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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 8, 2019)
NORTHWEST East Oregonian A2 Friday, March 8, 2019 Commuter rail could run all the way to Salem By MARK MILLER Oregon Capital Bureau SALEM — Ten years ago, the Westside Express Service began running between Beaverton on Port- land’s west side and Wilson- ville to the city’s south. State Rep. Mitch Green- lick hopes that in another 15 years, it will run all the way south to Oregon’s cap- ital city. House Bill 2219 would commission a 17-mem- ber task force to study the concept of extending WES commuter rail to Salem, determining whether it would be feasible or ben- eficial. The bill received an initial public hearing before the Legislature’s Joint Transportation Com- mittee on Monday, March 4. No committee vote has yet been scheduled to advance the legislation. “It would make WES much more viable,” Green- lick said before the hear- ing. “I think WES would be much more effective if it had the riders that would come from … the north Salem area.” WES is part of the TriMet system, which treats bus, light rail and commuter rail fares as interchangeable. The typical fare is $2.50 for Pamplin Media Group, File A TriMet WES train arrives at the Beaverton Transit Center. A bill introduced in the Legisla- ture could extend WES trains south to Salem. two and a half hours, or $5 for a full day. Like nearly all commuter rail systems, WES oper- ates at a loss, meaning a trip costs more than what the rider pays for it. An aver- age commuter trip costs TriMet $18.14. That makes WES considerably more expensive to operate, rela- tive to the number of riders, than TriMet’s bus and light rail services. MAX’s aver- age operating cost per ride is $2.95. Ridership on WES has also been decreasing year over year, which TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Alt- stadt attributes to business closures along the com- muter route. Last fiscal year, WES provided 265,668 rides — on average, 5,109 trips per week. “Those who do ride WES often call it the best kept secret as it provides a quick, reliable and comfort- able ride between Wilson- ville and Beaverton,” Alt- stadt said. A 2010 state study con- Forecast for Pendleton Area cluded that extending WES to Salem was “technically feasible,” but it would be a complex project that would cost up to $387 million to build. The amount TriMet must spend for WES oper- ations every year would likely triple, the study added. It made no recom- mendation on how to pro- ceed, and the idea got little further public attention. Greenlick is restarting the conversation. Shelley Snow, Oregon Department of Transporta- SATURDAY SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY Mostly cloudy and cold Rather cloudy and cold Partly sunny and cold Partly sunny and cold Cold with snow and rain By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press 36° 21° 33° 21° 41° 29° SALEM — Days before last November’s elections, members of a political action committee in Oregon went door-to-door in Port- land and its suburbs and col- lected filled-in ballots from voters, saying they would send them in. But the committee deliv- ered about 100 of those bal- lots to an elections office a day after the election. They were not counted, disen- franchising those voters. The secretary of state fined the committee $94,750. As doubts arise in the nation about security of election systems that can be hacked and about reliance on aging or inadequate vot- ing machines, more atten- tion is being paid to voting by mail. After Oregon pio- neered the all-mail vote in 2000, Colorado and Wash- ington state followed suit. The incident in Oregon exposed a potential elec- tion vulnerability. An orga- nization collecting ballots might mishandle ballots, as happened last year, or even dump them to try to sway an election. No one knows how many groups in Oregon collect ballots to turn in because state government officials in charge of elections don’t track the groups. News about the Ore- gon ballots being rejected and the fine on the PAC last month comes as there’s renewed scrutiny of ballot collection efforts. A political operative working on behalf of a GOP candidate in North Carolina was arrested after 31° 18° 33° 22° HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 38° 22° 36° 23° 35° 21° 