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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 26, 2018)
A18 News Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, September 26, 2018 WALDEN Continued from Page A1 Eagle photos/Angel Carpenter Logan Randleas revels in red powder at Saturday’s Color Me Free Run with volunteers Andrea Comer and Jueun Park, right, manning a color station. COLOR Continued from Page A1 “It’s almost like a war — I didn’t know it would be this much fun,” Cates said, adding the participants also chase them with colored powders. Each participant is given a cinch sack with a white T-shirt, a water bottle and a powder pack inside. Whale-Murphy said the event is a fun, healthy activity for families. Proceeds benefit the following year’s Color Me Free event. Grant County residents will soon see Heart’s informa- tional boards set up on easels in places such as the library, a coffee shop and a bank with giveaways, including pens, magnets and brochures. Also held in October is a campaign with Grant County first-graders called “Hands and Words are not for Hurt- ing” in which a Heart staff member will share a short presentation and give certifi- cates to the students. August, holding rallies across the district. A news release claimed the campaign marked 500 days since Walden had last held a town hall meeting in his district. Walden acknowledges it’s been a while since he has held a more traditional town hall, but points to four “telephone town halls” open to the public that he has held so far this year. He said during his most recent one ear- lier this month, 16,458 people called in. He also said his office has responded to 128,500 constit- uent phone calls, emails and other communications this year and he has covered 8,791 miles in the district while hold- ing smaller forums and focus groups, which Walden said en- courage people to speak more freely about their personal ex- periences with sensitive topics like opioid addiction or human trafficking. “From Facebook to tele- phone to email, people have more access to their representa- tives than ever before,” he said. Previous town halls Morgan Dethman, left, and Sierra Cates plaster Levi Kalin and his 3-year-old daughter Ayla with red powder during Saturday’s Color Me Free Run in John Day, which is organized by Heart of Grant County. “Our aim is just to educate all the children in the coun- ty schools,” Whale-Murphy said. “There is a prevalence of domestic violence in our county, and we just want the community to be aware,” she said. She said those at Heart are available to help people expe- riencing any form of abuse, including domestic violence, sexual assaults, teen dating violence, stalking, verbal and financial abuse. Heart’s 24-hour hotline is 541-620-1342 for crisis calls, support and to visit with peo- ple who may have questions. The organization also has a small shelter. “If anyone has a friend or neighbor (they are concerned about), we would love for them to say to that person, ‘You can go to Heart for help,’” Whale-Murphy said. Heart’s business number is 541-575-4335, and the of- fice is located at 511 S. Can- yon Blvd. During his last tour of in-per- son town halls in spring 2017, media outlets reported Walden faced a hostile crowd in plac- es like his hometown of Hood River, where people booed and jeered as he answered pointed questions about Republican at- tempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. On Thursday, Walden said he values in-person town halls and has held many of them in his years representing District 2. But he said liberal activist groups had published play- books to “weaponize” town halls and it became hard to hold meetings when people were shouting him down. “People were bringing ques- tions downloaded from the in- ternet,” he said. “We would get EO Media Group/E.J. Harris Rep. Greg Walden answers questions from a group of Eastern Oregon county commissioners during an unpublicized meeting at the Umatilla County Courthouse on March 28 in Pendleton. the same questions every town hall.” Indivisible’s guide to town halls, available on its website, suggests people write 10-15 questions together ahead of time that are “sharp and fact- based.” Participants should ar- rive early, spread out and look “friendly or neutral” so staff are willing to call on them, the guide advises. If staff ask for the microphone back after they have asked a question they should “politely but loudly” in- sist they are not finished if they don’t feel satisfied with the ini- tial answer. “Sit by yourself or in groups of two, and spread out through- out the room,” the website says. “This will help reinforce the impression of broad consen- sus.” Bonnie New, organizer of the final stop of Indivisible’s “Where’s Walden?” caravan in Hood River, said Walden of- ten “rambles on and on” when asked a question without ever answering the question, so she did not believe it was heckling for the person asking the ques- tion to push for a clear answer if they hadn’t gotten one. She said people were “un- derstandably angry” over at- tempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act when Walden last held a town hall in his hometown of Hood River. “People did shout over him,” she said, “and I can un- derstand his view that that does not enable dialogue. But we had been trying to engage in di- alogue with him for a long time and he did not respond.” Citizen interaction 79742 Make a difference... October is Breast Cancer & Domestic Violence awareness month MCLEAN Color your ad with either pink or purple and the cost of that color will be donated to the appropriate