REGION
Friday, December 13, 2019
East Oregonian
A3
BRIEFLY
Energy Facility
Siting Council to
meet in Pendleton
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
The Pendleton Christmas Display at the corner of Highway 11 and Southeast Emigrant Avenue refl ects on the wet concrete
on Wednesday night.
Lighting up the night
Public Works
Department
brings Christmas
display to life
By BEN LONERGAN
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — For the
second year in a row, the
city of Pendleton’s Christ-
mas Display at the corner of
Highway 11 and Southeast
Emigrant Avenue came to
life Tuesday.
Dave Pedro fi nished
installing the fi nal strands
of lights on the display Tues-
day morning and said that it
was unlike anything he had
done before.
“It takes me a good week
to get the whole thing up,”
said Pedro, an electrical and
HVAC technician with the
city of Pendleton.
The display features
three, 12-foot Christmas
trees, more than 2,000
feet of extension cords and
nearly 50,000 individual
LED lights, an increase of
5,000 over last year’s total.
However, the display is not
your typical Christmas light
setup. A small radio trans-
mitter allows those with an
FM radio to listen to a selec-
tion of Christmas music as
they pass by.
Glenn Graham, the facil-
ities and technology man-
ager for the city of Pendle-
ton, said the display runs on
a device called Christmas
in a Box. The device is a
ready-made kit that controls
the light show and turns on
and off individual strands
of lights in time with the
music.
The Christmas display
was made possible through
donations from Creative
Signs, Gordon’s Electric,
Graham’s Photos, Platt
Electric and Zimmerman’s
Hardware, as well as vol-
unteer support from the
Pendleton Public Works
Department.
According to Graham,
the device will cycle through
six songs before repeating
Man arrested for allegedly
lying to police about shooting
By EMILY THORNTON
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
MILTON-FREEWATER
— A local man was arrested
today for allegedly lying to
police last week about being
shot to cover up a gambling
debt.
Johnson Le, 35, was
arrested for investigation
of initiating a false report
and tampering with evi-
dence, both misdemeanors,
and unlawful weapon use, a
felony.
He was taken to Uma-
tilla County Jail, according
to Milton-Freewater Police
Chief Doug Boedigheimer.
Le’s wife did not lie to
police, Boedigheimer wrote
in an email,
although
his previ-
ous report
indicated
otherwise.
L e ’ s
Le
wife, Maria
Morales, 50,
told Milton-Freewater police
by telephone at 9:08 p.m.
Dec. 4, that her husband
was shot by an unknown
masked person who entered
the backyard of the couple’s
home at 308 Miller St. to rob
them, Boedigheimer wrote
in an earlier email. He wrote
today that Le “made that up,
and admitted to shooting
himself.”
Investigations revealed
that Le shot himself in the
arm with a 9 mm Glock pis-
tol and lied “to attempt to
hide and cover up a gambling
debt,” Boedigheimer wrote.
Le was taken by Mil-
ton-Freewater Rural Fire
Department medics to Prov-
idence St. Mary Medi-
cal Center with a gunshot
wound. Hospital spokes-
woman Kathleen Obenland
wrote in an email she did
“not have any information on
a person by this name who is
from Milton-Freewater.”
No one else was involved,
according to Boedigheimer.
Oregon State Police
troopers
and
Umatilla
County Sheriff’s Offi ce dep-
uties also responded.
the show. Those interested
in listening can tune their
radio to 89.3 FM. The radio
station broadcasts the music
in a roughly 2- to 3-block
radius around the display.
Graham advises those
wishing to watch the entire
display to park in the park-
ing lot of the state of Oregon
offi ce building across the
street. The display runs 24
hours a day, however, Gra-
ham said it is best viewed at
night.
Graham said he hopes
the display will continue in
the years to come and that it
can continue to improve.
“Each year we try to think
of something more that we
can do,” said Graham.
SALEM — Oregon’s
Energy Facility Siting
Council will meet on Dec.
19-20 in Pendleton. The pub-
lic meeting begins at 5 p.m.
