Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 13, 2018)
Page 10A OFF PAGE ONE East Oregonian Friday, July 13, 2018 PENDLETON Round-Up arena prepped for Whisky Fest By BRITTANY NORTON East Oregonian The Round-Up Grounds are getting some updates for this year’s Pendleton Whisky Music Fest. At 7:30 a.m. Thursday, about 100 people went to work setting up the stage for the concert. And as a new addition this year, they were also installing sod on the hallowed grounds of the Round-Up arena. The newly laid grass is a new feature of this year’s concert, as part of the premium standing area in the concert grounds. Doug Corey, co-manager of the event, said the sod will make it a better experi- ence for those watching the concert from the infield. Corey declined to give the total cost of the 25,000-square-feet of sod, but said it came at a “signif- icant cost.” This is the first year the music festival offered the premium standing option, where spots cost $125. Corey said they sold more tickets this year, due to an increase in demand. He expects to have 18,500 peo- ple in attendance. This is the third year for the Pendleton Whisky Music Fest, and according to convention center man- ager Pat Beard, it keeps get- ting bigger. “We’re so apprecia- tive for Doug and Andy (McAnally),” he said. “This is putting Pendleton on the map.” This year’s concert fea- tures the duo of country singer Blake Shelton and rapper Pitbull. According to Corey, it took several months for the musicians to agree to do the show together, but Corey and McAnally pursued the combination because they thought it would bring Staff photo by E.J. Harris A work crew hangs a banner on the stage while preparing for the Pendleton Whisky Music Fest on Thursday in Pendleton. a variety of tourists to Pendleton. “Party in Pendleton is kind of our tagline, and he just brings the party,” said Corey of Pitbull. The Pendleton Whisky Music Fest is one small part of an effort to increase the town’s allure as a tourist destination. Beard estimates that no less than $20 million will flow into the city from the Whisky Fest and Pendleton Bike Week — a motorcycle show set for the following week, July 17-22. Beard said the Pendle- ton Round-Up remains the city’s “marquee event,” but he is happy to see other events bring people to the city. He said future events he would like to see include concerts in the Happy Can- yon arena, bluegrass music festivals and a regional Crossfit event. “Tourism is a business and industry and it’s the brightest spot on Pendle- ton’s future,” said Beard. As for the Pendleton Whiskey Music Fest, will they pursue another unlikely combination for next year? “We’ll have to see how it goes,” said Corey. CEMETERY: Premium plots crucial Continued from 1A Staff photo by E.J. Harris Fire crews stage on Hill Street while fighting a field fire on Thursday in Weston. FIRE: One woman living in area received help for lack of oxygen Continued from 1A cles swarmed the town. The East Umatilla County Rural Fire Protection District led the effort to control the fire and received helped from fire agencies out of Pendle- ton, the Umatilla Indian Res- ervation, Pilot Rock, and more, plus scene security from the Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office. Roberts said the diverse group engaged in a coordinated effort that kept the flames from engulfing homes. He said one woman who lived in the area needed medical attention for possi- ble lack of oxygen, but oth- erwise there were no other injuries he knew about. “This was a fantastic save,” Roberts said. Duane Thul, city coun- cilor and former mayor, was helping to keep emergency traffic flowing at Main and Hill streets, where emer- gency responders amassed. Thul said the thick smoke limited visibility to 30 feet. His worse nightmare as mayor, he said, was this kind of fire but with high winds. That nightmare could have become reality Thursday with 30 mph winds, he said. East Umatilla Fire Chief Dave Baty was the incident commander and arrived to the fire early. “I was knocking on doors like crazy to get people out,” Baty said. Baty relayed information and gave orders at the scene well after crews contained the blaze. He said he had not even had time to consider what started the fire. feature premium plots for cremated remains. Premium plots in general are a large part of the ceme- tery’s new business plan. Hughes said market research shows that there’s demand for mid-level and luxury headstones and cre- mation containers rather than just the standard burial materials Olney offers. “We’ve always had a one-size-fits-all approach, but that doesn’t always fit what people want,” he said. According to Hughes, patrons often seek upright headstones similar to the ones erected during the early 20th century. Flat headstones are more affordable and easier to maintain for mowing and weeding purposes, but if people wanted to pay a pre- mium price for upright head- stones, the cemetery could accommodate more sections that feature them. To promote these new services, Hughes wants to turn the conference room at the parks and recreation office into a showroom with headstone and container options. As the maintenance needs at the cemetery begin to mount, Hughes sees this as a good way of driving up the cemetery’s income. In the 2017-2018 fis- cal year, the cemetery had a $263,350 budget ver- sus $77,050 in anticipated revenue, meaning the rest was subsidized by the gen- eral fund, which also covers police, fire, and other parks and recreation services. With all of the other city needs, Hughes said raising the cemetery’s revenue was preferable to asking for an increased subsidy from the general fund. “Olney Cemetery aver- ages up to 80 burials per year,” the business plan. “If we increase our average revenue from each sale by $500, then we would gener- ate approximately $40,000 in increased revenue.” The business plan pro- poses using half to decrease some of the general fund subsidy while using the rest for cemetery maintenance and repairs. And there’s plenty in need of those services at the cemetery. The 100-year-old mauso- leum hasn’t been renovated since 1964, and Hughes said there’s some marble resto- ration and roof repairs that need to be done. The cemetery itself is so massive that parks staff spends 40 to 48 hours per week just mowing and weeding the grounds. More revenue for the cemetery fund could help pay for a larger lawnmower, which could shave off 15 hours per week in man hours. As he drove through the cemetery Thursday morn- ing, Hughes spotted a yel- low-bellied marmot — commonly known as a rock chuck — scampering amongst the gravestones. Despite capturing hun- dreds of the burrowing rodents, Hughes said mar- mots and gophers have steadily chewed away at the