Wednesday, August 29, 2018
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LINKED: Will continue to stay involved with the freshman, holding monthly events
Page 8A
East Oregonian
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ries with her when she’s par-
ticipating in Link Crew, and
this year, she’s been pro-
moted to one of the club’s four
directors.
Mazie will spend the year
pairing Link Crew members
with freshmen and organizing
Link Crew events for the first-
year students to attend.
Clem said what made
the Pendleton Link Crew
unique is that it’s a year-round
effort rather than an organi-
zation that revolves around
the first day of school before
disbanding.
Link Crew will meet with
freshmen again on Wednes-
day, where they will sit in
small groups to gather input
on the first few days and share
advice.
The club will continue to
stay involved with the fresh-
man by holding monthly
events where first-year stu-
dents with perfect attendance,
strong grades or some other
achievement are recognized
and awarded a prize.
Mazie said the consistent
Link Crew provides a pres-
ence, allowing her and the
rest of the Link Crew mem-
bers to keep track of the fresh-
men and finish the school year
strong.
Clem said the hope was
that the year-round Link Crew
contributed toward Pendleton
High School’s 94.7 percent
graduation rate.
In an effort to maintain
strong graduation scores, Link
Crew convened the freshmen
in the high school gym, where
the club lined up the students
and had them shake Principal
Melissa Sandven’s hand and
promise her that they would
graduate in 2022.
This was Sandven’s first
day with students after she
was hired to replace Dan
Greenough, who resigned at
the end of the last school year.
A former administrator at
Rainier Junior/Senior High
School with administrative
experience in Gresham, Port-
land, Sandy, and Albuquer-
que, New Mexico, Sandven
clasped each child’s hand
as they moved through the
queue, occasionally remind-
ing them of her name and
to recite which year they
intended to graduate in.
Sandven said she was
impressed by the level of
organization that went into the
freshman orientation and went
over some of her own goals
for the 2018-2019 school year.
She aims to build trust and
unity among staff members,
and although she didn’t want
to say there was a sense of dis-
cord last year, Sandven added
that there was a sense that
teachers wanted more support
this year.
Sandven also wants to
revamp Professional Learn-
ing Communities, after-
school professional develop-
ment meetings where teachers
can meet with each other, so
that teachers come away from
them with tangible results.
“They’ll see me everyday,”
she said. “I’m not in my office
all the time.”
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
New English teacher Evan Rummerfield gives directions to freshman Olivia Corbett
on Monday during freshman orientation at Pendleton High School.
After meeting Sandven,
the students left the gym to
either test out their locker or
wait for transportation at the
front of the building.
Testing out of their lock-
ers, freshmen Jamie Gau and
Kenzie Whaley gave the ori-
entation positive reviews, say-
ing they liked the games they
played during the morning.
For the pair and the rest
of the freshmen, the fun and
games will give way to real
school on Tuesday.
COUNCIL: Makad Corp.’s history of development in Eastern Oregon is mixed bag
Continued from 1A
percent during the first year
to 2 percent starting in 2028.
Makad Corp. also ver-
bally agreed to build a
new longterm parking lot
to replace the lot it would
build on, although it wasn’t
included in the lease paper-
work that was made publicly
available.
At the Tuesday meeting,
City Councilor Dale Prim-
mer said he was under the
impression that the gross
revenue deal would last
through the length of the
deal, but the lease states
that Makad Corp, through
its subsidiary Horse Valley
LLC, would only have to use
that method through 2046.
Primmer was also con-
cerned about “front-loading”
many of the incentives.
Company CEO Elie
Makad said the city wouldn’t
have to pay “a penny” until
Makad Corp. gave them
notice that they had financ-
ing in place and were ready
to start construction.
Makad also seemed to
grow annoyed with the ques-
tioning and suggested his
company could solely focus
on its other Pendleton proj-
ect, a data center on Airport
Road.
