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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Future: Youth-driven climate change movement arrives in Heppner
Continued from Page A1
The event was spear-
headed by Hunter Houck,
13, and his friend Chloe
McLaren, who was home
with a stomach flu on Fri-
day. Hunter said they were
inspired by seeing news of
youths hosting similar pro-
tests in larger cities around
the world.
Thousands of students
marched against climate
change in Paris, France, on
Feb. 22. They were joined by
hundreds of thousands more
students around the world
who walked out of school on
March 15 for a global climate
strike, and continue to keep
the topic in the news through
smaller demonstrations and
social media campaigns.
While such protests
might not raise eyebrows in
Portland, the teens acknowl-
edged Heppner — a small
rural town of 1,268 in a
county where 68% of voters
chose Donald Trump in 2016
— might not be an obvious
fit.
“It’s a conservative
town,” Amelia said.
In fact, students said they
purposely hosted the event
on a day without school,
outside of school property,
because they didn’t think
they would get permission to
do a school-affiliated event.
Hunter said a few teachers
expressed support, but, over-
all, climate change felt like a
“taboo” topic.
“One of our teachers
actually spent quite a bit of
time telling us why climate
change is fake,” he said.
Heppner Jr./Sr. High
School was closed on Friday
and principal Matt Combe
didn’t respond to an email
Friday afternoon asking
what guidance the school
provides staff on addressing
climate change.
Hunter
noted
criti-
cism from adults outside of
school, particularly a let-
ter to the editor in the East
Oregonian telling them to
not pay attention to “social-
ist scare tactics and indoc-
trination.” But he and other
teens at the event also spoke
of support from parents and
friends.
On Friday, the recep-
tion from passersby was
mixed. As the youths held up
signs with messages such as
“There is no Planet B” and
“This can’t wait until I’m
older” some adults honked or
waved in support, drawing
cheers from the band of pro-
testers. Other drivers shook
their heads or frowned, and
a woman on foot refused to
take a pamphlet offered to
her.
“Well that was rough,”
eighth-grader Alexandrea
Caven remarked as a man
looked at her “Honk if you
love the Earth” sign and then
pointedly looked away.
After about an hour
of protesting she said she
wished that some adults had
taken the students up on
their invitation to the public
to participate.
“They could make more
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Heppner teens display signs to passing motorists during a climate change rally on Friday afternoon at Heppner City Park.
of a difference,” she said.
They did take heart the
people liking their lives-
treamed videos and Insta-
gram photos from the scene,
which they hoped would
expand their reach beyond
Heppner.
Hunter said they will
probably stage another event
in June, and they were hop-
ing to be able to talk to
their state legislators at
some point. He threw out
the names of a few bills the
group supports, particularly
Senate Bill 90, which would
ban restaurants from auto-
matically supplying custom-
ers with plastic straws.
The group is also circu-
lating a petition to get curb-
side recycling in Heppner,
and have been talking with
local business owners about
reducing waste. Hunter
said the owner of the coffee
shop where they staged their
planning meetings said she
would be willing to look into
biodegradable straws.
The youths stressed the
fact that they were worried
that by the time they were
old enough to run for office
or own a business, it would
be too late to reverse man-
kind’s effects on the planet.
So they were doing what
they could now.
“We’re a small group
doing big things for a
small community,” Hannah
Green said.
MORE DETAILS
For more information about upcoming events or the recy-
cling petition visit bit.ly/heppnerclimate.
PERS: Conflicting claims linger over PERS reform, education funding
Continued from Page A1
districts as grants. The rest
of the money goes to early
learning and state programs
with defined purposes, like
increasing the availability of
school breakfasts.
“We built this specifically
so that we have a fairly stable
funding source that can go
forward that’s going to go for
those things,” said Sen. Arnie
Roblan, D-Coos Bay.
Meanwhile, PERS costs
for public agencies have been
growing over the past decade.
Cities, counties, school
districts and other public
entities are obligated to pay
for the benefits they’ve prom-
ised to their workers, and
that’s forced many of them
to find the money by cut-
ting spending elsewhere. For
many school districts, that’s
meant laying off teachers.
Kim Sordyl, a former
member of the state Board of
Education and a vocal critic
of the PERS system, argues
that new money will be swal-
lowed up by the ever-in-
creasing amount that school
districts contribute to their
employees’ pensions.
“Those contributions are
snowballing, and they will
eat up most of the Student
Success money,” Sordyl said.
With or without the extra
$2 billion per biennium,
school districts will be pay-
ing for employee retire-
ment plans, Sen. Mark Hass,
D-Beaverton, pointed out. He
disagrees with the idea that
because their PERS expenses
are growing, it’s not worth
raising revenue for schools.
