OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, March 19, 2022
East Oregonian
Fair:
people who could work as
peer support. She said her
company is growing and
could fi ll 40 openings, and
she was happy to tell former
Shearer’s employees of
opportunities.
Even Blue Mountain
Community College, which
was promoting its educa-
tional programs at the job
fair, had jobs to fi ll. Tammy
Krawczyk, dean, work-
force development, regional
education and strategic part-
nership, was looking for
candidates for a number of
jobs. Those jobs included
fi nancial aid advisor, athletic
trainer and a program assis-
tant at Two Rivers Correc-
tional Institution, Umatilla.
She said she met several
people at the job fair and was
happy to be part of it.
Continued from Page A1
AgriScience, also had advice
for job seekers. He said he
recommends people to accept
help from other people.
“We want to help them in
the best way that we can,” he
said.
He said he spoke with
former Shearer’s workers,
and he felt good he could be
of assistance to them in fi nd-
ing work.
There were a few job post-
ings on the Corteva table at
the job fair. They were for
a maintenance coordinator,
a fi eld research intern and a
production technician.
The production technician
job comes with a $1,500 sign
on bonus, starting wages of
$20 per hour and benefi ts.
Estrada said this job or others
at Corteva would be good for
recently displaced Shearer’s
employees.
Another company repre-
sentative, Tom Clouse, also
was looking for workers.
Supervisor of operations
for Williams, an energy
company, Clouse said he
was happy to speak with the
former Shearer’s workers.
These employees, he said,
have a lot of good experi-
ence, including work with
programmable logic control-
lers.
“We can use that,” he said.
“That’s why we’re here,” a
coworker said.
Perry Lamprey, who also
was representing Williams
at the job fair, said he was
pleased with the people he
had met from Shearer’s, and
he was hopeful of being part
of a solution to put people in
jobs.
A similar sentiment was
expressed by Elsa Enriquez,
a human resources employee
for Walmart Distribution
Chamber employees
call the job fair a
success
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
People gather around a booth for Lamb Weston during a job fair Wednesday, March 16, 2022, at the Hermiston Community
Center in Hermiston.
Center, Hermiston. She said
she met one former Shearer’s
employee whose story stuck
with her.
Enriquez said the woman
she met was older and did
not speak English. She was
successful at Shearer’s, and
she was worried she would
not be able to fi nd another
job, Enriquez said. Though
Walmart did not hire the
woman on the spot, Enriquez
said she did give her informa-
tion about applying for a job.
It is possible, she said, that
Walmart will hire her and
other people like her.
“It was devastating what
happened to them, and I
think there are things we can
do for them,” Enriquez said.
“I feel good about that.”
Representing the Port
of Morrow, Kimberly Rill,
workforce training special-
ist, was at the job fair to tell
people about jobs at several
local companies. She passed
out job posts from companies
including Boardman Foods,
Amazon, Tillamook and
Threemile Canyon Farms.
“It’s a sad situation,” she
said, “but I think there are
a lot of opportunities for
people.”
She added she had spoken
to many people, including
Shearer’s employees. The
Port of Morrow, she said, was
happy to be part of the many
groups helping out.
Becky Self, Inter-Con
Security recruiter, agreed.
She said the Shearer’s
workers have gone through
something that was “really
Funds:
Continued from Page A1
“Pretty much what the
numbers were, that’s how it
ended up,” Lonai said.
But counties now have
seven days to count ballots
with Election Day postmarks
as they come in. Lonai said
that’s not a good look.
“Why are your numbers
changing?” Well, that’s
because ballots are trickling
in,” he said.
On top of that, he said,
there are times when ballots
lack a postmark, such as
when two envelops stick
together in machinery. To
help counter that, however, is
a fl uorescent postmark on the
back of envelopes of a time
stamp showing when it went
through Portland, where it
was sorted, Lonai said, and
those postmarks require a
special scanner to read.
Umatilla County has two
of those, he said, and will test
them soon. Smaller coun-
ties may lack those scanners
and are running into hurdles
getting them. The upshot of
the county clerks association,
he said, is county elections
offi ces can help one another.
“We don’t think we’re
going to need them that
much,” he said, “but we’re
probably going to share
them with some of the other
counties that didn’t get them
because of supply chain
issues.”
But on rare occasions,
envelopes come out miss-
ing a regular postmark and
the fl uorescent postmark, he
said, and elections offices
then have to contact voters to
verify a ballot.
“Theoretically, there
should not be many of these
situations,” Lonai said, and
the seven-day window after
an election is for counties to
handle these matters.
