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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 2017)
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2017 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3 LOCAL NEWS Hermiston pays tribute to MLK Jr. By JADE MCDOWELL Staff writer As the nation prepares for Friday’s presidential inauguration, Martin Lu- ther King, Jr.’s words are taking on new weight for those who are still strug- gling to come to terms with the nation’s presi- dent-elect. “Thinking about the Martin Luther King Days I’ve been through, I can’t remember one more sig- nificant than the one today, given the times we live in,” Jordan Chaney said. Chaney, a black poet from the Tri-Cities, gave the keynote address at Hermiston’s annual Martin Luther King Peace Walk. Never before, he admit- ted, has he been tested so much on following the civ- il rights leader’s teachings about “choosing to love when the invitations to hate are so abundant.” “I wanted to love as in- discriminately as the sun shines,” he said. “... You ask for something, you’re going to get tested on it, and I failed that test sever- al times.” The tests came as Chaney felt blindsided by friends who came out in support of a candidate who frequently makes head- lines for his negative com- ments about minorities and women. Chaney said he also lost friendships when he decided to join in call- ing for the resignation of a Kennewick city coun- cilor who made a deroga- tory post about Latinos on STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS Trey Rome, 6, of Hermiston watches as his grandmother, Dawn Rome, takes a video of the Children of Polynesia sing the “Hymn of His Garment” on Monday in Hermiston. Facebook. When Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two unarmed black men, were shot and killed by police within 24 hours of each other, Chaney spent a night praying and worrying for his son’s safety on a Seat- tle visit. He has never been dragged at gunpoint out of his car before, he said, but that didn’t make the fear and depression any less real as it hung over his life. “Inside of my depres- sion I could feel hate form- ing,” he said. It was the writings and speeches of people like Martin Luther King, Jr. that helped him extin- guish that hate, he said. The words stopped feeling distant, like “reading a for- tune cookie,” and became a roadmap. Chaney learned about the power of love and non- violence from King, but he said sometimes people have a tendency to water down King’s legacy to the point where they forget that he still spoke up for truth and still took action for justice. “The thing that he was after was serving oth- ers and giving his life for that,” Chaney said. “A lot of us are afraid just to lose a friend for speaking out.” King taught that “hu- man progress is neither automatic nor inevita- ble,” and Chaney said everyone must contin- ue to fight for progress. “You persist with your message, you persist with your course, but you don’t let it lose your humanity,” he said. Before Chaney’s ad- dress, almost 100 people — black, white, Latino, Polynesian — bundled up and braved the cold and snow for a short peace walk around downtown Hermiston, singing “We Shall Overcome” and pausing at city hall for a short speech by Mayor Da- vid Drotzmann. While waiting for Chaney to arrive from an- other address in the Tri-Cit- ies, attendees watched a cultural performance from the Children of Polynesia Poet Jordan Chaney from the Tri-Cities speaks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday at the First Methodist Church in Hermiston. dance group and shared their feelings on Martin Luther King, Jr. during an open mic session. Cassandra Frost said as a half-black, half-Indian woman who was raised by a white woman she has experienced racism but has also experienced the type of harmony and sup- port across races that King dreamed of. “Keep encouraging each other, keep loving each other,” she said. Alex Hobbs took the opportunity to share part of King’s “Letter from Bir- mingham Jail,” in which he addressed white reli- gious leaders in the South who had called civil rights protests “unwise and un- timely.” “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stum- bling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate,” King wrote, “who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a neg- ative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of di- rect action’; who paternal- istically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient sea- son.’” Hobbs added her own voice, saying that today there are many civil rights issues, from mass incarcer- ation to immigration, that must be addressed by peo- ple of all races. John Carbage, president of the Black International Awareness Club that has sponsored the event for the last 17 years, said that in recognition of its more diverse mission, the club will be changing its name in February to the Herm- iston Cultural Awareness Club. The group meets the second Saturday of every month at Starbucks at 2 p.m. and everyone is wel- come. ——— Contact Jade McDowell at 541-564-4536. Downtown parking gets the council’s attention Ranch & Home gets development deal Hermiston Herald Staff writer Before the Jan. 9 regu- lar city council meeting, the council held a