REGION
Thursday, August 25, 2022
East Oregonian
A3
Pendleton taxi company scoops up rivals’ name
Move creates
confusion with
Let’er Uber
By ANTONIO SIERRA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
PENDLETON — The
owners of Pendleton’s only
taxi service couldn’t stop the
city from allowing ride-hailing
services to begin operating.
But they did claim a business
name that was first used by one
of their new competitors.
Matthew and Rod Johlke,
the owners of Elite Taxi Inc.,
registered Let’er Uber LLC
on Aug. 8 with the Oregon
Secretary of State’s Office.
The father and son team’s
new limited liability company
shares a name with an upstart
group of ride-hailing drivers
who had hoped technologies
such as Uber would increase
transportation options in the
area.
Whatever the intent, the
creation of Let’er Uber LLC is
the latest development in the
contentious process of bring-
ing ride-hailing services to
Pendleton.
The move has confused
members of Let’er Uber,
and the Johlkes haven’t
publicly revealed the reason
Antonio Sierra/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Becky Ramirez, left, Alicia Reynen, and Jesse Reynen stand in front of one of the cars Let’er
Uber uses in Pendleton. The trio was surprised to learn the owners of Elite Taxi Inc., their
business rivals, had registered the group’s name with the state.
behind their new company.
The owners did not return a
message left at their Pendle-
ton office.
All of this is taking place
just before the Pendleton
Round-Up, the region’s biggest
tourism event of the year. In
mid-September, thousands
of tourists from around the
world arrive in Pendleton for
the festivities, and many of
them are going to need rides
around town.
In the spring, a group of
Pendleton drivers led by couple
Alicia and Jesse Reynen
lobbied the city to change its
taxi code to allow Uber. Uber
didn’t meet the city’s require-
ments for a taxi cab service,
but the group of area residents
argued it would expand Pend-
leton’s options and choices for
transportation.
The request drew swift
opposition from the Johlkes,
who said they needed to main-
tain their status as the only
taxi business offering cash
fare rides to survive. Pendle-
ton city government also had a
vested interest in keeping Elite
Taxi alive.
Pendleton City Councilor
Dale Primmer said Elite holds
contracts with the city to oper-
ate its public transportation
services.
“They provide the drivers
for the buses, they do the dial-
a-ride, they do the medical
non-emergency transport,” he
said. “The fear for people was
that if you undermine the fare
side of it, would it undermine
the sustainability and thus lose
some essential services for
those who are most vulnera-
ble and most dependent upon
those services?”
In late April, Primmer and
the rest of the city council
agreed to compromise: Uber
drivers would get a five-month
trial period to prove they could
operate without driving Elite
out of business.
The Reynens founded
Let’er Uber following the
council’s decision, and Becky
Ramirez joined shortly there-
after. Ramirez works as a tour
guide and gift shop worker as
her day job, but drives for Uber
as a “side hustle.”
Ramirez said Let’er Uber
started as an informal group
to coordinate schedules and
promote their services. The
group has a core membership
of fewer than 20 drivers.
Unlike taxi drivers who
work for a company, all Uber
drivers are independent
contractors that use the Uber
app to help book rides and
process fares. While Uber has
fought efforts to classify driv-
ers as employees, Ramirez
said the informal group Let’er
Uber didn’t draw attention
from the San Francisco-based
company because it was just a
group of locals looking to help
each other.
Ramirez said her first few
months working for Uber
have been good. She’ll occa-
sionally hear complaints about
the quality of Elite’s services
from her customers, but she
said she doesn’t engage and
tries to focus on her own job.
That’s why Elite’s move
mystified the members of
Let’er Uber.
“I’m not necessarily
shocked that they did this,”
she said. “I just don’t under-
stand why you would do that.
What is the point of buying
that? What are your plans
with it? It just doesn’t seem
just like a good thing. It
seems like whatever it is, it’s
going to be in malice.”
Feds fine Smith Frozen Foods $100,000
COVID-19 risk
level at medium in
Umatilla County
storage and use of anhydrous
ammonia, a refrigerant often
employed for use in closed
systems.
“It is a dangerous chem-
ical, and an inhalation
hazard,” said Javier Morales,
EPA Region 10 Risk Manage-
ment Program coordinator.
“It is hygroscopic, meaning
it’s attracted to water. When
people inhale it, it’s very
harmful to the respiratory
system and to the eyes.”
EPA cited Smith Frozen
Foods on seven violations
of provisions within the
Clean Air Act for opera-
tors of gasses such as anhy-
drous ammonia, being safety
information, hazard anal-
ysis, operating procedure,
By DAKOTA CASTETS-
DIDIER
East Oregonian
Morrow County’s
risk level at high,
according to CDC
By JOHN TILLMAN
East Oregonian
PEN DLETON
—
The community level of
COVID-19 in Umatilla
County was medium based
on cases and hospitaliza-
tions, according to the most
recent update from the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention on Aug. 18.
Morrow County’s level
was one of only two in
Oregon rated high. The
other was Malheur County.
The Umatilla County
Health Department reported
67 new cases on Monday,
Aug, 22, bringing the total
cases to 24,709, or 30.9%
of the county’s 2020 popu-
lation. Deaths with or from
COVID-19 stayed the same
at 240.
