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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 2019)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019 BAKER CITY HERALD — 5A Damage too extensive to find cause of Pendleton fire By Phil Wright East Oregonian PENDLETON — Inves- tigators are not able to pin down just what started the blaze Sept. 29 that destroyed a downtown Pendleton build- ing. Pendleton assistant fi re chief Shawn Penninger said the damage is too extensive to reach a defi nitive conclu- sion. “The best I can tell you is it looks to be accidental and possibly electrical in nature,” he said, and the offi cial ruling is “undetermined.” The fi re burned down al- most everything at 342 S.W. First St., home to the second- hand business We Sell Stuff. Penninger explained the lack of physical evidence after a fi re means investigators turn to witnesses, particularly from the fi rst crew at the scene. And in this case, from Penninger, who was there four hours or more. Fire behaves in certain ways, he said. Finding sev- eral ignition points of a fi re, for example, would raise red fl ags. But he said nothing about the fi re at We Sell Stuff appeared suspicious. In a news release Mon- day afternoon, Penninger reiterated the undetermined fi nding. He reported investi- gators from insurance com- panies will assist with heavy equipment and additional resources at the scene in the coming weeks. He also stated the inves- tigation is open and the fi re department will report new developments. Penninger said any controversy about who may have lived in the second story apartment above the store is irrelevant to the investigation. The building S TATE B RIEFING Resigning public records advocate says fees for providing records are too high SALEM (AP) — Oregon’s public records advocate says fees charged by the state and local governments for public records requests are high and wildly uneven, creating a barrier for jour- nalists and citizens seeking documents. Ginger McCall, who leaves her job to- day, said in a fi nal report Wednesday that fees, sometimes reaching $180 per hour, McCall are onerous compared to what the federal government and other states charge. She recommended a less discretionary fee struc- ture and low rates. She called for the Legislature and others to commit more resources to public records processing. McCall announced her resignation in September, saying Gov. Kate Brown’s offi ce wanted her to secretly work for the governor while giving the impression she was working in the public interest. Brown said she regrets the controversy and is committed to improving transparency. Mercy Corps accused of mishandling sexual abuse allegations Andrew Cutler/East Oregonian A fi refi ghter sprays water down onto a burning building on Sept. 29 in downtown Pendleton. The fi re burned down almost everything at 342 S.W. First St., home to the second-hand business We Sell Stuff. was old and sometime ago grandfathered into the code, Penninger said, so there was nothing illegal about people staying there. Laura Thornton said she lived in the apartment as the store’s manager for the last three years and lost everything she owned in the fi re. We Sell Stuff owner Greg Dixson maintained Thornton kept watch on the place at night, but she laundered her clothes and bathed at his home. “No, I wouldn’t say she was living there,” he said, but he is aware she is upset with him. He said he heard about that because she and her signifi cant other live at his home now for free. Dixson said he is sure the fi re started with a faulty electrical outlet, one he had problems with in the past. “I thought I had fi xed it,” he said. “Apparently not.” His main concern remains how to restart his business. He said he has two trucks with perhaps $4,000-$5,000 worth of goods, but he needs a place to sell them. Building owner Henry Lorenzen said he has yet to decide what to do. He said he has secured the build- ing, per city law, which also gives him 60 days to provide the city manager a letter on whether he will demolish the building or rebuild. Before he can decide, Lorenzen said, he needs to hear from insur- ance inspectors and the like. The building lies within Pendleton’s urban renewal district, which under city code means he has six months from the date of the fi re to start demolition, repairs or replacement and 12 months in all to fi nish. However, the code also al- lows building owners and managers to seek extensions from the city manager. PORTLAND (AP) — A long-serving board member of Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian aid group, has resigned following reports that the agency mishandled sexual abuse allegations against one of its founders. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that Robert Newell resigned from the board after Mercy Corps was told the newspaper found that agency executives knew co-founder Ellsworth Culver had been accused of sexual abuse in the early 1990s. Culver died in 2005. In a statement Tuesday Newell, who helped conduct the initial review into Culver, said the board of the Portland, Oregon-based Mercy Corps took the allega- tions “very seriously,” and called the investigation challenging. Mercy Corps this week removed tributes to Culver from its website and took down photos of him from its headquarters. Mercy Corps CEO said in a statement that it would conduct an independent review of how the agency responded to the allegations. Protesters who claim they were assaulted by Portland police fi le suit PORTLAND (AP) — Three protesters who said they were assaulted by Portland police during a 2018 dem- onstration against Patriot Prayer have fi led a federal civil rights suit against the city and police. