WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2016
Some Hermiston property tax bills lost in mail
Transit committee
finalizes bus route
recommendations
Resident input still
sought for a name
for new service
By JADE McDOWELL
Staff Writer
Plans for Hermiston’s
new bus system are ready for
primetime.
A proposal for the free
public transportation system,
including a route and budget,
will go before the Hermiston
City Council on Nov. 14 after
the city’s Transit Advisory
Committee finalized its rec-
ommendations last week. The
city will contract with Kay-
ak Public Transit, run by the
Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation,
to provide the service.
After placing maps of the
proposed route around Herm-
iston to gather feedback, the
committee spent two and a
half hours taking a final look
at each stop on the route and
making adjustments. One
of the first adjustments they
made was to remove the stop
at Southeast 10th Street and
Highland Avenue, which ad-
jacent property owners point-
ed out was on a narrow coun-
ty road surrounded mostly by
pasture.
“I don’t see anybody real-
ly using it,” neighbor Dennis
Barnett said.
J.D. Tovey, CTUIR plan-
ning director, said that the
stop was placed there to fill in
a long gap between two other
stops in an attempt to place
most Hermiston residents
within a quarter mile walk of
a bus stop. But he agreed that
the location was “probably
the least-performing” of the
proposed stops and the com-
mittee decided to remove it.
After some discussion,
the committee next moved
a stop from Southeast 10th
Street and Main Street over to
the intersection of Ridgeway
Avenue and Main Street, and
added a stop at Highland Park
to better serve the Highland
Summit area.
“It services a huge area
there and adds value to our
park,” city councilor Doug
Primmer said.
Many of the stops that
were moved were shifted
to an area that committee
members felt was safer and
less disruptive to traffic. The
Kayak bus will have flashing
lights that drivers are legally
required to stop behind, just
like a school bus. But Tov-
ey said Kayak drivers have
found on their intra-city route
that people frequently ignore
the lights.
Keeping that in mind, the
committee moved a stop next
to Hermiston High School at
Highland Avenue and First
Place into the parking lot at
Hodge Park. Mark Morgan,
assistant city manager, pointed
out that the change also meant
riders waiting at the stop could
use the garbage cans and re-
strooms at the park. For simi-
lar reasons, a stop at the corner
of Northwest Seventh Street
and Elm Avenue was moved
down Elm Avenue into the
parking lot next to the Herm-
iston Butte.
The group also decided to
combine two stops at South-
east Fourth Street and High-
land and Southeast Seventh
Street and Highland into one
at Southeast Fifth Street and
Highland because there was
a better place for the bus to
pull off. Other stops were
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LOCAL NEWS
Tax deadline won’t
change, even if
you don’t get
your statement
shifted just slightly from
where the city placed fake
“bus stops” earlier in the
week so as to avoid plac-
ing a bus stop at someone’s
front yard.
Tovey said the tribes
could make adjustments to
the stops on a quarterly ba-
sis as riders gave feedback.
The committee agreed that
stops along Northwest
11th Street, for example,
would probably be shift-
ed once traffic signals and
crosswalks were installed
at the street’s intersections
with Orchard Avenue and
Elm Avenue next summer
(the committee did add a
stop at 11th and Juanita).
They could also examine
ridership patterns, he said,
and note which stops the
driver rarely stopped at
because no one was there
waiting as they drove past.
After finalizing a route to
send to the City Council, the
committee also discussed
a budget for the system,
which starting Jan. 2 will
run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Monday through Friday.
Morgan said it was
hard to predict ridership
for both the bus system
and the city’s current taxi
ticket program for senior
and disabled riders. But
projections he shared for
the 2017-2018 fiscal year
predicted 12,000 riders per
year for the bus and 12,000
riders per year on the taxi
program. Under those cir-
cumstances the transporta-
tion program could expect
to bring in $189,000 in
revenue from taxi tickets
and state and county grants
for the bus system.
The taxi program
would cost $79,200 and
the bus system would
cost $250,000 for a total
of $329,200. That would
mean the city would need
to budget about $140,000
per year from the general
fund for transportation.
“We’ve been shooting
for $150,000 for a sub-
sidy,” Morgan said. “If
these numbers hold out,
we would have almost
$10,000 extra.”
The advisory commit-
tee also discussed names
for the bus system, noting
that only 47 people had
voted on the online survey
so far. They agreed that the
City Council could hold
off on a name until its Nov.
28 meeting.
———
Contact Jade McDow-
ell at 541-564-4536.
