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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 2020)
A6 OFF PAGE ONE East Oregonian Thursday, October 1, 2020 Painter: ‘I felt very elated and very, very thankful I live in the community I do’ Continued from Page A1 Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File Protesters gather and hold signs outside of Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pend- leton on Saturday, July 25, 2020. The group of about 10 were protesting against what they assert are insuffi cient COVID-19 precautions in Oregon Department of Corrections facilities. Prisoners: California, Washington have released thousands of inmates Continued from Page A1 attorneys she’s working with, attempted to provide Brown and her offi ce with a list of up to 50 individ- uals who fi t that very cri- teria, including the often challenging requirement of establishing a hous- ing plan post-incarcera- tion, but those attempts were dismissed without consideration. In Washington and Cal- ifornia, Democratic Govs. Jay Inslee and Gavin New- some have released thou- sands of incarcerated indi- viduals to mitigate risks of the pandemic. In Herivel’s eyes, Brown’s reluctance to release more prisoners is both dismissive of the risks for those inside and ineffec- tive at providing any mean- ingful protections for them. “While they certainly impact the individuals, which that’s incredibly important for them and their families, it will do abso- lutely nothing for social dis- tancing in prisons,” Herivel said. “It will do nothing for people being exposed to the outbreaks now.” Limited legal avenues During the pandemic, Herivel and a group of attorneys have formed “The Oregon Habeas Taskforce” that is representing pris- oners throughout the state in habeas corpus claims against the Oregon Depart- ment of Corrections. “There’s a claim now that’s being raised across that state that the Depart- ment of Corrections has failed to protect people from the pandemic, and they’re doing that by fail- ing to implement known measures, per the CDC, that will curb contraction of COVID,” Herivel said. But when the depart- ment has implemented measures, those measures have directly inhibited the ability for prisoners to fi le these claims. In an email from prison offi cials to the East Orego- nian, the Oregon Depart- ment of Corrections con- fi rmed it limited access to the law library in EOCI for Top cop: Continued from Page A1 Corbett stated in the release. “In the end, there was over- whelming support for an internal candidate.” According to the release, Corbett also considered Lt. Tony Nelson, who was concurrently promoted to that rank with Byram in 2017, but Nelson indicated early in the process that he wouldn’t be a candidate due to family and personal commitments outside of the department. Roberts announced his retirement on Sept. 15 after leading the department since 2003. He cited both family and personal rea- sons for his retirement and he will be transitioning into a consultant role with City- county Insurance Services Oregon (CIS). Roberts has been lauded for the stability he brought Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File Barbara Dickerson, left, and Patty Youngblood protest in favor of stronger COVID-19 precautions inside of Oregon’s prisons across the street from Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton on Friday, July 10, 2020. “YOU CAN RELEASE PEOPLE WITHOUT CREATING THE SPECTRE OF MORE CRIME.” Tara Herivel, attorney nearly four months of the pandemic. According to the email, the law library was closed from July 7-15 as an emer- gency protocol when COVID-19 was fi rst iden- tifi ed in the facility, and then reopened with restric- tions in place. From July 15 to Sept. 7, the email stated, inmates were only allowed access to the law library if they had a “deadline with the court system within 60 days of their request.” “Limiting the num- ber of (adults in custody) that could access the legal library was the only way to ensure social distanc- ing,” the email stated. “A secondary consideration was the lack of available and trained (adults in cus- tody) legal clerks that were quarantined.” Without access to the law library unless they had an active court dead- line, inmates were barred from fi ling new lawsuits like those represented by Herivel, who took notice of this potential obstruc- tion when only a handful of cases were fi led from the Eastern Oregon prison despite the facility report- ing one of the largest work- place outbreaks in the entire state. “I can’t say that they’re trying to block it but they certainly take actions that do block it without appar- ent concern for prisoner’s access to law,” Herivel said. “It’s the defendant who is stopping those cases, and that’s really nefarious.” Those restrictions were lifted on Sept. 7, prison offi cials stated, and Herivel said there’s been additional cases fi led from EOCI since. Brown has directed the Oregon Department of Corrections to provide her with potential candidates for early release every two months moving forward, but for now Herivel and the others are seeking the only pathway they know of to protect incarcerated people from the risk of the virus inside. “You can release people without creating the spec- tre of more crime,” Herivel said. “You can do it thought- fully, you can do it with the right people and you can create social distancing for the people that remain. And there’s this complete refusal that I don’t understand on a real basic level.” to the department, which Corbett believes can con- tinue under