or surprises.”
RIDGWAY: Would never reduce a speeding ticket in a school zone
Continued from 1A
In the courtroom as a
municipal court judge,
Ridgway often gave offend-
ers sentences that would put
them on a better path, said
his daughter. A sentence
might be reduced, for exam-
ple, if the person enrolled in
college.
“He tried to believe the
best in people,” she said.
“Instead of a punishment,
he gave them encourage-
ment. He wanted to be a
part of people bettering
themselves.”
He had his limits, though.
“One thing he would
never reduce was a speeding
ticket in a school zone,” she
said, adding that her father
always drove the speed
limit.
Ridgway’s road to Pend-
leton included four years at
University of Washington
where he played football. In
1961, the Huskies beat Min-
nesota at the Rose Bowl.
The victory was a treasured
memory.
After graduation, he
worked for Bank of Amer-
ica in San Francisco, where
he once tackled a bank rob-
ber who was making off
with a bagful of cash. In
San Francisco, he also met
MaryAlice on a blind date
in 1964. The date didn’t go
well, she admitted. Luckily
they had a second date and
then a third. They married
in 1965 in her hometown of
Athena. After Bob earned a
degree at Willamette Uni-
versity’s College of Law,
the couple moved to Pend-
leton where Bob practiced
law and later served as bank-
ruptcy trustee and municipal
court judge.
His life was rich outside
of work, too. He participated
in community organiza-
tions and served on a pleth-
ora of boards, including the
Pendleton School Board. He
skied, played piano, worked
with wood and spent time in
the kitchen baking his signa-
ture chocolate chip cookies
and ginger snaps. In the last
days of his life, he finally
shared the secret ingredient
for his ginger snaps with his
daughter, but she’s keeping
mum.
Tiah DeGrofft started
working for Ridgway at age
14.
“I went in one day and
asked if he was hiring,”
DeGrofft recalled. “He had
me do filing, take cans to
the recycling center and do
other silly things around the
office.”
She said she was just
one of many teenagers who
found employment at the
firm. DeGrofft, who worked
there intermittently through
high school and college,
working her way up to para-
legal, remembers the night
Ridgway’s law office caught
fire and burned almost to the
ground.
“We stood across the
street at the gas station and
watched it burn,” she said.
The next day he and his
employees donned overalls
and went through the con-
tents of fireproof file cab-
inets and then spent hours
copying pages to recreate
client files. Through it all,
Ridgway exuded positivity,
she said.
“He really showed me
how to persevere through
tough times,” DeGrofft said.
“He cowboyed up and came
up with a game plan.”
Another of Ridgway’s
employees, Karen Lange,
will ever be grateful to
Ridgway. After an attacker
crushed the right side of her
head with a pipe in 2013
as she strolled Pendleton’s
parkway, Ridgway kept her
job available and continued
to pay her. She returned to
work wearing a helmet and
missing some of her mem-
ories. Ridgway encouraged
her to do what she could.
“He was the best boss,”
Lange said.
Attorney
Rob
Col-
lins considered Ridgway a
mentor.
“He was someone who
cared deeply about other
people,” Collins said. “He
was a good lawyer and a
good human being.”
Umatilla County Com-
missioner George Murdock
knew Ridgway both socially
and through various com-
munity organizations.
“What an enormous loss
to Pendleton,” he said. “I
can’t think of very many
people who have been held
in such high regard as Bob.
If there is a book on moral
standards and ethics, he
would be the author.”
MaryAlice is having
trouble wrapping her mind
around Bob’s death and how
swiftly if came. She said he
had no symptoms until the
middle of April, when he
experienced chest pain. A
PET scan revealed a mass of
orange where the cancer had
spread throughout his body.
She pointed to a brim-
ming basket of cards on her
kitchen counter. Each one
contains a heartfelt message
to Bob, all acknowledging
that a bright flame was about
to go out. One came from the
mother of one of the offend-
ers he sentenced in court.
She thanked Bob for setting
her son on a better road.
MaryAlice and Darcey
read the cards aloud to Bob.
“No one sent get well
cards,” MaryAlice said.
“Everyone knew it was the
end.”
So started a series of
lasts. His last meal was a
blackberry milkshake from
Hal’s Hamburgers. He said
what he needed to say to the
special people in his life.
During one conversation,
Darcey asked him what he
hoped his legacy would be.
“I just want to be remem-
bered as a good guy,” he
said.
Mission accomplished.
____________
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0810.
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