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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 23, 2018)
Page 8A OFF PAGE ONE East Oregonian Thursday, August 23, 2018 SADDLE: Intricate carvings show state’s history and symbols Continued from 1A Knight’s initials. French speculates that something about the process of making saddles back then made it so Knight was not responsi- ble for signing off on them. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t make them. “We know he was here and we know he was pro- lific,” said French. The prized saddle is a mastercraft of carvings and color. It is decorated with icons representing Ore- gon’s history and promi- nence. Images of the Ore- gon Grape, the state flower; the Western Meadowlark, the state bird; and a beaver, the state animal, all have a spot on the trophy. Pedro Pedrini, a sad- dle maker at Hamley’s, said it will probably be cleaned, but it doesn’t really need any restoration work because it is in good condition. “You don’t see some- thing that old and that nice,” he said. Hamley’s secured the saddle about a month ago and it’s unclear how long they will have it. But it will be cherished while it’s there. “There’s never been any- thing like it,” said French. “You don’t see something that old and that nice” — Pedro Pedrini, saddle maker at Hamley’s Staff photo by E.J. Harris The 1959 Centennial saddle is emblazoned with many of the symbols of the state including the state bird — the Western Meadowlark. ECHO: Currently there is a waiting list for K-8th grade HOTEL: Council has no objections Continued from 1A Staff photo by E.J. Harris Community members gather in the gymnasium during an open house for the new additions Wednesday at the Echo School. Continued from 1A we’ve always wanted to do,” he said. Holman added that the new rooms don’t accommodate more students at the school, but the dis- trict has grown. “Right now, we have a wait- ing list from kindergarten to eighth grade,” he said. “Not that we don’t want students, but our school board has been big that we keep small numbers.” He said Echo School currently has about 300 students. He said the new space will help accommodate other activities, where previously teachers would have to conduct testing or reading activities with students in cramped spaces or busy areas. “Now, we have rooms for that,” he said. “It’s given us an upgrade.” He added that starting this year, every student from sixth to 12th grade will receive a Chrome- book laptop computer. If they get through school and graduate, they get to keep the Chromebook. The entrance to the new build- ing is a community center called Pioneer Hall. Smith said Echo’s senior citizens had been looking for Staff photo by E.J. Harris The new addition for the Echo School cost $8 million and was a place to gather, and this will allow them to do so. funded by a school bond and matching funds from the state. THEFT: Drivers top speed on the freeway was 105 mph Continued from 1A “We’ve basically exhausted all our possibilities,” he said. “Trying to search in a cornfield — it’s very humid, tight quar- ters, and limited visibility.” Cooney said police think they know who the suspect is, but did not want to release the name yet. He said the suspect, a Hispanic male in his 20s or 30s, was wearing a dark blue or black T-shirt and shorts, and a white or silver Oakland Raiders ball cap. He also has a mustache or goatee. Cooney said they do not know if the suspect is armed. Cooney said the man stole a vehicle, a silver Toyota Tacoma, from Pendleton on Wednesday morning and began driving it westbound on Interstate 84. Oregon State Trooper Trish Draze spotted the man driving recklessly and fast and started chasing him around milepost 188, near the Pilot truck stop. He then got onto I-82, and crashed the vehicle into a guard rail on the overpass at Lamb Road. He then jumped out and ran into the cornfield. The driver may have injuries from the crash. The driver’s top speed on the freeway was 105 miles per hour. “He endangered a whole lot of motorists,” Draze said. Contributed photo Officers surrounded a cornfield off Westland Road on Wednes- day, searching for a man who ran into it after crashing a stolen car. Cooney said they were assisted by Umatilla and Mor- row County sheriff’s depu- ties, Boardman, Hermiston and Umatilla Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Inves- tigation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. They also used a police dog and Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office drones. He said the suspect is wanted for reckless driving, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, failure to perform duties of a driver (for damaging property), and attempt to elude. Attempt to break into Democratic Party voter data thwarted CHICAGO (AP) — An attempt to break into the Dem- ocratic National Committee’s massive voter database has been thwarted, a party official said Wednesday, two years after Rus- sian operatives sent the party into disarray by hacking into its com- puters and facilitating the release of tens of thousands of emails amid the presidential election. A web