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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Hurricane Willa threatens Mexico’s Pacific coast
By MARIA VERZA
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — A
potentially catastrophic Hur-
ricane Willa swept toward
Mexico’s Pacific coast with
winds of 145 mph Monday
night, threatening a stretch
of high-rise resort hotels,
surfing beaches and fishing
villages.
Farther south, Mexican
officials reported 12 deaths
related to heavy rains from
Tropical Storm Vicente.
After briefly reaching
Category 5 strength, Wil-
la’s maximum sustained
winds weakened some.
But it remained “extremely
dangerous” and was fore-
cast to bring “life-threat-
ening storm surge, wind
and rainfall” to parts of
west-central and south-
western Mexico ahead of
an expected Tuesday land-
fall, the U.S. National Hur-
ricane Center said.
Hotel workers started
taping up windows, and
officials began evacuat-
ing people and shuttered
schools in a low-lying land-
scape where towns sit amid
farmland tucked between
the sea and lagoons. A
decree of “extraordinary
emergency” was issued
for 19 municipalities in
Nayarit and Sinaloa states,
the federal Interior Depart-
ment announced.
Officials said 7,000 to
8,000 people were being
evacuated from low-lying
areas, mostly in Sinaloa
state.
The hurricane was
expected to pass over or
near the Islas Marias —
a set of islands about 60
miles offshore that include
a nature preserve and a
federal prison — early
Tuesday.
Forecasters said Willa
would then blow ashore in
the afternoon or evening
somewhere along a 140-
mile stretch extending from
the resort town of Mazatlan
to San Blas.
It was projected to
weaken somewhat before
hitting land but was still
expected to be extremely
dangerous.
Yamile
Bustamante,
assistant general man-
ager at the Crown Plaza de
Mazatlan, said hotel exec-
utives were not ruling out
the possibility of evacuat-
ing guests but were await-
NOAA via AP
This GOES East satellite image provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Willa in the
eastern Pacific, on a path toward Mexico’s Pacific coast on Monday.
ing
instructions
from
authorities.
The governments of
Sinaloa and Nayarit ordered
coastal region schools to
close and began preparing
emergency shelters.
Enrique Moreno, mayor
of Escuinapa, a municipal-
ity of about 60,000 people
on Willa’s track, said offi-
cials were trying to evac-
uate everybody in the sea-
side village of Teacapan.
He estimated 3,000 were
affected but he expected
some would try to stay.
“The people don’t want
to evacuate, but it’s for
their security,” he said.
About 60 miles up the
coast in Mazatlan, with a
metropolitan-area
popu-
lation of about 500,000,
Mayor Jose Joel Boucieg-
uez said officials prepared
shelters and were closely
monitoring low-lying areas.
Mazatlan is a popular vaca-
tion spot and home to a
large number of American
and Canadian expatriates.
Late Monday, Willa
was centered about 85
miles southwest of the
Islas Marias and 195 miles
south-southwest of Mazat-
lan. It was moving north at
9 mph.
Hurricane-force winds
extended 35 miles from the
storm’s center, and tropical
storm-force winds were up
to 125 miles out.
The U.S. hurricane cen-
ter warned that Willa could
bring 6 to 12 inches of rain
— with up to 18 inches in
some places — to parts of
Jalisco, Nayarit and Sinaloa
states, with flash flooding
and landslides possible in
mountainous areas.
Farther south, Tropi-
cal Storm Vicente weak-
ened and was expected to
dissipate soon, but it still
dropped heavy rainfall that
caused dangerous flooding
in southern and southwest-
ern Mexico.
Officials in Oaxaca state
said seven adults and five
children had lost their lives
in drownings or mudslides.
FOSSIL: ‘Family wage’ jobs, benefits
HAMLEY: Looked to buy in 2016
Continued from 1A
Continued from 1A
and running for two weeks
and all of the employees are
from the Fossil area.
According to a depart-
ment press release, the
agency received more than
639,000 calls last year from
taxpayers with various
questions on filing, paying,
and other topics.
Krawczyk said the
department’s Salem office
and its five regional offices
will continue to field ques-
tions, although the Fos-
sil call center isn’t open
to the public for in-person
services.
“This team will help
the department continue to
improve the assistance tax-
payers receive and the expe-
rience they have when they
call us with questions, con-
cerns, or problems,” depart-
ment Director Nia Ray said
in a statement.
At less than 1,500 peo-
ple, Wheeler County is the
least populous county in
Oregon, and recent events
don’t seem to suggest that
will change.
