NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
Page 2A
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Brown offers 7-step ed policy Local sheriffs join support to
in first grade, and reduce
the size from 24 in the sec-
ond grade and 25 in the
third grade to 23.
• Mandate a minimum
180-day school year.
• Accept recommenda-
tions from a policy advi-
sory committee on policies
to create “safe and effec-
tive schools,” including
enhancing access to coun-
selors and mental health
professionals.
• Boost access to
career-technical education.
• Enhance support for
educators and high quality
instruction.
Oregon Rep. Knute
Buehler, the GOP nominee
for governor, released his
education platform in late
June.
“After 30 years in
elected office, and the last
three as governor, Kate
Brown has had many
opportunities to show that
she is capable of fixing our
broken schools,” said Mon-
ica Wroblewski, communi-
cations director for Bue-
hler’s campaign. “Instead,
as governor, she has pre-
sided over a public school
system that fails to grad-
uate roughly one out of
every four kids – one of the
worst graduation rates in
the country.”
Buehler’s plan would
“actually solve Oregon’s
classroom funding cri-
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
Gov.
Kate
Brown
released her seven-step
education policy agenda
Monday, Aug. 27, com-
ponents of which will be
included in her proposed
2019-21 state budget, her
spokeswoman said.
“The governor strongly
believes that in order to
effect change for Oregon’s
students, a multi-pronged
approach is vital,” said
Kate Kondayen, a press
secretary in Brown’s office.
The press secretary did
not answer a question from
the Pamplin/EO Media
Group about how much the
education policy agenda
would cost.
The governor’s pro-
posed statewide budget is
due in late November. At
77 percent, Oregon has one
of the worst on-time gradu-
ation rates in the nation and
one of the shortest school
years, according to federal
statistics.
Her plan would:
• Increase access to pre-
school for low-income chil-
dren. She plans to propose
funding to send 10,000
more children to preschool
in the next two-year budget
and 40,000 by 2025.
• Decrease the median
class size from 22 to 20 in
kindergarten, maintain 23
sis and move our schools
from the bottom five to
the top five in five years,”
Wroblewski said. “He will
lead where Kate Brown has
failed.”
His plan also calls for a
minimum 180-day school
year and more access to
career-technical education.
Buehler, a Bend ortho-
pedic surgeon and state
representative for Oregon
House District 54, has said
he plans to achieve his goal
by boosting the state bud-
get for education by at least
15 percent. The increase
in funding would be paid
for in part with cost sav-
ings from reforms to the
state public pension pro-
gram, the Public Employ-
ees Retirement System, or
PERS, Buehler said.
Meanwhile, a 14-mem-
ber legislative committee
has been touring schools
around the state and seek-
ing input since April on
policies the Legislature
could pursue next year
to improve graduation
outcomes.
The tour is scheduled to
continue through the first
half of October.
Legislation stemming
from the tour could include
reform of educational fund-
ing or accountability mea-
sures that tie funding with
certain measures of perfor-
mance, among others.
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
Hazy sun
Hazy sunshine
Hazy sunshine
Partly sunny and
nice
Mostly sunny and
nice
81° 53°
89° 58°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
78° 53°
77° 47°
81° 53°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
84° 50°
91° 59°
81° 55°
80° 48°
OREGON FORECAST
84° 52°
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
75/54
74/49
83/49
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
81/58
Lewiston
83/51
84/49
Astoria
72/53
Pullman
Yakima 82/50
82/48
79/53
Portland
Hermiston
87/56
Salem
The Dalles 84/50
87/55
87/51
Pendleton 75/44
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
77/45
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Bend
89/53
79/47
79/48
Ontario
77/48
Caldwell
Burns
75°
57°
85°
55°
99° (1934) 41° (1930)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
Eugene
0.02"
0.05"
0.17"
5.15"
6.65"
6.09"
WINDS (in mph)
77/48
74/33
0.03"
0.03"
0.37"
6.52"
11.37"
8.32"
Today
Medford
Wed.
