REGION
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
East Oregonian
A3
Hermiston School Board candidates make their case
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
HERMISTON — As deci-
sion-making about students return-
ing to the classroom during the
pandemic has elevated interest
in school boards across Oregon,
the race for Hermiston’s Board of
Education is no exception.
Hermiston voters will see seven
names on the May ballot for four
school board positions.
Liliana Gomez
Liliana “Lili” Gomez, running
for Position No. 3, is a Hermis-
ton native and a records specialist
for the Hermiston Police Depart-
ment. She said she
has always had an
interest in educa-
tion, including
serving as a tutor
during her teenage
years and teach-
ing English over-
seas. She is on the
Gomez
Hermiston School
District budget committee.
Now that students have returned
to school full time, Gomez said
she believes it is important for
the district to focus on students’
mental health and be proactive
about having resources available
for students as they return.
“We all know that this took a
toll on every single person, adults
included, and no doubt this took a
toll on students,” she said.
Gomez said if elected, one of
her goals would be to help break
down barriers to student success
and parent involvement, includ-
ing linguistic and cultural barri-
ers. Another would be to help the
district stay on sound fi nancial foot-
ing.
While more than half of Herm-
iston students are Hispanic or
Latino, Hispanic students as a
group have still seen lower aver-
age test scores and graduation rates
than the student body as a whole.
When asked how the district can
close the achievement gap, Gomez
— who was in the district’s English
Language Learner program herself
in elementary school — said it must
look at getting the best return on
investment for programs to help
any group of students that may be
struggling.
“I know that these programs are
in place, and I know that they work,”
she said. “But can we do better?
Yes, we can always do better.”
Dain Gardner
Dain Gardner is also running for
Position No. 3 on the school board,
against Gardner. The incumbent,
Mark Gomolski, is not seeking
another term.
Gardner, an Air
Force veteran who
says he attended
multiple schools
“all over,” is a
senior trooper for
the Oregon State
Police’s Fish and
Gardner
Wildlife Division.
He said he decided
to run for school board because of
his two children in the district, and
the diffi cult experience they have
had during the pandemic.
He said he is glad students
are back in school full time, but
thought the district should have
“pushed back” against state regu-
lations sooner. He would like to
see the district fi ght for more local
control in the future, not only over
what school looks like during the
pandemic, but also over curricu-
lum and other aspects of students’
education.
“There are some things being
shoved around the country that
really don’t apply necessarily to
Hermiston like they do, maybe, in
some of these other places,” he said.
Gardner said it is important for
the school district to do all it can to
get parents involved in their chil-
dren’s education.
“When it comes down to it,
schools are extremely important,
but so are the parents,” he said. “And
I think they need to be involved as
much as we can get them involved.”
Sally Anderson Hansell
Sally Anderson Hansell is
running for Position No. 4 against
incumbent Brent Pitney. Anderson
Hansell is an attorney at Anderson
Hansell PC and
an owner of TCH
LLC, a farming
company. She has
past experience
on the Hermiston
School District
Anderson
Bond Oversight
Committee in 2008
Hansell
and other boards.
She graduated from Hermiston
High School.
Anderson Hansell has three chil-
dren in the district, and said she is
deeply interested in the success of
the school district. She said after
such a challenging and “deeply
concerning” year during the
pandemic, she has devoted a lot of
time and energy to understanding
the school district’s decision-mak-
ing.
“The amount of time I’ve spent
advocating, as well, I decided I
needed to step up and volunteer,”
she said.
She said she would like to see
more transparency and communi-
cation from the district, and better
oversight of administrators by the
school board. She shared a letter
she sent to the school board on Feb.
1, stating the district had a “severe
public relations problem” during the
pandemic, and said in an interview
that although the pandemic was an
unprecedented situation no one at
the district had signed up for, she
thought there were ways the district
could have handled the situation
better, particularly communication
with parents.
“I think there were a lot of
missed opportunities,” she said.
Brent Pitney
Brent Pitney is running to retain
his seat at Position No. 4 after he
was appointed to the Board of
Education out of fi ve candidates
who applied for an
open seat in 2018.
Pitney, a life-
long Hermiston
resident, is vice
president of Knerr
Construction and
has a child in high
school and one
Pitney
who graduated last
year. He said he is running again
because he has learned a lot during
his service on the board so far and
would like to continue that work.
He also feels his background in
construction can be useful to the
district as it begins construction on
projects funded by the 2019 bond.
“I feel that our kids are our future
and I want to be a part of helping
them excel,” he said.