In June, Wheeler County
Sheriff Chris Humphreys
announced that he would
resign within the next four
to six months and all three
of his full-time deputies
were also departing.
That same month, all the
members Wheeler County
High School’s graduating
class said they don’t plan
to return to the county after
completing their college
educations. The class of
2018 started with more than
a dozen students in first
grade, but by the time they
reached graduation, the
class had shrunk to three.
Despite the trends in
Wheeler County, Smith said
the call center could help
the area reverse its fortunes.
Smith said all of the
jobs at the call center were
“family wage” jobs with
benefits.
If the sheriff’s office
hired a new deputy, their
spouse could take a job at
the call center, Smith said.
Together, they could afford
to buy a house and a car.
Smith said he didn’t see
why there was any rea-
son that the Fossil call cen-
ter couldn’t be replicated in
other counties with sparse
populations and services.
According to the depart-
ment of revenue press
release, the grand opening
ceremony will take place at
the Wheeler County Court-
house in Fossil on Tuesday
at 11 a.m.
field “is not our issue.” He
also said as far he knew,
the tribes do not own prop-
erty within the city limits
of Pendleton. The Ham-
ley sites would be the first.
Paul Chalmers, Umatilla
County tax assessor, said
that seemed right but it
would require a sufficient
search of property records
to be certain.
Wildhorse Resort &
Casino, which the tribes
own, looked to buy the
Hamley businesses in 2016
for more than $3.1 mil-
lion, according to court
documents in the lawsuit.
Wildhorse, in 2017, began
its latest expansion on the
reservation — an $85 mil-
lion project for a new hotel
tower, a 32-lane bowl-
ing alley and additions
and improvements for din-
ing, gaming and the cine-
plex. Sams said Wildhorse
would manage the Hamley
establishments if the tribes
bought them.
Woodfield and Pearce
got involved with the Ham-
ley enterprise in 2005
when it was failing. They
oversaw the renovation
of the century-old build-
ing, reopened the Hamley
store in September of 2005
and in the next two years
expanded the operation
with the steakhouse and
the Slick Fork Saloon, an
event space. The Hamley
businesses employ 75-80
people.
Theodore Piteo of Port-
land represents Woodfield
in the bankruptcy case and
during a Sept. 4 hearing in
Portland told Judge Trish
M. Brown about the tribes’
offer.
“They have made a pur-
chase offer on the Ham-
ley’s assets currently for $2
million,” he stated, accord-
ing to the court recording.
HIPO’s attorney, Albert
Kennedy of Portland, also
attended the hearing and
said he knew of the letter
of interest but did not know
if the tribes were willing
to go through an auction
to buy Hamley assets and
suggested setting another
meeting.
Parties in the bankruptcy
came together Friday in
Portland for a settlement
conference, but nothing
indicates they made a deal.
Sams said there would
be more details if the tribes
and the Hamley owners
reach an agreement, but
the tribes have yet to hear
back.
ADS: ‘What we are seeing now is the candidates trying to define who their opponent is’
Continued from 1A
But last year, Buehler
disclosed in a Facebook
post that he didn’t vote for
Trump. Instead, he wrote in
the name Ohio Gov. John
Kasich for president.
Buehler has repeatedly
criticized Trump’s policies
and conduct in other inter-
views and on social media.
He also called on Trump
to withdraw Kavanaugh’s
nomination as the Sen-
ate confirmation hearing
unfolded.
“With nothing positive to
say about her own record or
her vision for Oregon, Kate
Brown has completely over-
played her hand with a ridic-
ulous and 100 percent false
attack against Knute Bue-
hler comparing Knute to
Donald Trump,” wrote Jor-
dan Conger, Buehler’s cam-
paign policy director, in an
email. “There are legitimate
issues and differences to
debate in the race for gover-
nor; this is not one of them.”
Buehler’s
campaign,
meanwhile, in an ad ear-
lier this month, claimed that
revenue from a new payroll
tax to fund mass transit ser-
vices — which Brown sup-
ported — forces workers in
the rest of the state to pay
for Portland service.
“Kate Brown has always
been a politician who thinks
about Portland first and the
rest of Oregon last,” Trout-
dale resident Kelly Fisher
says in the ad. “Why else
would Brown raise a pay-
roll tax on a working person
like me to pay for Portland’s
mass transit system?”
Christian
Gaston,
Brown’s campaign spokes-
man, said the ad on the tran-
sit tax is “completely false”
and “based on a lie.”
