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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 11, 2015)
MIND GAMES PREP HOOPS LOCAL STUDENTS FARE WELL AT CHESS TOURNEY BULLDOG GIRLS FACE HOOD RIVER ON HARDWOOD PAGE A3 SPORTS PAGE A6 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015 YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER HERMISTONHERALD.COM City, port Community remembers ‘father of Hermiston’ Local leader Joe Burns passed away Thursday agreement unveiled BY MAEGAN MURRAY HERMISTON HERALD Not many people can say they have met a United States president, let alone had a conversation with one. Longtime Hermiston leader Joseph “Joe” Burns, however, met and had con- Umatilla will buy disputed land on Bud Draper Road CONTRIBUTED PHOTO BY SEAN HART Joe Burns, right, shakes the hand of United States Pres- ident Ronald Reagan in this picture, which was signed by Reagan. HERMISTON HERALD After months of closed- door negotiations, an agree- ment to settle a zoning dispute between the Port of Umatilla and the city of Umatilla was unveiled Tuesday. At the Port Commission meeting, the commission- ers approved the agreement to sell the disputed land on the west side of Bud Draper Road, along with a 3.1 acre parcel at the northwest end of the road, to the city for a total of $176,000. Umatilla City Coun- cil members will consider the agreement at their next meeting Tuesday. Joseph Franell, who me- diated the agreement, said it allows the parties to move forward “with a revitalized spirit of cooperation.” “The zoning issue in question then becomes the sole responsibility of the city and is no longer a cause versations with several during his life. Burns passed away Thursday at the age of 90 in his home in Hermiston after serving the Hermiston com- munity in a variety of ca- pacities since he arrived in 1946. Burns, who also was a B-24 bomber pilot during World War II, had owned and operated Burns Mor- tuary in Condon, Oregon, with his brother, Charles, before coming to Hermis- ton. He moved to the region to take over Prann Mortu- ary in Hermiston, which he and his brother renamed Burns Mortuary. Since that time, Burns served as a part of many civic and service groups, as chairman for a number of boards, was a member of the Hermiston City Council and was one of a small col- lection of prominent com- munity members to start the Hermiston Development Corporation, for which he was president for 29 years. In his tenure with that orga- nization, the region added nearly 6,000 jobs. SEE BURNS/A10 BONDING OVER A MEAL SEE AGREEMENT/A10 TODAY’S WEATHER Partly cloudy High: 58º Low: 39º OUTLOOK • THURSDAY Mix of sun and clouds High: 59º Low: 38º • FRIDAY Times of sun and clouds High: 55º Low: 41º A complete weather forecast is featured on page A2. MAEGAN MURRAY PHOTO Hermiston High School students Morgan Cash, right, and Megan Stone prepare a salad for the FCCLA club’s lunch Monday that was geared toward encourag- ing students to eat a meal with their families. FCCLA students encouraging families to eat together Find the Hermiston Herald on Facebook and Twitter and join the conversation. FOR LOCAL BREAKING NEWS www.HermistonHerald.com BY MAEGAN MURRAY HERMISTON HERALD On two tables in the large Hermiston High School commons area Monday, a group of students neatly arranged a table cloth and place settings complete with red cloth napkins. Soon after the table was set, students set out freshly prepared food, in- cluding gourmet sandwiches, two different types of salad and freshly baked cookies. The lunch was not in cel- HEUDWLRQ RI D VSHFL¿F HYHQW at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, members of the Family, Career and Com- munity Leaders of America Club sat down to enjoy a meal together where no one took out their phones to text a friend or check their Twit- ter pages. Instead, they talked with one another and caught up on each other’s days while enjoying the home-cooked offerings. The purpose of the event, Becky Alanis, senior and FCCLA co-president, said, was for members of FCCLA to encourage other students and their families to enjoy a meal with one another with- out the distractions of their cell phones or any other tech- nology. She said the national FCCLA organization, for the ¿UVWWLPHWKLV\HDULVOHDGLQJD national project encouraging families to sit down and enjoy a meal with one another. “Lots of people nowa- days don’t sit down and have a meal together,” she said. “Today is a chance to give new members the chance to go home and sit down to- gether and have a balanced meal with their families. It is something we are trying to promote with our families.” Susie Cobb, career and technical skills teacher and FCCLA adviser, said sharing meals not only help fami- lies bond, it also encourages communication that doesn’t always occur nowadays. “Many times, when fami- lies sit down for a meal with- out the television or the inter- ruption or distraction of cell SKRQHV WKH\ WDON DQG ¿QG things out about each other,” she said. “Many parents may realize that they don’t know their kids as well as they thought they did.” Cobb said many parents may ask their children how their day went or what they learned in school that day, to which they might get one- or two-word responses. “This potentially opens the door to getting to know your children,” she said. According to the Family Dinner Project, an initiative to promote eating meals as a family, recent studies link regular family dinners with many positive behaviors, including lower rates of sub- stance abuse, teen pregnancy SEE FCCLA/A10 Council OKs charter ballot wording on the May 19 ballot to revise the city charter. 7KH ¿UVW ZRXOG FRQWDLQ XS- dates to the entire charter to make it more contemporary and legal- ly valid, while also changing the BY SEAN HART mayor’s term from two years to HERMISTON HERALD four and requiring the elected mu- Hermiston City Council mem- nicipal judge be a licensed attor- EHUV ¿QDOL]HG WKH EDOORW ODQJXDJH ney. The second would change the for the revised city charter but de- municipal judge from an elected FLGHGQRWWRPDNHD¿QDOGHFLVLRQ position to one appointed by the about animal control in the city. City Council but would only take At the council meeting Monday, HIIHFWLIWKH¿UVWDOVRSDVVHG members approved resolutions to Mayor Dave Drotzmann said place two measures before voters the council spent many hours Board also ponders animal control solutions Hermiston Herald $1.00 8 08805 93294 © 2014 EO Media Group 2 working to improve the document and encouraged community mem- bers to review it and vote in the upcoming election. While there was little discus- sion about the charter, the majority of the meeting concerned animal control within the city. In a response to complaints from several residents at a previ- ous meeting, City Manager By- ron Smith presented a report that concluded the Humane Society of Eastern Oregon Pet Rescue met all the requirements of its contract with the city. He said the contract to accept stray dogs from the city and to be on call for 40 hours per week to help apprehend animals for about $30,000 per year men- WLRQVQRVSHFL¿FVDERXWWKHHXWKD- nasia rate, which was the primary complaint, and the city could not require Pet Rescue to make any changes. Smith said he would encourage the shelter to utilize any available programs to transfer dogs else- where, such as the Oregon Humane Society Second Chance Program, SEE CHARTER/A10