42° 33° 36° 26° OREGON FORECAST ALMANAC Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows. PENDLETON through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Seattle Olympia 46/29 31/14 38/16 Longview Kennewick Walla Walla 35/20 Lewiston 43/32 37/21 Astoria 45/30 Pullman Yakima 35/20 44/25 36/18 Portland Hermiston 43/32 The Dalles 38/22 Salem Corvallis 44/32 Yesterday Normals Records La Grande 36/21 PRECIPITATION John Day Eugene Bend 44/32 34/19 34/22 Ontario 47/29 Caldwell Burns 44° 22° 55° 32° 75° (1979) 14° (1931) 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date Albany 44/31 Trace 0.04" 0.23" 3.43" 1.75" 2.47" WINDS (in mph) 45/26 35/21 0.06" 0.31" 0.25" 5.16" 2.82" 2.76" through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Pendleton 33/16 44/33 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date HERMISTON Enterprise 36/21 37/24 40° 22° 53° 33° 75° (1904) 19° (1931) PRECIPITATION Moses Lake 44/26 Aberdeen 33/18 34/17 Tacoma Yesterday Normals Records Spokane Wenatchee 45/32 Today Boardman Pendleton Medford 48/32 Sat. SW 4-8 WSW 6-12 NE 4-8 NNW 4-8 SUN AND MOON Klamath Falls 37/25 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019 Sunrise today Sunset tonight Moonrise today Moonset today 6:22 a.m. 5:51 p.m. 7:38 a.m. 8:02 p.m. First Full Last New Mar 14 Mar 20 Mar 27 Apr 5 NATIONAL EXTREMES Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states) High 88° in Pecos, Texas Low -29° in Masardis, Maine NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. -10s -0s 0s showers t-storms 10s rain 20s flurries 30s snow 40s 50s ice 60s cold front E AST O REGONIAN — Founded Oct. 16, 1875 — 211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendleton 541-276-2211 333 E. Main St., Hermiston 541-567-6211 Office hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed major holidays EastOregonian.com To subscribe, call 1-800-522-0255 or go online to EastOregonian.com and click on ‘Subscribe’ East Oregonian (USPS 164-980) is published daily except Sunday, Monday and postal holidays, by the EO Media Group, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Periodicals postage paid at Pendleton, OR. Postmaster: send address changes to East Oregonian, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Copyright © 2019, EO Media Group 70s 80s 90s 100s warm front stationary front 110s high low SUBSCRIPTION RATES Local home delivery Savings (cover price) $14.50 41 percent $173.67 41 percent $91.86 38 percent $47.77 36 percent *EZ Pay = one-year rate with a monthly credit or debit card/check charge Single copy price: $1.50 Tuesday through Saturday Circulation Manager: Bonny Tuller, 541-966-0828 AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus, File In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, a voter in Lake Oswego places her ballot in a designated drop box outside City Hall. being accused of illegally collecting mail-in absentee ballots. That November race will be redone. There is no indication that Oregon’s voter sys- tem has been penetrated by fraud by use of go-betweens to collect ballots. And from the governor on down to county clerks, officials praise a system allowing voters to cast bal- lots at their leisure through the post office or at official drop boxes because the vot- ers don’t have to leave work on election day or travel long distances to crowded polling stations. They also say the system has the added benefit of leaving a paper trail and presents fewer opportunities for hacking. But the recent incident showed that state and county election officials in Ore- gon do not keep records on which groups collect com- pleted ballots from voters, or how often this happens. “Organizations might keep track but we don’t ask for that information,” said Debra Royal, chief of staff to the secretary of state, Ore- gon’s top elections official. A study last year by Northern Illinois University ranked Oregon as the easiest state for voting in the coun- try, analyzing 33 variables dealing with registration and voting laws. In Oregon, citizens are automatically registered to vote when they go to the motor vehi- cles department for drivers’ licenses, IDs or permits. The incident last Novem- ber involved a PAC called Defend Oregon, which was registered with the state elections division last May and works “to protect Ore- gon from extremist groups with