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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, May 14, 2022
As your county commis-
sioner I will not hold this
offi ce so tightly that it prohib-
its the public from having
their voices heard. Our
county is made up of many
communities and diverse
groups small and large. As a
county we all deserve a seat
at the table to collaborate and
cooperate with each other.
I believe when it comes to
the overall wellbeing of our
county, every voice should
be heard. We are all allowed
one vote and it is not my
right to take yours from you.
If elected, I will follow the
charter as designed, giving
true transparency and power
back to the people of Umatilla
County.
Umatilla:
Continued from Page A1
be a priority. In addition, the
sheriff ’s offi ce needs a bigger
budget to ensure an adequate
number of offi cers are avail-
able in all parts of the county
to more effi ciently deal with
the crime associated with
these problems.
The lack of affordable
housing has caused many
to live on the streets or in
their vehicles, including
children or the children are
farmed out to relatives (they
are still considered home-
less). Rents in Umatilla
County are skyrocketing. A
two-bedroom modest duplex
can run upwards of $1,200.
Many apartments are up in
the $1,200 to $1,800 range.
Make it easier and cheaper
for builders to build houses
by incentives such as tax cuts
or working with state agen-
cies to cut some of the red
tape caused by too many rules
and regulations. Expand the
urban boundaries, utilize land
not suitable for farming and
give people a reason to want
to live in this county.
List and discuss your top
three goals if you are to be
elected.
The fi rst of my top three
goals if I am elected is to
make sure that our county
government is run accord-
ing to the Constitution. I do
not believe in infringing on
people’s rights, whether that
means forcing citizens to
follow along with mandates
by the state, taking people’s
property without due process,
granting special favors to one
sector of the people or enforc-
ing laws that are contrary to
the Constitution. We are a
home charter county, and we
can decide many things that
our county will or will not
subscribe to under the law.
Secondly, the homeless
crisis is paramount to me. I
see the interrelation of home-
lessness, drug legalization
and abuse, alcohol abuse and
mental health issues (which
may or may not be due to
drug/alcohol abuse), as the
biggest infl uencers of crime
in Umatilla County. We must
address the issue of home-
lessness as it relates to these
problems. So, perhaps for
those with problems, a set
of tiny houses, coupled with
mandatory treatment for the
problems is the answer, but
only if the person is working
toward an answer for their
problem. I also recognize that
the cost of housing is prohibi-
tive even to those who do not
suff er from these problems
and needs to be addressed.
Make Umatilla County
more aff ordable where hous-
ing is concerned. Instead of
attempting to simply bring in
“a more educated workforce”
and high-priced apartments,
we need to address the hous-
Morrow:
Continued from Page A1
opening up respectful and
meaningful communications
with the multitude of part-
ners, residents and perspec-
tives.
Citizen health will
continue to be a growing
area of resource needs into
the future as we continue
to come back together post
COVID. I plan to use my
voice along side our part-
ners in public health, mental
health and public safety along
with our neighboring coun-
ties to bring the resources
needed to support our citi-
zens and businesses.
Further, Morrow County,
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian, File
John Shafer, 50,
Umatilla County
commissioner
If you are elected, what is
your plan to address home-
lessness in the county?
With the passing of Oregon
House Bill 3115, cities will be
required to provide shelters
or places for homeless people
and transients to camp by
January 2023. The roll the
county needs to play in the
homeless
crisis will be
to provide
assistants to
our commu-
nities so they
will be in
compliance
with this new
Pullen
law.
As your county commis-
sioner, I will work with our
state and federal legislators
on fi nding funding to help
mitigate the issue, not neces-
sarily of the chronically
homeless, but of the low-in-
come individuals or families
that have lost access to hous-
ing and are in the transition
of searching for new housing.
I would be working on the
front end of this with “hous-
ing assistant programs” to
help families and individuals
keep their homes or to get into
new homes.
1. Security deposit and
rent assistants programs.
2. Educational programs
on fi nancial budgeting.
3. Job assistants or new
skill training programs.
4. Working on more felon
friendly home and job oppor-
tunities.
5. Eviction assistants due
to emergencies.
These are things we can
do to help ease the burden of
homelessness in our county.
List and discuss your top
three goals if you are to be
elected.
List and discuss your top
three goals if you are to be
elected.
1. Aff ordable housing
A couple of the issues are,
available land, development
cost and our property tax
system.
