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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Purdue Pharma to stay in business as bankruptcy unfolds
By MICHAEL R. SISAK
Associated Press
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
— A judge cleared the way
Tuesday for OxyContin
maker Purdue Pharma to
stay in business while it pur-
sues bankruptcy protection
and settlement of more than
2,600 lawsuits filed against it
in a reckoning over the opioid
crisis.
At the first court hear-
ing since the Chapter 11 fil-
ing late Sunday, Purdue law-
yers secured permission for
the multibillion-dollar com-
pany based in Stamford, Con-
necticut, to maintain business
as usual — paying employ-
ees and vendors, supply-
ing pills to distributors, and
keeping current on taxes and
insurance.
The continued viability of
Purdue is a key component
of the company’s settlement
offer, which could be worth
up to $12 billion over time.
Under the proposal, backed
by about half the states, the
Sackler family, which owns
Purdue, would turn the com-
pany, its assets and more than
$1 billion in cash reserves
over to a trust controlled by
the very entities suing it.
The Sacklers have also
agreed to pay a minimum
of $3 billion of their own
money to the settlement over
seven years, as well as up to
$1.5 billion more in proceeds
from the planned sale of their
non-U.S.
pharmaceutical
companies.
“This is a highly unusual
case in that the debtors have
pledged to turn over their
business to the claimants,”
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Rob-
ert Drain said. “All of the
claimants, in essence, have
the same interest in maximiz-
ing the value of the business
and avoiding immediate and
irreparable harm.”
Joe Rice, a lawyer for
some of the plaintiffs, esti-
mated it could be more than
a year before the bankruptcy
and settlement are finalized.
“This is not a sprint. We’ve
got a little bit of a marathon
here,” he said after the three-
hour hearing in New York
City’s northern suburbs.
Purdue’s bankruptcy fil-
ing has effectively frozen all
litigation against the com-
pany, which its lawyers said
has been spending more than
$250 million a year on legal
and professional fees, but
it has not stopped lawsuits
against the Sacklers from
moving forward.
New York Attorney Gen-
eral Letitia James, who
is suing the Sacklers and
opposes the proposed settle-
ment, said last week that her
office found that members
of the family used Swiss and
other accounts to transfer $1
billion to themselves.
Purdue lawyer Marshall
Huebner said he hoped states
that are opposed to the pro-
posed settlement could be
persuaded to change their
positions.
“In essence, America itself
that stands to benefit or lose
from the success or failure of
these reorganization proceed-
ings,” Huebner said.
None of the Sacklers
attended the hearing, but the
family name did come up sev-
eral times as Purdue lawyers
declared that they wouldn’t
benefit from any steps taken
Tuesday to keep the company
in business.
As
the
bankruptcy
unfolds, Purdue will continue
to pay its approximately 700
employees under preexisting
salary structures.
No member of the Sack-
ler family is an employee and
none will receive payments,
Purdue lawyer Eli Vonnegut
said.
Because of commitments
Purdue made before the bank-
ruptcy filing, the company
will pay sign-on bonuses to
five employees and retention
bonuses to about 100 employ-
ees. The company agreed to
hold off on seeking to con-
tinue other bonus plans, such
as incentive bonuses.
Enrollment: District sees a 6% decrease from 2014-15 school year
Continued from Page A1
The district will make its
pitch to nontraditional stu-
dents and their families by
emphasizing that students
can get the best of both
worlds: They can enroll in
Pendleton’s online school
while still having access to
traditional school offerings
like hands-on career techni-
cal education and extracur-
ricular activities.
An increasing number
of Pendleton high-schoolers
are taking online courses,
but most are taking it as a
supplement to traditional
school or through the dis-
trict’s credit retrieval and
alternative education pro-
grams. A negligible number
of students at the elementary
and middle school levels are
taking Pendleton’s online
classes.
But most of the declin-
ing enrollment is due to
factors outside school offi-
cials’ control, the district
has concluded.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
A student stops to exchange supplies at his locker as fellow students walk by during a pass-
ing period at Sunridge Middle School on Tuesday afternoon.
During the 2017-18 school
year, the district tracked
which students unenrolled
from the school system and
why they were leaving.
The resulting study
showed that more than half
of Pendleton’s students were
dropping from enrollment
because they were mov-
ing out of town. The top
three reasons district fam-
ilies were moving were a
lack of housing, a lack of liv-
ing-wage jobs, or a desire to
be closer to family.
