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145th Year, No. 64
REGONIAN
TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2021
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WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Residents rally to bring kids to school
More than two dozen
attend gathering at
Hermiston High School
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
HERMISTON — Garett Robin-
son stood with his brother and friend
beside the fi elds bordering Hermis-
ton High School, each holding signs
calling for an end to a monotonous
year with one message in common
COVID-19
New data
reveals
disparity
Umatilla County’s
Hispanic population
three times more likely
to test positive for
COVID-19 in 2020
— fi ve full days.
The three boys were part of a
gathering of more than two dozen
people who gathered for a rally at
the high school on Saturday, March
13, calling for changes in state coro-
navirus guidelines that are prevent-
ing students from fully returning to
in-person classes.
“We’re not learning as much.
We’re going to be pretty much
behind next year,” said Robin-
son, who starts school in person at
Armand Larive Middle School on
Monday, March 22.
Robinson enjoys school. He likes
science, spending time with teach-
ers, having fun with friends and
“becoming smarter so you don’t fail
when you get older.” But fi nding help
during online-school has been chal-
lenging, and he misses sports and his
friends.
“We’ve been doing the same
thing over and over,” Grant Olsen, a
student at Hermiston High School,
said. “Nothing’s diff erent. We wake
up, do the same thing over and over.
PENDLETON — New data
released by the Umatilla County
Public Health Department shows
what was long understood but had
yet to be disclosed — Hispanic resi-
dents have been disproportionately
infected with COVID-19 in the
county.
Residents reporting Hispanic
ethnicity accounted for 41% of
Umatilla County’s total COVID-19
cases in 2020, compared with 34%
from non-Hispanic residents and
25% from residents whose ethnicity
was unknown, according to a report
released by the health department
this week.
In addition, the county’s Hispanic
population tested positive at a rate
approximately three times higher
than non-Hispanic residents in 2020,
the data shows.
“We failed them,” said Jose
Garcia, chair of the Hispanic Advi-
sory Committee in Hermiston. “We
failed some communities. Because
for every death that happened in
Umatilla County, there was a family
involved.”
Hispanic or Latino people make
up nearly 28% of Umatilla County’s
population, according to 2019 U.S.
Census data.
“I did anticipate that, just from
everything I’d seen so far,” Halley
Maloy, the county’s epidemiologist,
said of the new data showing the
pandemic’s disproportionate impact
on the Hispanic community.
The report, which Maloy assem-
bled over the last several months,
details a variety of trends and data
points related to the pandemic, from
hospitalizations to reported deaths
“If that’s going to carry through
to the fall, they’re not going to see
a full day of school on a consistent
basis,” he said. “You can’t do it. Not
with the spacing we have. Unless
you’re going to magically rebuild
schools overnight, it just isn’t going
to happen.”
The rally took place a day
after a top public health official
announced in a press conference on
Friday, March 12, that the state was
See School, Page A10
Fuzzy math, absent maps
The cloudy future of
Oregon politics east
of the Cascades
was unveiled to the
public last week
Courtney
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
S
ALEM — The fuzzy
future of Oregon poli-
tics east of the Cascades
went public last week —
no diagrams, charts, data
— really nothing tangi-
ble at all to show how new legisla-
tive and congressional districts will
be drawn.
“We don’t have any maps,”
said Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake
Oswego, chair of the House Redis-
tricting Committee. “We don’t have
any numbers from the census.”
Salinas and her Senate counter-
part, Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Mil-
waukie, said they were making a
good faith eff ort to hold the legally
required 10 public hearings on new
political maps.
Maps that don’t exist — at least,
not yet.
The hearings are collateral
damage from the constitutional car
crash headed to the Oregon Supreme
Court.
The once-a-decade process of
rebalancing populations in legisla-
tive and congressional districts is
a smolderingly hot political wreck.
Any fi x isn’t expected earlier than
autumn.
These are not normal times
Like so many things over the past
year, COVID-19 is the main prob-
lem.
In normal times, the U.S. Census
counts people every decade, in years
that end in zero.
The Oregon Legislature gets
See Redistricting, Page A10
Fagan
Kotek
26
YAMHILL
37
31
32
Nash
Salinas
MULTNOMAH
24
52
HOOD
RIVER
57
MORROW
58
GILLIAM
SHERMAN
18 CLACKAMAS
39
10
UNION
WASCO
POLK
MARION
WHEELER
16
15
17
LINN
23
BENTON
11
14
13
12
9
8
LANE
25
59
LINCOLN
22
CLACKAMAS
21
19
WALLOWA
UMATILLA
TILLAMOOK
YAMHILL
40
Taylor
See detail, left
WASHINGTON
MARION
20
Murdock
COLUMBIA
CLATSOP
o lu
mbia
Rive r
44
30
29
33 43 45 47 49
34
28 27 36 42 46 50
48 51
35 38 41
BAKER
GRANT
JEFFERSON
CROOK
54
53
7
60
DESCHUTES
MALHEUR
HARNEY
Oregon
House
districts
DOUGLAS
COOS
LAKE
55
1
Oregon population totals
2
(Millions)
KLAMATH
JACKSON
CURRY
3
56
5
2000
MULT-
NOMAH
WASHINGTON
C
UMATILLA
WASHINGTON
15
25
26
YAMHILL
19
20
POLK
11
10
11
CLACKAMAS
BENTON
5
MARION
GILLIAM
UNION
WASCO
MARION
WHEELER
9
8
29
MORROW
CLACKAMAS
WALLOWA
SHERMAN
26
13
12
LINCOLN
HOOD
RIVER
MULTNOMAH
13
YAMHILL
See detail, left
COLUMBIA
16
er
TILLAMOOK
23
21
24
17
14
18
12
2019 *
2010
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
CLATSOP
o lu
mbia
Riv
22
15
Up 23.3%
from 2000
6
4
JOSEPHINE
4.22
3.83
3.42
*Estimate
BAKER
JEFFERSON
GRANT
LINN
6
CROOK
7
LANE
27
10
DESCHUTES
4
MALHEUR
HARNEY
Oregon
Senate
districts
See Data, Page A10
A checkerboard of green and gold fi elds lines the
countryside east of Pendleton as a haze hangs over
the town on Jan. 15, 2021.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
C
MULT-
NOMAH
WASHINGTON
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
Very little sports. Very little friends.
Nothing really exciting.”
State rules require school chil-
dren and employees to stay 6 feet
apart while in a school. That means a
classroom can only have one student
for every 36 square feet, or 10 to 12
students at a time, roughly half the
size of a normal classroom.
Shane Robinson, Garett’s father
who helped organize the rally, said
he’s concerned those rules will
keep students from the classrooms
through the coming months.
DOUGLAS
LAKE
COOS
28
1
JOSEPHINE
CURRY
30
2
JACKSON
3
KLAMATH
Alan Kenaga/For the East Oregonian
Source: Oregon State Archives,
Secretary of State’s Office