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MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
A7
Pendleton responds to crash reports
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Eastern Oregon Center for Independent Living/Contributed Photo
Issak Garcia, Eastern Oregon Center for Independent Living’s
HIV prevention specialist, stocks shelves with home test kits.
HIV testing ramps
up in E.Oregon
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
PENDLETON — A cam-
paign to raise awareness
about HIV testing is under-
way in Eastern Oregon.
Eastern Oregon Cen-
ter for Independent Living,
based in Ontario, has part-
nered with End HIV Oregon
for a new advertising cam-
paign between April and July
that will focus on Pendleton,
Hermiston,
La Grande,
Ontario and
their sur-
rounding
towns.
“We’ve
seen
an
uptick in
Toombs
H I V- p o s -
itive cases in rural Eastern
Oregon, and sexually trans-
mitted disease cases, and so
we thought it was just perfect
timing,” said Kirt Toombs,
CEO and founder of EOCIL.
“We’ve been working on this
campaign since 2012, and
we thought this was a good
time to raise awareness.”
According to the press
release, national physi-
cian groups recommend
that everyone be tested for
HIV at least once. But most
adult Oregonians have never
been tested for HIV. Peo-
ple in more rural parts of
the state are even less likely
than people living in urban
areas to be tested in a timely
manner.
Toombs said testing and
awareness are especially
important because of the
increase in positive cases in
Eastern Oregon.
“It’s almost quadrupled,”
he said. “Even though the
numbers are low, we’ve
gone from three cases to
almost, I believe, 12 cases.
And so that’s quite a bit,
and that’s defi nitely made
us take a look at what needs
to happen around raising
awareness and making tools
available.”
The campaign will uti-
lize radio ads, billboards
and newspaper ads to raise
awareness about testing.
Toombs said testing already
is available, but awareness
has been lacking.
“We have the tools avail-
able, but I think what was
missing is that we needed
to make people aware
that they’re available,”
he said.
One of the major points of
the campaign is to highlight
MORE
INFORMATION
For more information
about HIV testing, pre-
vention and treatment in
Oregon, visit endhivore-
gon.org.
that everyone has an HIV
status, whether they’ve been
tested or not.
“We all have an HIV sta-
tus, and we should all be
tested for HIV at least once,
if not more frequently,” said
Joseph Fiumara, director
for Umatilla County Pub-
lic Health, in a press release.
“I’m thrilled to see this cam-
paign launch here to continue
building healthier communi-
ties in our part of the state.”
EOCIL provides HIV
prevention and case man-
agement services in Baker,
Gilliam, Grant, Harney,
Umatilla, Union, Wallowa,
Wasco and Wheeler coun-
ties. Among those counties,
222 people are living with
HIV, according to the EOCIL
press release.
As well as raising aware-
ness with the intent of
improving the number of
tests administered in rural
Eastern Oregon, Toombs
said reducing stigma associ-
ated with the virus is para-
mount, and advances in med-
icine and technology have
made living with the virus
easier.
“It’s night and day from
30 years ago,” he said.
“We’re coming up on the
anniversary of the passing of
Ryan White (Comprehensive
AIDS Resources Emergency
Act), and so it makes us look
back at where we were 30
years ago, and where we are
now. Science is just amazing,
and (with) the medical care
that people are getting now
— we’re living longer and
healthier lives.”
Those medical advances
include PrEP, a prophylac-
tic drug that reduces HIV
transmission rates by 99%,
according to medical stud-
ies. Therapy drugs HIV-pos-
itive individuals use also
can completely eliminate
the transmission of HIV
if the virus is undetect-
able by tests, through a pro-
cess called Undetected =
Untransmittable.
“We shouldn’t have to
fear having an HIV test or
getting treatment,” Toombs
said, “or having access to
prevention tools that are
available to us.”
PENDLETON — Pendleton city offi -
cials 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 April
10, Bloomberg reviewed internal doc-
uments, read government reports and
spoke with 13 current and former employ-
ees associated with Amazon Prime Air, a
drone package delivery project that has
conducted tests in Pendleton, among sev-
eral other sites across the country. The
news agency’s reporting revealed safety
concerns and crashes hampered Amazon’s
testing program.
“While experimental aircraft are
expected to crash during test fl ights, cur-
rent and former employees say pres-
sure to get the program back on track has
prompted some managers to take unneces-
sary risks that have put personnel in harm’s
way,” reporters Spencer Soper and Matt
Day wrote.
Bloomberg reported Amazon drones
crashed fi ve times during a four-month
period in 2021 and obtained a 911 record
that details a fi re in a wheat fi eld that a
drone 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 Orego-
nian, City Manager Robb Corbett and Eco-
nomic Development Director Steve Chris-
man, 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 oper-
ations in its early years to a busy hub for
drone activity that frequently attracts the
world’s top tech and aviation companies.
Chrisman didn’t mention Amazon or other
companies by name, citing nondisclosure
agreements 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 employees that
had an ax to grind,” he said, referring to the
sources in the Bloomberg article. “As far
as reporting, I don’t know that we’ve ever
called (the East Oregonian) when a Cessna
wheel fell off or when a crosswind blew
over a plane. If you call us, we certainly
respond. But we’re not the National Trans-
portation Safety Board.”
Chrisman and Corbett said the test
range was committed to safety but would
not go out of its way to advertise crashes,
especially because they were happening in
sparsely populated areas and did not hurt
anyone. Corbett said some of these inci-
dents were like when “an ambulance backs
into a car in a parking lot,” a situation that
might generate a 911 call but not a public
record.