Lonai also said elec-
tion offi cials have to ensure
these kind of scenarios do
not get in the way of another
important job part of their job
— protecting voter confi den-
tiality.
That someone votes is
public record in Oregon, but
how someone votes is not.
Lonai explained the new
law could allow someone to
pull the voter rolls, see when
the last few ballots came in
and fi gure out how someone
voted.
A9
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group, File
A stack of ballots sits in the Union County Clerk’s Offi ce, La
Grande, as workers count the ballots for the special election
on May 18, 2021. County election offi ces in 2022 will get ad-
ditional money to replace old election equipment and buy
postal barcode scanners to comply with a recent law requir-
ing that ballots postmarked on Election Day be counted.
“So that’s why we don’t
count one ballot at a time,”
he said.
In Umatilla County, he
said, the elections offi ce will
run challenged and last-min-
ute ballots all together to
obscure how someone voted.
“This is out first time
for this, so we’ll see what
happens here in May,” Lonai
said.
The association’s vice
president, Mult noma h
County elections director
Tim Scott, said he expects
more money to go to coun-
ties that lacked funding to
upgrade equipment.
Union County Clerk Robin
Church said it is too early to
comment on the funds her
offi ce will reportedly receive.
“I have no comment
until we actually receive the
money,” she said. “Then a
decision will be made as to
how the money is to be spent
for elections.”
Church added that what
the money is spent on will
depend on the state rules that
apply to it.
Multnomah County, the
state’s largest, got grants in
2020 to automate more of its
system and replaced its ballot
tabulators just a few years
ago, so it’s in good shape for
the upcoming primary and
general elections, Scott said.
“Some counties were able
to get a signifi cant portion of
grant funding to do things
like upgrade their tally
systems or buy a high-speed
mail sorter, and other coun-
ties just weren’t able to,” he
said. “It’s really just trying
to take a holistic look at the
counties and seeing who
needs what, and then from
there trying to address those
defi ciencies.”
The secretary of state’s
offi ce will get $370,000 to
spend on public service
announcements, tracking
and responding to election
misinformation and statewide
ballot tracking, which legis-
lative budget analysts said
were cheaper if provided by
the state than by individual
counties.
Another $470,000 will be
held for emergencies, with
any remaining money split
equally among counties at the
end of the two-year budget
cycle in June 2023.
‘Options are wide’
This is the first year in
which ballots will be counted
as long as they’re postmarked
by Election Day and arrive at
election offices within the
next week. Previously, mailed
ballots had to be received by
clerks by Election Day, mean-
ing they typically had to be
mailed several days earlier.
Counties that have already
conducted elections this year
found that the change in elec-
tion policy means more work
and a longer wait for final
results.
A Jan. 18 recall elec-
tion for two school board
members in Yamhill County
was the fi rst to allow ballots
postmarked by Election Day.
About 500 ballots arrived
during the week after the
election, and county election
offi ce employees had to look
for postmarks on each enve-
lope to establish the date they
were mailed.
Yamhill County Clerk
Brian Van Bergen estimated
verifying postmarks will take
about a half day of work for
an employee during the fi rst
devastating.” Her husband,
she said, was a volunteer at
the site of the fi re, and she
could attest to the awful situ-
ation they were facing.
Now meeting with the
former employees, she said
she was glad to be assist-
ing. As Shearer’s, she said, is
off ering people six weeks of
severance, it is good for them
to be out looking for jobs and
thinking long term.
Inter-Con, she said, has
20 positions it is trying to fi ll,
and she could see Shearer’s
workers doing well as secu-
rity offi cers.
Sammantha Hoisington,
of Oregon Department of
Corrections, was trying to
attract people to be correc-
tions offi cers. She told people
that they could start as offi -
cers for Eastern Oregon
Correctional Institution,
Pendleton, then shift over
to maintenance if they were
interested.
This might be a good
direction for Shearer’s
employees, she said. Require-
ments for a corrections offi -
cer include being 21 years
old, passing a background
check, having a high school
diploma and possessing a
driver’s license. She said that
if, after being with EOCI for
a while, offi cers could shift
over to a position within the
prison that might be more
suitable to their skill sets.
Me a nw h i le , B e c k y
Cherry, human resources
recr uiter for Com mu-
nity Counseling Solutions,
was at the fair looking for
few days after an election.
Yamhill County hasn’t been
using machines to check for
postmarks.
That’s on top of the other
work that must be done before
a ballot can be counted. Elec-
tion workers also check
voters’ signatures against
voter registration records and
contact voters if the signature
is missing or doesn’t match.
About 14,500 people voted
in the January recall elec-
tion, less than a quarter of the
roughly 59,500 who voted
in Yamhill County in the
general election in Novem-
ber 2020.