work session with staff to discuss down- town parking. Assistant city manager Mark Morgan said a look at Google Earth images from the last 10 years shows — in an admittedly unscientif- ic study — that on average about 44 percent of parking spots on Main Street are full, with somewhat similar numbers in other areas of downtown. However, com- plaints about limited parking downtown is something the city hears “all the time” from residents and business own- ers who say people avoid shopping downtown because they think they won’t find parking. “Whether or not there is an actual parking problem downtown or not, there’s a perception in people’s minds,” Morgan said. Some of that may come from a “phobia” of parallel parking, he said, noting Goo- gle Earth images that show parking lots full or almost full even as most of the spots along the street are empty. One low-cost solution that both adds spots and eas- es peoples’ minds about hav- ing to parallel park is turning some of downtown’s street parking into angled spots. “That’s the low-hanging fruit,” Morgan said. He said the city’s engi- neers had drawn up plans to put angled parking spaces for a block along Gladys Avenue in front of the library. The new configuration would add four spots (each 19 feet long) to the block, get rid of more difficult parallel parking and still leave travel lanes more than 12 feet wide. “We saw this as a possible way to ease our way into try- ing angled parking, and it’s totally reversible if people don’t like it,” he said. City councilors agreed to consider a motion at the Jan. 23 council meeting. By JADE MCDOWELL The Hermiston city council approved an agreement with Ranch & Home on Jan. 9 to re- imburse the retailer for a slew of development costs if it finishes build- ing a store in Hermiston by Jan. 1, 2018. Those incentives will increase if the company also convinces a grocery store to build next door by Oct. 1, 2018. City manager Byron Smith said economic development, particular- ly bringing more retail opportunities to Herm- iston, is one of the top goals the city council has set. After a “long pro- cess” working with own- er George Dress in the planning stage, Smith said the city felt it would be worth offering some incentives to get the ball rolling on construction of a Hermiston location. “This is a new ap- proach,” he told the city council. Ranch & Home cur- rently has two locations in the Tri-Cities and one in Milton-Freewater, and sells supplies for home and garden, livestock, pets, sporting goods and clothing. As a retailer, it is not eligible for the property tax breaks giv- en to some businesses that build in Hermiston’s enterprise zone. According to the agreement approved Monday, if Ranch & Home gets a building permit by April 1 and an occupancy permit by Jan. 1, 2018, the city will re- imburse the company for its building permit, sys- tem development charges When they say “You’re so cool!” and you say “Jump in the pool?” Flowers • Candles Jewelry • Plants Balloons & More! 541-567-4063 405 N. 1st St., Suite #107, Hermiston Put a smile on the heart with the power of flowers. HWY 395, HERMISTON Ric Jones, BC-HIS Verna Taylor, HAS Forrest Cahill, HAS 541-215-1888 246 SW Dorion, Pendleton 541-567-4305 Mon-Sat 8am-6pm • Sun 12pm-5am www.cottagefl owersonline.com LOCAL RESIDENTIAL | COMMERCIAL | INDUSTRIAL ENROLLING NOW FOR SPRING 2017 Sunthurst Energy, LLC Turning Sunlight to Savings Your Trusted Consultant POWERFUL TOOLS FOR THE CAREGIVER: Caring for Children with Special Needs: Build a toolkit for taking better care of yourself while caring for your child, grandchild or other child with special needs. 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Pre- registration required. & EPC PARTNER 6 weekly sessions Starting Jan. 26 • 4:30-6:30pm Must pre-register, call 541-667-3509 (310) 975-4732 32 Information or to register call (541) 667-3509 or email healthinfo@gshealth.org www.gshealth.org om sunthurstenergy.com OR CCB 201975 and $10,000 for extension of water and sewer lines that will also make it eas- ier to develop neighboring properties in the future. The total package of in- centives is estimated to be worth about $107,800. In addition, Ranch & Home will have space on its 18-acre property for ad- ditional retail development. If the company convinces a grocery store of at least 25,000 square feet to agree to build on that space by Oct. 1, 2018, then the city will reimburse Ranch & Home $185,000 for road improvements on the north- east side of the property. For every month that Ranch & Home misses those deadlines, the finan- cial incentives will be re- duced by 10 percent, and the deal is off if the dead- lines are missed by more than six months. Smith said parts of Hermiston are considered a “food desert” by the USDA based on the ratio of gro- cery stores to residents, and Hermiston residents spend an estimated $21 million in the Tri-Cities each year on groceries alone. He said if Ranch & Home and a grocery store come in, the financial incentives would be returned to the city, county and school district through property taxes in just a couple of years. The council unani- mously approved the agreement, along with a replat of the three lots that make up the Ranch & Home property at 2500 S. Highway 395 near the Wal-Mart Distribution Center.
