BOYS HOOPS: Pendleton tips off season with win over Baker City | PAGE 1B
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2018
143rd Year, No. 31
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
BMCC project gets $13M in Brown’s budget
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
The Blue Mountain
Regional Training Center,
formerly known as FARM
II, just received a $13 mil-
lion endorsement from the
governor.
Gov.
Kate
Brown
released Wednesday her rec-
ommended budget for the
2019-2021 biennium, which
included allocating $8 mil-
lion from state lottery bonds
toward the Blue Mountain
Community College project.
Combined with the $5
million the state has already
budgeted for multi-use agri-
cultural facility, the state
should cover the training
center’s estimated $12.5
million cost.
Connie Green, BMCC’s
interim president, said the
training center’s inclu-
sion in the budget proposal
wasn’t just an achievement
for the college, but a feather
in the cap for the whole
community.
She credited BMCC’s
project partners for help-
ing the training center get
this far. The city of Pendle-
ton, Umatilla County, and
Port of Umatilla all contrib-
uted $150,000 toward the
training center. The Pendle-
ton Round-Up Association
is providing the college with
land and the InterMountain
Education Service District
also recently joined in the
partnership.
As it’s currently con-
ceived, BMCC plans to build
two-story, 87,092-square-
foot facility with class-
rooms and lab space for its
veterinary program and an
indoor arena that would host
the BMCC rodeo team and
other equine events.
Pendleton Mayor John
Turner, who worked on
the project when he was
BMCC’s president, was
excited by the development.
“It’s a huge step for-
ward,” he said.
Turner said Brown sup-
ported the project because
of its potential to boost
career technical education
and be an economic driver
for the community. Local
officials expect the training
center’s indoor arena will
draw equine events during
the winter, typically a slow
time in Pendleton’s tourism
schedule.
In October, the city and
Round-Up engineered a land
See BUDGET/8A
UMATILLA
Umatilla
County
approves
$17K to
help bail
out AOC
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Umatilla County is
giving $17,377.38 to
help the Association of
Oregon Counties cover
more than $900,000 it
misspent. The county
board of commissioners
voted 3-0 at its meeting
Wednesday in Pendleton
to approve the handout.
County Commissioner
George Murdock said
the board anticipated the
expense, which will come
out of funds for member-
ship dues and the like.
“This whole issue has
been under discussion
and consideration for a
year,” he said, and Ore-
gon’s 36 counties were
involved in the process.
The association is an
intergovernmental orga-
nization that lobbies for
Oregon’s counties, which
in turn pay annual dues.
The Umatilla County
Board of Commission-
ers in March approved
$23,256.95 for the dues.
An audit in August
revealed the association
over five years took at
least $900,000 from its
county road program to
cover general operations,
according to reporting by
The Oregonian. Murdock
said the association used
the money for “programs
and services with good
intentions of restoring it,
but that didn’t happen.”
The association on a
Nov. 8 invoice to Uma-
tilla County stated the
AOC board of direc-
tors on Oct. 8 voted to
bill counties a “one-time
assessment” to replace
the road funds “borrowed
See AOC/8A
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
The eastbound lanes of the Interstate 82 bridge at Umatilla won’t open in 2018 as expected.
Bridge won’t reopen until spring or summer
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
T
he Washington State Department of
Transportation doesn’t know exactly
when the eastbound Interstate 82 bridge
across the Columbia River will reopen, but it
won’t be in 2018.
The department had previously said con-
struction on the bridge deck near Umatilla
would finish in October, then pushed that
timeline to December. But on Wednesday in
an email to the East Oregonian, spokeswoman
Jackie Ramirez said the bridge that previously
took drivers into Oregon will continue to be
closed through the winter because crews can-
not finish work on the bridge until the weather
warms up again.
“Crews will finish pouring the concrete
once the weather gets better and completion of
the bridge will be in spring/summer of 2019,”
she said.
Ramirez said there was some “additional
repair work” that cropped up unexpectedly
as contractors worked on replacing the bridge
deck, and that extra work put them too far
behind to finish up concrete overlay pours
before cold weather set in.
A smaller crew will continue throughout
the winter on repairs that can be completed in
cold weather.
The eastbound bridge, built in 1955, had
originally carried traffic to and from Oregon
before a second westbound bridge was added
See BRIDGE/8A
HERMISTON
Hamm marks final Farm Fair with talk of spuds, the future
By JAYATI
RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
At Wednesday’s Herm-
iston Farm Fair, the con-
ference room at the East-
ern Oregon Trade and Event
Center was packed with
growers and scientists lis-
tening to Phil Hamm talk
about potatoes.
Hamm’s
presentation,
“What I Would Do to Man-
age Diseases if I was a
Potato Grower,” was his last
as an Oregon State Univer-
sity employee. The longtime
plant pathologist and profes-
sor will retire in summer of
2019 after a nearly 30-year
career with the college,
and a nearly 45-year career
studying plant diseases.
He kept the crowd
involved during the half-
hour seminar, covering
the basics of four common
potato diseases and how to
avoid them.
“Potato Virus Y does two
things,” he said, letting his
professorial side come out.
“Someone tell me.”
He noted that the virus,
which reduces tuber yield
and quality, is difficult to
control, and is vectored —
or spread — by aphids as
well as seed-borne. His rec-
ommendation to growers:
Produce PVY-free seed, and
make sure the seed has been
tested thoroughly.
After the presentation,
Hamm tried to leave but got
sidetracked about a dozen
times in conversations with
people who have known and
worked with him for years.
“That’s the sad part —
this is what I’m going to
miss when I finally retire,”
he said. “I had several grow-
ers testify in front of the
Ways and Means committee,
and I realized, they’re not
my stakeholders. They’re
See HAMM/8A
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Phil Hamm, director of the Hermiston Agricultural Re-
search & Extension Center, chats with another partici-
pant on Wednesday at the Hermiston Farm Fair. Hamm
announced he will retire this summer.
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