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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Thursday, December 9, 2021
Trees:
Continued from Page A1
Hermiston lots see increased
costs, prices
Mike Frink, the tree lot coordina-
tor at the Hermiston Kiwanis Club
tree lot, said Dec. 4, his lot had sold
more than 100 of its 430 trees. The
lot, in the parking lot of the Herm-
iston Community Center, has been
selling trees since the late 1970s,
Frink said.
In the early 1980s, when Frink
was selling trees, they cost around
$20 or $30. Now, they carry prices
between $40 for a traditional Doug-
las Fir to $140 for a 10-foot tree. In
this price range, there are a variety
of types — Douglas fi r, grand fi r,
noble fi r and Nordmann fi r.
Frink said the Nordmann trees
are popular and new to the lot
this year; there were only a dozen
remaining Dec. 4.
The trees are from the Estacada
area, and summer’s severe tempera-
tures burned trees from bottom to
the top, decreasing the crop. The
Kiwanis Club had to search extra
hard for trees, he said. Instead of
obtaining trees from a single seller,
like usual, the club had to buy from
four diff erent sellers.
Frink said the club paid around
$10 more wholesale for each tree.
Part of this increase was passed
on to consumers, he said, which is
why each tree is sold on the lot for
$5 more than last year.
While the heat has troubled busi-
ness, he said, the bigger challenge
has been from competition with fake
trees. In the early days of the lot, his
club would sell 1,000 trees per year,
well more than double the current
sales. This was before fake trees
were popular, he said.
Still, even with the challenges,
Frink said the tree sale is a reliable
fundraiser for the club. It is, he said,
the second largest fundraiser for
Kiwanis, typically earning $18,000.
“We appreciate that,” he said.
Money from the lot goes back
into the community for causes such
as Agape House, swimming safety
lessons and Martha’s House, he said.
Up the street from the Kiwanis
lot, in front of Grocery Outlet,
Hermiston, George Ikonomou
also sells Christmas trees. Having
started the day before Thanksgiv-
ing, he said he expects to stay open
through Dec. 20. On a good day, he
Marigold:
Continued from Page A1
But with his grandpar-
ents moving back to India
after their health improved,
Patel said he was ready to get
hands-on with the business.
Patel said he ended The
Marigold’s practice of rent-
ing rooms to locals, changed
out locks, upgraded the
hotel’s security system, hired
a new general manager and
intended to hire a security
guard that would be stationed
at the hotel during the late-
night hours.
Patel apologized for the
trouble his hotel has caused
the community and asked for
three months to turn around
the property.
Lowe said shutting down
The Marigold might not
improve the situation on the
ground.
“I think it’s important to
note that having a shutdown
property in the center of
town like that is not a good
look for the hotel,” he said.
“People who are engaging in
bad conduct will relocate to
somewhere else.”
‘His business and my
business are clashing’
While Patel and Lowe’s
arguments focused on The
Marigold’s future, Byram
reminded the council of the
hotel’s recent past.
He said The Marigold
went from an entity that
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Ward Walker trims the end from a Christmas tree Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, at his Christmas tree lot along Southgate
in Pendleton. Walker sources and cuts his trees himself allowing him to avoid increased costs due to supply
chain issues.
he started running low.
He is charging $10 more for each
tree these days, he said, matching
rising wholesale prices.
Still, he said, he likes this busi-
ness, as it is work he can do with
his brother, Demetri Ikonomou. In
addition, he said he likes working
around trees.
“I like real trees. They put me in
the mood for Christmas,” he said.
Pendleton tree lots hold
prices steady
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
A fi re crackles Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, at Walker’s Trees along Southgate in
Pendleton.
said, he will sell 60 trees. His trees
range from $10 to $99, and he carries
Douglas fi r, noble fi r and Nordmann
fi r trees.
Like the Kiwanis sellers, Ikon-
omou also saw changes through
the years. He fi rst started selling
trees around Hermiston 10 years
ago. Since then, he also has noticed
competition from fake trees, he said,
and shortages in trees that predates
the past year’s heat wave.
