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cert
Commission grants fi re station project more money
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — The owners of
the old Pendleton fi re station at 911
S.W. Court Ave. walked away from a
Pendleton Development Commission
meeting the night of Tuesday, Jan. 18,
with a commitment for an additional
$80,281 in urban renewal money.
It’s not as much as couple Scott
Hart and Erin Bennett originally
requested, but it came as a result of
talks with the city.
The commission already granted
Hart and Bennett $494,819 to get
their business started, but they
appeared before the commis-
sion in December to request more
money to fi nish the project after
rising construction costs and labor
shortages ballooned the bottom
line of the renovation project. They
requested an additional $188,288,
plus an expedited reimbursement
schedule for the second story and
facade grants they already secured.
City Manager Robb Corbett, the
executive director of the commis-
sion, told commissioners he met with
Hart and Bennett and then with city
staff to fi gure out how they should
respond. They eventually came up
with $80,281 by estimating the rise
in construction costs based off of a
price index.
While a staff report provided the
commissioners didn’t make a recom-
mendation one or the other, Corbett
RIVER DEMOCRACY ACT
recommended the commission
approve the increase in grant funds.
“You probably couldn’t pick a
worse time to start a project based on
the economy and what happened at
that time,” he said.
The Pendleton City Council,
which comprises the development
commission, is especially invested
in the fi re station project because
it handpicked Hart and Bennet to
buy the former headquarters of the
city fi re department. Acting as the
commission, the council granted
the owners nearly a half-million
dollars to turn the old fi re hall into a
multi-faceted business.
At the December meeting,
Bennett said she and Hart already
relocated their existing motorcy-
cle parts businesses — Moto Stuff
and SRC Moto — to the facility and
had opened up the BackFire Station
restaurant. Expanding the business
See Fire, Page A8
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY
Cliff Bentz
expresses
opposition
to RDA on
House fl oor
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
WASHINGTON — Oregon Rep.
Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, denounced
the River Democracy Act on the
House fl oor Jan. 11, saying the legis-
lation that would label 4,700 miles
of waterways as “Wild and Scenic”
instead would leave them “just wait-
ing to be burned and ruined.”
“The overwhelming majority
of my 62 county
commission-
ers have serious
and unanswered
concerns about
the dangers the act
presents,” Bentz, a
freshman congress-
Bentz
man, said during his
fl oor speech. “Chief
among them is that this designation
will prevent what needs to be done
to protect these watersheds, placing
them in a bureaucratic wasteland
where it will take years, if not decades,
to initiate and then complete plans that
may or may not allow the treatment
activities needed right now.”
Bentz noted that with a mile-wide
corridor — a half-mile on each side of
the designated areas — being marked
Wild and Scenic, the area cordoned
off , 4,700 square miles, would be
about the size of Connecticut.
Bentz said the bill would allow
just one method of fi re prevention
— prescribed burning — which he
contended would actually increase the
threat of fi res.
“I cannot emphasize enough how
dangerous it is to use prescribed
burns in overgrown, densely packed,
dry forests without thinning the
forest first,” he said. “Prescribed
See Bentz, Page A8
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Marchers carry signs Monday, Jan. 17, 2022, along East Main Street in downtown Hermiston during the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Peace March.
Striving for a better world
Marchers spread
words of peace in
Hermiston on Martin
Luther King Jr. Day
By ERICK PETERSON
East Oregonian
H
ERMISTON — Jesus Rome has
lived in Hermiston for 30 years,
and he said he has been to every
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Peace
March in the community since its inception
in 2000.
Monday, Jan. 17, was no exception. Rome
is the treasurer for the Hermiston Cultural
Awareness Coalition, which organizes the
event each year.
“When I think about MLK and other civil
rights leaders, I can’t help but remember and
appreciate all the past pioneers that have gone
before me and paved the way so I can have the
rights and freedoms I have now in this coun-
try,” Rome said.
Rome pointed out injustice in Oregon’s
past. In 1844, he said, Oregon voted into law
the Black Exclusion Act, which essentially
made it illegal for any Black families to move
into Oregon territory.
“I just can’t imagine being my skin color
and growing up in those days and even during
the days of the civil rights movement era and
experiencing the constant racial trauma and
discrimination on a daily basis,” he said.
Around 80 people attended the march,
which began at 11 a.m. at the Hermiston First
United Methodist Church, 191 E. Gladys Ave.,
and traveled down Main Street.
Police escorts and a United States fl ag
bearer led the procession. People of varied
ages, elders to children, took part. Some
people sang “We Shall Overcome,” and others
held homemade signs depicting King.
Pastor Patty Nance, whose church hosted
the event, walked at the back of the march.
She said she was glad her church could play
a role in the celebration of King. In addition,
Nance expressed hope that people would hear
the speakers and gain understanding of the
state of the world and its need for change.
Kicking off speeches, the Rev. Chuck
Barnes, St. John’s Episcopal Church priest,
off ered a prayer.
Hermiston City Manager Byron Smith
See March, Page A8
Meat of the Matter
Biden administration
aims to level the
playing fi eld in the
meatpacking industry
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
WASHINGTON — Curtis
Martin doesn’t expect a problem
that was decades in the making to
be solved by a single announcement
from the White House, even one that
comes with a billion-dollar pledge.
But Martin, a North Powder
cattle rancher and past president of
the Oregon Cattlemen’s Associa-
tion, is nonetheless encouraged by
the Biden administration’s eff ort to
increase competition in the meat-
packing industry where four corpo-
rations dominate.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Martin
said of the administration’s recent
announcement that it would divert
$1 billion from the 2021 American
Rescue Plan Act to address problems
in the meat processing system and
try to encourage the construction of
smaller, regional meat processing
operations and, potentially, curb a
recent rise in beef, pork and poultry
prices at the retail level.
“It’s really a positive report, and I
think the best thing ranchers can do
is engage in it and help Tom Vilsack,”
Martin said.
Vilsack is the U.S. Agriculture
See Meat, Page A8
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group, File
Riley Martin operates a tractor fi lled with hay to feed his cattle April 5,
2021, at the Martin family cattle ranch in North Powder. Martin, along
with his father, Curtis Martin, are among several ranchers who were for-
mer skeptics of the Biden administration. That skepticism was eased by
the administration’s initiative, announced Jan. 3, 2022, to increase com-
petition in the meat processing industry.