Hermiston to make Funland more accessible |
REGION, A3
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2022
146th Year, No. 40
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WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW
Setting
priorities
Three Eastern
Oregon legislators
line out what they
are backing in the
2022 short session
By ERICK PETERSON
AND ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
SALEM — Eastern Oregon
lawmakers looking at the upcom-
ing legislative session are focus-
ing their eff orts on more money
for ranchers who lose livestock
to wolves, increasing consumer
protection and taking on illegal
marijuana farms in Southern
Oregon.
Rep. Boby Levy, R-Echo,
Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner,
and Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena,
told the EO Media Group about
their priorities for the 2022 short
session that begins Feb. 1 and
must end by March 10.
Wolf bill drawing
Levy’s attention
Levy named two bills as most
important to her, starting with
House Bill 4127,
a million-dollar
ask for the Wolf
Management
Compensation
and Proactive
Trust Fund.
“Right now,
Levy
we have already
close to $800,000
worth of cattle
losses and miss-
ing livestock, not
to mention all the
incremental costs
that go along
when wolves
Smith
have been chas-
ing animals,”
she said, adding
animals have
suff ered “contin-
ued weig ht
loss, low birth
rates and more
be cau se of
Hansell
wolves.”
She also is big
on HB 4154, a $400,000 request
to provide the La Grande Airport
with new fuel tanks.
Levy said she will be co-spon-
soring bills as well, including HB
4022 to put course curriculum on
school websites, and HB 4042,
which would require doctors
who prescribe drugs for chemi-
cal abortions to provide “certain
information” to their patients.
She said she also is adding her
name to bills concerning animal
predator control, a salmon habi-
tat credit program and gun-free
zone liability.
See Preview, Page A9
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
An Elite Taxi taxicab on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, navigates Southwest Court Avenue in Pendleton near Roy Raley Park. Pendleton’s
lone taxi company faces opposition from members of the public who want the city to allow ride-hailing companies to operate in town.
A call for ride-hailing
Uber drivers lobby
Pendleton for OK to
operate; local taxi
company pushes back
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
ENDLETON — Only one busi-
ness in Pendleton has the author-
ity to charge passengers to get
from Point A to Point B. But a
group of residents are pushing
the Pendleton City Council to allow Uber to
compete with the city’s only taxi company
for in-town rides.
At a Tuesday, Jan. 18, city council meet-
ing, Alicia Reynen approached the podium
P
RIDE-HAILING VS.
RIDE-SHARING
According to The Associated Press,
ride-hailing services such as Uber and
Lyft let people use smartphone apps to
book and pay for a private car service or,
in some cases, a taxi. They also may be
called ride-booking services. Ride-shar-
ing, however, refers to app-based
services that let people book a shared
shuttle. And Zipcar and similar compa-
nies are short-term car rental services.
during the public comment period, intro-
duced herself and asked the city to part-
ner with drivers to allow Uber and similar
companies into town.
Reynan said opening Pendleton to Uber
would be in line with the city’s mission state-
ment, which encourages economic vitality
and opportunity.
“Pendleton would benefit extremely
from the services and friendly competition
is always good,” she said. “I believe your
mission statement is true and the city holds to
it. I’m asking the city transportation depart-
ment to join me, to allow Uber into town.”
‘Let’s make a change for
the here and now’
Alicia Reynen’s arguments are echoed by
a Change.org petition started by her husband,
Jesse Reynen. As of 3:30 p.m. on Friday,
Jan. 21, the online petition had attracted 272
signatures.
In the petition, Jesse Reynen wrote
they’re seeking to update the city’s law,
See Drivers, Page A9
Marcus Whitman statue up for debate
Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of
a two-part article about the statue
of Marcus Whitman on public
display at Whitman College, Walla
Walla. Part 2 is scheduled to run
in the Thursday, Jan. 27, edition
of the East Oregonian and focuses
on arguments in favor of keeping
the statue in place.
By EMRY DINMAN
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
WALLA WALLA — More
than a dozen members of the Walla
Walla community and others spoke
in support or or in opposition to
the removal of a statue of pioneer
Marcus Whitman during a recent
meeting of the city arts commission.
The statue of Whitman, the
physician and missionary who
established a mission nearly 200
years ago just west of what is now
the city of Walla Walla, stands on
the campus of Whitman College,
which bears the fi gure’s name.
Whitman has come under
renewed scrutiny in recent years
for his role in the colonization of
the region, helping to establish the
Oregon Trail and the introduction of
a measles outbreak that killed Native
peoples. In 2019, a vandal defaced
the statue with spray paint, misspell-
Greg Lehman, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, File
The Marcus Whitman statue at the corner of East Main Street and Boyer
Avenue in Walla Walla, September 2020.
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ing the word “genocide” on its base.
Still, other members of the
community oppose removing the
statue, arguing doing so erases the
legacy of a founding father of the
region who sought to heal the sick.
The arts commission meet-
ing Wednesday, Jan. 19, came in
response to a request to deaccession,
or remove, the statue of Whitman
that was started by Emily Tillotson,
a professor at Walla Walla Univer-
sity.
That process, which allows a
city resident to request reconsider-
ation of any piece of public art the
city owns, was created specifi cally
in response to complaints about the
statue of Whitman, Deputy City
Manager Elizabeth Chamberlain
previously told the Walla Walla
Union-Bulletin.
In 2020, a local team of art
researchers proposed removing the
statue of Whitman and relocating it
to Fort Walla Walla Museum.
“The statue tells us a lot, and it
has a rich and fascinating history,
but again, that history is not the
history of Marcus Whitman, it is
not the history of the Walla Walla
Valley, and it’s not the history of
Whitman College,” Libby Miller,
See Statue, Page A9
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