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.