SSW 3-6
N 4-8
Boardman
Pendleton
90/56
WSW 7-14
W 7-14
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
81/43
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2018
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
6:11 a.m.
7:41 p.m.
9:03 p.m.
8:14 a.m.
Last
New
First
Full
Sep 2
Sep 9
Sep 16
Sep 24
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 110° in Needles, Calif. Low 28° in Tuolumne Meadows, Calif.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
-10s
-0s
0s
showers t-storms
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
ice
50s
cold front
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60s
70s
80s
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
The sheriffs of Umatilla
and Morrow counties joined
14 others in Oregon urging
voters to repeal Oregon’s
sanctuary law.
Umatilla County Sheriff
Terry Rowan and Morrow
County Sheriff Ken Matlack
added their names to Clat-
sop County Sheriff Tomas
Bergin’s letter Monday ask-
ing voters to mark “yes”
on Ballot Measure 105 in
November to end Oregon
Revised Statute 181A.820,
which forbids state and
local enforcement agencies
from using their resources
to find or apprehend any-
one whose only violation is
being in the county in viola-
tion of federal immigration
laws.
Rowan said he signed the
letter because this issue is
about focusing on the people
in the county illegally who
are criminals.
“If a person is illegally
here, I’m not even worried
about that,” he said. “But
what I am worried about
are those who are here ille-
gally and who commit local
crimes. ... That is the pop-
ulation that we’re trying to
get at.”
Umatilla County has not
had an uptick in crime from
illegal immigrants, Rowan
said, but there are people
here illegally who commit
crimes. Letting local law
enforcement communicate
and work with federal agen-
cies “just makes sense,” he
said, and Oregonians have
the right to vote on repealing
the sanctuary law.
“This is about the rule
of law,” he said, and law
enforcement should be able
to communicate with fellow
agencies, no matter their
level of government, from
local to federal. Fighting
crime, he said, is apolitical.
90s
100s
warm front stationary front
110s
high
low
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
SALEM — The Ore-
gon Legislature is fight-
ing attempts by the state’s
labor commissioner to sub-
poena documents as he pur-
sues senior lawmakers for
allegedly permitting a sexu-
ally hostile environment in
the Capitol.
The Legislature is com-
mitted to transparency, but
the documents contain con-
fidential information about
people who came forward in
harassment complaints and
asked to remain anonymous,
a lawyer whose firm is repre-
senting the Legislature said
in a letter.
A copy of the letter, sent
on Friday to members and
staff of the Legislature by
Edwin Harnden of the Bar-
ran Liebman law firm of
Portland, was obtained by
The Associated Press.
“The Legislature will pro-
tect the privacy of those indi-
viduals who disclosed per-
sonal information relating
to harassment issues in the
Capitol,” Harnden wrote.
On Aug. 1, Labor Com-
missioner Brad Avakian filed
a complaint with his own
department accusing Sen-
ate President Peter Court-
ney and House Speaker Tina
Kotek, both fellow Demo-
crats, of allowing a sexually
hostile environment and of
being slow to protect women
from Republican Sen. Jeff
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Umatilla County Sheriff
Terry Rowan
Morrow County Sheriff
Kenneth Matlack
Erin McKee is co-direc-
tor of the Immigrant Rights
Project at the Oregon Justice
Resource Center. She issued
a statement Monday assert-
ing Oregon’s 30-year-old
sanctuary law has benefited
public safety and prevented
racial profiling. McKee
called Bergin’s letter “tired,
fear-mongering rhetoric that
misleads the public on how
the law works.”
Bergin perpetuates “the
myth of the criminal immi-
grant,” McKee wrote.
“Studies have shown,
repeatedly, that immigrants
commit crimes at lower
rates than native-born cit-
izens. There is no factual
basis for the assertion that a
civil immigration violation
leads to a life of crime.”