Dec. 19 and will reconvene
Dec. 20 at 8 a.m. at the Red
Lion Inn, 304 S.E. Nye Ave.
The main item on the
council’s agenda is the
Boardman to Hemingway
Transmission Line. The
council will receive a pre-
sentation Dec. 19 from Ore-
gon Department of Energy
staff, reviewing the B2H
Draft Proposed Order, com-
ments received on the DPO
and responses from the proj-
ect’s applicant, Idaho Power,
to those comments. The
agenda item continues Dec.
20 and the council may pro-
vide staff comments they
would like to see refl ected
in the proposed order.
The proposed 500-kilo-
volt transmission line would
span about 280 miles in
Oregon and fi ve counties,
including Umatilla, Union
and Baker counties.
The next council meet-
ing is tentatively scheduled
for Jan. 24 in Hood River.
Hermiston school
board approves
project manager
HERMISTON — The
Hermiston School Board
approved a project manager
for the 2019 bond projects
this week.
December 14, 2019 at the St. Mary’s Catholic
Church from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.
Vendors will be selling a variety of handcrafted items.
All proceeds will go to support the
needy in our community.
A $1.00 fee gives admission and a raffle ticket.
Vendor space is available for $60.00.
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Man pleads not guilty to assaulting
two Walla Walla police offi cers
By EMILY THORNTON
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
WALLA WALLA, Wash.
— A Milton-Freewater man
pleaded not guilty Mon-
day in Walla Walla County
Superior Court to two counts
of third-degree assault and
obstructing a law enforce-
ment offi cer.
Jakob K.P. Johnson, 33,
allegedly assaulted two
Walla Walla police offi cers
after they responded at about
8 a.m. Nov. 25 to the 900
block of West Main Street for
reports of two people fi ght-
ing, records stated.
Offi cers saw Johnson
holding a large rock and yell-
ing at another man in a back-
yard. Offi cers told Johnson to
drop the baseball-sized rock,
but he yelled at the offi cers
and walked toward another
person. An offi cer blocked
him from getting too close to
them, records stated.
When offi cers tried arrest-
ing Johnson, he put one offi -
cer in a headlock and hit
another offi cer in the face
while “fl ailing his hands,”
according to Sgt. Eric Knud-
son. One received an abra-
sion on his neck and the other
a cut lip.
A witness told offi cers
Johnson had yelled a racial
“This is a very exciting
day,” said second vice chair
Ginny Holthus.
District
superinten-
dent Tricia Mooney rec-
ommended Wenaha Group
Incorporated to the board on
Monday evening. She said
the project management and
consulting fi rm was the lone
applicant during the request
for proposal process.
“Wenaha Group has
partnered with Hermis-
ton School District for
quite a while,” said Board
Chair Karen Sherman
at Monday’s meeting. “I
was excited when I heard
they put in for request for
proposal.”
Dave Fischel, current
vice president of Wenaha
Group, was project manager
for the 2008 bond projects,
according to a recent press
release from the district.
Wenaha Group provided
a facilities assessment for
the Umatilla School Dis-
trict, which completed con-
struction projects from a
$10.5 million bond in June.
The
Pendleton-based
fi rm has also worked with
the Milton-Freewater and
Pendleton school districts,
as well as the Confeder-
ated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation, accord-
ing to its website.
Voters approved the dis-
trict’s $82.7 million bond in
November. Bond projects
that Wenaha Group will
oversee include the replace-
ment of Rocky Heights Ele-
mentary School and the
construction of a new ele-
mentary school.
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slur at a man putting gas in
a vehicle nearby, and the two
began yelling at each other.
This escalated to fi ghting and
throwing rocks and lasted
until police arrived, records
stated.
The witness also told
police the other man fl ed
before they arrived and
wasn’t who the offi cers saw.
Johnson’s trial was sched-
uled for March 3, 2020.
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of Echo, Milton-Freewater Area Historical Society,
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and Umatilla County Historical Society
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