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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2019)
WEEKEND EDITION HEPPNER’S STEWART WINS ‘BEST IN THE NORTHWEST’ TITLE EOU CLASSIFIED PENDLETON RESIDENT, WORKERS PREPARE 98, REFLECTS ON SERVICE FOR STRIKE DURING WWII NORTHWEST, A2 LIFESTYLES, C1 SPORTS, B1 E O AST REGONIAN REGONIA SEPTEMBER 21-22, 2019 143rd Year, No. 242 WINNER OF THE 2019 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD New smoke shop opens doors Thur’s Smoke Shop opens despite owner’s 2017 arrest By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian PENDLETON — Two years after he was arrested in a drug raid, the owner of Pendleton’s fourth marijuana store is open for business. Bryson Thurman said his dis- pensary, Thur’s Smoke Shop, opened on Sept. 10 at the corner of Southeast Court Avenue and 16th Street and has received brisk busi- ness since then. It’s a far cry from May 2017, when the Blue Mountain Enforce- ment Narcotics Team served a warrant at Thur’s, then a tobacco product and smoking accessory retailer operating at 34 S.W. Emi- grant Ave., and seized “substan- tial quantities of marijuana and marijuana extract (dabs) packaged for sale,” according to Pendleton Police Chief Stuart Roberts, at the time. Thurman was arrested for delivery of controlled substances and unlawful possession of mari- juana products, but more than two years later, the Umatilla County District Attorney’s Offi ce has yet to charge Thurman with a crime. Thurman said he was never charged because authorities seized medical marijuana that he legally owned for himself and his patients. He said his attorney later success- fully convinced a judge to seal the arrest records. District Attorney Dan Primus did not return a voicemail message and text message requesting com- ment on Friday. Roberts deferred questions about the lack of charges to the district attorney’s offi ce, but he did talk about his role in signing off on Thurman’s business license. Roberts said he spoke with Dis- trict Attorney Dan Primus, who told Roberts that his offi ce didn’t have any intention of criminally Rethinking health care Former Oregon governor believes new approach needed Staff photo by Kathy Aney Former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber shares thoughts about health care delivery in Oregon on Thursday at the EOCCO Clinician & Staff Summit in Hermiston. By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian ERMISTON — Former Gov. John Kitzhaber started his keynote speech at Thursday’s health care summit in Hermiston with a personal story. He told of his early years as a 27-year-old Roseburg emergency room doctor fresh out of medical school and awed by the responsibility of caring for people who arrived at the hospi- tal injured, sick, confused or frightened. Occa- sionally, patients died. “When I was unable to save a life, I walked across the hall to a small room where people waited for news of their loved ones,” he said. “It seemed like a long, lonely journey across 30 feet of tile fl oor.” In those days, he treated each individual patient without regard to cost, viewing death as the enemy and treating people as individuals. H In 1978, he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives where he was forced to look at health care from a different angle. “I came face-to-face with a fundamen- tal contradiction,” he said. “As a legislator, I couldn’t ignore the cost.” Kitzhaber’s keynote speech this week came midway through the 2019 Eastern Oregon Coordinated Care Organization Clinician & Staff Summit at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center. Clinicians, health care admin- istrators and policy makers sitting at white, linen-covered tables listened to Kitzhaber’s thoughts on national and state health care reform. Kitzhaber said he believes we are think- ing about health care all wrong on the national level. “For decades, we’ve been asking the wrong See Smoke, Page A11 $1.50 Lawmakers mourn no special session By JESSICA POLLARD East Oregonian SALEM — When Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declared Wednes- day that no spe- cial session would be held to make a Hansell correction to the contentious death penalty bill, state Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, was disheartened. “It was a big surprise to us, and a huge disap- Prozanski pointment too. We needed to make that correction to be consistent, and for the victims,” Hansell said. When it passed through regu- lar session, law- Smith makers believed that Senate Bill 1013, which redefi nes the crime of aggravated murder and narrows down what crimes could result in the death penalty, would not be ret- roactive. But after the law passed, the Oregon Department of Justice stated it could apply to some peo- ple already on death row. Hansell didn’t vote for the bill during the regular session; he believed instead that the decision to change the rules surrounding the death penalty should go to vot- ers, who amended the state consti- tution in 1984 to legalize capital punishment. Hansell believes the bill is a “sneaky” way to undo what voters instituted years ago. He added that if lawmakers had known there was a possibility the bill could affect people already sentenced to death, the fl oor debate would have looked completely different. “We changed the defi nition so what the people voted on is actu- ally changed. We changed it to the point where it is basically repealed,” he said. “If you want to change it, let the people change it. See Health care, Page A11 See Special, Page A11 Milton-Freewater receives grant for shared wine production facility City wants to promote the region’s top quality wines with Made in Oregon labels By KATY NESBITT For the East Oregonian MILTON-FREEWATER — With an eye to bringing more atten- tion to wine made in Milton-Free- water, the small Umatilla County community has hired a California fi rm to determine if a shared pro- duction and tasting facility would benefi t the local wine industry. City Manager Linda Hall said the city received $230,000 from Busi- ness Oregon’s Strategic Reserve Grant Fund to hire a fi rm to com- plete a market assessment and the design feasibility. She said the idea is for the facility to operate as a co-op by several of the area’s vintners. “That is a special niche that Oregon has over Washington. We can have multiple tasting rooms in the same facility,” Hall said. “We See Wine, Page A11 EO fi le photo A 2015 overhead shot of Pambrun Vineyard in Milton-Freewater provides a view of the Willamette Valley Vineyards-owned property. Willamette is part- nering with the city of Milton-Freewater to house a wine production facility project.
