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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 2015)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2015 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3 LOCAL NEWS City seeks applicants for two committees Three positions are open on the city of Hermiston Budget Committee. Budget Committee terms are three years long. The committee meets in the spring to go over the bud- get prepared by city staff before it comes to the City Council for approval. Council. Preference will be given to city residents. The deadline for submit- ting applications for both committees is Monday, Nov. 30. Applications can be picked up and dropped off at City Hall, 180 N.E. Second St., Hermiston. The city is also looking for applicants for an open position on the Recreation Projects Fund Advisory Committee. The com- mittee evaluates applica- tions for transient room tax funds for recreation projects and makes rec- ommendations to the City Homecare recruitment events next week Recruitment events for homecare and personal sup- port workers will be held in Hermiston and Pendleton next week. The events, sponsored by the Oregon Home Care Commission, will guide po- tential workers through the application and enrollment process for the Oregon Home Care Commission’s registry that lists “help wanted” ads for homecare or personal support work- ers and provides referrals to problem-solving skills, re- spect for others, an ability to follow directions, a pas- sion for helping people and the ability to pass a back- ground check. The two Hermiston events will be 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday at the Best West- ern, 2255 S. Highway 395. Pendleton’s two events will be 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday at the Pendleton Center for the Arts, 214 N. Main St. families looking for help. Homecare workers provide in-home support for seniors and adults with physical disabilities, while personal support workers provide services in and out of the home for children and adults with intellectual and develop- mental disabilities and mental illnesses. The commission is look- ing for workers with good communication skills, at- tention to detail, Àexibility, IN BREIF Library offers Saturday crafts Children in ¿fth grade and younger are invited to participate in the Saturday Craft Time at the Hermis- ton Public Library. Through the winter months, youths can stop by the library each Saturday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and work on a craft project, which they can take home afterwards. The library is lo- cated at 235 E. Gladys Ave. There is no charge for partic- ipation in the craft activities. For more information, call 541-567-2882 or visit www.hermistonlibrary.us. IMAC sets annual meeting, dinner fundraiser The annual meeting of the Irrigon Multicultural Art Center will include a the Riverside High School, 210 N.E. Boardman Ave., Boardman. There is no charge, but donations are accepted at the door. Also, a reception will follow the performance. The program includes “Larghetto from Sympho- ny No, 2, Op. 36” by L. Van Beethoven, “The Halls of Ivy” arranged by Ralph Matesky, “French Masters Suite” arranged by Philip Gordon and “Hot Staccato” by Roger Britten. The Willow Creek Sym- phony is the preparato- ry orchestra of the Inland Northwest Musicians. Its members include youths and adults. For more information about Inland Northwest Musicians, including how to join an ensemble, con- tact 541-289-4696, inwm@ machmedia.net or visit www.inlandnorthwestmu- sicians.com. spaghetti dinner. Open to the public, the event is Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at the Skinny Bull Mu- seum, located behind the Irrigon branch of the Bank of Eastern Oregon, 230 S. First St. The meal costs $6 per person. The group hopes to pre- serve the old Irrigon High School building and create a regional art venue. For more information, call Donna at 541-922-3197 or Peggy at 541-567-3806. Symphony announces free performance A concert by the Willow Creek Symphony is being presented this weekend in Boardman. Under the direction of conductor R. Lee Friese and associate conductor Ralph Werner, the symphony will perform Sunday at 4 p.m. at EO FILE PHOTO The Umatilla Old Town site was closed to the public since the 1960s and only recently reopened for tours. City of Umatilla signs agreements with Army Corps of Engineers City takes steps to add a second soccer field on Third Street tion process, but the city volunteered to take the lead on vegetation man- agement for the ne[t ¿ve years because the Corps is “bureaucracy heavy and revenue light.” “One of the prima- ry concerns for both the tribes and the city is in- vasive species, and that has been a concern of the Corps of Engineers too,” Ward said. The land was the site of the