OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, April 10, 2021
Loss: ‘We’ve got fingers
pointing every which way
except at the problem’
Continued from Page A1
operating officer for Life-
ways, told the East Orego-
nian that the building would
likely continue to offer inpa-
tient care, but as a secure
residential treatment facil-
ity, which provides a lower
intensity of care and oper-
ates under different staffing
requirements.
Lifeways already oper-
ates secure residential treat-
ment facility in Umatilla,
known as McNary Place,
and Johnsen said there is still
additional need for that type
of bed.
According to the news
release, the Lifeways board of
directors made the decision
to cease offering acute care
for individuals in crisis at the
Hermiston facility because
“the realities of COVID-19
and the health care worker
shortage, especially for rural
psychiatric hospital level
licensure and credentialing,
creates an unsustainable situ-
ation.”
Johnsen clarified that the
biggest problem was find-
ing psychiatrists, which
under Oregon rules for
acute psychiatric care hospi-
tals must staff the facil-
ity 24 hours a day. She said
Lifeways had received a
waiver from the state allow-
ing psychiatrists to provide
care via telemedicine for
12 months. But after Aspen
Springs passed six months
of operation, plus months
of recruitment efforts before
that, with no luck find-
ing even a single full-time
psychiatrist willing to come
to Hermiston, Johnsen said
it became increasingly clear
that Aspen Springs would not
be able to meet requirements
when the waiver was up.
“And so as we looked
forward, and knew that
waiver wouldn’t be granted,
and really looked at the
care that we were bound to
provide, it was just unten-
able,” she said.
On top of that, Johnsen
said it was also difficult to
find enough nurses willing
to work in both a psychiatric
setting and a rural setting,
particularly during the
pandemic.
County requesting
proposals for new model
of mental health care
The closure comes on
the cusp of what could be a
significant change in the way
mental health services are
handled in Umatilla County.
Shafer said the board of
commissioners sent out a
request for proposals, due
April 26, for a single entity
to provide all community
mental health services for
Umatilla County.
Currently, those services
are divided between Life-
ways, which covers behav-
ioral health issues not related
to addiction, such as depres-
sion or schizophrenia, and
Umatilla County Alco-
hol & Drug, which covers
substance abuse. But resi-
dents in need of treatment
often fall under both catego-
ries at once, and Shafer said
too often that results in both
sides insisting the other one
should take the case.
“We’ve got fingers point-
ing every which way except
at the problem,” he said.
Johnsen said Lifeways
is submitting a proposal,
and that Lifeways has been
successful in retaining the
contract for the commu-
nity mental health program
in the past when it has gone
out for bid. She said Life-
ways already has experience
providing substance use
disorder services in other
places, including a 30-bed
treatment facility and outpa-
tient services in Malheur
County, so they are equipped
to provide addiction treat-
ment in Umatilla County too.
“We have a plan to submit
and I feel we have a fully
competitive application,”
she said.
She said the county
is requiring that propos-
als include plans to retain
current staff of Umatilla
County Alcohol & Drug to
provide treatment under the
new model if they wanted to
stay, so even if Lifeways took
over that side of treatment,
clients would still be seeing
familiar faces.
Lifeways planning
next steps
Johnsen said despite the
setback with Aspen Springs
needing to close as an acute
psychiatric hospital, Life-
ways remains fully commit-
ted to serving Umatilla
County residents.
“We want to remain flexi-
ble and nimble and continue
to provide the community
what they need,” she said.
Lifeways originally broke
ground on the Aspen Springs
building at 1212 Linda Ave.
in July 2016, stating its
intent to open the facility a
year later, but instead began
taking patients in Septem-
ber 2020. In 2019, Johnsen
told the East Oregonian
that it had taken longer than
expected to meet all of the
state’s strict requirements for
the highest level of psychiat-
ric care.
With the facility’s closure,
she said Lifeways leadership
had known it would be diffi-
cult to staff it due to the chal-
lenges of finding licensed
mental health providers will-
ing to work in rural areas.
But they had expected to be
able to find enough people in
time.
“It’s always been a risk
point for us, but we didn’t
think it would get to this
level,” she said.
She said they are open to
reopening the building as a
hospital again in the future
if the psychiatrists become
available to do so, but for
now, the staff and board felt
the best option was to focus
on providing a different level
of care there rather than
letting the building sit empty
after the waiver ran out.
“It’s a great facility and
we want to make it available
in whatever capacity we
can,” she said.
Johnsen said Lifeways
has worked with Good Shep-
herd Health Care System in
its effort to recruit mental
health providers to the area
and will continue to part-
ner with Good Shepherd
and other local agencies as
needed to provide resources
to the community.
