WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2016
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
LOCAL NEWS
Columbia Court Club rebuild bogged down
By JADE McDOWELL
Staff Writer
Six months after a fi re at
the Columbia Court Club
the owners are still caught
in a long, slow disagree-
ment between their insur-
ance company and the state
building codes division.
Steve Watkinds said he
understands the communi-
ty’s disappointment in losing
its only indoor swimming
pool and track for so long,
and he would love nothing
better than to re-open.
“Nobody’s more frus-
trated than us,” he said.
Not only is the damage
to the Hermiston club exten-
sive, but the Watkinds can’t
repair or rebuild until Ha-
nover Insurance settles their
claim. The problem is that
the state says it won’t is-
sue building permits unless
everything is brought up to
current codes, including ex-
pensive updates such as el-
evators and installation of a
fi re suppression system. The
insurance company doesn’t
want to pay for that.
“The insurance company
wants to rebuild exactly as
it was at the moment before
the fi re, but the state says no,”
Watkinds said. “We can’t re-
wire with 1970s-era wiring; it
needs to be ADA accessible.”
The process of negoti-
ating over every piece of
what needs to be rebuilt has
been extremely slow, Wat-
kinds said. Adding things
like elevators and handi-
capped-accessible showers
will take up extra space
the club doesn’t have, so
they would rather rebuild
completely. But the insur-
ance company has yet to
give them a fi nal answer
on whether it will pay for a
complete rebuild instead of
tearing everything down to
the studs then remodeling.
From the outside, the
building looks usable, but
inside the upper fl oor where
the fi re started is charred.
Light shines through small
holes dotting the roof and
puddles of melted snow
collect underneath. Steel
beams around the point of
origin are warped.
Down below, the former
locker rooms have been
stripped down to the wood-
en studs and the pool has
been drained. The pool’s
pump equipment and the
vast majority of the club’s
workout machines are no
longer functional after
the corrosive infl uence of
smoke, soot and fi re sup-
pression chemicals. The
free weights have already
rusted for the same reason.
“All this machinery is
now ruined,” Watkinds
said. “It’s not salvageable.”
In areas not damaged
directly by fi re or water,
black marks fan out from
electrical sockets and oth-
er breaches in the drywall,
showing where the smoke
that billowed through the
walls tried to escape. The
popcorn ceiling texture,
which had previously been
painted over to seal in the
asbestos, had to be scraped
clean at a cost of $67,000.
In the farthest reaches
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE McDOWELL
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE McDOWELL
One wall is charred and the others have been stripped away
in the area where a fi re started in the Columbia Court Club on
June 20.
of the club, sections of dry-
wall have been torn out of
the racquetball courts in a
“selective demo” by the in-
surance company looking
for damage. The hardwood
fl oor in the courts and the
gym have gaps between the
fl oor and wall where the
fl oor contracted as a result
of months without heat.
The fi re started upstairs
on June 20, in a storage area
adjacent to the childcare
area and a mirrored fi tness
classroom. It was ruled ac-
cidental, caused by an elec-
trical short in a power strip.
Watkinds and offi ce
manager Mary Marsing said
they are extremely grateful
it happened in the afternoon,
after the senior citizens and
children who were there in
the morning had already left
and before the after-work
rush. At the time, they esti-
mated about six gym mem-
bers were present.
Watkinds said he was
working on repairing a
drinking fountain when the
music went out, then the
lights. Loud bangs (likely
exploding cans of tread-
mill lubricant stored near
the point of origin) sound-
ed from upstairs, causing
Marsing to start shouting
for Watkinds, asking if he
was alright. As smoke fi lled
the club they realized there
must be a fi re and started
ushering everyone out.
Watkinds returned in-
side twice before the fi re
department arrived; once to
retrieve a woman who was
still showering in the dark
and smoke (“She must have
been in shock”) and once
to fi nd a man’s keys so he
could move his truck from
in front of the entrance.