He said while the pandemic has
been a “terrible time in our lives,”
in hindsight there are things the
district probably could have done
better. He said it is also important to
keep in mind that often the board’s
hands were tied by state rules, and
the district did achieve its end goal
of bringing students back full time.
He touted programs the district
has put in place to help differ-
ent groups of students, and said
the numbers for the district show
continued improvement in those
areas. He also pointed to work the
district has put in place to make sure
the bond projects run smoothly,
from budgeting to hiring Wenaha
Group to manage the project.
Karen Sherman
Karen Sherman is running to
retain Position No. 6 on the school
board. While she does have an
opponent on the ballot, Caitlin
Melhorn told the East Oregonian
that she was drop-
ping out of the race
due to the time
commitments she
already has.
Sher man has
ser ved on the
Board of Education
for 20 years and is
Sherman
a retired teacher
with several family members also
in education, including a daugh-
ter who works for Hermiston High
School as an instructional coach.
She also volunteers in other capac-
ities, including membership in
Altrusa International.
Sherman said right now, the
school board’s number one prior-
ity should be the safety of staff and
students during the pandemic. Her
other top goals if reelected, she said,
are boosting academic achieve-
ment, maintaining good finan-
cial stewardship and doing more
community outreach.
She said the past school year has
been a diffi cult one, starting with all
the plans the district made in July
Volunteers remove 1,660 pounds of river trash
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Volunteers
plucked almost 1,700 pounds of
trash from the banks of the Umatilla
River during the city’s Spring River
Cleanup on Saturday, April 17.
The haul eclipsed the amount of
debris gathered in 2019, the last year
the event was held, when volunteers
gathered 1,500 pounds. Participants
found the usual bottles, cans and
fast food remnants, but also picked
up an eclectic list of items: a set of
Press-On nails with jewels, a bag
of four cooking wine bottles, the
top of an umbrella, one sock, blue
Easter egg shells, a wagon axle with
wheels, twisted pieces of metal, a
brake drum, a computer monitor, one
pair of pants, an 8-by-10 rug, twisted
rebar, a 2018 newspaper, a pepper
spray container, a 4-foot-long angled
iron bar, a shredded blanket in a tree
and a plethora of other debris, includ-
ing many face masks.
Participants masked up to gather
near the River Parkway before
spreading out on both sides of the
river. East Oregonian owner and
organizer Kathryn Brown gave
guidelines to the exuberant group,
which included 64 adults and 30
youths. They set out wearing gloves
and carrying trash bags. Parks and
Recreation employees hauled and
weighed the trash that was collected.
Volunteers found three homeless
encampments, two upriver from the
Bedford Bridge and another under
the old bridge next to Trailhead Park.
Per instruction, volunteers left the
encampments alone.
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Volunteers Briana Spencer and Vanessa Algarin-Benitez remove trash from
the banks of the Umatilla River during the SURE 2021 Spring River Cleanup
on Saturday, April 19, 2021.
Brown seemed ebullient about the
strong turnout of volunteers despite
last year’s cancellation due to the
pandemic.
“I was grateful to see so many
longtime river cleanup volunteers
attend, but also many people who
were there for the fi rst time,” she
said.
The cadre of volunteers included
contingents from Lost & Found
Youth Outreach and Pendleton High
School’s ASTRA Club.
After the cleanup, some volun-
teers jotted down wildlife they
had seen on a paper at the regis-
tration table. Wildlife included a
brown snake, butterflies, osprey,
robins, crows, a lesser goldfi nch, a
white-crowned sparrow, a violet-
green swallow, a great blue heron,
mallards, buffl eheads, a northern
fl icker, squirrels, a garden snake, a
frog and spiders.
In 2022, organizers hope to
revive the usual volunteer appreci-
ation barbecue, scrubbed this time
because of COVID-19 restrictions.
A number of organizations
teamed up to organize the cleanup.
They included the Stewards of
the Umatilla River Environment
(SURE), the Umatilla Basin Water-
shed Council, the East Oregonian
and Pendleton Parks and Recreation.
The Pendleton Tree Commission, the
Umatilla National Forest and Pend-
leton Parks and Recreation gave
away free native plants and trees in
conjunction with the river cleanup.
Sponsor List:
NIE
Newspapers In Education
A & G Property Management &
Maintenance
Barton Laser Leveling
Blue Mountain Community College
Blue Mountain Diagnostic Imaging
CHI St. Anthony Hospital
CMG Financial
CMG Financial
Columbia Point Equipment Company
Corteva Agriscience
Davita Blue Mountain Kidney Center
Desire For Healing Inc
Duchek Construction
Hill Meat Company
Jeremy J Larson DMD LLC
Kirby Nagelhout Construction Co.