“If you don’t want this
project, that’s OK,” he said.
“It’s not a big deal for us.”
Makad later apologized
to the council, saying that
he assumed that they were
already fully knowledgeable
of the agreement.
Makad Corp. has yet to
start construction on an Air-
port Road data center, which
the company originally
announced in 2015. Makad
Corp. general counsel Allan
Fulsher reiterated that the
company has spent these
past years trying to identify
a power source and proper
financing.
Makad Corp.’s history of
development in Eastern Ore-
gon is a mixed bag.
Although Makad devel-
oped the River Lodge and
Grill in Boardman, its plans
to build an ethanol plant and
a fertilizer plant at the Port of
Morrow in the early 2000s
never got off the ground.
Another port project — a
31-megawatt power plant
— operated for a short time
before it got wrapped up in
a lawsuit with a partnering
company. It was eventually
shuttered and sold.
After a lengthy discus-
sion from the council, Mayor
Turner postponed a decision
on the proposed hotel with-
out a vote.
Due to quirk in the sched-
ule, the city council will
meet again next Tuesday for
a regular meeting.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
TAX: Governor Brown has indicated support for changes to property tax system
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real market value. In 1997,
voters approved Measure
50, which changed how
property taxes are calcu-
lated, decoupling assess-
ments from market values
and placing a limit on their
annual growth.
Supporters say the sys-
tem’s limits protect tax-
payers from sharp annual
increases and require local
governments to be thrifty.
Detractors,
however,
say that the system, which
among other caps and
restrictions typically taxes
owners on the assessed
value of a property —
rather than its real market
value — creates signifi-
cant disparities in property
taxes, even between similar
properties in the same area.
State Sent Mark Hass,
D-Beaverton, the chair of
the Interim Senate Com-
mittee on Finance and Rev-
enue, said this week that,
while keen to fix inequi-
ties in the system, he would
prefer to make changes to
the property tax system in a
“revenue-neutral” way.
He would focus on
tweaking Measure 50.
“I’m not looking at rev-
enues as much as I’m look-
ing at reforming the tax
code to make it more effi-
cient and less volatile,”
Hass said Monday. “So to
me, any kind of work like
that is preferably revenue
neutral.”
At the same event where
Kotek spoke, Senate Presi-
dent Peter Courtney, D-Sa-
lem, described how K-12
education in Oregon used
to get two-thirds of its
funding from local prop-
erty taxes. Instead, now the
funding burden lies almost
solely on the state’s general
fund, which relies on the
highly volatile income tax.
Without Ballot Measures
5 and 50, he said, property
taxes would been about
$3.5 billion higher per year,
with roughly $2.1 billion of
that allocated to schools.
“That shows you the
magnitude of what hap-
pened to this state in 1990,”
Courtney said. “We have
never replaced that source
of funding ... that is why
we’re struggling so much.”
The prospect of taking
up property tax reform next
year is somewhat “daunt-
ing,” Hass said, for a few
reasons.
Voters would need to
approve changes to the
state constitution to change
the property tax code,
which would require edu-
cating voters about a com-
plex issue.
Democratic Gov. Kate
Brown, who indicated sup-
port for changes to the
property tax system in May,
said at the time that edu-
cating voters on the issue
would have to come first.
Her spokespeople did not
return a request for com-
ment Tuesday.
Rep. Knute Buehler,
her Republican challenger,
wants to increase education
spending by 15 percent. He
has suggested funding his
plan with cuts in employee
benefits packages.
Lawmakers attempted to
make changes to the system
last year. But even when
they floated a homestead
exemption, which would
exempt part of a home’s
value from taxation, the
legislation proved to be a
“big lift,” Hass said.
“So we’re scratching our
heads and trying to figure
out what can be done in the
next session,” Hass said.