Yoshioka said he stud-
ied several months from
2018-19, and the results were
much the same.
He added that the dis-
trict is excited by some of
the new housing projects
that are being developed
and the Wildhorse Resort
and Casino expansion, both
of which could bring more
families to Pendleton.
And although the high
school graduating class of
2020 is under 200 students,
Yoshioka noted that the class
of sophomores, and most
classes under it, are signifi-
cantly larger
The number of students
Pendleton records next
month is critical because the
Oregon Department of Edu-
cation factors in October
enrollment when allocating
state money.
But despite the dip in
Pendleton’s
enrollment,
Michelle Jones, the district’s
business services director,
said she had already antici-
pated an enrollment decline
in 2019-20 and budgeted
accordingly.
One other factor that
may have led to the 2019-
20 decline was Nixyaawii
Community School’s new
building.
As a charter school, NIxy-
aawii is included in some
of the district’s data, like
graduation rates, but is not
counted toward enrollment.
Nixyaawii’s new building
allowed the school to raise
its enrollment cap, and the
94 children enrolled at Nixy-
aawii in September repre-
sent a 15-student increase
from the year before.
While Yoshioka said
some of those students
might have attended Pend-
leton High School instead,
it doesn’t fully explain the
decline.
Even when the popula-
tion at Nixyaawii is included
in the district’s total enroll-
ment, the Pendleton area
K-12 population still shrunk
by 48 students.
Agriculture: Governor reappoints Threemile Canyon GM to Oregon ag board
Continued from Page A1
Coalition, Farm Forward,
Food & Water Watch, Cen-
ter for Food Safety, Humane
Society of the United States,
Center for Biological Diver-
sity and Animal Legal
Defense Fund.
State law requires seven
members of the Board of
Agriculture to be farmers
and ranchers. Two members
must represent consumers,
and the 10th member is the
chair of the Soil and Water
Conservation Commission.
Members serve four-year
terms.
Several groups expressed
similar disappointment when
Myers was first appointed
to the board in 2015. They
argued Threemile Can-
yon Farms is a significant
source of pollution, emitting
up to 5.6 million pounds of
ammonia gas from manure
annually.
Meanwhile, smaller dairy
farms continue to strug-
gle, according to the coali-
tion, which said that between
2002 and 2007, the state lost
nearly half of its dairy farms.
Shari Sirkin, executive
director of Friends of Fam-
ily Farmers, said that by
reappointing Myers to the
Board of Agriculture, Brown
demonstrated “her continued
Photo contributed by Threemile Canyon Farms
Threemile Canyon Farms is a 93,000-acre operation about 15 miles west of Boardman. It in-
cludes three dairies with a combined 25,000 milking cows, producing 1.4 million pounds of
milk each day sold to Tillamook Cheese at the Port of Morrow.
allegiance to industrialized
dairy in Oregon.”
“It would have been far
better to appoint a real fam-
ily farmer to this board, but
once again, Governor Brown
chose Oregon’s mega-dairies
over its small, independent
farms,” Sirkin said.
The groups also cited
Lost Valley Farm, a failed
30,000-cow dairy in Morrow
Leadership: Eastern
Oregon better represented
Continued from Page A1
maybe two terms. It’s a very
inexperienced caucus, and
they wanted to go a differ-
ent direction,” he said.
Smith said that a differ-
ent direction primarily has
to do with how the caucus
runs campaigns.
“That seemed to be the
argument, but the argument
was never clarified,” Bar-
reto said.
While Drazan might
be new to lawmaking, her
political experience is vast.
Having held an execu-
tive director position for the
Republican party’s cam-
paign efforts in the past, she
also previously served as
the chief of staff to former
House Majority Leader and
the Speaker of the House
Mark Simmons.
“She has strong politi-
cal instincts and experience
at the highest level of the
Oregon House. A lot of the
newer members were really
drawn,” Smith said.
Bonham said that he felt
Drazan was tenacious and
talented, and also the last
Republican standing in the
Portland metro area.
“I think that you’re going
to see a new crop of Repub-
licans — that are relatively
new to this process — bring
a lot of energy and enthu-
siasm to the campaign sea-
son,” he said.
County, as reason to reform
Oregon’s confined animal
feeding operations. Lost Val-
ley racked up more than 200
wastewater permit violations
almost immediately after
opening in 2017 and declared
bankruptcy earlier this year.
Easterday Farms, of Pasco,
Washington, is now working
to reopen the facility.