In the past 10 years the
cost of housing in Umatilla
County has increased over
10%. Per the most recent
housing analysis Pendleton
and Hermiston alone has over
1400 undeveloped parcels,
some are unbuildable lots but
most of those are oversized
subdividable lots. Example,
two city lots are currently
being developed and will
provide over 100 residential
units.
As for the roll the county
could play:
Help developers by
decreasing lot size require-
ments in some location which
would increase number of lots
that can be subdivided.
Look into changing
zoning in areas where land
isn’t being used as zoned.
Work with state and
federal legislators on infra-
structure grants.
Working with Depart-
ment of Land Conservation
& Development for expand-
ing urban growth boundaries
and applying for variances.
Working in assessment,
I have seen what aff ects our
current tax system has on
development cost, and I am
aware of changes that need to
be made and have the connec-
tions at the state level to start
addressing those issues.
Bringing in family wage
jobs is part of aff ordable hous-
ing, and I will do everything
in my power to see all our
communities prosper.
2. Security
Emergency prepared-
ness needs to be a higher
priority in Umatilla County.
Today, threats come to us in
many different ways. The
fl oods of 2019 and 2020 left
many county residents in
ruin. Also in 2020, multi-
ple counties were hit with
ransomware shutting down
computer systems completely
and costing these counties
hundreds of thousands of
dollars in ransom payments
to reactivate the county
computer systems bringing
them back up online. Having
a background in emergency
preparedness, I believe it
is time we start being more
proactive, not just reactive.
3. County charter
We the people of Umatilla
County voted to have a home
rule county with a charter to
guide our commissioners.
When your county Charter
Review Committee works 18
months on a volunteer basis
and brings their recommen-
dations forward to the county
commissioners, it is the
expectation of the commit-
tee that the commissioners
would honor their invested
time and bring these recom-
mendations to the public for
a vote. When they do not,
this is denying the people of
Umatilla County the choice
to decide how they want their
county governed.
If you are elected, what is
your plan to address home-
lessness in the county?
Commissioner George
Murdock sits on the board
of directors of Commu-
nity Action Program of East
Central Oregon. Upon his
retirement, I will be replacing
him on that board. CAPECO
is currently renovating the
f o r m e r
Whiskey
Inn in Pend-
leton. This
will become
the Promise
Inn with the
purpose of
Shafer
getting our
homeless
population back on their feet.
Once completed, the Promise
Inn will provide people with a
place to stay while receiving
wraparound services.
On the west end of the
county there is a similar proj-
ect in the planning stages.
In both locations they will
receive wraparound services.
Services will include helping
them get back on their feet,
fi nding a job and a place to
live while having access to
quality mental health care,
if needed. This program will
also address food insecuri-
ties.
Let’s face it, if you are
trying to figure out where
your next meal is coming
from, or where you will sleep
tonight, you are probably not
too concerned about your
child turning in their home-
work. By allowing our home-
less population to not worry
about where their next meal is
coming from or worry about
where they will lay their
head down at night, they can
instead focus their efforts
on their family and staying
healthy. I will continue to
support these eff orts county-
wide.
List and discuss your top
three goals if you are to be
elected.
My fi rst priority is to have
a place where someone in a
mental health crisis can go
and receive services that
will have to work toward
building up our internal
workforce that can support
the growing size and needs
of our citizen base at every
level from Veterans services
and Public Health, roads,
planning and transportation.
We must further engage our
diverse population to ensure
we have the resources avail-
able to build the county teams
that serve the public.
List and discuss your top
three goals if you are to be
elected.
My fi rst goal is to continue
my fearless commitment to
transparent and accessible
government. I will always
support fi scally responsible
and transparent budgeting
and operations. I will work to
improve inclusion of all of the
cultures and citizens across
our county. I will continue to
ask the hard questions and to
having the diffi cult conver-
sations that lead to proac-
tive and responsible decision
making, not reactive, agenda
fi lled and costly. My work
during the pandemic writing
required plans and working
tirelessly to keep our county,
schools and businesses as
open as possible made it
very apparent that we lack in
mirroring the diversity of our
county in many stakeholder
conversations. I want to work
with our partners to invigo-
rate and institute a better
opportunity for engagement
across the county.
My career in real estate
lending showcased my
passion for housing as
economic growth and fed
my goals in housing and
infrastructure, from roads to
sewer, water to broadband.
