OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
East Oregonian
A7
Purchase: Oregon newspapers remain Oregon-owned
Continued from Page A1
a fresh start for the Bulletin
and Redmond Spokesman,
bodes well for the future of
these newspapers,” she said.
“Second, we believe readers
in Central Oregon will sup-
port our mission of producing
content that is relevant, credi-
ble and reflective of the com-
munities we serve.”
Kathryn B. Brown, vice
president of EO Media
Group, credited Bend locals
for support.
“We appreciate the assis-
tance of so many in the Bend
community who encouraged
us to consider the acquisition
of the Bulletin and the Red-
mond Spokesman, and who
were willing to support us
in our efforts,” she said. “It
quickly became clear to our
board that these newspapers
are an excellent investment
for our company, and are a
good fit with our operations
throughout Oregon.”
Bend Mayor Sally Rus-
sell in a letter expressed her
personal support for the EO
Media Group to prevail.
“Balanced, factual, local
reporting is invaluable for
the healthy community I
am committed to helping
grow and thrive,” she said.
“I believe that among the
bidders that have identified,
EOMG is the only one that
offers the local perspective
I feel is so critical. Our city
would not be well-served by
having our local, daily news-
paper controlled by absentee
managers of huge conglom-
erates whose only commit-
ment to our city is financial.”
Some Bend supporters
provided financial backing,
including The Bend Founda-
tion. Trustee Mike Hollern,
said the nonprofit views this
as a worthy investment in a
company with a long history
in Oregon delivering valu-
able news.
“That’s a really important
part of the whole American
dream to have an unbiased
local press,” he said.
He also said he could not
speak for other investors, but
the Bend Foundation does
not have an editorial stake in
this action.
Steve Forrester, EO Media
Group president and CEO,
said the purchase marks more
than the beginning of a new
publishing venture.
“For our family owner-
ship, acquisition of the Bend
Bulletin also carries emo-
tional and historical mean-
ing,” he said. “The friendship
between the Chandler fam-
ily and the Forrester-Bed-
ford-Brown families goes
back more than 50 years. Our
essential challenge is to bring
new life to Bend’s storied
daily newspaper.”
Adams owns more than a
hundred small dailies, week-
lies and shoppers, including
the Herald & News in Klam-
ath Falls and the Lake County
Examiner in Lakeview.
Emily Cureton with Ore-
gon Public Broadcasting
reported Rhode Island Sub-
urban Newspapers Inc., or
RISN, owns newspapers in
Rhode Island, Arizona and
California, and dozens of
the businesses use the same
address on regulatory paper-
work — an office suite in a
strip mall in rural Illinois.
Corporate filings show
the humble office space is
connected to Horizon Pub-
lications, a subsidiary of
bankrupt
conglomerate
Hollinger Inc., once one of
the largest media compa-
nies in the world. Hollinger
became infamous in the
mid-2000s for the scale and
scope of theft committed by
its executives, according to
OPB. An investigation on
behalf of shareholders and
submitted to the U.S. Secu-
rities and Exchange Com-
mission found Hollinger
executives siphoned more
than $400 million from
their companies, largely by
collecting fees on bogus
non-compete contracts.
That led to fraud convic-
tions in 2007 for Hollinger
leaders Conrad Black and
F. David Radler. A key
Hollinger executive impli-
cated in some of the transac-
tions, Roland McBride, is the
vice president of RISN.
According to court doc-
uments, RISN negotiated a
$67,500 “break-up fee” with
Western Communications
to induce RISN to submit
a bid within a certain time
frame, and RISN as the first
bidder “acted as a catalyst
or ‘stalking horse’ to attract
higher and better offers” for
the Bend newspaper and thus
deserves payment for maxi-
mizing the sale. The sale pro-
ceeds will cover the cost of
the fee.
The bidding started with
the EO Media Group’s $2.5
million. Wright helmed the
company’s bidding against
Mark Adams, president
and CEO of Adams Pub-
lishing. RISN sent no one
to the auction.
Brown said most of the
bids went up in $50,000
increments, and at $3.65 mil-
lion Adams was out and told
the EO team congratula-
tions. U.S. Bankruptcy Court
Judge Trish Brown approved
the sale during a hearing fol-
lowing the auction. She also
gave until Aug. 12 for unse-
cured creditors to oppose
RISN’s break-up fee. If no
one comes forward, the com-
pany collects the money.
