A8
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Friday, February 15, 2019
AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza, File
In this Jan. 3, 2019, file photo, a woman takes a snapshot by the border fence between San
Diego, Calif., and Tijuana, as seen from Mexico.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Assistant fire chief Shawn Penninger looks out over the vehicle bay under construction at
the building site for the new fire station Wednesday in Pendleton.
Deal: President Trump’s
signature planned Friday Station: ‘I want to see this
Continued from Page A1
The Senate passed the
legislation by 83-16 with
both parties solidly on
board. House passage was
assured Thursday night, with
Trump’s signature planned
Friday.
Lawmakers exuded relief
that the agreement had
averted a fresh closure of fed-
eral agencies just three weeks
after a record-setting 35-day
partial shutdown that drew
an unambiguous thumbs-
down from the public. But
in announcing that Trump
would sign the accord, White
House Press Secretary Sarah
Sanders also said he’d take
“other executive action,
including a national emer-
gency,” prompting immedi-
ate condemnation from Dem-
ocrats and threats of lawsuits
from states that might lose
federal money.
In an unusual joint state-
ment, House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen-
ate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y., said such a
declaration would be “a law-
less act, a gross abuse of the
power of the presidency and a
desperate attempt to distract”
from Trump’s failure to force
Mexico to pay for the wall, as
he’s promised for years.
Pelosi and Schumer also
said that “Congress will
defend our constitutional
authorities.” They declined
to say whether that meant
lawsuits or votes on resolu-
tions to prevent Trump from
unilaterally shifting money
to wall-building, with aides
saying they would wait to see
what he does.
Democratic state attor-
neys general said they would
consider legal action to block
Trump. Puerto Rico Gov.
Ricardo Rossello told the
president on Twitter “we’ll
see you in court” if he makes
the declaration.
Despite widespread oppo-
sition in Congress to pro-
claiming an emergency,
including by some Republi-
cans, Trump is under pres-
sure to act unilaterally to
soothe his conservative base
and avoid looking like he’s
surrendered in his wall battle.
The uproar over what
Trump would do next cast an
uncertain shadow over what
had been a rare display of
bipartisanship in Congress
to address the grinding bat-
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump
speaks during a cabinet
meeting on Tuesday at the
White House in Washington.
tle between the White House
and lawmakers over border
security.
The abrupt announcement
of Trump’s plans came late
in an afternoon of rumblings
that the volatile president —
who’d strongly hinted he’d
sign the agreement but never
definitively — was shift-
ing toward rejecting it. That
would have infused fresh
chaos into a fight both parties
are desperate to leave behind,
a thought that drove some
lawmakers to seek heavenly
help.
“Let’s all pray that the
president will have wisdom
to sign the bill so the gov-
ernment doesn’t shut down,”
Sen. Charles Grassley,
R-Iowa, said after a chaplain
opened Thursday’s Senate
session.
Moments before Sanders
spoke at the White House,
Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,
took to the Senate floor to
announce Trump’s decisions
to sign the bill and declare an
emergency.
Sen.
John
Cornyn,
R-Texas, who is close to
McConnell, told reporters
that there were two hours of
phone calls between McCo-
nnell and the White House
before there were assurances
that Trump would sign. In
a surprising development,
McConnell said he would
support Trump’s emergency
declaration, a turnabout for
the Kentucky Republican,
who like many lawmakers
had opposed such action.
Democrats say there is
no crisis at the border and
Trump is merely sidestep-
ping Congress. And some
Republicans warn that future
Democratic presidents could
use his precedent to force
spending on their own pri-
orities such as gun control.
GOP critics included Maine
Sen. Susan Collins, who
said emergency declarations
are for “major natural disas-
ters or catastrophic events”
and said its use would be of
“dubious constitutionality.”
White House aides and
congressional Republicans
have said that besides an
emergency, Trump might
assert other authorities that
could conceivably put him
within reach of billions of
dollars. The money could
come from funds targeted for
military construction, disas-
ter relief and counterdrug
efforts.
Congressional aides say
there is $21 billion in mili-
tary construction money that
could potentially be used
by Trump if he declares a
national emergency. But
according to the law the
money has to be used in sup-
port of U.S. armed forces,
they say.
The Defense Department
declined to provide details on
available money.
With many of the Dem-
ocrats’ liberal base voters
adamantly against Trump’s
aggressive attempts to curb
immigration, four declared
presidential
hopefuls
opposed the bill in the Sen-
ate: Cory Booker of New Jer-
sey, New York’s Kirsten Gil-
librand, Elizabeth Warren of
Massachusetts and Kamala
Harris of California. Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota
voted for it, as did Vermont
independent Bernie Sanders,
who is expected to join the
field soon.
Notably, the word “wall,”
the heart of many a chant
at Trump campaign events
and his rallies as president,
is absent from the compro-
mise’s 1,768-page legislative
and descriptive language.
“Barriers” and “fencing” are
the nouns of choice, a vic-
tory for Democrats eager to
deny Trump even a rhetorical
victory.
The agreement, which
took bargainers three weeks
to strike, would also squeeze
funding for Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, or
ICE, in an attempt to pres-
sure the agency to detain
fewer immigrants. To the dis-
may of Democrats, however,
it would still leave an agency
many of them consider abu-
sive holding thousands more
immigrants than last year.
end of town rejuvenate’
Continued from Page A1
The lack of work stop-
pages means the fire station
is starting to resemble the
final product.