I have worked for years to
promote housing develop-
ment. I will continue my
focus to support infrastruc-
ture that is needed to entice
further development. While
I appreciate cities jurisdic-
tion over municipal hous-
ing I believe the county can
be a complementary part-
ner in advocating for zoning,
such as the rural residen-
tial 10 acre zoning oppor-
tunity I supported. My state
appointment to the Local
Officials Advisory coun-
cil to the LCDC earned me
a voice in land use policy. I
will continue my work with
the Regional Solutions to
bring decision makers and
funding opportunities to our
communities.
I will further my commit-
ment as the convenor of our
Broadband Action Team to
bring aff ordability and acces-
sibility of reliable high speed
internet. My focus on govern-
ment service infrastructure
includes the historic county
courthouse in need of pres-
ervation and improved access
to serve customers in court
activities. I recently was able
to secure our place in line for
potential State funding for
courthouse restoration and
increased services. I believe
public heath service locations
need to assure respectful and
appropriate service levels
are available where needed,
and my motion to rebuild the
Umatilla County commissioner candidate Rick Pullen speaks to the audience during a can-
didates forum March 31, 2022, at the Pendleton Convention Center. HollyJo Beers sits to his
left and incumbent John Shafer is on the right. Shafer is vying against the two challengers to
retain his Position 2 seat on the board.
ing problems of those already
here.
As for the third goal,
I believe that small busi-
nesses are the driving force
that keeps a county alive. We
need to encourage and assist
small businesses to thrive.
So many were lost during the
COVID shutdowns. We, as
a county, cannot aff ord that
anymore than the business
owners could. Assisting those
companies, encouraging new
ones to start and refusing to
shut down again due to state
mandates are primary goals
Umatilla County should work
on. I do not know where all
the “COVID money” went to,
but I do know that too many
small store owners went out
of business when they should
have had some assistance.
Rick Pullen, 57,
Pendleton
will not put them in jail or the
hospital while they wait for
a bed to open up in an acute
psychiatric care facility. We
currently do not have an
acute psychiatric care facility
in Umatilla County. My goal
is to have one up and running
within my next term. This is
also a priority for Commu-
nity Counseling Solutions,
whose board of directors I
sit on. CCS is our mental
health provider in Umatilla
County, which I was instru-
mental in bringing in during
my fi rst term in offi ce. We
are currently in negotiations
to see an acute psychiatric
care facility here in Umatilla
County become a reality.
I also want to bring our
Central Water Project to a
successful conclusion. This
is a project that I brought
to the rest of the board of
commissioners in 2019. We
have secured over $8 million
in funding as of this writ-
ing, with the expectation of
another $2.5 million coming
soon. Oregon has seven crit-
ical groundwater areas. Four
of them are in the Hermiston
area. This project will have
the ability to put 29,326,590
gallons of water into the
ground per day at full build
out.
I am eager to see this proj-
ect begin to benefi t Umatilla
County in multiple ways.
This will help our farmers
by increasing the amount of
water they can put on crops
and extend their growing
season. Not only will the
water increase the yield of
our crops for our famers, but
it will increase economic
development opportunities
with the upcoming transfer
of the Army Depot land to
the Columbia Development
Authority, of which I am a
board member of. This will
also recharge our rapidly
diminishing aquifers. It also
has a component to help the
cities get more water for
future expansion.
My third priority is to
work on the unintended
consequences of Ballot
Measure 110. This is the
decriminalization of drugs.
Working with Salem has
been out of the question. We
need a local solution to this.
We need to work with our
judges, law enforcement and
community partners to solve
this issue here in Umatilla
County.
Someone with an addic-
tion may need treatment
and Ballot Measure 110 has
tied the hands of the justice
system to help bring those
with addiction into treat-
ment. Salem took the mech-
anism in place away by
decriminalizing drugs. It is
my hope that working with
our local partners we can
fi nd local solutions to break
the strongholds of addiction.
This is a project that will
continue to benefi t the region
for generations to come.
government center in Irrigon
was a commitment to that
community and to our people
providing service
My third goal is to main-
tain level of services to keep
pace with the growth. We
must have suffi cient public
health, behavioral health and
public safety resources along
with general livability oppor-
tunities. We can not forget
these important aspects to
community growth.
I have built relationships
with federal, state and local
entities that give me the abil-
ity to succeed. I will continue
to work to make Morrow
County thrive as a place
work, live and play. I have
worked hard to listen and
See Morrow, Page A10
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