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144th Year, No. 67
REGONIAN
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2020
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WINNER OF THE 2019 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Local
legislators
preparing
for session
Short session gets
underway Feb. 3
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Addie Peterson tells stories about her Uncle Scott during Sunday’s memorial for Scott Fairley at the Pendleton Convention Center.
Saying goodbye
Pendleton says
farewell to Scott
Fairley during
emotional memorial
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
P
ENDLETON — One could
almost hear Scott Fairley’s
booming laugh reverberating
around the Pendleton Conven-
tion Center on Sunday afternoon.
Almost. Though anyone who knew
the good-natured Pendleton city coun-
cilman could hear Fairley’s trademark
laugh bouncing around in their heads
like a pleasant refrain as the stories
fl owed.
A fl ood of mourners showed up to
honor Fairley, who died on Jan. 7 of an
aneurysm while vacationing in Mexico
with family. About 800 people fi lled
the chairs on the convention center’s
main fl oor and more guests overfl owed
to the balcony.
Before they sat, many gazed at pho-
tographs showing Fairley in differ-
ent phases of his life. They showed
him standing on a mountaintop, pos-
ing with his motorcycle, and clown-
ing with wife Kimbra as they sat on a
pink scooter during a vacation in Italy.
In other images he sipped microbrews,
walked mountain trails and romped
with his dogs.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A display of photos at Sunday’s celebration of life for Scott Fairley included one
of Scott and Kimbra Fairley clowning for the camera on a rented scooter during a
vacation to Italy.
Memorabilia included a couple
of cowboy hats, a pipe collection, an
“Elect Scott Fairley” sign and his shiny
city councilor nameplate. A pack-
age of tissues offered a message that
Fairley endorsed with his life: “Saisir
ce moment,” translated as “seize the
moment.”
One mourner looking at the display
asked another, “Were you a friend of
Scott’s?”
The answer came quickly.
“Was anybody not?”
That was the consensus. The
53-year-old councilman had a reputa-
tion for being fun-loving, adventurous,
kind, spirited and passionately inter-
ested in civic and world affairs.
One high-profi le mourner was miss-
ing during Sunday’s memorial service.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, who ordered
that fl ags fl y at half-mast in the state on
Sunday to honor Fairley, couldn’t come
as planned after her plane was can-
celled in Portland.
Fairley worked as Regional Business
See Memorial, Page A8
SALEM — The 2020
Legislative Session starts
on Feb. 3, but there are
still a lot of unknowns
about what the session
will look like.
The 35-day “short ses-
Hansell
sion” on even-numbered
years, introduced in 2012,
was originally meant to
allow the Legislature to
make budget reconcili-
ations and small policy
tweaks in their off-years,
but some larger, more
controversial issues will
Smith
likely make their way
into this year’s session.
“There are a lot of moving parts right
now,” Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, said.
Last week, the Senate Environment
and Natural Resources Committee dis-
cussed a revised version of the cap-and-
trade bill that caused Senate Republicans
to walk out on the 2019 session — some-
thing they haven’t ruled out yet for 2020.
And, while the deadline has not yet
passed for legislators to fi le their bills for
the session, Hansell said he had heard
rumor of legislators working on bills on
other major policy topics, such as gun
control.
“It’s still a little early to know, but it
looks like there’s a possibility of having
multiple pieces of major legislation,” he
said.
Hansell, however, said he’s sticking
to something that should be less contro-
versial for his one bill that senators are
allowed to drop in the short session.
The bill he plans to fi le would appro-
priate money to the Oregon Department
of Agriculture for gathering and review-
ing research on groundwater in the Uma-
tilla Basin and creating an “implemen-
tation plan to improve ground water
quality and obtain full or partial removal
of ground water management area des-
ignation from Lower Umatilla Basin
Groundwater Management Area.” The
project would convene a task force to
help coordinate the efforts of stakehold-
ers, such as irrigators, the tribes and state
department, in lowering the nitrate levels
in groundwater.
Hansell said the idea came from a
policy option package, or POP, from the
Department of Agriculture in the last
session. POPs are requests that aren’t an
actual part of the budget but are a sug-
gestion that an agency hopes the legisla-
ture will take and fi nd funding for. In this
case, Hansell said he attended a meeting
on the Lower Umatilla Basin Ground-
water Management Area in Hermis-
ton where that POP was discussed and
See Legislators, Page A8
Helping out down under
Joseph fi re management
offi cer returns from
battling Australian blazes
By KATY NESBITT
For the East Oregonian
JOSEPH — Facing a historic fi re sea-
son, American fi re managers are mobiliz-
ing for Australia to help quell hundreds of
fi res that have blazed across the country
since August.
Nathan Goodrich, fi re management
offi cer for the Wallowa-Whitman North
Zone, was one of 20 Americans that
teamed with 20 Canadians dispatched to
the state of New South Wales in Decem-
ber. Goodrich returned home Jan. 12, but
several U.S. Forest Service personnel
from Northeast Oregon will remain in
Australia until the end
of February.
Goodrich said he
served as an operations
section chief. Most of
the positions fi lled by
North Americans were
Goodrich
similar positions, as
much of Australia’s fi re work force is
volunteer.
Heat waves and drought have fueled
bigger and more frequent fi res in parts
of Australia, so far this season torching
some 40,000 square miles, an area about
as big as Ohio.
“We were sprinkled into teams already
there in New South Wales, so we were
anywhere from two to three hours north
of Sydney to two to three hours south,”
See Fire, Page A8
Singleton Argus Photo/Alex Tigani, File
Volunteers with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and mem-
bers of the Australian Army Reserve go over a fi re briefi ng in the-
control room of the Hunter Valley Rural Fire Service headquarters.