Local police fi nd wrong-way driver was man missing from Nevada | REGION, A3
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2021
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PENDLETON
Umatilla County OKs giving $2M to Pendleton
County Commissioner
George Murdock says
he discussed deal with
city offi cials for months
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — The Umatilla
County Board of Commission-
ers agreed to invest $2 million in a
Pendleton infrastructure project last
week. But more than a week after the
commissioners approved it on a split
vote, the actual terms of the deal are
not publicly available.
On Nov. 10, commissioners voted
to provide the city with a $2 million
revolving fund. The fund is meant
to contribute toward the building of
a connector road between Highway
11 and Highway 30 on Pendleton’s
South Hill, a piece of infrastructure
city offi cials believe will open land
for potentially hundreds of housing
units.
Addressing commissioners after
their vote, Pendleton City Manager
Robb Corbett told them about a
survey the city recently conducted
with its top employers.
“There’s 500 empty jobs in the
community,” he said. “There are
a growing number of jobs at the
airport. Consistently, in all of our
conversations, the comment is, ‘We
want housing.’ So there is a direct
link between our economic future
and our ability to provide housing.”
In an interview after the meeting,
Chair George Murdock also touted
the fund’s ability to help with hous-
ing.
“They can’t move forward with
this development of new hous-
ing without something like this to
provide the funds,” he said.
But the circumstances leading to
the vote were unusual. The actual
text of the agreement wasn’t avail-
able to the public or the commission-
ers ahead of the vote.
Murdock said the written agree-
ment wasn’t available because
county counsel Doug Olsen was out
‘The silent are screaming’
Report precedes
event where
offi cials and
researchers disclose
fi ndings in full
See Project, Page A7
New airport
manager
lands in
Pendleton
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
M
ISSION — Survi-
vors of sexual
violence
on
Umatilla Indian
Reservation don’t
trust authorities,
fear retaliation if they talk and
fear friends and family won’t
believe them or would shame
them.
Those are part of the fi nd-
ings of a survey Tribal Family
Violence Services and its
manager conducted for a year-
and-a-half with 86 community
members and employees of
the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation.
The information-gathering
eff orts found more than half of
respondents are “very aware”
of sexual violence occurring
in their community, and more
than a third said the violence has
become worse over time.
More than 90% of survey
respondents are women and
enrolled CTUIR members.
“Rape, in all its brutal forms,
has been occurring since before
boarding schools, since before
Columbus arrived, and has just
increased since then against
Indigenous people of this land,”
said Desireé Coyote, an abuse
survivor, advocate and enrolled
CTUIR member. She manages
Family Violence Services, which
is dedicated to helping survivors
of violence.
of the offi ce and couldn’t provide it.
Commissioner Dan Dorran said he
supported the project, but couldn’t
vote for it if he couldn’t read the
actual agreement.
Dorran requested Murdock
table the issue until he could see the
document, but Murdock said he felt
comfortable moving forward on it.
Commissioner John Shafer joined
Murdock in approving the revolving
fund, while Dorran voted against it.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Desireé Coyote, an abuse survivor, advocate and enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation, stands for a portrait Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021, at the Nixyaawii Gover-
nance Center in Mission. Coyote manages Tribal Family Violence Services and assisted in conducting
a year-and-a-half long study of sexual violence on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
CALL FOR HELP
If you are a victim of intimate partner violence, intimidation, sexual violence, rape, elder abuse, teen
dating violence or stalking, you can reach Family Violence Service’s 24-hour hotline at 541-240-4171.
“We, the United States, didn’t
address it back then,” she said.
“We’re still not addressing it
today. We’re still not address-
ing the violence against Indian
women today, as well as they do
for everybody else.”
Survey’s fi ndings
The initial findings shows
nearly 60% of respondents
believe sexual violence or
domestic violence survivors
either are underserved or inad-
equately served. Nearly 70%
said the same for child sexual
abuse survivors.
And the survey illuminates a
general reluctance to report such
crimes to authorities.
More than 60% of respon-
dents said sexual violence
survivors would not report such
crimes to law enforcement or
health services because of a lack
of trust, awareness or privacy.
Nearly 80% said they
wouldn’t report because they
would not be believed, and 88%
said they wouldn’t because
they fear retaliation, the study
showed.
What’s more, the findings
show more than 80% of respon-
dents said victims would not
report sexual violence to their
family and friends, fearing
gossip, retaliation, shame or that
they would not be believed.
“When we can’t trust the
people who serve us ... then
when are we going to be able
to talk about what hurts us?”
Coyote said, adding: “If we can’t
trust each other, then we’ll fail.”
The report comes ahead of
an event called “The Voices
and Perspectives of the Tribal
Community: What we Know
About Sexual Violence,” where
officials and researchers will
See Silent, Page A7
PE N DL E T ON — Jo h n
Honemann knew the Eastern
Oregon Regional Airport had a lot
of moving parts, but he didn’t get a
full sense of its scale until he started
this position as airport manager in
July.
“The extent and the complexity
of what we’re doing here is pretty
cool,” he said in an interview. “This
is a neat airport. We’re doing things
that no one else has done before.”
Besides the general avia-
tion operations that characterize
most rural airports, the Pendleton
airport also includes an industrial
park, a growing unmanned aerial
systems range, a control tower and
an Oregon Army National Guard
facility.
The airport’s services touch
on diff erent facets of aviation, but
Honemann’s 25 years in the aviation
industry are similarly diverse.
A Colorado native, Honemann
attended college at the Univer-
sity of Colorado and soon found
himself working as an engineer
after graduation. Despite providing
ample time for skiing and mountain
biking, Honemann wasn’t attracted
to the thought of spending his career
working behind a desk. So he joined
the Navy.
The ‘fl ying nerds’
Officer candidate and flight
school followed, and he soon found
himself fl ying an EA-6B Prowler,
a four-seat, electronically powered
airplane.
“We called ourselves the fl ying
nerds,” he said. “We’re doing all the
not so sexy stuff that fi ghter guys got
to do, but by far the most in-demand
See Airport, Page A7
Turkey will make it to the table this Thanksgiving
Local grocery owners
are optimistic despite
supply chain woes
gripping the nation
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
Supply chain issues gripping the
nation have led to shortages in every-
thing from semiconductors to paper
trays at school cafeterias, but Thanks-
giving looks to be running smoothly
and on time, according to grocery
stores in rural Oregon cities.
Jaime Canale, manager of Grocery
Outlet in Pendleton, said hangups
in the supply chain have affected
grocers across the board, but her store
is ready to help customers meet holi-
day meal needs.
“We have turkeys,” she said.
The store received 30 cases of
turkeys on Tuesdays, Nov. 16, with
four birds per case. Canale said she
is expecting another shipment to
come Nov. 19 and still more turkeys
on Nov. 22, just three days before the
holiday.
Side dishes also are showing up.
She said Grocery Outlet received two
cases of cranberries, for instance, on
Nov. 17.
Canale explained Grocery Outlets
are more opportunistic than more
traditional grocery store chains and
don’t
Dave Meade, store manager of
Columbia Harvest Foods in Umatilla,
said his store is not having trouble
See Turkey, Page A7
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Columbia Harvest Foods in Umatilla on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021, advertises
the store’s “holiday meal deal.” The local grocer is reporting it has plenty of
goods for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday in spite of supply chain issues
that have led to some shortages.