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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 3, 2019)
BOYS SOCCER: Hermiston defeats Hanford at home | SPORTS, A7 E O AST 143rd Year, No. 120 REGONIAN WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2019 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD PENDLETON Council moves ahead with $11 million UAS expansion Investment necessary to accommodate rapid growth at Pendleton airport By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian The city of Pendleton has made its fi rst steps toward its largest fi nancial com- mitment to the unmanned aerial systems to date. At a Pendleton City Council meeting on Tues- day, members unanimously agreed to give staff the green light to solicit bids for an estimated $11.2 mil- lion in infrastructure costs to bolster hangar capacity and establish a UAS indus- trial park at the Pendleton airport. Pendleton city staff argue the investment is nec- essary to accommodate the rapid growth that’s accel- erating the UAS range’s development timeline. According to a recent staff presentation, annual man hours have grown from 2,080 in 2014 to 60,000 hours in 2018. Drone test range staff anticipates it will accumu- late 100,000 hours in 2019. UAS revenue has also grown from $10,000 in the 2014-15 fi scal year to $308,223 in 2017-18. Offi cials expect that number to grow to $475,000 by the end of the 2018-19 fi scal year in June and $791,000 in 2019-20. “So all of the UAS com- panies, at this point, keep pointing their fi nger to that northeast portion of the airport along taxiway gulf as the area that they want to be located,” Public Works Director Bob Patter- son said. “So that timing is really now to put that shov- el-ready ground into use and continue that eco- nomic engine with the UAS range,” Patterson added. The city listed $2.2 mil- lion in assets rehabbed or acquired for the UAS range in the staff presentation, but its latest investment dwarfs it by a mile. City offi cials are break- ing costs down to $1.3 mil- lion for consultants, $4.4 million in improvements to the southern part of the airfi eld and $5.5 million in improvements to the north- ern airfi eld, which includes money from a $3 million U.S. Economic Develop- ment Administration grant that the city hasn’t yet been awarded, but which city offi cials strongly expect to receive. Offi cially, the council gave staff permission to pursue a bid for the initial phase of water and sewer extensions across the pri- mary runway. City Manager Robb Corbett said the rest of the project will have to be See Council, Page A6 Who will teach the nurses? Proposed tax credit may narrow the wage gap between nursing instructors and nurses in fi eld By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian It’s a classic catch-22. With a severe nursing short- age just around the bend, aspiring nurses are applying to Oregon’s nursing schools in droves. Most qualifi ed appli- cants, however, won’t get in. There simply aren’t enough instructors to teach them. Laurie Post, director of the nursing program at Blue Mountain Community Col- lege, doesn’t mince words in explaining why that is the case. “As a bedside nurse, you can make a lot more money (than as an instructor),” Post said. In Oregon, the average salary for nurses is $81,484, compared with $70,708 for nurse educators. To deepen the fi nancial pain, nursing fac- ulty must earn expensive mas- ter’s degrees. Two nursing faculty left BMCC in 2011 to return to the fi eld. It took two years to fi ll their positions and enroll- ment in the nursing program dropped from 24 to 16. Now enrollment is back up, but at least one instructor will likely retire in the next year. A proposed $10,000 state tax credit (Senate Bill 754) could narrow the gap. The tax credit would go to nursing fac- ulty in rural areas, where the shortage is the most severe. Despite the wage discrep- ancy and 50 hour-plus work weeks, Post doesn’t regret her choice to become a nurse edu- cator. She simply loves teach- ing. About 15 years ago, she was working as a public health Staff photo by E.J. Harris BMCC nursing program director and instructor Laurie Post, third from left, meets with second year nursing students in their fi nal term on Monday at BMCC campus in Pendleton. nurse for Umatilla County when then-BMCC Vice Pres- ident of Instruction John Turner called and offered her a teaching position. She thought about it and signed on. Here at BMCC, Post is in her element, sharing her expertise and shepherd- ing fl edgling nurses into the profession. On Monday afternoon, Post met with a cohort of her clin- ical students. The fi ve are in the last lap of their nursing education. All will head out into their fi nal clinical expe- riences at facilities around the region. They will stay in close contact with Post by phone, video conference and during Post’s weekly visits. “THE CURRENT NURSING SHORTAGE WILL ONLY GET WORSE AS MORE OF THE AGING POPULATION OF NURSE EDUCATORS RETIRE WITH NO ONE WILLING TO TAKE SUCH A PAY CUT TO TAKE THEIR PLACE.” Toni Bleick, nursing instructor at BMCC To calm their anxiety, Post talked soothingly in a voice that would serve her well as a yoga instructor. “I’m available 24/7,” Post told them. “Don’t be afraid to call me even if it’s the middle of the night. Even if it’s not an emergency and you’re just overwhelmed or frustrated.” The group interacted like they were chatting socially. Post sipped coffee from a bright red cup given to her by a student. On the outside, writ- ten in prescription jargon, it said PO Q2H PRN (per mouth every two hours as needed). Post answered questions and asked what they were doing to mitigate stress during the busy run-up to graduation. Though Post and four fel- low instructors at BMCC love teaching, they don’t love the pay cut required of nurses who become educators. All fi ve sent written testimony to support the tax credit to the Senate Committee on Health Care for a public hearing on Feb. 25. See Nurses, Page A6 ACLU calls for DAs to make policies public By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian The American Civil Lib- erties Union of Oregon is pushing the state’s dis- trict attorneys to be more transparent about how their offi ces operate. Some local district attorneys expressed concerns that could mean a one-size-fi ts-all approach that won’t work in rural Oregon. The state’s ACLU branch on Tuesday morning issued the 41-page “A Peek Behind the Curtain: Shining Some Light on District Attorney Polices in Oregon.” David Rogers, executive director os ACLU of Oregon, said the report is the result of a two-year effort to survey the state’s 36 district attorneys on the core polices they use in their work. “District attorneys are the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system, and yet they in large part fl y under the radar of the pub- lic,” Rogers said. So the ACLU has embarked on a public education campaign to ensure Oregonians under- stand the important role dis- trict attorneys play. Only the district attor- ney’s offi ces in Clackamas, Deschutes and Multnomah counties provided an “exten- sive policy manual,” accord- ing to the report, while a total of 13 “have a meaning- ful set of written policies for the core functions of their offi ce.” But 15 district attor- See ACLU, Page A6 VFW POST 4750 ELECTIONS, 7 PM THURS., APRIL 4 @ the POST. 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