cause! Continued from Page A1 www.MyEagleNews.com Call Kim Today 541-575-0710 kim@bmeagle.com 79388 Talk to Kim about pricing and Blue Mountain supporting a great cause! EAGLE Invite-only events like the small round-tables and Rotary Club meetings help keep events from being hijacked by a few vocal people, but they also restrict the number of constit- uents with which Walden has face-to-face interactions. Barbara Ann Wright-Dun- agan of Pendleton said she has become disenchanted with Walden after feeling that he has stopped caring about hear- ing from his constituents. She said she likes being able to talk to her elected officials at town halls and wishes Walden would start doing them again. “I want someone in that of- fice that cares,” she said. Wright-Dunagan said she has listened to Walden talk about things like health care and tariffs in the media and felt he wouldn’t support those things if he understood how they were affecting regular people — the type who don’t necessarily get invitations to private roundta- ble meetings. “Walden needs to talk to some of the rest of us that are in the trenches,” she said. New has the same view- point. “You can’t represent anyone if you don’t know what they have to say,” she said. “You can hold office, but you can’t repre- sent them.” Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley both have maps on their websites listing every town hall they have scheduled. Wyden’s list In the plea agreement, Mc- Lean admitted to forcibly touching a minor’s breast in February and to strangling another female victim in July. He also admitted to having three prior “assault/menacing type crimes” in his story. Both victims appeared in court, and a statement pre- pared by the adult victim goes back to his election in 1996, while Merkley’s website lists town halls through 2015. Merkley held town halls in each county in 2015, 2016 and 2017, according to the schedule on his website, and wrapped up his 2018 public tour of all the counties with a July 8 town hall in Boardman. Wyden pledged when elect- ed to hold a public town hall meeting in each county in Ore- gon at least once a year, and his website shows he has honored that schedule. Like Walden, he also faced anger on health care during past town halls — in his case when Tea Party activists in Republican-heavy counties were protesting the implemen- tation of “Obamacare” in 2009. Most of Oregon’s other representatives have held at least a few town hall meetings this year. Rep. Earl Blume- naur didn’t have any listed on his website for 2018, but Rep. Peter DeFazio’s website lists a schedule of 10 town hall meet- ings he held throughout his dis- trict in August. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici held six town halls in the spring and just announced a schedule of six more for the fall. Rep. Kurt Schrader lists five in-person town halls during 2018 and a telephone town hall in June. Recent meeting At Thursday’s Rotary Club meeting, Walden spoke to local business owners and civic lead- ers seated at a handful of tables. He gave a rundown on some of his recent work, particularly as chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has summoned the heads of Facebook and Twitter to testify and worked to protect the coun- try’s power grid from attack. Walden said he is work- ing on provisions in the farm bill that will help create better federal forest management to prevent wildfires, and is negoti- ating a major package of legis- lation to fight opioid addiction and overdoses. He said he sup- ported re-classifying marijuana so that scientists can legally conduct important research on its medicinal benefits. He tout- ed the strong economy, includ- ing a decades-low unemploy- ment rate and record highs in the stock market, and the ben- efits regular Americans will see from the tax cuts Republicans passed. When he opened the floor to questions, club members were polite but sometimes pointed with their questions. One per- son pointed out that the tax cuts Walden spoke of had raised the federal deficit — a deficit Walden had once told the group they should be worried about — and another said that sup- pliers for their business were having to raise prices because of tariffs implemented by the Trump administration. Walden addressed tariffs by saying that tariffs can be a use- ful “club” to fight back in trade wars but he has let the White House know he believes the tariffs shouldn’t go on for too long. “We’ve got trading issues here,” he said. “We need more and better agreements.” Walden is usually in Eastern Oregon during the second week of September for the Pendleton Round-Up, but this year missed the Round-Up and Westward Ho! parade. He said important votes had been scheduled for the same day as the parade, and by the time those votes were canceled for Hurricane Flor- ence he had already made com- mitments to a veterans group. He has agreed to a 30-minute debate with challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner moderated by NewsChannel 21 (KTVZ) of Bend on Oct. 5. Walden said he believes it will be an important opportunity to show constituents the views of both candidates, but McLeod-Skin- ner has criticized Walden for not agreeing to more debates in more public settings. detailing the emotional ef- fects of the crime was read in court. Grant County Deputy Dis- trict Attorney Mara Houck said the victims supported the plea deal. “We had a strong case against Mr. McLean,” she said in a statement. “But we felt that this plea deal result- ed in a satisfactory sentence without retraumatizing the victims by forcing them to testify at trial.”
