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East Oregonian
Solar: Eastern Oregon
avoids glare from panels
Continued from Page A1
less than 5 percent of the
proposals would go on
high-value farmland.
Umatilla County plan-
ning director Bob Wald-
her said the county has
plenty of Class 1 or Class
2 soil, the stuff that quali-
fies for high-quality farm-
land, with large swaths
around Athena and the
Milton-Freewater
area.
But, he said, solar devel-
opment does not seem
much of an issue in the
county.
“We don’t have an
application currently that
we’re reviewing,” he said.
Morrow County also
might not have to worry
much about the new rule.
County planning direc-
tor Carla McLane said the
county has little of that
rich soil.
“To get to that in Mor-
row County, you have to
have lots of stars align,”
she said, primarily due
to a lack of water. But the
ruling still raises concerns
for her.
“It felt like a really
rushed process,” she said.
McLane said she served
on the LCDC Rules Advi-
sory Committee, and the
development
commis-
sioner and staff wanted to
get the ruling in the books
before the legislative ses-
sion. That push, she said,
ignored the bigger picture.
Oregon’s list for uses
on farm land runs to 30
pages, she said, with
exemptions for everything
from bed and breakfasts
to music concerts, and
this rule focuses on one
use. Should the question
be, she said, whether there
are too many solar proj-
ects on farm land or too
many cumulative impacts
on farm land?
McLane also said the
new rules are about pro-
tecting prime farm land in
the Willamette Valley, but
Land Conservation and
Development “applied a
broad brush to the entire
state.”
Still, she said, the rules
contain “one golden nug-
get” — they allow coun-
ties to create a program
for solar facilities if the
project proposes a dual
use. Counties might have
to go through the effort
of making the program,
McLane said, but it could
be beneficial as long as it
was put to use and not just
taking up space on the
shelf.
Waldher also said
the dual use was a good
move. Agriculture activ-
ities such as beekeeping
or cattle grazing, he said,
could work just fine under
solar panels.
GOP: Oregon Senate
Republicans threaten
second walkout
Continued from Page A1
walkout were reinforced
when the caucus sent
out a news release con-
firming that it’s under
consideration.
Unlike the May stunt,
this one comes 12 days
before the constitutional
end of the legislative
session.
If there’s no quorum
to do business, the state
constitution allows leg-
islators to “compel the
attendance of absent
members.”
In 2007, on the request
of Senate President Peter
Courtney, then-Gov. Ted
Kulongoski dispatched
state troopers to bring
two Republican senators
from Corvallis to the
Capitol for a vote. That
standoff was averted
before police had to
bring either of them to
Salem.
When
Republicans
staged their walkout last
month, Courtney opted
not to call the police on
them, and he and Brown
negotiated with Repub-
lican leaders to end the
boycott. This time, with
less than two weeks
before the Legislature is
scheduled to adjourn for
the year, Brown is tak-
ing a hard line.
Kate
Kondayen,
Brown’s deputy commu-
nications director, said
the governor is “pre-
pared to call upon those
resources available to
her—including autho-
rizing state troopers to
bring senators back to
the Capitol and, if neces-
sary, calling legislators
back to Salem to com-
plete their work over the
summer.”
Kondayen said when
Republicans agreed to
return to the building
last month, they also
agreed not to walk out
again. Brown “expects
them to honor their
word,” she added.
A number of major
policies have yet to be
considered in the Sen-
ate, including HB 2005,
which would create a
statewide paid leave
program for new par-
ents and others needing
time away from work to
care for family, and HB
2015, which would allow
undocumented
immi-
grants to get Oregon
drivers’ licenses.
Bills aimed at reliev-
ing the state’ housing
crisis, raising the tax on
tobacco and at reform-
ing Oregon’s campaign
finance laws could also
be left hanging if Repub-
licans skip town.
That’s not to mention
the state budget. The
only thing the constitu-
tion compels lawmakers
to do during their legis-
lative sessions is pass a
balanced state budget for
the next two years.
And less than two
weeks before lawmakers
have to adjourn, the bud-
gets for major agencies,
including the health and
human services agen-
cies that oversee pro-
grams impacting more
than 1 million Orego-
nians, have yet to receive
a vote.
If they do walk out,
Democrats would likely
bring the gun and vac-
cine bills back from the
dead. When asked about
the hypothetical last
week, Brown quickly
said she’s confident there
would be enough time to
get both through.
With budget bills
and other priority items
needing to get through
over the next week,
Republicans would have
more leverage with a late
walkout than they did
the first time.
