WEEKEND EDITION Umatilla plans $7.2M project to replace footbridge |
REGION, A3
ApRIL 16 – 17, 2022
146th Year, No. 75
PENDLETON UAS RANGE
pendleton
responds to
reporting
on crashes
Drone range conducts
more than 500
operations per month
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
pENDLETON — pendleton city
officials are pushing back against a
Bloomberg News article that reported
several drone crashes at the pendleton
Unmanned Aerial Systems Range.
According to an article published
Sunday, April 10, Bloomberg
reviewed internal documents, read
government reports and spoke with
13 current and former employees
associated with Amazon prime Air,
a drone package delivery project that
has conducted tests in pendleton,
among several other sites across the
country. The news agency’s report-
ing revealed safety concerns and
crashes hampered Amazon’s testing
program.
“While experimental aircraft are
expected to crash during test flights,
current and former employees say
pressure to get the program back on
track has prompted some managers to
take unnecessary risks that have put
personnel in harm’s way,” reporters
Spencer Soper and Matt Day wrote.
Bloomberg reported Amazon
drones crashed five times during
a four month period in 2021 and
obtained a 911 record that details a
fire in a wheat field that a drove crash
set off near the Pendleton airport.
An Amazon spokesperson told
Bloomberg that Pendleton city offi-
cials hadn’t previously made public
comments about the crashes. But
during an interview Wednesday,
April 13, with the East Oregonian,
City Manager Robb Corbett and
Economic Development Director
Steve Chrisman, who oversees the
airport and UAS operations, talked
about the Bloomberg article and how
transparent they should be about
drone crashes.
Chrisman touted the growth of the
test range from an entity that saw few
operations in its early years to a busy
hub for drone activity that frequently
attracts the world’s top tech and avia-
tion companies. Chrisman didn’t
mention Amazon or other companies
by name, citing nondisclosure agree-
ments the city signed, but he said “a
very small number of mishaps” paled
in comparison to the thousands of
operations the range has hosted.
“Those were disgruntled employ-
ees that had an ax to grind,” he
said, referring to the sources in the
Bloomberg article. “As far as report-
ing, I don’t know that we’ve ever
called (the East Oregonian) when
See UAS, Page A8
$1.50
WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
JOBS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK
BMCC plans deep
cuts to faculty in
new budget
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
P
ENDLETON — After warning about
impending budget cuts for months,
the other shoe has dropped at Blue
Mountain Community College.
At an April 25 budget committee
meeting, BMCC administration will
propose shuttering three programs and elimi-
nating 10 full-time faculty positions in addi-
tion to several part-time positions. Should the
BMCC Board of Education approve the move,
the college would lose its criminal justice,
college prep and industrial systems technol-
ogy programs while also dropping instruc-
tors from its business, English, humanities/
fine arts, math/computer science, science and
social science departments.
In a Wednesday, April 13 interview, Blue
Mountain president Browning said the budget
cuts need to be made to help close a $2 million
shortfall in the 2022-23 budget.
“We have to start living within our means,”
he said. “That’s the bottom line.”
The news was not well received by the
Blue Mountain Faculty Association, the
union that represents the college’s instructors.
Union president pete Hernberg described
the list of proposed cuts as “extraordinary
and shocking” and raises questions about the
college’s commitment to the community.
“These cuts are shocking,” he said. “They
are arbitrary. And they are unnecessary.”
Hernberg questioned why BMCC admin-
istration wanted to cut the college’s crim-
inal justice program at a time when law
enforcement was trying to recruit skilled
personnel. He added that eliminating the
industrial systems technology department
represented a “broken promise” to Board-
man, which would still have its Workforce
Training Center but not one of the signature
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Blue Mountain Community College, Pendleton, will consider proposals to shutter three pro-
grams and eliminate 10 full-time positions and additional part-time positions.
programs the center houses.
Browning was prepared to defend his
administration’s choices.
He said a degree from the college’s crim-
inal justice program isn’t a requirement to
enter the law enforcement field, and while he
admitted the industrial systems technology
had been a “good idea” when it was started,
the program’s low enrollment meant it can be
replaced in Boardman by the higher-demand
diesel tech program.
Browning turned his focus to the English
program, which would lose one of its instruc-
tors under the administration’s proposal. He
said the department’s four-person staff is the
same size as it was a decade ago, even though
enrollment has shrunk 65% over the past 11
years.
BMCC, and other community colleges
across the state, have seen significant enroll-
ment declines in recent years, and Blue
Mountain staff are starting to see the effects
of that trend.