dangerous agendas.” The group said one of its canvassers removed 97 com- pleted ballots from a lock box on election night, Nov. 6, checked them against a spreadsheet, and put them into a box to be delivered to the elections office or to an official drop box. CORRECTION: Most addiction to tobacco starts in adolescence, where 90 percent of adults who smoke started before they were 18 and almost 100 percent started before turning 26. The East Oregonian provided inaccurate figures for when people start smoking in Thursday’s story, “Tobacco licensing plan finds support foothold.” The East Oregonian works hard to be accurate and sincerely regrets any errors. If you notice a mistake in the paper, please call 541-966-0818. Subscriber services: For mail delivery, online access, vacation stops or delivery concerns call 1-800-522-0255 ext. 1 EZPay 52 weeks 26 weeks 13 weeks other unserviced areas if WES was extended to Salem. Officials in Tigard and Tualatin are watching as well. Sherilyn Lombos, Tualatin city manager, said her city council supports extending WES. “Anything that adds ser- vice to Tualatin, we’re inter- ested in,” Lombos said. Interstate 5 runs through Tualatin and Wilsonville, and during peak commute hours, the freeway can become choked with vehi- cles. Lombos and Knapp see a WES extension as potential congestion relief. “If existing commuters from the south to Tualatin used this new WES exten- sion, it would reduce the number of vehicles com- ing to Tualatin and using the roads,” Lombos said. “I would think that the same would be true for commut- ers going south.” “As the Portland metro region increases in popu- lation and jobs, the area’s freeway arterials are reach- ing peak traffic-handling capacity,” Knapp wrote. “And as housing costs esca- late in the Portland area, more workers are living out- side the metro region, lead- ing to increased commuting on highways.” Uncounted Oregon votes expose election vulnerability TODAY PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST tion spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement, “We understand the goal of the bill’s sponsor and should the bill pass, we look forward to participating in the task force and/or in any other way that would be helpful.” Express transit between Wilsonville and Salem exists today in the form of bus line 1X, which runs as a partnership between Wilsonville’s bus service SMART and Salem-area transit operator Cherriots. Cherriots did not respond to a request for comment, but SMART transit direc- tor Dwight Brashear praised Greenlick’s bill at Monday’s committee hearing. “I think this is an oppor- tunity for us to study some- thing that will benefit future generations to come,” Brashear testified. SMART and Cherri- ots track ridership for all of their routes, including bus line 1X. Last fiscal year, the route averaged 1,386 boardings per week, with SMART serving the major- ity of them. Officials from Beaver- ton and Wilsonville testified in favor of Greenlick’s bill. In a letter of support, Wil- sonville Mayor Tim Knapp suggested SMART could “redeploy assets” to cover ADVERTISING Regional Publisher and Revenue Director: • Christopher Rush 541-278-2669 • crush@eomediagroup.com Advertising Services: • Angela Treadwell 541-966-0827 • atreadwell@eastoregonian.com • Grace Bubar 541-276-2214 • gbubar@eastoregonian.com Multimedia Consultants: • Kimberly Macias 541-278-2683 • kmacias@eastoregonian.com • Jeanne Jewett 541-564-4531 • jjewett@eastoregonian.com • Dayle Stinson 541-278-2670 • dstinson@eastoregonian.com • Audra Workman 541-564-4538 • aworkman@eastoregonian.com Classified & Legal Advertising 1-800-962-2819 or 541-278-2678 classifieds@eastoregonian.com or legals@eastoregonian.com NEWS • To submit news tips and press releases: call 541-966-0818 or email news@eastoregonian.com • To submit community events, calendar items and Your EO News: email community@eastoregonian.com or call Tammy Malgesini at 541-564-4539 or Renee Struthers at 541-966-0818. • To submit engagements, weddings and anniversaries: email rstruthers@eastoregonian.com or visit eastoregonian. com/community/announcements • To submit sports or outdoors information or tips: 541-966-0838 • sports@eastoregonian.com Business Office Manager: 541-966-0822 COMMERCIAL PRINTING Production Manager: Mike Jensen 541-215-0824 • mjensen@eastoregonian.com