“Allowing Myers, a mega-
dairy operator, to continue to
influence the Department of
Agriculture as it considers
permitting yet another mega-
dairy at the Lost Valley site
does not bode well for East-
ern Oregon or our environ-
ment,” said Tarah Heinzen,
senior attorney for Food &
Water Watch.
Myers defended his
record on the board, saying
he will continue to represent
the interests of farms of all
sizes.
During this year’s legis-
lative session, Myers sup-
ported provisions in House
Bill 2020 — the cap-and-
trade proposal — that would
have allowed small farms
to collectively market their
carbon assets, making them
competitive with larger
operations.
In a 2011 study of air qual-
ity in the Columbia River
Gorge, the Oregon Depart-
ment of Environmental Qual-
ity praised Threemile Can-
yon Farms for “continuously
addressing its air emissions
by applying new technolo-
gies and adaptively manag-
ing its dairies with best man-
agement practices.”
In particular, DEQ said
the farm recycles cow
manure as a fertilizer for
growing crops and built a
methane digester in 2009 to
capture emissions, generat-
ing 4.8 megawatts of elec-
tricity. Regulators approved
a permit allowing Threemile
Canyon Farms to expand the
digester this year, and con-
vert methane into “pipeline
quality” natural gas.
Myers said he believes the
objections raised by environ-
mental groups are politically
motivated, rather than based
in science.
“We have a continuous
improvement operation and
we’re always looking for new
technologies for efficiency in
agriculture and being good
with the environment and
our animals,” Myers said.
A spokesman for Brown
did not speak directly about
Myers’ reappointment, but
said the governor seeks
a wide diversity of back-
grounds and experiences in
her board appointments. If
that member is active and
thoughtfully engaged in pol-
icy, he said Brown generally
will appoint them to another
term.
Alexis Taylor, director
of the state Department of
Agriculture, said the Board
of Agriculture should reflect
diversity in commodities,
size, scale and production
systems.
“Oregon is not a one-
size-fits-all,” Taylor said in
a statement. “Board mem-
bers volunteer countless
hours in this advisory role
and I want to thank them for
their dedication and unique
contributions.”
Taylor said ODA is com-
mitted to transparency, and
welcomes further discus-
sion about how the state can
ensure diverse voices are
represented at the table.
Rubber band: Past teachers become colleagues
Continued from Page A1
this year who graduated
from the district, includ-
ing two at Sunridge Mid-
dle School.
Sunridge
Middle
School principal Dave
Williams said that nine of
the 33 staff who teach at
the school have graduated
from the district. A few,
he said, come from the
west side of the state. Oth-
ers are from other parts of
Eastern Oregon, and even
Idaho.
“I’ve been in our dis-
trict for 22 years; it’s cool
and fun to see new teach-
ers, some who I’ve had as
students. It’s really satisfy-
ing,” he said.
Williams said that
retention at the district is
good, and that the aver-
age years of experience
among staff at Sunridge is
16 years. Williams thinks
that community support
toward to the district is to
thank.
Stanfield School Dis-
trict, like other smaller
rural school districts, faces
a unique set of challenges
when it comes to keeping
teachers at the district.
“We are just smaller,
everyone has to do a lit-
tle bit more. We’re hoping
our teachers will teach us
and maybe do something
extra,” said Superinten-
dent Beth Burton.
Teachers at Stanfield
commonly take on extra-
curricular activities, and
Burton said that means
they’re looking for teach-
ers who don’t mind vol-
unteering time for the
community.
She said that this year,
the district is picking up
the cost of PERS for their
employees. The move,
according to Burton, will
hopefully make the dis-
trict more appealing for
prospective teachers.
“We’re not as big as
Pendleton,
Hermiston,
or Morrow County. It’s a
strategy to make us more
competitive,” she said.
“Needing teachers to do a
little bit more, we’ll never
be able to change.”
At 26, Eddy Ramos has
lived in Stanfield his whole
life. He studied business at
Eastern Oregon Univer-
sity, but when he landed
his first job with a com-
pany in La Grande, he felt
dissatisfied.
So he came back to the
district he’d been taught
in as a substitute. This
year, the district hired him
as a business and Span-
ish teacher. He said he
wouldn’t have it any other
way.
“If it is possible to come
back to your community, I
would fully take advan-
tage of it,” Ramos said. “I
didn’t grow up with every-
thing and I had parents
that fought for stuff. I can
relate to a lot of these stu-
dents. I feel like I’ve liter-
ally been on their side of
the table.”