By PHIL WRIGHT
Staff Writer
Certain Hermiston prop-
erty owners have yet to re-
ceive their Umatilla County
tax bills.
Assessor Paul Chalmers
said his office in Pendle-
ton mailed the statements
Oct. 28, and since then at
least 50 people called to
complain they did not get a
statement.
“Once we get them to
the post office, they’re out
of our hands,” he said.
The problem seems to
be exclusive to Hermiston
property owners receiving
five or more statements at
the same address, Chalm-
ers said, and he told the
postmasters in Pendleton,
Hermiston and Portland
about the situation. He said
he has yet to hear what the
solution might be.
Chalmers said he print-
ed a new batch of the state-
ments with labels noting
they are copies and is con-
sidering delivering those to
the Stafford Hansell Gov-
ernment Center, Hermis-
ton.
“I’m trying to figure
out the best way to make
this accessible to folks in
Hermiston,” he said. “I
don’t want to mail them
again because I don’t
need it to happen a second
time.”
Even if the statements
are in some kind of mail
limbo, Oregon law makes it
clear the onus is on proper-
ty owners to pay their taxes.
People who pay their prop-
erty taxes in full by Nov.
15 receive a 3 percent dis-
count.
Chalmers said his office
would work with people in
this bind.
Third graders test earthquake-proofing methods
By JADE McDOWELL
Staff Writer
For third-graders at
Rocky Heights Elementary
on Thursday, the time had
come for an earthquake.
A row of “earth-
quake-proof”
structures
made of plastic straws and
tape stood along one wall of
Ipolito Maloy’s classroom,
crafted by teams of students
after studying plate tectonics
and engineering. They were
ready for testing on a low-
tech earthquake simulator
made out of wood.
“We’re going to add
weight until the structure
crushes, so everyone’s struc-
ture is going down today,”
Maloy said.
Earlier in the week John
Eckhardt, who works for a
local general contractor, had
volunteered his time to share
tips with the students about
constructing a structural-
ly sound building. The first
group predicted that their
structure would hold six
pounds because “we did re-
ally well and listened to Mr.
Eckhardt.”
Students clapped and
squealed as each one-pound
bag of pebbles was added
and the earthquake machine
was given another shake. Fi-
nally, after the seventh bag
was added, the straws bent
under the pressure and the
entire structure collapsed.
As each team brought
their contraption up to be
tested, Glyn Lystrup and
Colby Lerten said the earth-
quake unit had been a fun
one.
“We learned a lot about
earthquakes,” Glyn said be-
fore launching into a detailed
explanation about the differ-
ence between earthquakes
on divergent boundaries,
convergent boundaries and
transform faults.
Colby said they “both
had to give up something”
in their designs after they
couldn’t agree on a lot of
parts. Where they couldn’t
compromise they used rock,
paper, scissors to decide.
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Ipolito Maloy’s third-grade class reacts as a structure made of straws and tape collapses during
an earthquake experiment on Thursday at Rocky Heights Elementary School in Hermiston.
Glyn, who said he wants
to be an electrical engineer
when he grows up, said the
most important thing was
following the guest speaker’s
advice to add diagonal cross
beams instead of just putting
all of the straws in the same
direction.
“My brother wants to be
in construction, so I’m prob-
ably going to tell him about
this so he builds it right,”
Glyn said.
Over at the earthquake
simulators, some students
were having more luck than
others. One group looked
disappointed after their
structure fell down as soon
as a second pound of weight
was added.
“It’s all right, we learned;
right, boys and girls?” Maloy
said.
Lucy Teegarden and Fer-
nanda Nava ended up with
the sturdiest structure, which
survived an earthquake with
eight pounds on it before the
plastic straws folded. They
said the secret was lots of tape
and lots of diagonal straws.
“On the top we put a
cross, and on the side a V,”
Fernanda said.
Hands-on projects like the
earthquake structures were
why she “always wants to do
science,” she said.
Maloy said the project was
part of the state’s next-gener-
ation science standards. Pre-
viously the students tracked
weather around the United
States with an app on their
classroom set of iPads; next
they will study tornadoes.
Students were encour-
aged to approach the earth-
quake project using the sci-
entific method. They filled
out worksheets predicting
what would happen and why,
documented their methods,
filmed the test for further re-
view and wrote about what
went wrong that they could
fix if they tried again.
“There has been a lot of
support from the principal
this year in pushing science,”
Maloy said. “It’s been fun.
I remember the science les-
sons as a kid. These are the
ones that stick with you.”
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at 541-564-4536.
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