The purchase includes
the printing press and equip-
ment in Bend but not the
building or property. Kath-
ryn Brown said EO Media
Group would lease the site
for the time being and look
for new space. She also said
EO Media Group will look at
how to fold the Central Ore-
gon papers into the organiza-
tion and soon will reach out
to the employees at the Bulle-
tin and Spokesman.
Kathryn Brown said they
aim to close the deal by the
end of August.
Vets: Ken Garrett welcomed call of duty
Climate: Anderson put industry first
Continued from Page A1
Continued from Page A1
“No, thank you,” Zim-
merly responded as she
embraced Garrett in a hug
and the museum’s volunteers
and visitors clapped.
Born in La Grande and
now a Pendleton resident,
Garrett’s service was gal-
vanized by events almost a
decade before the Korean War
even began.
During the week of Dec. 7,
1941, which also happened to
be the week of his 10th birth-
day, Garrett’s world flipped
upside down. With both his
parents hospitalized, his
father for appendicitis and his
mother due to a miscarriage,
the Japanese attacked Pearl
Harbor and propelled the U.S.
into World War II.
“We had no idea where
Pearl Harbor was,” he said.
“My father just said it was
somewhere in the middle of
the Pacific.”
But with the opening of
the Pendleton Field in 1941,
where nearly 2,500 men
were stationed and brought to
train, Garrett got a front row
seat to the mobilizing efforts
of World War II and recalls
watching when flocks of mil-
itary personnel went march-
ing through the streets of La
Grande. The scenes left an
impression on him.
So in 1950 at the age of 19,
Garrett signed up for duty.
While his mother was wary of
him joining the Marines like
he wanted, she agreed to him
joining the Navy.
Garrett went to train in
San Diego before being sent
across the Pacific to be sta-
tioned in Atsugi, Japan, where
he would remain throughout
the war and after. There he
was responsible for transport-
ing supplies and personnel
into the active theater.
After being discharged in
1955, Garrett returned to the
Pendleton area and spent most
of the next decade working
at a sawmill in Pilot Rock. In
1964, he joined the Pendleton
Fire Department and worked
there until retiring as a cap-
tain in 1987.
Since then, Garrett said
Its passage in the Senate
was considered inevitable
by even some of its most
vigilant foes.
Courtney needed just
16 senators to say yes. He
had 18 Democrats to work
with.
Two Democrats already
publicly declared they
would vote no — Sen.
Betsy Johnson of Scap-
poose and Arnie Roblan of
Coos Bay.
That left Courtney the
16 Democrats he needed to
move ahead, but Monnes
Anderson in May started
voicing concerns, trigger-
ing an intense lobbying
effort by industry, environ-
mentalists, and the gover-
nor’s staff. Monnes Ander-
son was emerging as the
critical vote.
Her
concern
was
focused: She didn’t want the
legislation to hurt a major
employer in her urban dis-
trict, Boeing. Monnes
Anderson acknowledged in
an interview that she didn’t
have a great understanding
of the dense policy, but was
given pause when Boe-
ing approached her with
concerns.
Boeing’s Gresham fac-
tory employs 1,600 work-
ers. The facility gets its
electricity from a whole-
sale supplier rather than a
public utility. Public utili-
ties got free allowances in
HB 2020, in part because
of a state mandate forcing
them to move from coal
power and also because the
state has oversight of them.
The state has no way to see
how private suppliers rely
on clean or dirty energy
production, or ensure
free allowances would go
toward stabilizing energy
rates rather than profiting
shareholders.
Boeing produced an
analysis that determined
HB 2020 would increase
the Gresham factory’s
energy costs by $1 mil-
lion per year. But text mes-
sages acquired by Salem
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Korean War veteran Ken Garrett holds a book of his Navy
experiences adorned with a photo of him at age 21 on the
cover. Garrett was on hand during Saturday’s Korean War
Veteran Open House at the Pendleton Air Museum.
he spends most of his time
visiting nursing homes and
orphanages along with being
a member of Pendleton’s Vet-
erans of Foreign Wars Post
922. At the VFW, he said
he helps each year with the
annual Cowboy Breakfast
during Round-Up week.
While his days in the Navy
are long gone, Garrett has still
donned his uniform and cap a
few times since. The retired
fire captain said he joined the
efforts with the city to con-
struct a new building for the
fire department by showing
up at a city council meeting in
his full uniform and voicing
his support.