Range Manager Darryl Abling said the
UAS range makes a record of every test
operation and sends the data to offi cials
at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the
institution that oversees Oregon’s test range
system, who then forwards it to the Federal
Aviation Administration. A crash might trig-
ger an extra layer of reporting to the FAA
or NTSB depending on the severity of the
incident, but not every malfunction or emer-
gency landing needed to be cataloged.
Abling also said he didn’t know where
Bloomberg sourced its information, but its
reporting didn’t align with the range’s inter-
nal data.
The Pendleton Fire Department responds
to any fi res at the airport, but Fire Chief Jim
Critchley said he defers any details about
the cause of the fi res to range staff , com-
paring it to the way he would defer to St.
Anthony Hospital when the department’s
work intersects with the hospital’s.
Critchley said he continues to explore
ways to staff Pendleton Fire Station No.
3, the station at the Pendleton airport. In
the meantime, Critchley said the depart-
ment intends to relocate its interns to hous-
ing at the airport. The interns will serve as
reserves in their off time, allowing them
to potentially respond to fi res at the airport
during those periods.
Eastern Oregon Regional Airport Man-
ager John Honemann on April 13 reported
15 companies were using the UAS Range
that day, either as resident or itinerant cli-
ents. The range conducts 500 to 1,000 oper-
ations per month. Chrisman said the Pend-
leton range could be the busiest in the world
and the number of tests at the range looks to
triple this year.
BMCC plans deep cuts to faculty
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — After
warning about impending bud-
get cuts for months, the other
shoe has dropped at Blue
Mountain Community College.
At an April 25 budget com-
mittee meeting, BMCC admin-
istration will propose shuttering
three programs and eliminating
10 full-time faculty positions
in addition 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 drop-
ping instructors from its busi-
ness, English, humanities/
fi ne arts, math/computer sci-
ence, science and social science
departments.
In a Wednesday, April 13
interview, Blue Mountain Pres-
ident Browning said the bud-
get 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 Her-
nberg described the list of pro-
posed cuts as “extraordinary
and shocking” and raises ques-
tions about the college’s com-
mitment to the community.
“These cuts are shocking,”
he said. “They are arbitrary.
And they are unnecessary.”
Hernberg questioned why
BMCC administration wanted
to cut the college’s crimi-
nal justice program at a time
when law enforcement was try-
ing to recruit skilled person-
nel. He added that eliminating
the industrial systems technol-
ogy department represented a
“broken promise” to Board-
man, which would still have its
Workforce Training Center but
not one of the signature pro-
grams the center houses.
Browning was prepared
to defend his administration’s
choices.
He said a degree from the
college’s criminal justice pro-
gram isn’t a requirement to enter
the law enforcement fi eld, 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-de-
mand diesel tech program.
Browning turned his focus
to the English program, which
would lose one of its instructors
under the administration’s pro-
posal. 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 commu-
nity colleges across the state,
have seen signifi cant enroll-
ment declines in recent years,
and Blue Mountain staff are
starting to see the eff ects of that
trend.
Since 2019, the college has
reduced its workforce by 39
positions, albeit under diff erent
presidents. Those fi gures don’t
include additional staffi ng cuts
made when Blue Mountain was
forced to renegotiate its prison
education contract with the Ore-
gon Department of Corrections
during that time period.
This round of proposed cuts
diff ers from previous years
because it mostly focuses on
making cuts to faculty. With pre-
vious staff reductions focused
on administration or classifi ed
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 con-
tracts 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 prom-
ise that our taxpayers expect us
to keep. They don’t expect us
to hire some consulting fi rm.
They don’t expect us to send
a giant chunk of cash to some
tech company.”
Browning contested Her-
nberg’s interpretation of the
proposed budget, saying they
were one-time investments in
improving the college’s web-
site and conducting a review
of Blue Mountain’s programs,
moves that will better position
the college for the future.
At a time when BMCC is
facing increasing competition
from nearby community col-
leges in Washington and trade
schools, Browning said the
staffi ng cuts could actually help
with recruitment.
“We’re not actually off ering
fewer classes,” he said “We’re
having fewer people off er the
classes that we do currently
have, and we’ll be off ering
new and diff erent approaches
to some of the outcomes so that
(students are) better employable
upon completion. The asser-
tion that we’re off ering fewer
classes is simply not borne out
in the data.”
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Oregon Trail Electric Board, Position 8
STATEMENT TO VOTERS: The electric utility industry is seeing significant changes due to increased demand, new
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Weather renewables work only when the Sun is shining and the Wind is blowing.
• Effective
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Communities
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Landscapes
Currently OTEC purchases 100% of its electrical power from Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and some of the
lowest electrical rates in the country. But BPA is being challenged with increasing costs, reduced revenue, and threat
of the removal of the four lower Snake River dams. As the board member involved with the Wildfire Mitigation Plan, we
have aggressively pushed forward with the drafting and finalization of a Wildfire Plan.
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low.
Our CEO, Les Penning and staff with board support will not be raising your electrical rates for 2022.
It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to serve as your representative on the board of Directors. I have grained a signifi-
cant knowledge and experience about cooperatives during this time. I will continue to work hard at keeping electric
rates low while providing safe and reliable electricity to our members along with excellent customer service. I have
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I ask for YOUR VOTE and look forward to our future challenges.
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