“This whole campaign
has been a constant barrage
of misinformation from
Knute Buehler and Prior-
ity Oregon (political action
Jonathan House/Pamplin Media Group
The campaigns of GOP nominee Rep. Knute Buehler,
left, and incumbent Democrat Gov. Kate Brown are re-
leasing multiple TV and social media ads as the guber-
natorial campaign enters its final days.
committee),” Gaston said.
“It has been really difficult
to push out fact checks fast
enough.”
In fact, the taxes paid by
employees in densely pop-
ulated areas, such as Port-
land, help pay for transit ser-
vices in sparsely populated
areas such as Gilliam and
Harney counties, said Karyn
Criswell, a state transporta-
tion project manager.
About 42 jurisdictions
around the state get money
from the transit tax. Six-
teen cover areas with so
few workers that they get
$50,000 a year from the
state as a base, Criswell
said.
Conger said the ad is
accurate because as a Trout-
dale resident, Kelly’s pay-
roll taxes go toward TriMet,
which provides transit ser-
vices largely to Portland.
But TriMet maps show
service is also offered to
Troutdale.
In ads aired recently,
Brown’s campaign stated
that Buehler wants to restrict
access to abortion.
The campaign and some
pro-choice advocates have
offered as evidence Bue-
hler’s vote against the state’s
Reproductive Equity Act in
2017. The act, among other
things, expanded reproduc-
tive health care to undocu-
mented immigrants.
Buehler has said repeat-
edly he is pro-choice and
would make no changes to
the state’s abortion laws,
which are among the least
restrictive in the nation.
“Yes, he voted against
that act, but does that mean
he is not pro-choice? Heck,
no,” said Moore, the state
political scientist from
Pacific University. “He is
definitely pro-choice. He
just didn’t take this further
step.
“When you look at any
major Republican candi-
date, he is a wild radical on
choice.”
Buehler’s
campaign
also takes issue with an ad
by Brown’s campaign that
said Buehler voted to “take
coverage away from …
hundreds of thousands of
Oregonians.”
The ad refers to Bue-
hler’s vote against a bill to
enact a mix of health care
provider taxes to temporar-
ily fund the Oregon Health
Plan, the state’s version of
Medicaid.
The taxes hit hospi-
tals, insurers, the Public
Employees Benefits Board
and coordinated health care
organizations, which are
regional networks of Ore-
gon Health Plan providers.
Buehler did vote against
the taxes because he felt
they were “unfair and tar-
geted small businesses
and school districts while
exempting large corpora-
tions,” Conger said.
He wanted a longer-term
solution for funding health
care and with other legis-
lators proposed legislation
to do so. Their ideas never
made it to a vote.
Gaston
defended
Brown’s ads as “narrowly
on actions Buehler has
taken.”
“His campaign is about
… selling this image of him-
self as a candidate that is
different from what he has
done as a legislator,” Gas-
ton said.
In another ad, Buehler’s
campaign said that Brown
“cut career-focused educa-
tion by 43 percent.”
The claim refers to vot-
er-approved Measure 98 in
2016. The ballot measure
dedicated about $150 mil-
lion per year toward high
school career-technical edu-
cation and other programs
to boost the graduation rate.
A year later, Brown
proposed
increasing
career-technical education
funding by $75 million a
year — not the full amount
approved by voters. Legisla-
tors, including Buehler, ulti-
mately passed a budget that
instead allocated $85 mil-
lion a year for career-techni-
cal education funding.
Buehler voted against the
state education budget for
several reasons, including
that short funding of career
education, his campaign
said.
“He thought at the time
that was the more appropri-
ate time to present that mes-
sage, and frankly, he wanted
to make sure some fund-
ing on Measure 98 made it
through,” Conger said in a
phone interview with the
Oregon Capital Bureau.
Conger defended calling
the funding for Measure 98
a cut.
“Voters recognized this
as a priority and made the
funding available for it, and
even then, she proposed cut-
ting it in half,” Conger said.
“If cutting voter-approved
funding doesn’t amount to a
cut, I don’t know what will.”
Gaston called the ad
“complete trash politics.”
“It’s galling that (Bue-
hler) has the temerity to say
we are doing anything but
stating the truth about his
record, when he is saying
Governor Brown cut CTE
(career-technical education)
funding,” Gaston said.
Buehler’s ad also implied
that Brown’s policies con-
tributed to Oregon’s third-
worst graduation rate in the
nation.
Oregon already held that
distinction before Brown
became governor. Since
she took office in February
2015, the graduation rate
has inched up slightly but
not enough to change the
state’s third-worst national
ranking.
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