Because of the recent shortage,
though, he had to buy in larger
bulk than usual, he said. He stores
about 600 trees now, bringing them
out when needed. Ordinarily, he
would be free to order trees when
Brothers Tom and Jeff Hepler,
owners of Hepler’s Trees in Pend-
leton, said they held their prices the
same this year and shifted around
their stock to try to lessen the burden
of increased wholesale costs.
“This year has been pretty good,”
Tom Hepler said. “It’s a bit slow
during the week but the weekends
have been really busy.”
The Heplers said the lot has 550
trees, up from roughly 500 last year.
He said he has a few more forest
trees this year as opposed to his
usual supply of farm grown trees.
“This year we got more of them,”
wasn’t even on the police’s
radar in 2019 to a business
that attracted more than 270
calls for service in 2021. Even
if no one called to report a
potential crime, Byram said
police still patrolled the area
regularly the past two years.
While the city declared
The Marigold a nuisance
property due to the volume
of calls it garnered, Byram
said it’s not a city law he tries
to enforce often.
“It only takes t wo
nuisance nuisances at any
location in which to initiate a
chronic nuisance ordinance,”
he said.” So we’re kind of
conservative in using the
chronic nuisance ordinance
because quite honestly, I
could use it on almost every
business.”
Byram said one of the
main reasons The Mari-
gold continued to attract law
enforcement’s attention was
because Patel repeatedly
hired employees who permit-
ted or were even complicit
with the criminal activity at
the hotel.
Byram said Steven Enko,
the man authorities suspect
of shooting a gun from
The Marigold and injur-
ing a 17-year-old boy, was
the “significant other” of
an employee and was being
allowed to stay at the hotel
unbeknownst to Patel. This
differs from an account
Lowe submitted to the coun-
cil, which identifi ed Enko as
a person who was visiting a
hotel guest. Byram said even
after police informed Patel
of Enko’s connection to the
hotel, he hesitated to believe
their account.
“It’s not my job to run his
business for him, “ Byram
said. “I run a diff erent busi-
ness, and his business and my
business are clashing.”
Patel didn’t receive much
public support from the city
council audience, either.
Although the hearing
itself was not open to audi-
ence input, members used the
public comment section to
share their frustrations with
The Marigold.
Tim Guenther, the owner
of Prodigal Son Brew-
ery & Pub and the Packard
Tavern, commended the city
for revoking The Marigold
business license. Both of his
businesses are in close prox-
imity to The Marigold and
his staff ’s negative encoun-
ters with hotel patrons were
numerous enough that some-
times his employees felt
unsafe walking to their cars
Mountain is advertising the
dean position Muller is vacat-
ing with the shortened title
of dean of student success.
The deans of regional educa-
tion and strategic partner-
ships and student learning
and success also are having
their titles shortened to dean
of workforce and dean of
student learning, respec-
tively. Both employees who
fi ll those roles are retaining
their jobs.
While admitting that
dean and human resources
officer are different posi-
tions, Browning said in
an interview that Muller’s
skills in compliance made
him a good candidate for a
position of need.
And the change in dean
titles isn’t meant to be super-
fi cial. Browning said respon-
sibilities are being realigned
so there’s less overlap
between them. Although the
original reorganization was
made to make services more
student-centered, Browning
said having supervisors with
overlapping responsibilities
meant some departments and
services didn’t have proper
advocacy in the administra-
tion.
Browning said the expec-
tation is the administrative
revamp will lead to a better
quality of service to students
and the community.
Cineplex Show Times
dents like what was experi-
enced at The Marigold,” she
said.
Council sides
with city staff
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Shivam Patel, owner of The Marigold Hotel in Pendleton, looks down Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2021,
following the Pendleton City Council’s unanimous vote to uphold the suspension and revo-
cation of his hotel’s business license.
12/10-12/16
BMCC:
Continued from Page A1
“Over the course of these
fi rst three months, it is appar-
ent that some areas of our
operation were not getting
the emphasis/oversight that is
now our standard,” Browning
wrote in his December board
report. “As a result, EVP
Fields and I have made some
adjustments to the organiza-
tional alignment.”
Wade Muller, the dean of
student engagement, reten-
tion and strategic planning,
is moving to become the
chief human resources offi -
cer, which was vacant. Blue
he said. “But they’re big and beau-
tiful.”