Morrow County reported
five new cases Aug. 22, for
a total of 3,204. Deaths
attributed to COVID-19
remained 37.
T he om ic ron va r i-
ant surge in late 2021 and
early 2022 has settled into
a lower rate of new cases,
hospitalizations and deaths,
but virus season looms in
coming months.
“The (Oregon Health
Sciences University) fore-
cast is for numbers to
continue to drop off,”
Umatilla County Public
Health Director Joe Fiumara
said. “But we worry about
respiratory diseases in the
fall, when people congregate
indoors. Flu and COVID
could go back up in October
and November.”
His crystal ball isn’t
better than anybody else’s,
Fiumara said.
“Our numbers were a
little higher than the week
before,” he said,”but fluctu-
ations aren’t unusual. Hospi-
talizations are lower than a
few weeks ago.”
The Hermiston waste
water readings are dropping,
Fiumara noted.
“In general, they’re going
down slowly,” he said. “I
wish that we had better
sequencing data. They’re not
current. The omicron BA.2
subvariant is dropping. The
virus changes faster than we
are able to keep up.”
Fiumara’s recommenda-
tions remain the same for
keeping yourself and your
family out of the hospital.
“I may sound like a stuck
record,” he said, “but if
you’re in a high risk cate-
gory, we still recommend
that you stay home if sick,
wash your hands and get
vaccinated.”
Fiumara cautioned that
the data are based on what
is reported.
“It’s not unusual for
numbers to fluctuate,” he
noted. “It depends on the
group. Our long-term care
facility outreach means that
case numbers may go up. We
need information for protec-
tion in place of vulnerable
people.”
The number of hospi-
talized COVID-19 patients
fell in Umatilla County in
the CDC’s Aug. 18 update.
Deaths remained at about
the same level as in the prior
report.
The test positivity rate of
28.8% in Umatilla County
on Aug. 18 was very high,
suggesting cases are being
significantly under counted.
Even so, that rate was down
6.64 points during the
prior seven days.
The CDC reported an
average of 24 cases per day
in Umatilla County, a 19%
decrease from two weeks
earlier. Since the beginning
of the pandemic, reported
cases have totaled 24,665,
out of a 2020 population of
80,075, for a rate of 30.8%.
Oregon’s rate on Aug, 22
was 20.4%.
Umatilla County’s rate
of deaths attributed to
COVID-19 was 300 per
100,000 residents, Morrow
County’s 304, Oregon’s 195
and the nation’s 316, based
on 2020 populations.
Umatilla County set
its single-day record for
COVID-19 deaths with six
reported Nov. 19, 2021.
WESTON — The Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency
has announced that Smith
Frozen Foods Inc. in Weston
has agreed to pay a $100,000
fine for the violation of seven
separate provisions of the
Clean Air Act in 2016.
“Our EPA enforcement
officer did an inspection in
2016 and they were able to
see some of the violations on
site,” said Meshach Padilla,
public affairs specialist with
the EPA.
The violations were in
regards to Smith Frozen
Foods’ procedures on the
the new position starting on
Thursday, Sept. 1. It comes
after a year when BMCC had
no full-time staff for market-
ing.
Budget cuts had led to the
elimination of marketing and
communications positions.
Once the school year came to
a close, though, Sisneros said
the college realized its need
for someone to “tell BMCC’s
story to the public.”
By ANTONIO
ARREDONDO
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — After
one year without the position,
Blue Mountain Community
College has hired a new
director of marketing and
communications.
Chief Operating Offi-
cer Pat Sisneros confirmed
Kaley Cope will be filling
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said she has wanted for a
long time.
“I’ve always had an inter-
est in higher education,”
Cope said. “I feel like it’s a
good opportunity to advance
my career.”
Cope leaves the position
at Parks & Rec after three
years. Now, she’ll work to
tell the college’s story to the
community, whether good,
bad or anything in between.
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Kaley Cope is the
communications coordi-
nator for Pendleton Parks
& Recreation. Her experi-
ence in communications and
marketing for the department
impressed BMCC. Sisneros
said the college is excited for
the position to return in full
with Cope.
For Cope, a Vale native
and Eastern Oregon Univer-
sity graduate, it’s a job she
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community in harm’s way.”
The Clean Air Act is
a federal air quality law,
intended to reduce pollution
and increase nationwide air
quality, originally enacted
in 1963, but frequently
revised. It provides the EPA
with regulatory authority to
monitor, inspect and penalize
operations with potentially
harmful gasses and pollut-
ants.
“The EPA has their own
enforcement response policy
that we follow, we use them
to assess the penalties based
on the violations that were
found,” Morales explained,
detailing the procedure for
how the EPA tabulates and
levels penalties.
BMCC hires director of marketing, communications
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The penalty for these viola-
tions totaled $100,000.
“Facilities that use hazard-
ous materials like anhy-
drous ammonia have an
obligation to follow regu-
lations designed to protect
our communities and envi-
ronment from potentially
catastrophic consequences
of accidents,” Ed Kowal-
ski, director of EPA region
enforcement and compliance
assurance Division, said in an
EPA press release on Monday
announcing the penalties.
“Failure to comply with the
law puts first responders and
members of the surrounding
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