OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Idaho:
Continued from Page A1
momentum it now has.
“I put into words what
people are feeling, and Mike
puts legs under it,” he said.
“Even though this has
been talked about for 100
years, Grant’s letter piqued
the interest of a lot of people
in Eastern and Southern
Oregon,” McCarter said.
McCa r ter credited
Darrow’s letter with leading
to the initial meetings in La
Pine of what is today Move
Oregon’s Border.
“Grant is an integral part
of this,” McCarter said.
A plea to legislators
Since the passage of
Measure 31-101 Darrow
has been urging the Union
County Board of Commis-
sioners to request in writing
that State Rep. Bobby Levy,
R-Echo, and State Sen. Bill
Hansell, R-Athena, work
to get Oregon legislators to
discuss Greater Idaho.
Darrow said he is not
requesting that for mal
discussions about Greater
Idaho begin at that state capi-
tal. Darrow said it could be
something as simple as the
formation of a committee to
try to determine why interest
in Greater Idaho is growing.
“Getting people at the
state level to talk about it is
the next step,” he said. “We
need to get more dialogue,
to get everybody talking
about it. We have to get it
out there.”
Darrow said he has a
fi rsthand understanding of
the growing sense of frus-
tration people in Northeast-
ern Oregon have about the
state’s urban-rural divide
because he worked as a
chimney sweep in Union,
Wallowa and Baker counties
for 44 years before retiring
in September 2021.
“I would work in 12 to 15
homes a week,” he said.
The chimney sweep has
detected a growing sense
of disenchantment with
Oregon’s government during
the past decade, noting they
East Oregonian
A9
believe, like Darrow does,
that the needs and concerns
of Eastern Oregon are
largely ignored by the Legis-
lature.
“We have become noth-
ing more than window dress-
ing,” he said.
Darrow in his 2015 letter
to the editor expressed this
point even more starkly.
“It would appear to any
rural resident or outside
obser ver that most of
Oregon’s urbanites view
Oregon’s rural residents as
nothing more than third-
world inhabitants occupying
their weekend and vacation
playgrounds in what they
advertise to the world as
Oregon’s unique diversity,”
he wrote.
Regulations are
choking businesses
Darrow objects to things
such as the way state govern-
ment is imposing more and
more regulations and fees
that make it increasingly
diffi cult for Oregonians to
start and operate businesses
in Oregon.
“It has gotten so bad that
I could not aff ord to start a
career as a chimney sweep
in Oregon today,” he said,
adding that every time
government puts in a new
regulation or fee it adds to
the red tape citizens must
deal with. “It gets to be abso-
lutely crazy.”
Darrow does not know
what Greater Idaho will lead
to, noting that it may push
to something benefi cial to
rural Oregon that might
not involve moving Idaho’s
borders west.
“It could morph into any
direction,” he said.
He believes the Greater
Idaho campaign could lead
to a positive change in how
the Legislature perceives
rural residents, the creation
of a new state or Greater
Idaho
The Cove resident is
sometimes asked by people
who know how much he
dislikes Oregon’s urban-ru-
ral divide, why he doesn’t
move to Idaho.
“I tell them, ‘That is what I
am trying to do,’” Darrow said.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Students watch as Demond Lofton, of Sumitomo Electric Lightwave, teaches the proper use of a visual fault locator during
a fi ber optic splicing course Thursday, March 3, 2022, that Amazon Web Service and Blue Mountain Community College
off ered in Hermiston.
BMCC:
Continued from Page A1
to naturally avert it’s gaze,
trying to intentionally stare
at the light was not encour-
aged.
“Again, don’t look into the
eye of the laser,” Lofton said
to laughs from the class.
In an interview, Michael
Punke, vice president of
public policy for Amazon
Web Services, compared
fiber optic splicing to a
middle school project where
students worked with copper
wires to conduct electric-
ity. As the world becomes
increasingly reliant on the
cloud to store digital data,
Punke said skills such as
splicing together fi ber optic
lines are coming into higher
demand.
The reasons behind why
a group of students from the
Umatilla Indian Reservation
wanted to take the course
varied.
Colton Star said he’d
worked in sales and construc-
tion but was interested in the
course as a way to explore
a new career path. Mollee
Minthorn had experience
in programming and coding
and thought fi ber optic splic-
ing could be another asset to
her skill set. Vivan DeMary
is semi retired and self-iden-
tifi ed as a tribal elder but still
liked the idea of picking up
new skills she could bring
back home to the tribes.
“I feel like this is the
future,” Star said.
It was a sentiment shared
by Punke, who said Amazon
intends to establish itself in
the community in part by
off ering training that could
land them jobs in the tech
industry.
“This is a 21st century
industry,” he said. “It’s going
to be a 22nd century indus-
try. We very much hope to
be long term members of the
community.”
Large tech companies
largely are associated with
urban areas, such as the San
Francisco Bay and Seattle.
But these companies have
sought rural communities
for their data centers, where
they can fi nd large quantities
of water to keep their servers
cool and local government
offi cials willing to trade tax
breaks for jobs. Google built
a data center in The Dalles
while Facebook and Apple
targeted Prineville for their
own facilities.
When Amazon Web
Services established a pres-
ence in Boardman in 2010
and Umatilla in 2012, it often
operated under the name of
a subsidiary: Vadata Inc.
When Amazon planned its
expansion into Hermiston
in 2019, the city council and
Umatilla County Board of
Commissioners agreed to
abate 15 years of property
taxes in exchange for a fl at
$40 million.
In recent years, Amazon
has shed some of its secrecy
and upped its public invest-
ments.
I n 2021, A m a z on
announced more than a
half-million in donations
to community organiza-
tions across Umatilla and
Morrow counties. Later that
year, AWS cut the ribbon on
its Think Big Space, a career
technical education space at
the SAGE Center in Board-
man.
Nayeli Contreras, the
director of Blue Mountain’s
Hermiston Center, said the
collaboration between Blue
Mountain and Amazon
has been in the works for
years but the coronavirus
pandemic delayed an in-per-
son class. She said the class
aligns with BMCC President
Mark Browning’s goal of
having the college work more
with the region’s employers
on job training.
Contreras said she hopes
Blue Mountain will collabo-
rate with Amazon on future
classes, even if they are in
areas other than fi ber optic
splicing. She added she’s
kept a list of students who
registered for the class but
weren’t able to attend so she
can reach out to them for
future opportunities.
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