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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2019)
riverside high hires new girls wrestling coach | SPORTS, A8 E O AST 143rd year, No. 205 REGONIAN Thursday, augusT 1, 2019 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2019 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD EOMG investors in it for community, money EO Media group offered investors terms for loans or equity in new Central Oregon Media group By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian BENd — They may not be The Magnificent Seven with guns blaz- ing, but seven individuals and orga- HERMISTON As depot transfer looms, companies express interest nizations backed the EO Media group’s purchase of the Bend Bulle- tin and Redmond Spokesman. heidi Wright, EO Media’s chief operating officer, said she spent a couple months meeting with inves- tors and working on the plan to pre- vail at Monday’s bankruptcy auction that ended with purchase of the two papers for $3.65 million. EO Media offered the investors terms for loans or equity in the new Central Oregon Media group, the limited-liability company that will hold the Bulletin and Spokesman and operate apart from EO Media and its collection of newspapers and journals. “Two individuals took us up on the equity offering and the rest on the debt offering,” Wright said. developer Bill smith and pub- lic relations master Louis Capozzi joined as the equity shareholders. smith said he travels and lot and sees large companies do not do local news well. “Bend is Bend in part because we have had superb newspaper coverage of local news,” he said. “Bend has a special flavor that needs to be pro- tected. We don’t want to be just any town. a vibrant paper helps insure that. Most of my company’s land holdings are in Central Oregon. so we need to have the paper succeed.” smith said he is not new to the EO Media group, having subscribed for more than 25 years to the Capital Press, the company’s weekly news- paper covering West Coast agricul- tural. he said his investment is about making a profit. “EOMg is not a charity,” he stated. “My investment is not a donation. a restarted Bulletin and Spokesman will make money.” See Investors, Page A7 A LACK OF OPTIONS One potential employer could bring in 1,200 jobs at full build-out By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian HERMISTON — As local offi- cials wait for the former umatilla Chemical depot to return to local control, they are fielding inquiries from companies interested in devel- oping the industrially zoned portion of the property. during a meeting of the Colum- bia development authority board on Wednesday, executive director greg smith said one potential employer would bring in 1,200 jobs at full build-out. he said he asked what kind of wage levels the company would expect to pay and is waiting for an answer. “One thing I’m extremely sensi- tive to is that I want to recruit compa- nies that would build our economy,” he said. The Cda is a partnership between umatilla County, Mor- row County, Port of Morrow, Port of umatilla and the Confederated Tribes of the umatilla Indian res- ervation. While part of the former chemical depot has been turned into an Oregon National guard training facility, the u.s. army plans to turn over part of the depot for a wildlife refuge managed by the tribes and nearly 4,000 acres for the Cda to market as industrial, commercial and agricultural use. as smith pointed out with the mystery employer that could bring 1,200 jobs to the community, not all economic development is equal when it comes to things like paying a family wage. he said it will be up to the Cda to weigh all offers, and to consider things like the impact an employer will have on schools, fire districts and other local services. Board member don russell, who represents Morrow County on the See Depot, Page A7 Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Nicole Carver stands in the front yard of her mobile home in Pendleton. Carver, as well as her neighbors, have faced high electric bills in the winter months. Utility companies and the state are trying to preserve and revamp existing mobile homes By JESSICA POLLARD East Oregonian P ENdLETON — Nicole Carver and her family rent their mobile home for $550 a month, and in the past, they’ve faced an electric bill of almost $600. during the wintertime, Carv- er’s grandmother — who lives with Carver, her husband and 10-year-old daughter — can get quite chilly as a result of dialysis. “We try to keep her warm with blankets,” Carver explained. during the summer, the home bakes. “We’ve got a pool,” Carver said. “so I try to have activities we can go and do to keep us cool.” she’s not sure quite when the mint-green unit was built, but she believes it was during the 1970s. she said her neighbors have also experienced skyrocketing utilities in the past. It’s mobile homes like Carver’s that uma- tilla Electric Cooperative and other utility companies say a lack of energy efficiency options can leave mobile home owners with high bills they can’t afford, leaving the util- ity company and their members to absorb the costs. “It really has been a concern of utili- ties throughout the Northwest and beyond for many years. There’s an overall goal to improve energy efficiency. This is one of the toughest problems to solve,” said uEC Mem- ber services administrator steve Meyers. In the spring of 2017, uEC partnered with county assessors from umatilla and Morrow counties to find out how many mobile homes were built before 1976, when the u.s. depart- Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Nicole Carver believes the mint green mobile home that she rents was built in the 1970s. Carver faces issues affordably controlling temperature in the home and often faces high utility bills. ment of housing and urban development set minimum construction standards for manu- factured dwellings. They estimated that more than 500 mobile homes in Morrow County, and more than 1,700 mobile homes in Umatilla County, fit the bill. according to Meyers, some of those homes were built with no insulation at all, and can cost hundreds of dollars to heat during the winter months. In 2018, uEC received money from the usda’s rural Energy savings Program to provide loans to their members to help weath- erize homes against cold weather. at the end of the year, the program was amended to allow the loans to be used for mobile home replacement, but the uEC will have to reap- ply to use the funds for that purpose. high utilities aren’t the only problem. Oregon housing and Community ser- vices reported that between 2001 and 2015, 104 mobile home parks closed around the state, displacing around 6,800 people. More recently, The Oregonian reported that in the last two years, 40 mobile home parks have filed for intent to sell. Four of those, according to the OhCs database, are in the Northeast Oregon area. It’s something that’s been on Brittany Cambell’s mind. at 31, she and her husband own the mobile home they live in. she said she hopes to set- tle into something “that won’t roll” one day. Like many who live in mobile homes, she’s there because it’s what she can best afford. In 2017, 20 million people occupied mobile homes, one of the most affordable forms of unsubsidized housing, according to the Man- ufactured housing Institute. “It’s always been what I’ve been able to get into,” Cambell said. “There’s a few of the See Options, Page A7
