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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
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center at a meeting Tues-
day.
The
recommendation
will be given to the Herm-
iston City Council, which
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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
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good decisions when it comes to
force. With thorough background
checks on new hires, mandatory
BY SEAN HART
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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-
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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