During the first lock-
out, Sen. Tim Knopp,
R-Bend, returned to
work after the first day,
which still left the Sen-
ate one person short of
the number they needed
to do business.
If he played it the
same way in the sec-
ond go-around, it would
put pressure on Ore-
gon’s soon-to-be-newest
senator.
A replacement for
the late Jackie Win-
ters, who died May 29,
will be named by Tues-
day. Among the three
nominees is Rep. Denyc
Boles, R-Salem, who
spoke out against HB
2020 on the House floor
Monday night.
House Bill 2020 had
a first reading Tuesday,
and could be up for a vote
as early as Thursday.
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Goals: Find better way to identify, implement
Continued from Page A1
and federal agencies to iden-
tify another $20 million in
projects.
Hermiston took a differ-
ent approach, Fairley said,
by using the mayor to facil-
itate a meeting with depart-
ment heads to identify where
Hermiston’s issues are.
Those issues helped for-
mulate goals, which Byron
Smith, Hermiston city man-
ager, regularly updates the
council on.
The approach has yielded
results, he said, as evidenced
by the completion of the
Eastern Oregon Trade and
Events Center and its down-
town plan in recent years.
Fairley said the coun-
cil needed to consider both
changing the content of its
goals to include more time-
lines and deliverable out-
comes, and the process it uses
to implement them.
The workgroup suggested
holding an annual meeting
with key department heads
to discuss a five-year outlook
on the city’s challenges and
opportunities.
The council would then
use those discussions to
form goals and direct the city
manager to come up with
an implementation strategy
before the council decides
whether to adopt them or not.
Fairley said another key
part of the goals process
would be to assign new or
existing revenue to each goal.
“Ultimately, what mat-
ters is where you put your
money,” he said.
Like the cities the work-
group considered exemplary,
the city manager position
would be evaluated on how
well they were implementing
the goals.
But Fairley said the pres-
sure would still be on the
council to fund those goals,
or else they wouldn’t be able
to properly evaluate the city
manager on his or her ability
to implement them.
After Fairley ended his
presentation, some council-
ors said they want to make
sure the public is as involved
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A crew from Pendleton Ready Mix pours footings Tuesday for a new house on Southwest First
Street in Pendleton.
in the goals making pro-
cess as they did the last time
the council overhauled the
process.
Shortly after he was
elected in 2016, Mayor John
Turner convened a commit-
tee to draft new goals for the
city.
After the committee sub-
mitted a variety of options,
Turner and other councilors
took them to various com-
munity groups to figure out
which ones rose to the top.
The council approved the
top four goals — improving
infrastructure, land develop-
ment, housing and economic
development — in 2017 and
renewed them recently.
A January analysis of the
goals showed that the coun-
cil had a mixed bag of suc-
cess, hitting many of its hous-
ing objectives while falling
behind on infrastructure.
Councilor Becky Marks
said she was concerned that
the council would focus so
much on goals under the new
process that it could neglect
sudden opportunities like the
Pendleton Unmanned Aerial
Systems Range.
She also contrasted Pend-
leton with Hermiston and
John Day, saying that Herm-
iston’s relatively flat topog-
raphy allowed for a differ-
ent type of development that
wasn’t available to Pendleton
while John Day was much
smaller than Pendleton.
“I know, Scott, you and I
have butted heads over John
Day quite a little bit,” she
said. “However, John Day
has 1,600 people.
Fairley said Pendleton was
different than John Day, but
his point stood that John Day
was successful in implement-
ing its goals. He added that
the new process would give
the council the flexibility to
change and tweak goals as
circumstances change.
The workgroup had sug-
gested integrating the new
process into the city council’s
rulebook, but City Manager
Robb Corbett advised that
the council also put it into
the goals document if they
decided to do it.
Renewal: Pendleton could target Byers Avenue
Continued from Page A1
lay and another 36 seg-
ments that need a complete
reconstruction.
But the biggest target
is Southeast Byers Avenue
from Fifth Street to 12th
Street.
Beyond its crumbling
condition, Simons said
Byers gets more traffic than
its designed for.
Byers is one of Pendle-
ton’s older neighborhoods,
meaning the street is nar-
row and most houses along
it don’t have driveways.
Parked cars cling to the
sides of Byers, further nar-
rowing the roadway and
spurring some cars to park
on curbs and sidewalks,
damaging walkways.
Simons suggested not
only reconstructing Byers,
but widening it to bet-
ter accommodate on-street
parking.