security firm using artificial intelligence uncovered the attempt. The DNC was noti- fied Tuesday, it said. Hackers had created a fake login page to gather usernames and passwords in an effort to gain access to the Democratic Party’s voter file, a party official said. The file con- tains information on tens of mil- lions of voters. The attempt was quickly thwarted by suspending the attacker’s account, and no information was compromised, the official said. The FBI was notified. The official wasn’t authorized to speak about sensitive security information and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Government and tech officials say it’s too early to know who was behind the attempt. The FBI declined to comment to the AP. The attempt comes as Dem- ocrats gather for their summer meeting. The party’s cyberse- curity has been an issue since the 2016 presidential election, when Russian hackers compro- mised DNC servers and pub- licly revealed internal communi- cations that exploited divisions between Bernie Sanders’ and Hil- lary Clinton’s campaigns as the two candidates vied for the Dem- ocratic presidential nomination. Hackers also accessed the email accounts of Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and sys- tematically released the contents throughout the fall campaign. It also comes a day after Mic- rosoft announced it had uncov- ered similarly fraudulent web- sites created by Kremlin agents that spoofed two conserva- tive outfits that are foes of Rus- sia’s president, Vladimir Putin, presumably to trick unwit- ting visitors into surrendering credentials. Makad since 2015, when the council agreed to a similar incentive package with the company to build a $45 mil- lion data center on the Airport Road extension, but Makad didn’t want the project to become public until financ- ing was secured. In the memo, Corbett wrote that Makad is “working to secure a fran- chise from a global hotel franchise pro- vider who has visited Pendleton and met with City staff,” but he declined to name the franchise because a deal hadn’t been signed yet. Makad wants to build the hotel in the airport’s parking lot, a factor that drew Mayor John Turner’s concern. Among the counter-proposals dis- cussed by the council included requir- ing Makad to build a new longterm parking lot for the airport, a minimum rental fee, and a provision that would protect the city if the company walked away from the project. By the end of the meeting, Turner said he didn’t think any councilors were opposed to the deal and praised Corbett for bringing in “big wins” for the city. Despite the lengthy discussion, the councilors’ discussion of Makad’s his- tory of development in Eastern Ore- gon was minimal. While city officials touted Makad’s involvement in developing the River Lodge and Grill in Boardman, the company’s experience in Eastern Ore- gon extends beyond the hotel. In the early 2000s, Makad announced fertilizer and ethanol plants that would generate a combined full- time 150 jobs at Port of Morrow. But the plants were never built, with Makad Executive Vice President Tawni Camarillo later saying that feasibility concerns and changes in the market led the company to scrap the projects. Around the same time, Makad built a 31-megawatt power plant with the Port of Morrow with MECS Inc., a company that was owned by Mon- santo at the time and has since been acquired by DuPont. According to court documents, MECS agreed to cover the costs of building the plant while Makad oper- ated the facility and paid MECS back. After MECS extended the repay- ment timeline and loaned Makad hun- dreds of thousands of dollars, MECS sued Makad for failing to pay back its loans before settling out of court. Although MECS’ lawsuit asserted the power plant never “operated the plant for any significant period of time,” Camarillo said in a previous interview that the power plant did run but was done in by its first customer: Enron. When Enron declared bankruptcy in the wake of an accounting scandal, Camarillo said “the plant became dif- ficult to operate on an economically sound basis.” Makad’s first foray into Pendle- ton came in 2015, when the company proposed the Airport Road data center, which is supposed to generate 45 jobs. The council agreed to an incentive package of waived sewer connection fees, free electrical and fiber connec- tions, a 5 percent reduction of per- mitting fees per job with a 50 percent reduction ceiling and assistance in qualifying for Pendleton’s enterprise zone, which would exempt the data center from paying property taxes for three to five years. The city also completed a $300,000 sewer connection to the site. Makad said it needed until Aug. 31, 2016, to start paying the $2,460-per- month rent so it could conduct some feasibility studies. The start date has since been pushed back to Dec. 31, 2017, and then again to Jan. 1, 2019. Mayor Turner said he would have liked to have seen the work on the data center started by now, but Makad’s success with the River Lodge is enough for him to feel comfortable moving forward with the deal. “I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt,” he said.