Nothing in the sanctu-
ary statute prevents local
law enforcement from pur-
suing immigrants who com-
mit crimes, according to
McKee, but passing the
ballot measure will lead to
U.S. Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement deporting
noncitizens who called the
police for help. She stated
the letter is “nothing short
of open hostility towards
communities of color, immi-
grants, and non-citizens,”
and Oregonians “should
reject such fear based rhet-
oric and myths, and support
policies grounded in facts,
dignity, and compassion.”
Rowan said he spoke
with a number of commu-
nity groups about the need
to repeal the sanctuary law,
including some from the
Hispanic populace. Rowan
said those groups agree law
enforcement needs to deal
with people who don’t obey
the law. He stressed repeal-
ing the law was not about
Latinos but freeing local
law enforcement to work
with federal partners. That’s
no different, he said, than
the sheriff’s office sharing
information with city police
departments.
“If we can’t use every
tool available to us,” he
said, “we’re just swimming
upstream all the time.”
The East Oregonian tried
to reach Sheriff Matlack, but
he didn’t return a call before
deadline Monday.
Oregon has 36 coun-
ties, so 20 sheriffs did not
sign the letter. The 16 who
did are Bergin (Clatsop),
Craig Zanni (Coos), John
Ward (Curry), Shane Nel-
son (Deschutes), John Han-
lin (Douglas), Glenn Palmer
(Grant), Gary Bettencourt
(Gilliam), Dave Ward (Har-
ney), Chris Kaber (Klam-
ath), Mike Taylor (Lake),
Brian Wolfe (Malheur),
Matlack (Morrow), Brad
Lohrey (Sherman), Rowan
(Umatilla), Boyd Rasmus-
sen (Union) and Chris Hum-
phrey (Wheeler).
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0833.
Legislature objects to subpoenas
in sexual harassment case
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
81/53
89/52
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
HERMISTON
Enterprise
88/54
Corvallis
73°
54°
85°
55°
103° (1916) 40° (1911)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
80/50
Aberdeen
75/52
81/57
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
81/55
end Oregon’s sanctuary law
Kruse. Kruse resigned ear-
lier this year as the #MeToo
movement against sex-
ual misconduct swept poli-
tics, entertainment and other
industries.
Kotek and Courtney have
said they acted quickly when
complaints emerged about
Kruse, who an independent
investigation determined had
harassed women in the Cap-
itol with prolonged hugging,
groping and other unwel-
come physical contact.
“The ‘MeToo’ move-
ment has woken everybody
up that this is not OK behav-
ior,” Kotek told reporters on
Aug. 2 in response to Avaki-
an’s complaint. She said if it
leads to an investigation that
helps create a better atmo-
sphere in the Capitol and bet-
ter outcomes for victims, that
she is open to it.
The complaint from Ava-
kian, whose term ends at the
end of the year, came as a
surprise, and after Kotek and
Courtney had already asked
the Oregon Law Commis-
sion to review policies on
harassment and recommend
ways to improve them by
year’s end.
Since the #MeToo move-
ment caught fire, about half
of all state legislatures in
America have changed their
sexual harassment policies,
most often by boosting their
own training, according to
a 50-state analysis by The
Associated Press published
Sunday. The rest have done
nothing this year.
Harnden on Friday sent
a letter to Avakian’s Bureau
of Labor and Industries,
formally objecting to the
subpoenas, Oregon Pub-
lic Broadcasting reported.
Harnden’s letter to Capi-
tol workers and lawmakers
explained the reasons behind
the objections.
“The information seeks
highly confidential person-
ally identifiable information
about individuals who came
forward in harassment com-
plaints and asked to remain
anonymous, and because the
subpoenas are overbroad,”
Harnden wrote. He said the
objections are “a standard
part of the administrative
process under BOLI’s rules.”
The Legislature will
respond to Avakian’s com-
plaint on Friday, Harnden
said.
It was filed on behalf
of two female interns for
Kruse who had complained
of unwanted touching and
comments, and on behalf of
two employees. None was
identified.
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