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HERMISTON HOUSING
NORTHEASTERN OREGON
Deputy
district
attorneys
in short
supply
But local market
excludes college grads
looking for a start
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
By ERICK PETERSON
East Oregonian
LA GRANDE — Counties
across Eastern Oregon have strug-
gled over the past few years to hire
attorneys to prosecute criminal
charges, and offi cials believe a vari-
ety of factors, including uncompeti-
tive salaries, have contributed to the
vacant positions.
Wallowa County is bereft of
a deputy district attorney for its
already strained staff .
Morrow County and Grant
County each have just their district
attorney to handle cases.
Umatilla County has just fi ve
prosecutors — including the district
attorney — instead of the normal 10
attorneys.
Union County seems to have
fared better, but even its offi ce is
down one deputy district attorney.
Only Baker County has a fully
staff ed prosecution team.
Every other county in Northeast-
ern Oregon has positions open for
deputy attorneys. Those positions
have been hard to fi ll, and in some
cases have been left open for at least
three years.
Grant County District Attor-
ney Jim Carpenter has had an open
position since 2018 — except a brief
period when a prosecutor fresh out
of college worked for a short stint
before leaving to become a local
public defender. Carpenter remains
the county’s sole prosecutor.
“Following his departure, I had
no confi dence that I would be able
to find a replacement,” Carpen-
ter wrote in an email, “espe-
cially knowing that areas such as
Deschutes and Multnomah, which
pay much better than northeast-
ern counties can, had numerous
openings and I would not be able
to complete with them for quality
applicants.”
Carpenter had an agreement
with Grant County that he would
serve as county counsel in return
for funding for a deputy district
attorney position; before then, the
role was funded through a grant.
Unable to locate a suitable attorney
to fi ll the role as deputy, he resigned
from his position as counselor in
February 2020.
Likewise, Wallowa County
Dist r ict At tor ney Rebecca
Developments up in 2021
H
ERMISTON — The Hermiston
Building Department approved 139
new housing unit permits in 2021, 14
more than in 2020.
The city touted the numbers in a
press release Dec. 28. The total job value for
housing and other development permits in
2021 was $105.6 million.
Hermiston Assistant City Manager Mark
Morgan said there were 129 site-built homes
and 10 manufactured homes. He said the
rise in new home construction is evidence
of “strong, consistent, sustainable growth”
in Hermiston.
That consistency matters, he said. A
one-year surge, for example, he said, might
indicate “one builder is going hard, but when
they fi nish, we see a drop in activity.”
The development also is spread geograph-
ically around the city, he said, and across
diff erent builders and developers.
“If one builder goes bankrupt, or one
project runs into a major unforeseen cost,
the community is able to keep adding hous-
ing,” Morgan said.
Pandemic response helps
homebuyers
Morgan credited historically low interest
rates that have come in response to the coro-
navirus pandemic for fueling growth, which
helped people aff ord homes.
“Dropping the interest rate on a 30-year
mortgage on a $250,000 loan just 1% from
4% to 3% ends up saving the borrower nearly
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Construction crews work on assembling a home Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022, off East Punkin
Center Road in Hermiston. The city building department reported it approved 139 new
housing unit permits in 2021, an increase of 14 from 2020.
$50,000 in fi nancing costs over the 30-year
repayment period,” Morgan said.
“For context on what that means as far
as the city’s tools that we have available to
assist in housing aff ordability, one of the
common requests that we get is to off er
$5,000 incentive for home buyers. If you
take that same $250,000 home, and give
the borrower $5,000 to go toward a down
payment without touching the interest rate,
it ends up only saving the borrower a total of
about $8,000 over 30 years, compared to the
previous example where they save almost
$50,000.”
The previous example, Morgan said,
contrasts the power of city and national
government.
“Simply put, in terms of incentivizing
housing and helping with affordability,
the city has a pea-shooter compared to the
Federal Reserve’s bazooka,” Morgan said.
Still, he added, there are actions a city can
take, and Hermiston has. The city county
approved reducing minimum lot sizes in
development. He said that allowed builders
“to fi t more homes in to a development, and
helps tip the scales on a lot of projects.”
Morgan also said the city council
“increased the maximum lot-coverage
allowed, which allows builders to fi t larger
footprint homes on to lots.” This, he said,
made a lot of projects more profi table.
In addition, the council rezoned about 40
acres near Diagonal Boulevard from indus-
trial to a mix of residential and commercial.
“Those properties had sat stuck in an
undeveloped state for nearly 50 years as
industrial land,” Morgan said, “and now,
See Housing, Page A8
A pair of new construction homes near completion Tuesday,
Jan. 4, 2022, in a housing development off East Theater
Lane, Hermiston. The total job value for housing and other
development permits in 2021 in Hermiston was $105.6 million.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
See Attorneys, Page A8
Schools urged to drop extracurricular activities
Oregon education, health offi cials warn of ‘rapid’
COVID-19 transmission in school activities
By MEERAH POWELL
Oregon Public Broadcasting
SALEM — Oregon’s education
and health leaders say if schools
continue to host extracurricular
activities, “they should expect rapid
transmission of COVID-19″ that
could prevent students from being
able to attend class in-person due to
isolation and quarantine periods.
Oregon’s education and health
leaders put out that warning in an
advisory Monday, Jan. 3. The agen-
cies say schools and organizations
must either pause extracurricu-
lar activities or ensure they follow
specifi c COVID-19 safety protocols.
If schools choose to continue
extracurriculars, the agencies said
they need to clearly communicate the
potential risks to families.
The message from the Oregon
Department of Education and Oregon
Health Authority comes as schools
around the state begin their new
terms and the omicron variant of the
coronavirus continues to spread.
“It’s all about trying to continue
to ensure that our students can attend
school in-person every day,” ODE
Director Colt Gill told OPB.
See Schools, Page A8
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Masked students walk to their classes on Feb. 22, 2021, the fi rst day of in-per-
son instruction at Washington Elementary School in Pendleton. State health
and education agencies are calling for schools to halt extracurricular activi-
ties in early 2022 to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.