‘It’s definitely a
pressing need out here’
Dennis Burke, who was
CEO of Good Shepherd at
the time of Aspen Springs’
ribbon cutting ceremony in
July 2020, said at the cere-
mony that it was at times
extremely difficult to find
acute psychiatric care beds
for patients who ended up in
Good Shepherd’s emergency
room and needed that level
of care. Brian Sims, current
CEO and president of Good
Shepherd, said the organiza-
tion was saddened to learn of
the closure of Aspen Springs
for that level of care.
“It will be a big loss, but
we remain hopeful there will
continue to be alternative
solutions for our communi-
ties,” he said in an email.
From t he cou nt y’s
perspective, Shafer said
converting Aspen Springs
into a secure residential
treatment facility would help
fill a need, but not the biggest
need.
County leaders have often
lobbied the Oregon Legisla-
ture for additional funding
to support capital projects,
such as a planned expan-
sion of the Umatilla County
Jail that would help staff
better accommodate people
coming in while experienc-
ing a mental health crisis or
needing to detox. But Shafer
said they also need to look
at solutions to address the
shortage of licensed mental
health professionals, partic-
ularly those willing to work
in a rural area. He said some
sort of financial incentive for
providers to work in small
communities could be a start.
“It’s definitely a press-
ing need out here,” he said.
“Infrastructure is one thing,
but without professionals to
run the building, it’s going to
be an empty building.”
East Oregonian
A9
Mr. Smith: Elected to Oregon Senate in 1992
Continued from Page A1
of the topics he chose to focus
on in his farewell video.
“It has been my great
honor to give the lion’s roar
for broadcasters — those who
run into the storm, those who
stand firm in chaos to hear the
voice of the people, those who
hold to account the powerful
— and to stand with those of
the fourth estate who have the
hearts of public servants,” he
said.
Although he won’t be in
Washington full time any
more, Smith plans to use
some of his time as an advisor
for the association advocating
for local media in an increas-
ingly inhospitable climate.
Smith referred to himself
as “a pea picker from
Oregon,” albeit one whose
family also owns a food
processing business that
produces millions of pounds
of peas, corn, carrots and lima
beans per year.
Smith made a name for
himself locally by taking
over Smith Frozen Foods and
its facility in Weston. But
politics also ran through his
blood.
His father was an assistant
agriculture secretary during
the Eisenhower administra-
tion and Smith has several
cousins who have served in
the U.S. House and Senate in
Arizona, New Mexico, Colo-
rado and Utah.
Smith won a seat repre-
senting Pendleton in the
Oregon Senate as a Republi-
can in 1992 and was elected
Senate president a few years
later. In 1996, Smith sought
an open seat in the U.S.
Senate only to narrowly
lose to Ron Wyden, the first
time the state elected a sena-
tor by mail. Smith would get
a second shot at the Senate
later that year when Mark
Hatfield retired, and this time
he prevailed.
Smith would go on to
serve two terms in the Senate
before he lost reelection to
Pamplin Media Group
Former Oregon U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, the president of the National Association of
Broadcasters, is shown above.
Jeff Merkley in 2008, putting
an end to his political career.
He stayed in Washington and
joined the National Associ-
ation of Broadcasters a year
later.
Starting next year, Smith
will serve as an advisor to
the broadcasters association,
necessitating only a few trips
to Washington per year.
In a Thursday, April 8,
interview, Smith said he plans
to use some of those trips to
lobby Congress to take steps
to save local media.
The past 20 years have not
been kind to local newspapers
and broadcasters.
As the internet became
one of the dominant forms
of consumption and commu-
nication, local businesses
stopped advertising with
local media outlets and
started flocking to a handful
of tech giants like Facebook
and Google.
Local media outlets relied
on these advertisers to fund
their news operations, and, as
a result, many of them shrank
or shuttered. According to a
2019 study from the Brook-
ings Institute, more than 65
million Americans live in a
county where there is only
one newspaper or none at all.
The COVID-19 pandemic
has only exacerbated these
trends, and the effect is being
felt locally.
In March 2020, the EO
Media Group, the parent
company of the East Orego-
nian and Hermiston Herald
and the owner of more than a
dozen newspapers in Oregon
and Washington, laid off 47
employees company-wide,
including eight locally. Since
then, the company has also
closed its Pendleton printing
facility and laid off another 20
employees.
Working with broadcast-
ers, Smith said the same trend
is happening at local TV and
radio stations, and much of
that has to do with the way
tech companies have domi-
nated the advertising market.
Conducting the inter-
view from his phone on a trip
through the Columbia River
Gorge on his way back to
Pendleton, Smith said tech
companies were not only
hurting local journalism by
consolidating the advertising
market, but also elevating bad
journalism and misinforma-
tion that tends to proliferate
the web.
“They are cannibalizing
the advertising market, taking
broadcaster and newspaper
content, putting it online and
then competing against it for
advertising dollars,” he said.
“At the end of the day, good
journalism costs money. They
don’t care about localism or
journalism. They just care
about making money.”