original city of Uma- tilla before predictions of Àooding from construc- tion of the John Day Dam forced the city to move. Before that it was a prehis- toric settlement and later an Indian village and buri- al site. Ward said the burial site will be the city and tribes’ primary focus to start. Other areas of the old town site/Umatilla village will be more complicated because “the wildlife habi- tat down there people have come to enjoy is primarily invasive species.” By JADE McDOWELL Staff Writer The city of Umatilla has taken another step to- ward its goal of opening the Old Town Site to the public, authorizing the mayor to sign an agree- ment for non-native plant removal there. The agreement is with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the land, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla In- dian Reservation, which has an interest in the burial site and former Umatilla village site. City Manager Bob Ward told the council last week that normally it would be the Army Corps of Engineers’ responsibil- ity to handle the eradica- Ward said it will take six months to a year for the vegetation management permit to be approved. The council also autho- rized the mayor to sign a second agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers, in this case a renewal of a ¿ve-year lease of the Third Street soccer ¿eld proper- ty. The city is looking to add a second soccer ¿eld there and wanted to up- grade to a longer lease before going ahead with improvements. However, Ward told the council after meeting with the Corps he felt it was better to stick with the ¿ve-year lease be- cause a longer time frame would open the property to a right of ¿rst refusal from another government agency. He said adding a sec- ond soccer ¿eld would also require additional parking, restrooms and an extension of the irri- gation system already in place. ¿Habla español? City manager proposes raise for bilingual staff By JADE McDOWELL Staff Writer City Manager Byron Smith would like to see bilin- gual city staff get a two per- cent pay raise. The move would mirror a change implemented in 2014 that gave city police of¿cers who speak Spanish a two percent raise in recognition of the extra work often required of them when another of¿cer needs a translator. Smith suggested the in- centive be extended to all staff during a Monday work session with the City Council to introduce proposed amend- ments to the city’s employee handbook. Staff currently considered bilingual would be grandfa- thered in, he said, while new hires or those learning Span- ish would have to take an aptitude test. The incentive would apply to any non-En- glish language spoken by at least 10 percent of the city’s population. Other suggested policies mostly revolved around ben- e¿ts, including a proposal to cut the amount of compen- sation time a staffer can ac- cumulate from 240 hours to 120. “We’ve been having some challenges from a budget standpoint to plan for when that is going to be cashed out,” Smith said. He said he was also con- cerned about the amount of vacation time the city gives. Currently staff can earn up to ¿ve and a half weeks a year, but Smith suggested putting a cap of four weeks on future employees. Councilors pushed back on the idea, saying that time away from the job was im- portant for wellness. Doug Smith, who worked for the city as a police of¿cer in the past, said that vacation time helped him continue to work for Hermiston and he suspect- ed it helped keep other people working for the city too. “I was getting that ¿ve and a half weeks a year and that was huge for me,” he said. Byron Smith said the ¿ve and a half weeks for longtime employ- ees, when combined with paid holidays and sick leave, meant some employees were taking Byron two months out of the Smith year off and it some- times made it dif¿cult to get things done. Some councilors also disagreed with Smith’s sug- gestion to cap sick leave — which is accumulated at a rate of 10 hours per month — at 2,080 hours. “If something really bad happens I think a year off is suf¿cient,” Smith said. He agreed to re- search what compara- ble cities were offering for paid vacation and sick leave and come back to the council with his ¿ndings. Other proposed changes to the employ- ee handbook included revising de¿nitions of a part-time and full- time employee to match the Affordable Care Act and set- ting a policy that all city em- ployees will be paid on the ¿fth and 20th of each month, regardless of whether they use direct deposit. Corrections It is the policy of the Hermiston Herald to correct errors as soon as they are discovered. Incorrect information will be corrected on Page 2A. Errors commited on the Opinion page will be corrected on that page. Corrections also are noted in the online versions of our stories. 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