“The logic there is, ‘So
don’t give schools this extra
$2 billion, because it will just
go to PERS,’” said Hass, who
worked on the tax plan. “If
you don’t give them the $2
billion, this PERS bill doesn’t
go away.”
Right now, school dis-
tricts in Oregon get about
three-quarters of their money
from the state school fund,
and it’s up to them to choose
how to budget and spend that
money, according to Peter
Rudy, Oregon Department of
Education spokesman. Rudy
said the “vast majority” of
a school district’s expenses,
including staffing costs, are
paid for with money from
the state school fund. Fed-
eral money covers most of
the rest.
Student Success money is
restricted. When they apply
for Student Success grants,
school districts are required
to explain how they will use
the money, and they have to
report back to the Educa-
tion Department. There are
a number of allowed uses for
the grants. Paying for PERS
expenses is not one of them,
the act’s architects say.
“It’s not going to go to
funding PERS,” Roblan said.
“It’s going to go to fund-
ing things in the classroom
and making sure our goal of
getting to 90-some-percent
graduation rate is fulfilled.”
The act has an emphasis,
Hass said, on “accountability
— from application require-
ments to reports that have to
be checked and rechecked by
the department.”
That’s not to say Roblan
and Hass aren’t concerned
about the PERS dilemma.
Both of them voted Thurs-
day, May 23, in favor of
Senate Bill 1049, a biparti-
san proposal geared toward
reining in rising PERS costs.
It passed the Senate 16-12,
with five Democrats voting
against it and three Republi-
cans in support.
Several public employee
unions, including the Ore-
gon Education Association,
oppose the bill, but it has
the backing of Democratic
leaders.
“That is the mechanism
to try to address the con-
cerns that all the new revenue
will go to PERS,” said Ken
Rocco, the Legislature’s non-
partisan fiscal officer.
Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Port-
land, said he voted the bill out
of committee Tuesday, May
21, and plans to support it
in the House “so that the tax
increase that I voted for so
proudly a few weeks ago has
a chance of making a differ-
ence in the classroom and the
workforce for our schools.”
He explained, “School
is teachers and professional
assistants and janitors …
and if the cost of your work-
force is going up because the
retirement costs are going up,
that’s going to eat into the
Student Success pot.”
As PERS drains more and
more money from school
budgets, Nosse added, it
becomes harder for districts
to hire staff. That, in turn,
means classroom sizes stay
large and student needs aren’t
addressed.
“Better schools means
more workers,” Nosse said.
The state’s largest teach-
ers’ union sees it differently.
“You can’t improve
schools by losing educators,
and that’s exactly what would
happen if this bill passes,”
said John Larson, a Hermis-
ton High School teacher and
OEA president.
Although he believes
reforms are needed, Nosse
said it’s “agonizing” for him
to vote to cut future PERS
benefits — not least, he
acknowledged, because he’s
earned the backing of unions.
“That is my base,” Nosse
said. “I mean, I come out of
the labor movement in this
state.”
A former math teacher
and principal at Marshfield
High School who retired in
2004, Roblan receives nearly
$8,000 monthly from PERS.
Despite that, he supports
efforts to reform the system,
and he said he’s hopeful that
labor groups will recognize
the need to rein in rising pen-
sion costs.
“It’s going to take a lot of
work for people, but I have
a belief that people will rec-
ognize — including employ-
ees — if you don’t do it, then
you lose people,” Roblan
said. “Or you get bigger class
sizes, or you do other kinds of
things, because they’ve only
got so much of their resources
that they can spend towards
(PERS), and they don’t get
any of these new resources
to spend towards it, so it’s
Fire: Deal nearly done to create fire authority
Continued from Page A1
overcoming some shared
history, he said, and not
all of it good. Some cases
required acknowledgment
of past wrongs while oth-
ers needed the willingness
to move on and try harder.
“What’s really nice is
everybody is cooperat-
ing, everybody is here,” he
said, “and we’re just try-
ing to provide good public
service.”
The four districts often
respond to the same fires,
vehicle crashes and more.
The agreement reduces
response times, Baty said.
Fire district personnel now
have to wait until a mini-
mum crew of three shows
up and the station, but the
proposal allows person-
nel instead to leave right
from their homes to get to
the emergency. And East
Umatilla Fire and Res-
cue will have two staff on
duty to respond to fires and
other calls for help.
The deal also allows the
agencies to share resources,
which would make pay-
ing for the cost of vehicle
repairs or capital improve-
ments easier to afford.
Given how often they have
mutual responses, Helix,
for example, getting a new
engine in its fire truck
would benefit East Uma-
tilla, and vice versa.