The former locker rooms at
the Columbia Court Club
have been stripped down
to just the wooden beams
as the club’s insurance
company decides what it is
willing to pay to rebuild.
“I was coughing when I
came out,” he said.
Marsing said court club
members do not need to
worry that their year-long
contracts, which will au-
tomatically renew. No one
has been charged for mem-
bership fees since the fi re,
she said, except for some
past due accounts that a
collection agency contin-
ued to pursue.
“At the current pace,
we will not be reconstruct-
ed by June 2017 and if by
some chance we were able
to accomplish that task, we
would always take the hon-
orable high road and ask
our old members to rejoin
the new facility anyway,”
she wrote in an email. “This
business philosophy is what
helped us sustain 38 years
of service to the Hermiston
market.”
Until the weather got too
cold, the club paid its staff
members to conduct free
fi tness classes at McKenzie
Park so that its members
would have another option
for continuing with their fi t-
ness goals.
Updates on the status
of the club’s insurance
claims can be followed on
their Columbia Court Club
Commit To Be Fit page on
Facebook.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at 541-564-4536.
Printed on
recycled
newsprint
VOLUME 110 ● NUMBER 51
Gary L. West | Editor • gwest@hermistonherald.com • 541-564-4532
Tammy Malgesini | Community Editor • tmalgesini@eastoregonian.com • 541-564-4539
Jayati Ramakrishnan | Reporter • jramakrishnan@hermistonherald.com • 541-564-4534
Jade McDowell | Reporter • jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com • 541-564-4536
Jeanne Jewett | Multi-Media consultant • jjewett@hermistonherald.com • 541-564-4531
Shannon Paxton | Offi ce coordinator • spaxton@hermistonherald.com • 541-564-4530
Audra Workman | Multi-Media consultant • aworkman@eastoregonian.com • 541-564-4538
Umatilla County Fire District to staff station 24/7
Full-time crews
to start in March
By JAYATI
RAMAKRISHNAN
Staff Writer
Umatilla County Fire
District 1 will soon oper-
ate its station on Diagonal
Road and East Punkin Cen-
ter Road all day, everyday.
The station, which will
start operating full-time on
March 1, 2017, will have
two paid fi refi ghter/para-
medics and one resident
intern at all times, said
Chief Scott Stanton.
“The station is 31 years
old, but this will be the
fi rst time it will be staffed
24/7, 365,” Stanton said.
“We tried it before, but we
didn’t have the staff.”
The district’s main sta-
tion on South First Street
in Hermiston is also staffed
24/7. The stations on West-
land Road in Hermiston
and West Coe Avenue in
Stanfi eld are not, with staff
working at them as needed.
The increase in hours
for the second station was
made possible when the
new district was created
earlier this year — the re-
sult of a merger between
the fi re departments of
Hermiston and Stanfi eld,
and the dissolution of those
cities’ individual depart-
ments. The consolidation,
which took effect July 1,
resulted in a combined tax
rate of $1.75 per $1,000
assessed property value for
Hermiston and Stanfi eld
residents.
The merger was ex-
pected to generate about
$900,000, which would go
toward new staff, replac-
ing vehicles and toward
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staffi ng the Diagonal Road
station. Stanton estimated
that of those funds, about
$625,000 would go toward
staffi ng the station.
“That’s built into what
we’re already paying for,”
he said.
He said the inside of
the building will need
some minor capital im-
provements, likely totaling
around $10,000.
“When you put people
into a building full time,
you need some upgrades,”
he said. “There’s no phone
or pager system, it needs
some computers.”
The restructuring of the
fi re departments began in
2014 with an administra-
tive merger, when Stan-
fi eld’s fi re chief became
the training chief for the
Hermiston Fire Depart-
ment.
“We didn’t really gain
any people with the admin-
istrative merger,” Stanton
said. “We also took over
the transportation service
in Umatilla, and with that
we hired about three.” He
said the department has
had to hire about six new
employees to staff the
new station — and those
employees will attend fi re
academy in February.
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