RODEO: Columbia river Circuit Finals in yakima | SPORTS, B1
E O
AST
143rd year, no. 59
REGONIAN
Thursday, January 10, 2019
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
PENDLETON
Parades
may pay
for police
support
Council considering
$1,500 fee, with
four exceptions
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Pendleton parades are free to
attend, but that doesn’t mean they
don’t have a cost.
Pendleton Police Chief stuart
roberts said that a parade during
Round-Up week requires 15 offi-
cers at a minimum to close down
streets and provide security. Factor
in staffing and overtime costs, and
roberts said it can cost $6,000 to
$8,000 to cover.
In an attempt to recover some
of those costs, the Pendleton City
Council is considering amend-
ing the city’s parade ordinance to
include a $1,500 fee.
The council held a first reading
of the amended ordinance at a Tues-
day meeting, but took no action.
roberts said he originally got
involved with amendment discus-
sions over his desire to streamline
the process on parade permits.
although people applying for
permits are supposed to submit
them to the police chief 15 days
before the parade, roberts said he
sometimes gets applications only a
few days before the event is sup-
posed to start.
In discussions with other city
officials, the $1,500 fee was even-
tually added in to recover public
safety costs.
although that could be a sig-
nificant amount of money for
some parade organizers, roberts
said it only applies to a narrow
band of public events — moving
events that require extended street
closures.
Public marches or fun runs that
mainly use sidewalks wouldn’t
need to apply for a parade permit
or pay the fee. “rolling events”
like funeral processions or bike
rides wouldn’t see any changes to
their organization process.
and Pendleton’s biggest and
most well-established parades —
Westward ho!, dress-up, Fourth
of July, and the Little League Team
parades — would be exempted
from the fee.
Outside of the exempted
parades, Roberts said it’s diffi-
cult to quantify how many parades
the city permits per year because
they’re more sporadic.
at the council meeting Tues-
day, Councilor scott Fairley ques-
tioned why the city would exempt
four parades if they’re expensive
to cover.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Michael Kennedy, a long-haul trucker who works for Medelez Trucking in Hermiston, drives his rig Wednesday in Hermiston. Later, he
headed to San Diego with a load of frozen french fries.
HAVE CDL, WILL TRAVEL
Trucker shortage puts
drivers in high demand
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
I
f dozens of new, qualified truck driv-
ers popped into umatilla County
tomorrow, Bryan Medelez argued
they would have no problem find-
ing jobs.
Good paying jobs.
Medelez is the director of operations
at his family’s business, Medelez Inc.
and BJK Transport, hermiston, and they
rely on lots of truck drivers.
“We know seed potato is right around
the corner, so we’ll be using 150 truck
drivers,” he said.
That would fill all the semis the com-
pany owns. Come the fall harvest, he
said, the ranks of the business swell to
400, almost all of those are truck drivers.
The company will contact the hundreds
of drivers it keeps in a database and hire
dozens of subcontractors to handle all
the loads.
“There’s certain times of the year that
you better have all your trucks filled up
because there’s money to be made out
there,” Medelez said.
and that’s the issue. according to the
american Trucking associations, the
nation is short more than 50,000 truck
drivers. The american Transportation
research Institute pegged the driver
shortage as the top trucking industry
concern for 2017 and 2018.
Bud stephens teaches truck driving.
he said he plans to reopen his driving
school this spring in hermiston because
the need it there. he also said the short-
age problem goes back for some time.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Michael Kennedy, a long-haul trucker who works for Medelez Trucking in Hermiston,
checks his tires before heading to San Diego with a load of frozen french fries.
“We will never fill all the trucks that
need divers,” he said, “and that’s been
going for at least 20 years, especially for
long-haul drivers.”
That is due to the lifestyle.
“Imagine,” he said, “camping out
the rest of your life, fighting everyday
for parking … not seeing your family,
staying on the road two to four weeks at
time.”
The list goes on, he said, but little of
living on the road is attractive to most
people. he also said changes in laws
have made it easier to disqualify driv-
ers while making it harder to be a driver.
Washington, for example, stephens said,
requires a minimum of 160 hours of
driving time to get a commercial license.
and the cost of the training can run a few
thousand dollars.
Oregon does not require a minimum
number of hours to enter the field, but
new drivers still have to go to school and
pay plenty of fees. The knowledge test is
See Trucker, Page A8
See Parade, Page A8
Legislature harassment complaint to proceed
newly-elected hoyle
delegates duties to deputy
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
saLEM — Oregon’s new labor
commissioner said Wednesday her
department will pursue its civil
rights complaint against the Ore-
gon Legislature whose leaders were
accused of allowing harassment to
persist.
But Val hoyle, who was sworn in
on Monday, added that her deputy,
and not her, would handle the matter.
The complaint against leaders of the
statehouse was initiated by hoyle’s
predecessor, Brad avakian. Because
hoyle replaced avakian as com-
plainant, protocol forbids her from
being the final arbiter, her spokes-
man saul hubbard said.
hoyle said in a statement: “I’m
fully committed to ensuring that all
Oregonians feel safe in their work-
places, including the state Capitol.”
There are two possible reso-
lutions to the case: adjudication
before an administrative law judge
and conciliation, which means
reaching an agreement to settle the
matter, hoyle said.
state sen. Jeff Kruse resigned
last year amid accusations he repeat-
edly inappropriately touched women
in the Capitol.
In reaction to hoyle’s statement,
both house speaker Tina Kotek and
senate President Peter Courtney
pledged to make the Capitol a safe
See Hoyle, Page A8
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