cemetery’s irrigation system. Parks staff hand waters the patches of grass where the irrigation is damaged, and although the func- tioning sprinklers are run sequentially 24 hours per day, brown patches aren’t hard to find at Olney. With every ambitious plan comes questions about price, but Hughes believes it won’t cost the city too much money to adopt the plan’s proposals. The biggest expense would be the river, and although Hughes said he wouldn’t be able to provide an estimate until an engi- neering study was done, he didn’t think the price would be “outrageous,” especially if city staff could provide the labor to install it. Hughes said he still needs to pitch the idea to local mortuaries and Friends of Olney, a group of volunteers that plants American flags on veteran graves on Memorial Day and has helped out the parks and recreation department in the past with enhance- ment projects. Ultimately, the depart- ment will have to convince the Pendleton City Coun- cil that a little luxury at the cemetery will go a long way. ——— Contact Antonio Sierra at asierra@eastoregonian. com or 541-966-0836. FIREARMS: Curriculum would cover how to respond to an unsecured firearm Continued from 1A “In spite of the efforts of some extremist groups to simply ban firearms, rational people recognize that fire- arms will continue to exist irrespective of any law,” Starrett wrote in an email to the Pamplin/EO Capital Bureau. “Rather than foster- ing ignorance and fear, we hope to provide knowledge and promote safety.” Schools would be required to provide a fire- arms instructor certified by law enforcement or a national or state firearms instruction certification organization to teach the class. The curriculum would cover how to respond to an unsecured firearm, how to safely secure a firearm if an adult is absent, safe muzzle direction, avoiding touching a trigger and semi-automatic weapon function “to demon- strate that removing … the magazine doesn’t mean the firearm is unloaded.” The initiative also bans any material encouraging or discouraging firearms posses- sion or purchase and any live ammunition during the class. “A person does not have to support firearms owner- ship to recognize that there is always the possibility that a child might encoun- ter a firearm in an unsuper- vised setting,” Starrett said. “We want to make sure that young people have every tool to stay safe in such a situation. It seems obvious that a child who has had the opportunity to learn how to respond to this kind of event will be safer. “We believe denying young people this knowl- edge is irresponsible.” W.J. Mark Knutson, pas- tor of Augustana Lutheran Church in Portland, and Michael Cahana, rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Portland, were chief peti- tioners of an initiative to ban semi-automatic fire- arms. They said they oppose requiring sixth graders to take a firearms safety class. “This is a very poor idea for our state,” Cahana said. “It accepts the status quo of guns as an ever-present dan- ger, that there is no way to reduce the overwhelming prevalence of guns in our children’s lives. We believe it is time to change the sta- tus quo.” Knutson and Cahana who lead the interfaith coalition, Lift Every Voice Oregon, proposed Initiative Petition 43 to ban assault-style fire- arms for the Nov. 6 election but had to suspend the effort because of legal obstacles to the wording of the initiative ballot title. The group plans to submit another initiative for 2020 to ban the sale of assault weapons and high capacity magazines. They said they also hope to work with state legislators in 2019 to ban the kind of weap- ons used in mass shootings around the nation. Police say they made an ‘error’ in arresting Stormy Daniels Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio — Prosecutors on Thursday dropped charges against porn star Stormy Daniels just hours after she was arrested and accused of illegally rub- bing undercover police offi- cers’ faces against her bare breasts during a performance at a strip club. Her attorney said she was “set up” in a Colum- bus police sting operation, calling it an “absurd use of law enforcement resources.” Police said they routinely conduct such undercover operations. The 39-year-old adult film star, who claims to have had sex with Donald Trump before he became president, was charged with three mis- demeanors, each punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine upon con- viction. She was released on $6,000 bail around daybreak Thursday. By early afternoon, pros- ecutors said they were drop- ping the case because Ohio’s law against physical contact between strippers and cus- tomers applies only to some- one who “regularly” per- forms at a club. In Daniels’ case, it was her first appear- ance at Sirens in Columbus. A person who answered the phone at Sirens declined to comment. Columbus police chief Kim Jacobs said “one element of the law was missed in error.” “A mistake was made, and I accept Daniels full responsibility,” she said. Officers were well within their area of responsibil- ity when making the arrests, she added. But she said the officers’ motivations will be reviewed internally. Without providing details, she said unsubstantiated allegations about their moti- vations were cir- culating on social media. Daniels’ law- yer called for an investigation into the arrest, say- ing some of the officers had what appeared to be “very Pro-Trump” social media pages. The lawyer, Michael Avenatti, tweeted screenshots from what he claimed was the Facebook page of one officer with a pseudonym and asked people to help confirm it. Daniels considered reap- pearing at Sirens but later opted for a different club, Vanity Gentlemen’s Club, a Thursday night performance confirmed by manager K.J. Kopras. Police said Daniels, whose real name is Steph- anie Clifford, smacked the faces of two female officers and one male officer with her bare breasts during the Wednesday night show. Offi- cers knocked on the door of her tour bus after the perfor- mance and took her into cus- tody in an arrest that Avenatti said left her “traumatized and rattled.” She was booked under a 10-year-old state law known as the Community Defense Act, which says dancers at “sexually oriented” busi- nesses are prohibited from touching customers and vice versa. Franklin County Munic- ipal Court records show 23 similar cases this year, including the charges against Daniels, 14 last year and six the year before. Daniels has said she had sex with Trump in 2006, when he was married. Trump has denied it. Before the elec- tion, she was paid $130,000 to stay silent in a deal han- dled by Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. She is suing to invalidate the nondisclosure agreement.