He added that the city
had been saving a source
of street funding to recon-
struct Byers, but if the urban
renewal district paid for it,
the money could go toward
other important street proj-
ects, like repairing North-
west Despain Avenue.
The project has an esti-
mated cost of $1.7 million,
and with the complete list
of repair projects totaling $6
million, Simons said staff
made a priority list of streets
that could fit inside a $3 mil-
lion budget.
Those streets include
parts of Southwest Fifth
Street, Southwest First
Street, Southeast Third
Street, Southeast Eighth
Street, Southwest Fourth
Street and Southeast Good-
win Avenue.
But Simons warned that
the money might not stretch
that far because, excluding
Byers, the city hadn’t calcu-
lated the costs of new side-
walk ramps, curb repairs
and drainage issues.
Although the devel-
opment commission has
mostly used urban renewal
money for private proj-
ects, there are a few notable
exceptions.
In 2010, the commission
agreed to spend $400,000 to
build the Riverfront Plaza, a
park that connects the 400
block of Southwest Court
Avenue with the Pendleton
River Parkway.
And in 2016, the com-
mission contributed nearly
three-quarters of the $91,915
cost to repave two public
parking lots in the down-
town area.
The one-time boost in
urban renewal funds is
meant to bolster an annual
street maintenance budget
that’s struggled to stop the
bleeding.
In its 2019-20 budget, the
city allocated $1.2 million
toward street maintenance,
a figure the city’s consul-
tants say will maintain the
status quo.
Although the coun-
cil didn’t take any action
on Tuesday, City Manager
Robb Corbett said members
would need to take action
soon if it wanted to move
forward with the projects.
Councilor Paul Chalm-
ers, the chairman of the
commission, said members
would vote on the proposal
at its July 16 meeting.
Firefighter: Janice Arsenault remembered as a
dynamic and outgoing personality
Continued from Page A1
said Williams did not pop
up on local police databases,
and the investigation will
look into why he was here
as well as the relationships
between the three.
“We should be able to get
to more answers today and
possibly tomorrow,” Rowan
said.
He also expressed his
admiration to members of
the Umatilla Rural Fire Pro-
tection District, which lost
one of is own with Arse-
nault’s death. She was a
volunteer firefighter for the
local department.
“That was pretty hum-
bling to watch them stand-
ing at attention on the dock
waiting for the boats to come
in, and then the procession
from Hat Rock to Burns (the
mortuary in Hermiston),”
Rowan said.
The fire district posted
this message about Arse-
nault on its Facebook page:
“It is difficult to write
this through the tears and
heartache, as we continue
to process this sudden and
tragic loss for us all. Janice’s
positive outlook on life, con-
tagious laugh, and her desire
to live life to its fullest will
be missed. We are glad that
she was part of our family
too.
“Words alone cannot
express the appreciation and
gratitude we have to all of
those individuals and groups
who stepped forward to help
up our agency, our family,
in our efforts to bring home
our sister. You stood stead-
fast by our side in our great-
est moment of need. Thank
you.
“May we all find solace
in knowing that Janice is in
a better place and will for-
ever be watching over us.”
On Tuesday afternoon
an impromptu memorial
started as people began
leaving flowers and other
items outside the Umatilla
fire station.
Arsenault was a stu-
dent and employee at Blue
Mountain Community Col-
lege. Jacelyn Keys, director
of BMCC’s Hermiston Cen-
ter, was Arsenault’s supervi-
sor. She recalled Arsenault
as a dynamic and outgoing
personalty.
One of Arsenault’s joys
outside studying was riding
her Harley Davidson motor-
cycle. She recently returned
from a rally with family and
friends, Keys said, but Arse-
nault did not let blood lines
draw the boundaries of who
she called family.
“I don’t know if that
woman actually knew a
stranger,” Keys said.
Arsenault’s
definition
of relaxing left folks in the
dust. She earned her GED
at the college, took classes
to become a volunteer fire-
fighter and this spring
earned her national EMT
credentials. She also worked
full time as an office assis-
tant and was a mother of
four.
“Janice did everything
big,” Keys said. “She loved
big. She laughed big.”
But something small
from her friend was really
sticking with Keys.
Keys said she is not a
morning person. While she
arrived at work at 8 a.m.,
she would be content not to
engage with anyone until
10. Arsenault told her she
needed to hear Key’s tell
her, “Good morning.” Arse-
nault pushed for her work
day to begin on a positive
note. Keys said over time
she gave in.
“I think the last two
mornings,” Keys said, “I
miss that the most.”