Bryan Medelez
Bryan Medelez is running unop-
posed for Position No. 2, a seat he
was fi rst appointed to in 2019.
Medelez is operations manager
for Medelez Inc., a
Hermiston truck-
i n g c o m p a n y,
and serves on the
Hermiston Cham-
ber of Commerce’s
board and as vice
president of the
Medelez
city’s Hispanic
Advisory Commit-
tee. He was born and raised in
Hermiston, and has two children in
the school district, with a third who
is currently too young.
He said he is running because he
has always been dedicated to serv-
ing the community, particularly
to help Hermiston’s youths. He
said his goals for the school board
include making sure the district has
the right superintendent to lead the
district in the right direction, seeing
students in the classroom full time
and helping the district be the best
it can be.
“I want to see our school district
at the top of the list when it comes
to school districts across the state,”
he said.
He said there was a lot of frustra-
tion at the district during compre-
hensive distance learning, and as a
parent himself, he could sympathize
with how diffi cult it has been, even
though the district was often under
state mandate.
Medelez said he believes district
staff are doing the best they can to
close achievement gaps for diff er-
ent groups of students, and said
he would like to see the district
continue to work to hire more bilin-
gual teachers.
LOCAL BRIEFING
Senate approves easing
pharmacy access
with pharmacy technicians and
customers in order to fi ll orders.
SALEM — Oregon would join
all states west of Texas that allow
pharmacists to
f ill prescrip-
tions
and
provide services
via telephone
and electronic
devices, under
a bill approved
by the Senate
Hansell
on a 29-1 vote
Monday, April 19. It now goes to
the House.
Senate Bill 629, sponsored
by Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena,
would build on lessons he said
have been learned out of the
pandemic.
“The pandemic has made us
realize that many services we
depend on can be provided online
or over the phone,” he said in a
statement after the vote. “We can
leverage these tools to expand
access to health care for rural,
elderly, and disabled Oregonians.
This is a chance for Oregon to
evolve in our delivery of health
care.”
Hansell said many rural towns
do not have a pharmacist, requir-
ing long distances for patients
to get prescriptions fi lled. Most
states in the West, with long
distances between medical facil-
ities, already allow for wider
use of telephones and comput-
ers to relay information to fi ll
prescriptions. Oregon still limits
the authority of pharmacists
to communicate electronically
Owls poached near
Helix
Kopacz Nursery & Florist
Landmark Tax Services
McEntire Dental
McKay Creek Estates
NW Metal Fabricators Inc
Pendleton KOA
RE/MAX Cornerstone
Rob Merriman Plumbing & Heating Inc
Starvation Ridge Farming, LLC
Sun Terrace Hermiston
Tum-A-Lum Lumber
Umatilla Electric Cooperative
Umatilla Electric Cooperative
WalMart
2020 for hybrid learning before
being told by the state it wouldn’t
be allowed.
“All of us were in a situation
where the unknowns were incred-
ible,” she said.
She said the district spent a lot
of time looking at the state regu-
lations and the area’s COVID-19
metrics, and she is pleased students
have been able to return to full-time
school at a time that is safer, from
a COVID-19 standpoint, than any
other time since school was closed.
HELIX — The Portland
Audubon Society is off ering a
reward of up to $1,000 for infor-
mation leading to an arrest in the
case of two great horned owls
that were poached near Helix,
according to a press release from
the Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife.
The birds were discovered in
a ditch by local residents, accord-
ing to the press release. The resi-
dents contacted Blue Mountain
Wildlife, a nonprofi t rescue orga-
nization that rehabilitates birds,
and Lynn Tomkins, the execu-
tive director, responded and later
determined that the animals had
likely been shot.
“People think of poaching
as involving big game animals,
fi sh and upland birds. But these
raptors are protected,” said
Yvonne Shaw, the coordina-
tor for the ODFW Stop Poach-
ing Campaign. “They are
environmentally and culturally
important. Poachers steal from
all Oregonians. This poacher
removed a treasured experience
from residents, not to mention a
valuable aid for farmers.”
Offi cials ask that people with
information contact the Oregon
State Police Fish and Wildlife
Division through the Turn in
Poachers line at 1-800-452-7888
or email TIP@osp.oregon.gov.
— EO Media Group