The lot plans to stay open as long
as supply allows, and Tom Hepler
said the brothers have a tradition of
giving away the last tree of the year.
Ward Walker, owner of Walk-
er’s Christmas Trees, said he has
been able to keep his prices steady
for more than a decade by cutting
the trees himself in the Blue Moun-
tains. Walker, who sources his trees
from private land as well as a with a
U.S. Forest Service permit, said he
considers himself largely immune
to supply chain issues.
“If it’s 10 days from Christmas
and I need more trees, I’ll just go cut
more trees,” he said.
Walker said he would rather sell
additional trees than raise his prices,
something his unique business strat-
egy allows him to do.
While Walker hasn’t changed his
business model, he said he has seen
consumers change the way they
shop in the last two years. Walker
said he thinks the pandemic has
made people want to get into the
holiday spirit earlier in the year.
“Last year I thought I was on
track to have an above average year,”
he said. “I had sold like 80% of my
trees before the 10th of December.”
Walker said he ended up still sell-
ing his usual 400 or so trees, despite
the quick start, and added that he is
seeing a similar trend this year.
Because he knows when and
where his trees are cut, Walker said
he guarantees his trees through
Christmas and tries to stay open
as late in the season as possible to
ensure anyone who wants a tree is
able to get one.
“A lot of folks think when the
other lots run out that’s it, but I’ll
still be here,” he said.
To further his mission of getting
a tree to anyone who wants one,
Walker has been collecting dona-
tions to help lessen the cost of trees
for those who can’t aff ord them.
As of Dec. 5, Walker had collected
$415 to help families aff ord a tree,
including roughly $120 he rolled
over from last year. So far Walker
has used about $160 of that to help
people aff ord a tree or purchase a
larger tree.
“I don’t want people to skip
getting a tree,” he said, “just because
of the cost.”
Theater seating will adhere to social distancing protocols
Every showing $7.50 per person (ages 0-3 still free)
West Side Story (PG13)
3:50p 4:30p 7:20p 8:00p
extra 1:00p showing
12/11 & 12/12
after their shift was over.
Paula Hall, the CEO
of the Community Action
Program of East Central
Oregon, said the nonprofi t
worked with several hotels
to provide temporary shel-
ter to unhoused Pendleto-
nians in the early days of the
pandemic.
“We never had any inci-
Councilor Carole Innes
said she volunteered at The
Marigold in conjunction with
CAPECO and said it did “a
pretty darn good job” while
there. Now she feels unsafe
going to the nearby Banner
Bank ATM at night because
of The Marigold’s atmo-
sphere.
“It’s our job as a city coun-
cil to make sure our citizens
feel safe,” she said. “That
doesn’t mean that we dismiss
downtown business develop-
ment and growth and having
that building empty would
be a nightmare. So this is a
conundrum, at this point.”
Ultimately, the council
voted to uphold the staff’s
decision, but it’s not neces-
sarily a permanent end to
The Marigold. While the
council may have affirmed
staff’s decision, city attor-
ney Nancy Kerns told the
council that City Manager
Robb Corbett could allow
The Marigold to reopen
once he determines that
it no longer represents a
threat to public safety.
CONCEALED CARRY
PERMIT CLASS
SATURDAY
DECEMBER 18 TH
Hermiston
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9AM
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3:20p 5:50p 8:20p
extra 12:50p showing
12/11 & 12/12
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (PG13)
4:40p 7:40p
extra 1:40p showing
12/11 & 12/12
Resident Evil: Welcome
to Racoon City (R)
8:50p
extra 12:40p showing
12/11 & 12/12
King Richard (PG13)
5:40p
Starting 12/16
Spider-Man: No Way Home (PG13)
3:30p 4:30p 7:00p 8:00p
wildhorseresort.com • 541-966-1850
Pendleton, OR I-84 - Exit 216
Multi-State $ 80
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Valid 35-States, including Washington
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Shaun Curtain
Curtain 360-921-2071
360-921-2071
or or email:
email: ShaunCurtain@gmail.com
ShaunCurtain@gmail.com | www.ShaunCurtain.com.com
| www.ShaunCurtain.com.com