If the rate of postmarked
ballots stays consistent in
November, Yamhill County
could have more than 2,000
ballots arrive after Election
Day. Multnomah County,
which had nearly 470,000
voters in its last election,
could have to process more
than 16,000 late-arriving
ballots.
Van Bergen said he’s wait-
ing for more information
about how much money coun-
ties can receive and how they
can use it. The county’s elec-
tion building, built in 1935,
needs well over $100,000 in
accessibility and security
improvements, he said.
For one thing, the front
doors to the building are
accessible only by concrete
steps. There’s a ramp to the
back door, but that’s where
ballots are brought in. Either
building a ramp in the front
or adding security measures
in the back could improve
accessibility for voters who
can’t easily navigate steps,
he said.
The county also has tech-
nological security concerns,
he said, though he didn’t want
to describe those.
“I know the options are
wide, that they’re not terribly
focused on a particular type
of improvement,” Van Bergen
said. “But what I don’t know
is if we are going to see $10 or
$10,000.”
Crook County Clerk
Cheryl Seely said she’s wait-
ing to see how the primary
goes and what effect post-
marked ballots will have.
“We’ll kind of have to see
after one election how that
works out,” she said. “We
may fi nd there is a need for a
lot more of something, I don’t
know yet. It’s kind of a hard
one for me to project.”
— The EO Media Group
contributed to this report.
Sams:
Continued from Page A1
Since his swearing in,
Sams has advocated for
tribal co-management of
federal lands. During his
tour, he noted the Fort
Vancouver park works
closely with local tribes,
making it one of many
examples in the Pacific
Northwest where state and
federal agencies success-
fully collaborate with
sovereign nations.
“We have a really great
opportunity to bring in
traditional ecological
knowledge, set up cooper-
ative agreements and even
do some co-management,
especially on the fl ora and
fauna,” Sams said.
Sams is Cayuse and
Walla Walla. He’s enrolled
with the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation in
Eastern Oregon, where
he grew up. He has a long
history of civic leadership
in state and tribal govern-
ment; he recently served
as Gov. Kate Brown’s
appointee to the Pacific
Northwest Power and
Conservation Council,
and was previously the
executive director for the
Confederated Tribe of the
Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion.
Sams said Native
co-management is funda-
mental to restoring lands
to their healthier, pre-co-
lonial conditions, because
tribes have a deep under-
standing of native plants
and animal species.
“It’s a symbiotic rela-
tionship, and I think it’s
important that we fi gure
out how we co-manage
those together to ensure
those species not just
Hoxie, the chamber
director behind the fair,
said she remembers the day
of the fi re. She could see it
from her offi ce. She looked
out and reported having felt
ill.
Her feelings changed,
however, when she started
hearing from employers. As
the smoke still rose from
Shearer’s, her phone started
ringing, she said. People
wanted to help. That is when
her offi ce teamed up with the
city of Hermiston to set the
job fair into motion.
“We knew we had to do
something,” she said.
At the end of the event,
while many people were
packing up, another cham-
ber employee stated her feel-
ings about the job fair.
“This event makes me
proud to be part of this
community,” Ami Little,
chamber personal relations
director, said. “When some-
one here is hurting, we help.”
survive, but they actually
thrive on the landscape,”
Sams said.
Last week Sams testi-
fi ed in support of Native
co-management at a
House Natural Resources
Committee hearing. He
cited four parks that are
currently co-managed
by tribal governments:
Canyon de Chelly National
Monument, Glacier Bay
National Park, Grand
Portage National Monu-
ment and Big Cypress
National Preserve.
Some policymakers
at the hearing said they
were worried that tribal
co-management would
interfere with domestic oil
production. Sams said that
shouldn’t be a concern.
“We don’t deal with
a lot of oil and gas leas-
ing, and that’s not within
the realm of the National
Park Service,” Sams told
OPB. “I understood their
concerns that they’re
bringing forward, but it’s
not necessarily a co-man-
agement issue as it relates
to what we do with parks
and people.”
The rehabilitation work
at Fort Vancouver is one of
about 120 national parks
projects that received
Outdoors Act funding last
year. The project will reha-
bilitate the fort’s 33,000
square-foot double-infan-
try barracks, which were
constructed in 1907.
Park staff said construc-
tion will focus on making
the building more acces-
sible and energy effi cient,
while preserving many
of its historic features,
like its covered porches
and pressed-tin ceilings.
Some maintenance costs
will be leveraged by leas-
ing rooms as offi ce space.
Construction is slated to
end next spring.
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