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. Please contact the editor at
editor@hermistonherald.com or call (541) 564-4533.
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