Smith said the solution to
local media’s decline could lie
in Australia, where the coun-
try passed a law that requires
tech companies to pay news
outlets for their content posted
on the companies’ platforms.
Nearing 70, Smith said his
move back to Oregon does
not presage a return to poli-
tics. He said his passion for
elected office died when he
lost re-election in 2008 while
acknowledging the state’s
leftward turn would make it
difficult for a Republican to
try to win.
And once he returns to
Pendleton full time, he has
no intention of leaving.
“I was born in Pendleton
and I will die in Pendleton,”
he said.
Electric: New tech makes for easier monitoring
Continued from Page A1
web of information. On one
map, little tree icons dotted
UEC’s service area. The pins
marked places where UEC
employees used their iPads to
note where they noticed a tree
needs trimmed back from a
power line, instantly making
that information available to
those in charge of vegetation
management.
On another map, a grid of
red squares marked where
crews need to complete
routine inspections on poles.
When they complete the
inspection, they can mark it
off the list, turning that area
green on the map, and note
any maintenance that needs
done.
Zumwalt said just a few
years ago, that type of infor-
mation was often on phys-
ical paper, making it much
more difficult to keep track
of, update and share between
departments and crews. It
was also difficult to spot
trends. Now, with the click
of a button an employee can
sort maps of outage histories
by cause, location, time or
other factors.
“Before, there was no way
to visualize this or analyze the
data without a ton of work,”
Zumwalt said.
Down the hall, System
Operator Kathryn Kenning-
ton is stationed in a control
room full of monitors. The
Missing:
Continued from Page A1
Meridian, Idaho, where
she worked since 1995
as a bookkeeper. Taylor
said her sister is popular
with customers and is the
type of person the late Les
Schwab, who founded the
tire company in the 1950s,
wanted his employees to be
like.
“She fits the image of (an
ideal) Les Schwab employee
to a ‘T’,” Taylor said of her
sister, who has worked a total
of 37 years for Les Schwab.
Taylor said her sister
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
A control room at Umatilla Electric Cooperative in Hermiston oversees operations and
systems across the cooperative’s coverage area.
amount of information
displayed on the screens and
the ease of monitoring it has
changed significantly over the
years of her career in energy,
she said.
“We have a lot more infor-
mation at our fingertips,” she
said.
After UEC installed smart
meters, for example, staff at
the office gained the ability
to “ping” a meter and check
if it is on, without needing to
send someone to physically
look to see if a neighborhood
has lights on.
Kennington said she
has also seen how the GIS
mapping has helped crews
in the field respond more
quickly to outages.
“The electronic mapping
is definitely an improvement
for newer linemen who don’t
know the system as well,” she
said.
Colvin agrees. On
Wednesday, April 7, he was
out on Southeast Ninth Street
in Hermiston, overseeing
work to extend power to a
small subdivision being built
along the road. In addition
to making it easier to navi-
gate, he said the iPads also
help with simple things, like
punching in work hours elec-
tronically instead of filling out
and turning in a handwritten
time sheet every day.
He said new power tools
and equipment purchased in
recent years have also saved
linemen time. That’s time
they need, he said. Hermiston,
Boardman and other parts of
Umatilla Electric Coopera-
tive’s service area have been
growing rapidly. That brings
crews out to projects like the
one Colvin was at on April 7.
“There are a lot of new
subdivisions,” he said.
brightens the spirits of
customers.
“She makes them feel
valued,” she said.
Despite the lack of new
leads in the search for her
sister, Taylor said she has
reason to be hopeful, noting
she is impressed with how
many people are continuing
to to help, including indi-
viduals with the Jon Francis
Foundation, a nonprofit that
helps find missing persons,
Valley County Search and
Rescue of the McCall,
Idaho, area and Oregon State
Police.
Taylor is working closely
with Conner of OSP on
the search.
“Lt. Conner has been
phenomenal,” she said.
Con ne r is hopi ng
ev idence lea d i ng to
Hendrichs may be found
now that ODOT is starting
a road construction proj-
ect just outside Meacham
on Interstate 84. Conner is
encouraging ODOT employ-
ees to be on the lookout for
evidence. This includes
cellphones. Conner said
Hendrichs had at least two
cellphones.
Conner also wants
people who have cabins in
the Meacham area to report
anything suspicious they
have noticed since the disap-
pearance of Hendrichs.
Conner said in early May
a search team will again
scour the Meacham area.
The effort likely will include
the Jon Francis Foundation
and law enforcement agen-
cies and search and rescue
organizations. Conner said
he believes the odds are
better that something could
be found because much of
the area’s snow may be gone
by then.
Regardless of how the
search turns out, Taylor will
remain hopeful in her quest
to find her sister.
“I know that God knows
where she is,” she said. “God
loves her more than I do, and
I love her a lot.”