The formation of the
new fire authority does not
reinvent the wheel. Baty
said this is akin to what
happened in Hermiston
with the creation of Uma-
tilla County Fire District
No. 1. But this plan does
not need voter approval nor
is it changing what anyone
pays in taxes.
Baty and other fire staff
have held public meet-
ings about the effort. The
second-to-last was Fri-
day night at the Medic 400
headquarters in Athena.
Klaus and Mary Hoehna
of Weston were the among
the few non-fire district
personnel to attend. Klaus
Hoehna serves on the
Local Emergency Plan-
ning Committee and said
he supports the four agen-
cies teaming up.
“I like the idea of quick
response,” he said. “That’s
a big selling point for me.”
He and Mary Hoehna
also agreed locals like to
see public agencies coop-
erate and find smart ways
to use public money.
Baty said some of the
meetings have had good
participation, and the one
criticism he heard was
why this has not happened
sooner.
“I really didn’t have an
answer for that,” he said.
Pending the approval
from Helix, East Umatilla
Fire and Rescue would
go into effect July 1. The
last public meeting takes
place June 10 at 7 p.m.
at the East Umatilla
County Rural Fire Protec-
tion District office, 103 W.
Main St.
Baty said if someone
has a good reason not to
go forward, they should
present that. Getting this
far has taken considerable
effort, he said, and if resi-
dents don’t want it, the four
districts need to know.
going to affect other parts of
the system if we don’t figure
out how to get it more under
control.”
Schools have been under-
funded in Oregon since vot-
ers approved Ballot Mea-
sure 5 in 1990, slashing their
share of property tax reve-
nue, Roblan said.
Oregon has one of the
country’s lowest on-time
high school graduation rates
— in the continental United
States, only New Mexico and
Washington, D.C., are worse
— and also lags behind most
other states on the amount of
instructional time it requires.
Now, PERS is putting
more pressure on school dis-
tricts across the state.
The Beaverton School
District, the state’s third-larg-
est, is contemplating layoffs
as it stares at a $16 million
increase in PERS costs.
“PERS expenses will con-
tinue to challenge all gov-
ernmental budgets across
the state for several biennia,”
Superintendent Don Grot-
ting warned in his budget
message.
To the Oregon School
Boards Association, that’s all
the more reason for the state
to grant school districts more
money to spend specifically
on education — reducing
class sizes, adding instruc-
tional hours, providing more
electives and college prepara-
tory courses, and beyond.
“Passing (the Student Suc-
cess Act) allows them to pay
their PERS obligation and
also make significant invest-
ments into areas … that
have potential for success,”
spokesman Alex Pulaski
said.
Democrats and groups
like the OSBA were ebullient
after House Bill 3427 passed
the Senate and was signed
into law, with several key
senators describing it as one
of the most important votes
they have taken. Brown offi-
cially signed the bill May 16.
“From our perspective,
this is the biggest win for Ore-
gon students, for the future of
Oregon, that we could have
possibly imagined,” Pulaski
said.
Roblan and Rep. Barbara
Smith Warner, D-Portland,
who co-chair the commit-
tee that developed the Stu-
dent Success Act, said they
made a conscious decision
not to address PERS in their
legislation.
“We didn’t tie doing the
Student Success work to
PERS reform, because as I
have said publicly and pri-
vately, we’ve done PERS
reform twice in the last 15
years; we haven’t done rev-
enue reform in almost 30,”
Smith Warner said. “That
was the highest-priority
need.”
However, the Senate
moved quickly to pass SB
1049, the PERS reform bill,
less than two weeks after
approving the Student Suc-
cess Act.
“I think for a lot of us,
that was kind of an implicit
logic that we need to do
both of these,” Hass said.
“They’re both hard votes for
everybody.”
Streets: Pendleton streets
could get $3 million shot
in the arm
Continued from Page A1
the city is set to spend more
than $1.6 million on street
maintenance in 2019-20.
But the city would have
to spend that amount year-in
and year-out to make a dent
in improving road qual-
ity, and if the city wanted
to eliminate the road main-
tenance backlog and bring
every road into good condi-
tion, it would need to spend
$4.1 million per year over
the next decade.
In past meetings, Fair-
ley has said that the coun-
cil can’t be content to raise
street funding enough to
just stop the bleeding and
members need to imple-
ment bold ideas to solve the
problem.
But both Marks and Fair-
ley said they’re going to
reserve judgement on the $3
million urban renewal boost
until they hear all the facts
and public input.
Tuesday’s meeting comes
amidst an ongoing effort
from the council to poll
the public on what kind of
long-term revenue source it
would find palatable to fund
street maintenance.
Among the ideas the
council has debated is a gas
tax, a new hotel room tax,
and a fee on event tickets.
Mayor John Turner has
imposed a December dead-
line for a final proposal.