VENDOR: Loosens some restrictions
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were already taken. Spencer
said his department had also
fielded numerous requests
for temporary licenses to sell
things such as ice cream, fruit
cups or hot dogs in the sum-
mer. In an online survey that
more than 900 people partici-
pated in, 86 percent said they
believed the city should add
more mobile food vending
opportunities.
The new ordinance also
loosens up some restrictions,
including reducing the num-
ber of parking spots required
from five to three, allowing
push-carts and allowing oper-
ation in the C1 and C2 com-
mercial zones, which included
downtown. The ordinance
does not create a food pod by
statute, but the city is look-
ing into creating a gathering
space for food trucks in the
public parking lot on Orchard
Avenue across from the post
office.
Shipping containers
On Monday the council
also discussed the results of
a community survey regard-
ing metal shipping containers
used as storage units. The city
does not currently regulate
them, but the council asked
that city staff look into possi-
ble regulations as the contain-
ers — usually seen on trains
or ships — become more pop-
ular as an inexpensive storage
option.
Spencer said 376 people
filled out the optional online
survey that was open to any-
one. Sixty-nine percent of
those respondents said they
were opposed to all use of
the containers in a residen-
tial zone, 51 percent said they
were opposed to use in a com-
mercial zone and 35 percent
said they were opposed to use
in an industrial zone.
Recommendations from
the planning commission,
however, suggested that the
containers be allowed in res-
idential zones under a few cir-
cumstances — requiring the
containers to be 20 feet long
or less, placed behind the
front line of the residence, on
a concrete slab, screened from
view and free of rust or logos.
One container per acre would
also be allowed in commer-
cial zones and industrial use
of the containers would be
allowed. Shipping containers
would require a license, with
90-day and longterm licenses
available. Existing containers
would be grandfathered in.
Councilors had mixed
reactions — Doug Primmer
said it seemed like it would
be too much work added on
the code enforcement office,
while John Kirwan said the
city needed to write some-
thing it could enforce, just
like regular storage sheds
are currently subject to some
rules. Lori Davis said she
was OK with shipping con-
tainers in residential zones as
long as they followed the rules
suggested.
Spencer said he would
keep the feedback in mind
as he returned to the plan-
ning commission to start the
process of creating the actual
ordinance to bring back before
the city council at a later date.
Street projects
On Monday, the council
approved a request from city
staff to “flip-flop” two items
on its streets capital improve-
ment plan.
The plan was for the city
to take on no major projects
from the plan in fiscal year
2019-20, then complete a
realignment of the three-way
intersection of Geer, Harper
and Umatilla River roads in
2021 and pave the eastern
portion of Theater Lane after.
Assistant city manager
Mark Morgan said the city has
since changed its philosophy
on paying for sidewalks on
new projects and decided to
only pave travel lanes on The-
ater Lane and leave addition
of sidewalks, curbs and gut-
ters to developers who build
out there. That cut down the
project’s cost from approxi-
mately $1.3 million to about
$600,000. At the same time,
engineers are having a harder
time than expected coming up
with a re-design for the Geer/
Harper intersection, where
three roads cross over the
railroad tracks west of Home
Depot.
“One of the things we have
realized when we got into
looking at Geer and Harper
is that there are no good solu-
tions there,” Morgan said.
Flipping the Theater and
Geer/Harper projects would
be easier from a cash flow
perspective, give engineers
more time and have East The-
ater Lane finished by the end
of 2020.
Kirwan said he was
opposed to the idea because
the portion of Theater Lane
that would be paved is beyond
where the housing develop-
ment lies.
“No citizens of the city of
Hermiston live past there,” he
said.
But councilor Jackie
Myers, who lives in the area of
the project, said residents still
use the road frequently to get
to other places. She has asked
for years when the city will
pave the road. And councilor
Doug Smith said his family
would use Theater Lane more
often if the unpaved portion
got paved.
In the end, all councilors
but Kirwan voted in favor of
the change.
3234 S.W. Nye Pendleton, OR
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