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the suit was fi led in the U.S. District Court in Portland Monday. Aaron Cantu says he suffered a traumatic brain injury from a fl ash-bang grenade that struck him in the head. James Mattox says police hit him with rubber projectiles. Tracy Molina says an offi cer grabbed her protest sign from behind then knocked her to the ground. Oregon could get 6th House seat in 2020 Census fund health care, education and other public institutions in the state. In 2016, Oregon received $13.5 billion in federal funding, which ac- counts for about $3,200 per resident, according to national data. “Everybody who is not counted in the census is missing out on thousands of dollars from the fed- eral government,” Rynerson said. Census fi gures are used to determine the number of repre- sentatives each state has in the U.S. House. Population projections show that Oregon could get a sixth seat in the U.S. House after the 2020 census, Rynerson said. Census offi cials are reminding people that a citizenship question will not be on the 2020 census, despite an effort earlier this year from the Trump administration to add the question. The proposal to add the citizenship question has been blocked by federal judges. Citizenship questions are on By Kyle Spurr The (Bend) Bulletin Oregon residents will start to receive letters in March asking for general information about them- selves for the 2020 census, the offi cial count of U.S. residents every 10 years. Until then, U.S. Census Bureau offi cials and staff at the Portland State University Population Research Center are working to educate the public about the census. The agencies hosted conferences last week in Salem, Redmond and Portland. Charles Rynerson, the state data center coordinator at the Population Research Center, gave a presenta- tion at the Redmond conference this week about the importance of participating in the census and chal- lenges the Census Bureau faces. Accurate census data is an im- portant measure for federal funding in Oregon, Rynerson said. It helps other surveys from the Census Bu- reau and partisan organizations. Offi cials are concerned the confusion will keep people from answering the 2020 census, especially residents who live with immigrants, Rynerson said. One in nine Oregonians, or about 456,000 people, lives with at least one noncitizen, according to the Census Bureau. While citizenship is not part of the 2020 census, some questions have been updated since the last census in 2010. People will be able to list the origins of their race. For example, someone who is white, can also add that they are Irish. Another change allows people to list a same-sex or opposite-sex partner rather than listing hus- band or wife. Nick Brown, Oregon partner- ship specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau, attended the Redmond conference and described his work connecting with Central Oregon organizations to promote partici- pation in the 2020 census. If a person does not respond to the census questionnaire through the mail, by phone or online, a Census Bureau worker will come to the home, Brown said. “The best way for someone to not have someone from the Census Bureau come to their door is to answer every question on the census,” he said. Census Bureau workers are bound by a federal law to protect people’s privacy and only use the information for creat- ing statistics. If a worker violates that law, they could face up to fi ve years in prison and a fi ne of $250,000. “It’s something we take very seriously in the Census Bureau. We are not giving away people’s information.” Michael Hawes, senior adviser for data access and privacy at the U.S. Census Bureau, spoke at the Redmond conference about privacy measures. Hawes described how the agency works to balance pri- vacy with accurate statistics. More privacy protection can lead to less accurate statistics, and vice versa, he said. “We know that privacy is becom- ing an increased concern for the American public,” Hawes said. “We have a major challenge to keep the public’s trust and reassure our re- spondents that we can adequately protect their information when they entrust it to us.” The 2020 census will offi cially be conducted April 1, but U.S. resi- dents will start to receive letters in the mail in March asking them to report online. Nonresponse follow- up visits from Census Bureau staff will be done in May. The fi nal census tally will be complete by July. Imagine The Difference You Can Make DONATE YOUR CAR Physicians Mutual Insurance Company 1-844-533-9173 Call for your FREE Information Kit! Get help paying dental bills and keep more money in your pocket. 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