Byram. “This community has a reputation of being a safe place to live. This depart- ment has developed a cul- ture of excellence that I want to perpetuate,” Cor- bett stated in the release. “The support Lt. Byram has of his fellow offi cers gives me the greatest comfort that this tradition will continue.” Byram was born in Klamath Falls but raised in Pendleton after moving to the city in 1980 and became a “product of the Pendle- ton school system,” gradu- ating from Pendleton High School in 1992. While serv- ing as an offi cer with the city, Byram has also earned a bachelor’s degree in crim- inal justice administration. Byram is married with two grown children, the release stated, and he will offi cially begin as police chief on Dec. 1. VISIT US ON THE WEB AT: Doherty’s 50th year of painting windows before the rodeo was called off too. Instead, the Pendle- ton Center for the Arts arranged an exhibition as unique as Doherty’s paint- ings themselves to honor the window painter. The downtown-wide exhibit celebrates the artist’s work, featuring images of past windows and interpretive information. Find a map at https://pendletonarts. org/50-years/ showing 14 businesses with displays. Doherty, 74, missed her early morning sessions painting Round-Up scenes onto glass this year. She is happiest with a paintbrush in her hand. Doherty, who has dealt with depression most of her life, says paint- ing is a form of therapy. The daughter of a ura- nium miner, she attended nine grade schools and three high schools grow- ing up in Colorado and Utah. As a child, she drew cartoons, sometimes tack- ing them to the walls of her sleeping quarters inside one mining cabin or another. Eventually, she grew up and landed in Pendleton, where she has raised three sons. Her interest in paint- ing windows was sparked while watching “Big Tom” Simonton create scenes on windows around town. She tried some of her own win- dows with varied success. She admits some of her ear- liest efforts were washed off by unhappy shop own- ers, but she improved with persistence. Onlookers sometimes offered tips. One intoxi- cated voyeur startled her with boozy advice about how to improve the look of her caricatures’ skin, which came out as “fresh stones” instead of fl esh tones. But the advice was sound: “Start with white paint and a little orange, and add browns and yellows in min- ute amounts to vary the skin tones and match the caricature’s heritage.” When a 10-year-old boy mentioned that he’d seen Doherty’s mentor Simonton fi x his mistakes with razor “THE WINDOW PAINTINGS LAURIE’S DONE FOR OUR LOCAL BUSINESSES OVER THE YEARS ARE AS MUCH A PART OF ROUND-UP AS THE MOUNTED BAND AND THE COWBOY BREAKFAST.” — Tiah DeGrofft Round-Up director blades, she stocked up on them. The amount of work ebbed and fl owed. One year, she painted 300 win- dows. Another, she man- aged only three. That was the year she had a car wreck at Deadman Pass and had to paint from a wheelchair. Doherty does other proj- ects as well. In 2017, she painted a special door for the Juniper House Memory Care unit. Some of the unit’s 16 residents were exhibit- ing signs of Sundown Syn- drome, getting agitated and disoriented late in the day. Some banged at the door to get out. Doherty painted a bucolic scene on the dou- ble doors with a mountain, a pond and animals as some of the residents watched her work. Afterward, the nightly banging all but stopped. In 2010, Doherty worked at the Oregon Historical Society Museum in Port- land, painting cartoon bulls and broncs on the museum’s large front windows. Inside was an exhibit called “Tall in the Saddle: 100 Years of the Pendleton Round-Up.” Round-Up Director Tiah DeGrofft said she missed seeing Doherty’s paintings this year around the Pend- leton downtown core. “The window paint- ings Laurie’s done for our local businesses over the years are as much a part of Round-Up as the Mounted Band and the Cowboy Breakfast,” DeGrofft said. “I grew up with them. They’re iconic and they truly capture the spirit of Pendleton. She did a carica- ture of me as a princess that I adored.” Arts Center Director Roberta Lavadour said the project honoring Doherty was a natural. “We wanted to give people a safe and fun way to celebrate Laurie and her work,” Lavadour said. “People can stroll from one end of Main to the other on both sides, taking detours to the side streets and encoun- ter all sorts of things along the way.” The Pendleton Center for the Arts received fund- ing from the Pendleton Round-Up Association and several other local donors for the project. Doherty was hum- bled when she heard about the exhibit of her window work. “I felt very elated and very, very thankful I live in the community I do ... I have had many people tell me how sorry they are that I was not able to paint win- dows my 50th year,” she said. “The staff at the Pendleton Convention Center is ready to help you with your event when it’s time to do it safely. We can’t wait to welcome you back.” PENDLETON CONVENTION CENTER EastOregonian.com 10/2-10/8 Cineplex Show Times Theater seating will adhere to social distancing protocols Every showing $7.50 per person (ages 0-3 still free) Possessor (NR) 1:40p 4:40p 7:40p Hocus Pocus (PG) 1:20p 4:20p 7:20p Tenet (PG13) 2:00p 7:00p • Wear a mask in public • Avoid indoor gatherings • Stay 6 feet away from others • Wash your hands frequently Kajillionaire (R) 1:00p 3:50p Alone (R) 6:40 The Broken Hearts Gallery (PG13) 12:40p 3:30p 6:20p wildhorseresort.com • 541-966-1850 Pendleton, OR I-84 - Exit 216 Help Reopen Umatilla County Wearing a mask saves jobs and saves lives