Following
the
city’s
approval of the project, Gar-
rett was given a golden shovel
at the new building’s ground-
breaking event.
Raymond Slabik, a cor-
poral during the Korean War
who now lives in Pilot Rock,
also stopped by the museum
on Saturday while wearing
his military cap.
“I wear my cap because I
put in my time to this coun-
try,” Slabik said.
Slabik was one of four
men drafted out of his home-
town in North Dakota during
the war. From there, he trav-
eled to Missouri to train
before being sent to Korea
where he assisted in commu-
nications before being dis-
charged in 1953.
He then returned to the
U.S. and worked in Mon-
tana briefly before moving to
Oregon, where he spent time
working on telephone lines in
Philomath and then settling
in Pilot Rock for construction
work.
Despite being drafted into
service, Slabik said he was
never afraid and welcomed
the call to duty.
“It didn’t bother me any,”
he said, smiling.
While events like Satur-
day have gone well and vis-
itors are increasing at the
museum according to Sykes,
he has a vision to expand its
presence.
“What we want is to get
into a bigger place,” he said.
“We’ve been bidding on and
have been offered old air-
planes to show, we just don’t
have anywhere to put them.”
The museum opened in
its small downtown loca-
tion in 2017 and Sykes said
the museum already owns
enough items to display in a
space two to three times as
large as the current one. But
for now, Sykes and the rest of
the museum’s volunteer staff
are dedicated to preserving
the area’s military history and
memorializing its veterans.
The
Pendleton
Air
Museum will next hold an
open house event for Pearl
Harbor Remembrance Day
on Thursday, Dec. 7.
Reporter show when the
governor’s staff asked for
that analysis in an attempt
to address the matter, com-
pany officials declined,
saying it was proprietary
information.
Emails
between
Brown’s chief of staff, Nik
Blosser, and Boeing repre-
sentatives show the com-
pany shifted its requests as
the governor’s office tried
to placate Boeing — and
Monnes Anderson.
Rich White, Boe-
ing’s government rela-
tions manager, identified
in a June 10 email that
the company’s concern
with House Bill 2020 was
that its industrial classifi-
cation wasn’t included in
the bill. Adding the code
assured Boeing it would
be included in the pro-
gram, therefore receiving
benefits to lessen the blow
of cap and trade. Blosser
agreed to add it.
The next day, Boeing’s
lobbyist emailed Blosser,
saying that including the
code wasn’t enough to get
the company on board. The
company now insisted that
other amendments pro-
posed by industry allies be
adopted.
The amendments Boe-
ing asked for would have
gutted the program and
went far beyond Boeing’s
initial focus on energy
costs.
The change left Blosser
befuddled.
“Are you saying now
that you don’t want the
Boeing NAICS code added
to the bill through amend-
ment 110? Your lobbyist,
JL Wilson, seems to be say-
ing that,” Blosser wrote to
White. White and Blosser
declined to comment.
About
that
time,
Monnes Anderson met
with Paige Spence, an Ore-
gon League of Conserva-
tion Voters lobbyist.
The senator reiter-
ated what she had said for
months, though she never
wanted to discuss the pol-
icy in detail, and didn’t
understand it, Spence said.
“She always said she
was going to be a yes,”
Spence said.
In the version that went
to the House for a vote,
Boeing got its classifica-
tion amendment and noth-
ing more.
By then, the gover-
nor’s office understood
that Monnes Anderson had
emerged as a pivotal vote
in the Senate.
The day the measure
passed the House, the
Gresham senator met in
her office with Blosser
to negotiate over what it
would take to get her to
vote yes. They met again
the next morning and then
that afternoon.
Opponents to the leg-
islation also recognized
that Monnes Anderson had
become key to killing cap
and trade. On the same
afternoon she met with
Blosser, Monnes Ander-
son also met with industry
lobbyists Shaun Jillions,
Paul Cosgrove and Kevin
Campbell. The two Dem-
ocratic senators already
committed to voting no —
Johnson and Roblan — sat
in as well.
Jillions, a business lob-
byist who heads Oregon
Manufacturing and Com-
merce, led industry oppo-
sition to the bill and he
focused on Monnes Ander-
son when he heard she was
on the fence.
She said she found
the industry pressure
off-putting.
