SWIMMING: barnard brings home the gold | SPORTS, B1
E O
AST
143rd year, No. 89
REGONIAN
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Republican
firebrand
operates
outside
the norms
What emergency?
Rep. Walden
questions President
Trump’s latest action
on border wall
Lockwood pens
provocative
press releases for
legislators
By JAYATI
RAMAKRISHNAN
and PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden’s
town hall meeting Monday
morning in boardman was his
first public appearance in the
area since being re-elected to
Oregon’s Congressional Dis-
trict 2. By noon he was in Pend-
leton for a speaking appear-
ance with the Pendleton Rotary
Club.
During the two events
he touched on immigration,
energy, the government shut-
down and more.
Wall emergency
The Republican congress-
man talked about the recent
turmoil in Washington, D.C.,
as President Donald Trump
shut down the government
for 35 days over funding for a
wall at the U.S.-Mexico bor-
der. Walden said he broke with
his party on some aspects of
the shutdown, saying he felt
employees at agencies, such as
the Forest Service and Depart-
ment of Agriculture, shouldn’t
be suffering over a border secu-
rity issue.
He said he was pleased to
see a deal to avoid another shut-
down and fund the federal gov-
ernment that included money
for 55 miles of new border wall
but also money for humanitar-
ian aid on the border, more bor-
der agents and to help handle
the increase in years-long back-
log of asylum seekers.
Audience members asked
By AUBREY WIEBER
AND PARIS ACHEN
Oregon Capital Bureau
He uses a sharp pen and
blunt language to make his
point. He is paid to write
press releases at the Legis-
lature. But Jonathan Lock-
wood’s style also disrupts
Oregon’s political geniality.
Grayson Dempsey was
at a Girl Scouts camp in
the Columbia River Gorge
with her 8-year-old daughter
in August when her phone
started buzzing.
Social media accounts
were sending notification
after notification. Dempsey,
the director of NARAL Pro-
Choice Oregon, watched
anti-abortion
advocates
accuse her organization of
cutting up babies and mixing
them into ice cream to sell at
a pro-choice fundraiser.
“This is so disgusting it
wouldn’t surprise me if they
partnered with Planned Par-
enthood and developed this
hideous new flavor with har-
vested baby parts!” one per-
son said on Twitter.
Dempsey blamed Jona-
than Lockwood, an aggres-
sive Republican strategist
and currently employed at
the spokesman for three
Oregon legislators. He pub-
licly denounced the fund-
raiser and called on others
to do the same.
Lockwood is a provoca-
teur, using incendiary lan-
guage in press releases and
on Twitter to cause a stir
and get people talking about
issues he and his politi-
cal bosses care about. His
flashy style, a burnished
tan, coiffed hair and patent
leather loafers, is as much a
contrast in the Capitol as his
political persona: a bomb-
thrower in a polite political
and cultural landscape.
He has written racially
charged tweets at state
Rep. Jennifer Williamson,
D-Portland, and called Gov.
Kate brown an abortion lob-
byist and terrorist.
And
Lockwood
is
behind a controversial state-
ment earlier in the month
that roiled the Capitol and
left one of his legislative
employers to endure a wave
of rebuke.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, listens to a question from a constituent on Monday at a town hall in
Boardman.
Walden how he would vote if
Congress tried to stop Trump
in his declaration of a national
emergency over the border
wall. He said he was against
executive overreach and did not
like it when President Barrack
Obama made that kind of end
around Congress.
“If what Trump is doing
exceeds the authority Congress
has given him, I’ll have a big
problem with it,” he told the
Rotary audience.
The other problem, he
pointed out, is the prece-
dent this sets. What happens,
Walded asked, when the next
president uses executive power
to declare an emergency?
“I wish he hadn’t done it,
quite frankly,” Walden said.
Still, Walden stopped short
of saying for certain he would
oppose Trump, and Walden
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
See Walden, Page A8
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, greets a veteran on Monday before a
town hall in Boardman.
Three-sport official feels the love
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Officiating is often a thankless
job, but Saturday night, veteran ref-
eree George Gillette felt the love.
Gillette has officiated basket-
ball, football and baseball for going
on 50 years. Before tipoff of the
Blue Mountain Conference cham-
pionship boys basketball game
between Heppner and Union, Gil-
lette heard his name called over
the loudspeaker. Heppner High
School Athletic Director Greg
Grant held the microphone. As Gil-
lette approached, Grant informed
spectators of the Milton-Freewater
man’s solid history as a three-sport
official. Gillette accepted a wooden
box containing a silver whistle and
a metal plate inscribed with the
words “Presented to Mr. George
Gillette in appreciation of your
years of dedication to high school
athletics.”
Gillette stood at center court
looking dazed, as spectators, offi-
cials and players gave him a stand-
ing ovation. His wife, dominie
Heiser, stood nearby applauding
and looking delighted at the flum-
moxed condition of her spouse.
Those who know Gillette,
who also runs Milton-Freewa-
ter’s municipal golf course, say he
knows his way around a basket-
ball court, football field and base-
ball diamond. Rules for the three
sports are embedded firmly inside
See Gillette, Page A8
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
George Gillette stands with his wife, Dominie Heiser, as he is honored
Saturday at the Pendleton Convention Center for his almost 50 years as
a sports official. The box holds a plaque bearing a silver whistle and the
words “Presented to Mr. George Gillette in appreciation of your years of
dedication to high school athletics.”
See Lockwood, Page A8
Severed fiber line cuts internet for thousands
East Oregonian
A severed fiber optic line
between Lexington and
Echo disconnected thou-
sands of internet customers
on Monday, according to
the CEO of a local internet
provider.
The line was cut late
Monday morning by a sub-
contractor laying fiber for
a cellphone tower, accord-
ing to Byron Wysocki, the
CeO of Pendleton-based
Wtechlink. The outage
affected providers in Uma-
tilla and Morrow counties,
including Wtechlink and
CenturyLink.
Wysocki said a backhoe
and splicer were en route
to the scene of the break
late Monday afternoon and
estimated a time of repair
at 11:30 p.m., though he
said it could be later.
He said the line that was
cut is buried 10 feet deep
and near the edge of High-
way 207, so splicing new
lines will need to be done
on both sides of the high-
way. The subcontractor
who cut it was unaware the
line was there, Wysocki
said.
A Facebook post from
the company said inter-
net connections would be
intermittent for some cus-
tomers affected by the cut
line. Customers still hav-
ing trouble connecting to
the internet should unplug
the router’s power cord and
plug it back in.
The Morrow County
Sheriff’s Office dispatch
was among the affected
users. The office trans-
ferred 911 service to the
Umatilla County dispatch
center while waiting for the
repair.
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