Since 2019, the college has reduced its
workforce by 39 positions, albeit under differ-
ent presidents. Those figures don’t include
additional staffing cuts made when Blue
Mountain was forced to renegotiate its prison
education contract with the Oregon Depart-
ment of Corrections during that time period.
This round of proposed cuts differs from
previous years because it mostly focuses on
making cuts to faculty. With previous staff
reductions focused on administration or clas-
sified staff, Browning said there was little
room to cut in those areas.
But Hernberg argued that BMCC was
using its budget to deprioritize instruction
and programming in favor of contracts with
consultants and tech companies.
“What our community needs is jobs and
training for those jobs,” he said. “What our
community needs are degrees and classes
toward those degrees. That’s the promise that
our taxpayers expect us to keep. They don’t
expect us to hire some consulting firm. They
don’t expect us to send a giant chunk of cash
to some tech company.”
Browning contested Hernberg’s interpre-
tation of the proposed budget, saying they
were one-time investments in improving the
college’s website and conducting a review of
Blue Mountain’s programs, moves that will
better position the college for the future.
See BMCC, Page A8
Gang-related graffiti is spreading in Milton-Freewater
The writing on the wall
By SHEILA HAGAR
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
MILTON-FREEWATER —
When Wes Koklich began paying
close attention to the gang tagging
and graffiti over the winter in
Milton-Freewater, it was seemingly
everywhere.
Koklich, a city councilor here,
raised the issue at February’s
monthly meeting.
With business growth in the
rural agricultural town garnering
positive press, the spray painting
on buildings around town is like
an “outbreak” of negativity, he said
then.
Last month, Koklich said in an
interview he worries graffiti now
appearing on buildings and fences
could be a deterrent to people think-
ing about moving to the commu-
nity and to businesses considering
investing here.
“I don’t like the looks of it,”
he said. “Economically, things
are starting to happen here, and
when people drive through to look
around, they are not impressed.”
The spray painting that used to
largely be kept to the North Main
Street area of town seems to have
migrated to “all over,” Koklich said,
and he imagines visitors wonder if
the gang tagging they see is out of
the ordinary or business-as-usual
for Milton-Freewater.
Arguably, nearly every city in
America struggles with unwanted
spray painting. While many people
separate gang-tagging from the
street art of graffiti, unsolicited
painting on walls haunts businesses
and home owners everywhere.
Social activists applaud using
wall and street art to bring attention
to community and societal issues,
but they also acknowledge graffiti
is one of the most visible forms of
crime and disorder in a town.
Contributed Photo
Pastor Tim Sanchez of Faith Bible Church, accompanied by his dog, Ji-
reh, examines a tagged wall at the north end of Milton-Freewater on
April 6, 2022.
Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
Graffiti mars the side of a building Feb. 16, 2022, on North Main Street
in Milton-Freewater.
“As well as causing damage to
the property targeted, graffiti also
plays a significant role in affect-
ing entire communities,” noted a
November article in ArtRadarJour-
nal.com.
A U.S. Department of Justice
report found the presence of graf-
fiti can seem like a sign of anar-
chy, that government officials
are failing “to protect residents
and control lawbreakers.”
Tagging can signal the pres-
ence of gangs and gang violence,
especially those that identify turf
boundaries and contain threats,
Deborah Weiselas wrote in the DOJ
report.
Weiselas reported that in 2009,
an estimated $12 billion was spent
yearly in cleaning up graffiti in the
United States.
No one needs to tell Milton-Free-
water’s police chief how damaging
gang tagging is. Even here, with
a population that hovers around
7,000, this issue can be big, Doug
Boedigheimer said in March.
Boedigheimer works with Jason
Schaffner, the city’s code enforce-
ment officer, to deal with gang
tagging.
Here, younger teens do the
tagging, the chief said, while older
teens are getting into more serious
trouble.
Certainly not all markings his
staff comes across can be iden-
tified in one realm or another,
Boedigheimer said.
“Someone sees painting on a
wall, and they assume it’s gang
related,” he said. “We see an awful
lot that isn’t.”
The issue is almost impossible
for small law enforcement agencies
to solve, but Boedigheimer said he
has seen success when parents have
been pulled in as part of the solution.
Moms and dads, especially
those working long hours, are first
surprised and then aghast when told
their child has been spray painting
walls, he said, “Or that it is gang
related.”
In Milton-Freewater the most-
used color of tagging paint is blue,
and the most often identified gangs
are 18th Street, Florencia and 13th
Street, Schaffner and Boedigheimer
said.
Catching such taggers is the
exception rather than the rule, they
agreed.
“We have to catch them literally
blue-handed,” Schaffner said.
Security cameras can help, but
most taggers know to wear hoodies
pulled close to their face, he said.
Not every tagging incident
See Graffiti, Page A8