“I just wanted to be sep-
arate from that group,”
she said of Jillions and
his industry associates.
Monnes Anderson only
recalled one such meeting,
but Jillions said they were
weekly in June.
Jillions said Monnes
Anderson was one of five
moderate Democrats in the
Senate, along with eight
in the House, he had been
working for months. The
notion that he suddenly
turned her against cap and
trade is wrong, he said.
Puppies: EOCI prison whelping program benefits both inmates and canines
Continued from Page A1
Joy St. Peter, of JLAD,
travels from Salem each Mon-
day to guide the trainers and
check the puppies’ progress.
She said the early stimulation
helps the dogs better tolerate
stress and human handling.
She knows of only one other
whelping program in a prison
and it’s in Australia.
After 16 days, the train-
ers begin focusing more on
socialization, bringing in
inmate volunteers from all
around the prison for inter-
action with the dogs. As each
man arrives, he slips off his
shoes, rubs on antibacterial
hand sanitizer and heads for
a mat on the floor for a 15-20
minutes of puppy bonding.
By the time they go into
normal training, the pups
already know 12 commands,
including sit, stay and heel.
Inmates, St. Peter said, gain
almost as much as the dogs.
“The benefit to these guys
is astronomical,” she said.
Inmate Bill Durham
smiled at the merry may-
hem around the room. He had
just finished a feeding ses-
sion with Brown, who noisily
drained the bottle. Durham’s
job at the prison is listed as
“dog trainer,” and he arrives
to the training room at 6 a.m.
and gets off work at 2 in the
afternoon. Other inmates
drop in throughout the day
to help with bottle feeding,
cleaning, observing and doc-
umenting the pup’s behavior.
Recently they started feed-
ing the pups a mixture of goat
milk and kibble. The animals,
which have 24/7 care, are
responding to the attention.
“The dogs are bonding to
humans at a lot earlier age
than other puppies,” Durham
said. “They’re getting used
to us, our different scents,
our different ethnicities, hair-
styles, facial hair. Being han-
dled so much takes away their
fear responses to things like
loud noises.”
During the socializa-
tion session, Nala wandered
around the room checking in
with each of her pups as they
interacted with inmates.
At eight weeks, each pup
is assigned a primary and
secondary trainer. The dogs
sleep in crates in the trainers’
cells and go almost every-
where with their handlers.
The trainers wear pouches
full of kibble and run their
dogs through daily drills and
obstacle courses. After 18
months, the dogs are matched
with their future owners and
training is customized.
Durham said he believes
that inmates are the perfect
dog trainers.
“Out on the street, people
have lives going on. They’ve
got kids, work, lunch dates,”
he said. “We’ve got all this
time to dedicate to the dogs.”
“Outside life gets in the
way,” St. Peter said. “These
guys are very serious about
this. The quality of training
has just skyrocketed.”
The payoff for the inmates,
he said, is the chance to give.
“We’ve all done some-
thing in our past that we’re
not proud of. We were proba-
bly very selfish people at one
point in our lives,” Durham
said. “Being responsible for
these dogs is teaching us
to put something else first.
It gives us something to be
proud of in prison. For me
to train a dog that gives free-
dom to the recipient, that’s
priceless.”
One of the trainers, Chris-
topher Blackwell, takes a
puppy to the prison’s hospice
unit twice each day to visit
an inmate who is dying. On
this day, he had White in his
arms as he made his way back
across prison grounds from
the hospital to the dog room.
“He says it makes his tran-
sition easier,” Blackwell said.
“Every time I bring a dog up
there, it brightens his day.”
Often as Blackwell carries
puppies across the grounds,
correctional officers and oth-
ers will stop him for a lit-
tle puppy time. Today is no
different.
“Hey, Blackwell,” called
an officer. “Over here.”
Blackwell headed over.
Janet Yarbrough, office
specialist in the superinten-
dent’s office, grinned as she
watched the encounter. She
said the puppies are a wel-
come addition to prison
life for both inmates and
employees.
“On a really rough day,
I’ll take time to see the pup-
pies,” she said. “It’s stress
reduction.”
Anecdotal evidence from
other prison programs sug-
gests dogs in prison may
lower recidivism, depression
and misconduct of inmates.
The puppies have the power
to transform even in a stress-
ful prison environment, St.
Peter said during one of her
visits.
“It’s such a win, win, win.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0810.