During a tour of the
building, Hull started
with the apparatus bay,
the garage where the fire
department will store all its
vehicles.
The new bay offers more
space, a heating system,
and a training area where
firefighters can receive
hands-on lessons on lad-
ders, rappelling, extraction,
and more.
Comparing the cur-
rent bay, where employees
frequently need to move
vehicles in and out of the
garage to store them prop-
erly, and the new one is all
but impossible, assistant
fire chief Shawn Penninger
said.
“It would be like com-
paring a Model A pick-up
truck and a Ford F-150,” he
said.
The bay is sealed away
from the living quarters
and reception area, another
upgrade from the current
building.
Instead of sleeping in the
same room, each firefighter
and paramedic will sleep
in their own second-floor
dormitory, a setup Pen-
ninger believes will better
suit their female person-
nel and prevent illnesses
from spreading around the
department.
Beyond exposure to
smoke and carcinogens,
another frequent health
concern for firefighters is
being woken up in the mid-
dle of the night to respond
to an emergency.
As it stands now, every
firefighter at every station
is notified of an emergency
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Javier Martinez, of Kennewick, installs insulation in a dormi-
tory room in the new fire station Wednesday in Pendleton.
regardless of whether they
are called to respond to it
or not.
Hull said the new station
has an electronic system
that will only wake up the
the firefighters and para-
medics needed for the job.
That same system also
shuts off gas to the sta-
tion’s cooking equipment
if an emergency is called,
preventing the station from
burning down and a great
deal of irony.
Seeking neighbors
Once the ribbon is cut
and the firefighters moved
in, Hull hopes it can help
spur investment in a part of
Pendleton that hasn’t seen
much in the way of new
development.
“I want to see this end of
town rejuvenate,” he said.
St. Anthony put the
whole 1400 block of South-
east Court Avenue for sale
after it demolished its old
hospital, but the city only
needed to buy the for-
mer parking lot for the fire
station.
St. Anthony spokesman
Emily Smith said the hos-
pital is still trying to sell
property, but didn’t have an
TICKETS
ON SALE
NOW!
Climb: ‘I do it in honor of my grandpa’
Continued from Page A1
Overall, the event, which
started in 1991, has raised
more than $17 million for
leukemia and lymphoma
research.
Gorham, who was one
of the first team members
to participate 10 years ago,
started because he thought it
would be fun to support the
cause and have something
to train for.
But in 2012, the event’s
purpose became more
meaningful to him.
“In 2012, my youngest
daughter was diagnosed
with leukemia,” he said.
His daughter went into
treatment, and is now cured
— it’s been three years
since her last treatment.
But he still likes to involve
his family in the event, and
has had them come to Seat-
tle for it.
In addition, he said, sev-
eral other team members
have had family members
affected by blood cancers or
other cancers.
“I do it in honor of my
grandpa, who I lost in 2000
to leukemia,” said UCFD
paramedic Danny Hinton.
He is in his fifth year of the
Stair Climb.
The event is popular, and
usually sells out within the
first 20 minutes that sign-
ups are open. The team does
some additional training for
the climb, putting in work
on the stair mill at the gym,
and adding in a few extra
leg days. On the day of the
climb, they suit up in full
firefighter gear, including
coats, boots and air tanks.
Climbers’ times vary
widely. According to last
year’s results, the fastest
finisher completed the stair
climb in 11 minutes and 55
seconds, and the last fin-
ishers took more than two
hours — but the point of the
event is more than climb-
ing the stairs in the shortest
amount of time.
“There are survivors
and honorees that come to
watch, support and cheer on
the climbers,” Gorham said.
Some firefighters who
are cancer survivors also do
the climb.
UCFD will be hosting
a fundraiser at Club 24 on
Monday, Feb. 18, and will
have a table set up collect-
ing donations. To donate,
people can also visit the
website
www.firefighter-
stairclimb.org, or contact
UCFD at 541-567-8822.
update beyond that.
St. Anthony was able
to donate its old hospice
building to Cason’s Place
— Grief Support for Chil-
dren and Families of East-
ern Oregon. Up until
recently, it looked like it
might have an interested
party for the only building
left standing from the dem-
olition — a medical office
building.
In November, Umatilla
County agreed to team
up with Columbia River
Health Services to apply
for a grant for the Board-
man clinic to expand its
services into Pendleton.
If Columbia River
Health could raise the
money, the clinic planned
to acquire the three-story
medical office building
and provide primary care
services like pediatrics,
mental health, and family
medicine.
But in an interview
Thursday, Columbia River
Health interim CEO Sheila
Corpus said those plans fell
through once the clinic took
another look at its finances
and realized it wasn’t fis-
cally feasible, even with a
grant.
Ticket Price
A Taste of
the Region’s
Craft Wine, Beer,
Chocolates and
Cheeses
$25.00
Sat., Feb. 16, 2019 • 5-7 P.M.
Blue Mountain Community College
Student Union • Pioneer Hall
2411 NW Carden Avenue
Pendleton
Tickets are $30 at the door and sales are limited to 150!
Includes wine or pint glass, hearty appetizers and all tastes.
Tickets available at BMCC Bookstore, Pendleton Art + Frame and by calling
the BMCC Foundation @ 541.278.5775 • Attire: Casual-Dressy | Mardi Gras
All proceeds benefi t student scholarships through the BMCC Foundation