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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2015)
NEW BUSINESS PREP BASEBALL INDULGE OPENS ON MAIN STREET HERMISTON OPENS SEASON WITH 9-4 LOSS PAGE A4 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 2015 SPORTS PAGE A7 YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER HERMISTONHERALD.COM New senior BMCC/HAREC partnership on tap if bond passes ag facility About PRECISION IRRIGATED AGRICULTURE? center site Precision could be built at extension center selected BY SEAN HART BY MAEGAN MURRAY The Hermiston Senior Center is one step closer to having a new home after the site selection committee determined its preference for a new location. Seven members of the 10-person group, com- prised of senior center board members and oth- ers with ties to the center, ranked the 3.32-acre “As- pen Site” behind Wal-Mart, east of Northeast Fourth Street and south of North- east Aspen Drive, as the ¿UVWSUHIHUHQFHIRUWKHQHZ center at a meeting Tues- day. The recommendation will be given to the Herm- iston City Council, which ZLOO PDNH WKH ¿QDO GHWHU- mination on the location of the new facility to be built with a $2 million Commu- nity Development Block Grant the city received to build the center, Parks and Recreation Director Larry Fetter said. He said the city hopes to have the new facility completed by December of 2016, when the Herm- iston School District takes The Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center could become the new site for a precision irrigated agriculture facility in the near future, but only if voters agree to support a new bond measure being pro- posed by Blue Mountain Com- munity College. Blue Mountain Communi- ty College is pursuing another bond measure on May 19’s bal- HERMISTON HERALD HERMISTON HERALD Phil Hamm, station director at the Hermiston Agriculture Research and Exten- sion Center, said precision irrigated agriculture is having the ability to control and moderate all aspects of the irrigation process, from the water output, to the amount of chemicals that are distributed, to the speed of pivots. He said, with precision irrigated agriculture, farmers can control exactly how much water or chemicals are distributed, where and the rate, which leads to greater efficiency and fewer dollars lost. lot, but unlike the former bond measure, this one is less expen- sive and will offer more for tax- payers’ money. The bond being pursued in May will be for $23 million, or 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value for 15 years. It is not a continuation of the com- munity college’s former bond, which voters failed to approve in November 2013. The new bond is for about $5 million less than what BMCC was asking for last time. One of the top projects on the bond is a proposed precision ir- rigated agriculture facility that will also create a partnership be- tween BMCC and Oregon State University’s HAREC. Should the bond pass in May, HAREC administrators have agreed to provide the land to BMCC for the facility at little cost in ex- change for use of the building. “With the last bond, we were looking at having to find prop- erty for the facility,” Casey White-Zollman, BMCC vice president of public relations, said. “This time, however, we have a great partnership with OSU extension service. They have agreed for us to put the center on that property for a $1 a year lease.” White-Zollman said having the center on that property will allow students and program par- SEE BOND/A9 HANDS-ON TRAINING SEE CENTER/A6 TODAY’S WEATHER Sunny High: 66º Low: 37º OUTLOOK MAEGAN MURRAY PHOTO • THURSDAY Mostly sunny High: 71º Low: 42º • FRIDAY Mostly sunny High: 71º Low: 47º Hermiston High School sophomore Wyatt Paschal cares for a plant in the greenhouse of the school Tuesday morning. Paschal is one of several students in a landscaping class that are doing the landscaping for the &olumbia %asin Student Homebuilder program·s Àrst studentbuilt home. Landscaping students get practical experience through homebuilding program A complete weather forecast is featured on page A2. Find the Hermiston Herald on Facebook and Twitter and join the conversation. BY MAEGAN MURRAY HERMISTON HERALD FOR LOCAL BREAKING NEWS Hermiston High School junior Emily Vandehey may not want to go into a landscaping career after she graduates from high school, but she said the skills she’s learn- ing from hands-on experience while participating in the Colum- bia Basin Student Homebuilder www.HermistonHerald.com program will last her a lifetime. In her advanced landscaping class, Vandehey and several other students are working in partner- ship with the homebuilding pro- gram, and with mentor and profes- sional landscaper Doug Bennett, of Doug Bennett Landscaping, to design and then construct a land- scaping plan for the student-built home. Vandehey said, through the class, agriculture teacher Alyssa Davies has taught students how to identify plants appropriate for types of soil and climate condi- tions and how to draw landscaping plans to scale. Now, the students are working with Bennett to put all of their skills to practice as they Hermiston police chief discusses use of force At Monday’s HAC meeting, Edmiston explained that HPD is SURDFWLYHLQKHOSLQJRI¿FHUVPDNH good decisions when it comes to force. With thorough background checks on new hires, mandatory BY SEAN HART UHYLHZVRILQFLGHQWVZKHQRI¿FHUV HERMISTON HERALD use force and a focus on training The Hermiston Police Depart- and wellness, he said HPD hopes ment uses a variety of techniques to have “smarter, healthier em- to ensure accountability and pre- ployees” who make sound deci- YHQW SRRU GHFLVLRQV E\ RI¿FHUV sions. when they have to use force when Last year, Edmiston said, mem- dealing with suspects. bers of the department trained for After Pasco, Washington, po- about 5,900 hours, 800 of which OLFHRI¿FHUVVKRWDQGNLOOHGDQXQ- addressed use of force. He said armed Hispanic male in February, RI¿FHUVXVHIRUFHGXULQJOHVVWKDQ Hermiston’s Hispanic Advisory 1 percent of arrests — about 12 Committee invited HPD Chief out of an average 1,500 each year Jason Edmiston to discuss the de- SEE FORCE/A12 partment’s use-of-force policies. Proactive steps intended to prevent poor decisions Hermiston Herald $1.00 © 2015 EO Media Group “Twenty years later, when we drive past the house, we can say, ‘Hey, I put that there.’” — Emily Vandehey Landscaping student plan for and then prepare to land- scape the home. Vandehey said the class has been especially useful for her be- cause she plans to use what she has learned not only in her everyday life, but also in her future career as an agriculture teacher. “It will help widen my under- standing of (agriculture) opportu- nities in the region,” she said. Bennett comes to the class ev- ery Wednesday to work with stu- dents for two hours at the home- building program site. Bennett said he and the students started by coming up with ideas of what they would like to see the landscaping plan include. He then helped nar- row down their plant selections to SEE LANDSCAPING/A6 Hermiston Warming Station to go cool for summer BY MAEGAN MURRAY HERMISTON HERALD For years, members of the homeless community have had a place to get warm at night when temperatures fell below 32 de- grees Fahrenheit, but they have never had a place to go when it gets too hot during the summer — until now. Beginning this summer, the Hermiston Warming Station orga- nizers will have a cooling station at the building they rented at 224 E. Main St. in Hermiston. “People have been asking us about it for a long time,” warming station board Chairperson Carol Jeffery-Hoague said this week. “There really seems to be a need for it. I’ve also been on different committees who said it would be a good thing to have during the summer time.” Jeffery-Hoague said, because the building is rented for the en- tire year, courtesy of CAPECO, organizers wanted to do some- thing with the space during the summer, when few options are available for people to get out of the heat. “We want to make sure people have a place to get enough hydra- tion and have a place to cool off,” she said. “We’ll also have a vol- XQWHHUWKHUHWRKHOSSHRSOH¿OORXW the paper work.” She said the station will be pri- marily for homeless residents, but others can use it if they have no SEE COOLING/A12