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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 2017)
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2017 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3 LOCAL NEWS None injured at industrial fire in Stanfield no one was injured in the blaze, and most of the dam- age was to the outside of the facility. “They’ve had problems in the past,” Marcum said of the dryers at the factory. “That was probably what caused it.” Marcum said he didn’t know the cost of the dam- age, and members of the company did not want to comment on the fire. — Jayati Ramakrishnan Umatilla County Fire District 1 responded around 6:05 a.m. Tuesday to an industrial fire in Stanfield. The fire, which damaged portions of the outside of the Morstarch factory on 405 Hoosier Rd., was most- ly contained by 8 a.m. Eldon Marcum of UCFD said the fire was likely caused by one of the dry- ers at the factory, which he said caught fire and set some bins ablaze. He said CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Umatilla County Fire District 1 crews work to put out a fire Tuesday morning at Morstarch, a potato starch manufacturing facility on 405 Hoosier Road, Stanfield. Budget testimony focuses on preventing cuts By JADE McDOWELL Staff Writer Eastern Oregon resi- dents told state legislators that increasing revenue needs to be part of the plan for the next biennium. The Joint Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for crafting bud- get policy for the state, lis- tened to more than two hours of testimony from a packed house at Hermiston High School on Friday evening. Some of those who spoke included a plea to raise corpo- rate taxes to keep important services like education and public safety from suffering the significant cuts proposed by Gov. Kate Brown and leg- islative leaders. “We should not have to be here pitting services against each other,” said Ginger Ogle of Pendleton. As a former teacher, she said she was “begging” the committee to raise corpo- rate taxes. The state could not expect to improve ed- ucational outcomes for Oregon students, she said, while continuing to make budget decisions that led to shorter school years, larger class sizes and fewer pro- grams. Others in the healthcare industry said taxes need to be raised to prevent proposed cuts that will cause low-in- come Oregonians to lose health insurance, while Joy Post said new revenue was needed to save programs like those that help her care for her disabled son in her own home. Preserving funding for Eastern Oregon Develop- mental Disabilities Resourc- es, which is on the chopping block in the governor’s pro- posed budget, and main- taining funding levels for the Oregon Consortium of Family Networks brought out a crowd of yellow-clad STAFF PHOTO BY JADE McDOWELL The legislature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee met at Hermiston High School Friday and took testimony from Eastern Oregon residents. supporters who advocated on behalf of individuals with developmental disabilities and their caretakers. Nazario Rivera, a Good Shepherd Health Care Sys- tem employee, said scaling back the Oregon Health Plan as proposed would harm low-income families who cannot otherwise afford in- surance. “The families we serve in the ER wait until the last minute (to seek treatment) because they can’t afford health insurance,” he said. “When asked to follow up with their primary care pro- vider they are unable to do so.” On the law enforcement side, more than a dozen peo- ple asked the committee to reconsider the governor’s proposal to close the Ore- gon State Police crime lab in Pendleton and cut funding for drug task forces, includ- ing the Blue Mountain En- forcement Narcotics Team, known as BENT. They pointed out that ev- idence samples would need to be sent more than 200 miles away to the Clackamas lab, while forensic analysts would have to travel equal- ly as far to testify in court or provide training. District attorneys and police chiefs from the region also point- ed to homicides where the evidence, say in an outdoor crime scene, would have been destroyed if analysts needed hours or days to ar- rive from Portland. “With these types of scenes, time is of the es- sence,” said Umatilla Police Chief Darla Huxel. Students from Blue Mountain Community Col- lege and Eastern Oregon University also asked leg- islators to fund higher edu- cation in the state at a level that would not require more than a five percent increase in tuition. Larissa Golightly said BMCC helped her get her higher education back on track after health problems had previously derailed it. Carlin Sacco said the college gave her an opportunity to pull herself out of homeless- ness. Farmers, ranchers and 4H students showed up to decry proposed cuts to agricultur- al extension centers. Bryan Wolfe of Hermiston said the Hermiston Agricultural Re- search and Extension Cen- ter has helped his family — now in its sixth generation of farming — grow better-qual- ity crops more efficiently. Other funding initia- tives that citizens supported through testimony Friday included the Oregon Cul- tural Trust, K12 education, noxious weed control, men- tal health and addiction ser- vices, and community-spe- cific projects such as the Farm II project that would help BMCC and the city of Pendleton replace the Round-Up pavilion with a center giving students hands- on experience with livestock handling and other agricul- tural subjects. — Contact Jade McDow- ell at jmcdowell@eastorego- nian.com or 541-564-4536. World War II paratrooper will take to the skies again Walt Liebe’s family gave him wings for his 94th birthday over the weekend in Hermiston. Liebe, a 94-year-old lifelong Hermiston resi- dent, served during World War II as an Army Para- trooper in the 11th Air- borne. On a yet-to-be-final- ized date later this sum- mer, Ageless Aviation will be flying one of its Boeing Stearman aircraft, a two- seat open cockpit biplane that was the primary train- ing aircraft for American WWII pilots, to Hermis- ton to give Liebe a half- hour flight as a way to thank him for his service. Liebe was heavily in- volved in the fight to re- capture the Philippines from the Japanese in 1945, and participated in the now-famous “Raid on Los Banos,” a civil- ian prisoner-of-war camp holding 3,000 American, British and Dutch civil- ians behind enemy lines since 1942. Liebe’s paratrooper unit used amphibious ve- hicles and an air-drop in collaboration with Filipi- no locals to attack a prison camp more than 30 miles behind enemy lines, res- cuing all captured civil- ians and returning them to the American lines with- out losing a single prison- er in the battle. Later, as the war drew to a close, Liebe was handpicked to be private security for Gen. Doug- las MacArthur during the peace treaty signing aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor officially ending the war. After the war, Liebe worked for decades at the Umatilla Army Depot be- fore retiring. Over the weekend, Li- ebe’s extended family, following a tradition es- tablished annually since the early 1990s, held a family reunion surround- ing Liebe’s birthday cel- ebration. Family member from coming from all over the Pacific Northwest gathered in Hermiston to celebrate along with many of Liebe’s local friends. It was there that the sur- prise gift was announced of a nostalgic flight in a WWII-era aircraft through the Ageless Aviation Dreams Foundation. The date of the flight has not yet been worked out, but is expected to be sometime in early August. More information about Ageless Aviation Dreams Foundation is available on their website, www.agelessaviation- dreams.org. PHOTO BY KURT LIEDTKE Walt Liebe displays one of his gifts at a combination family reunion and birthday party Saturday at the Hermiston Senior Center. Liebe shows off the paperwork that will allow him to take flight later this year with Ageless Aviation. Oregon Department of Transportation STIP PUBLIC MEETING FEBRUARY 27 LEARN ABOUT FUTURE TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS PLANNED FOR EASTERN OREGON 1-2-3 IT’S AS EASY AS The Oregon Department of Transportation invites you to attend a Public Video Conference Meeting regarding the Draft 2018-2021 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). The 2018-2021 STIP identifies major Oregon transportation projects proposed for construction between 2018 and 2021. Meeting participants will hear information on how projects are selected for funding and review projects identified for the eastern Oregon region. Interested parties are encouraged to attend this meeting at a site in your area, or connect on-line with your computer, tablet or smart phone (see below for web connection details). Date/Time: Feb. 27, 2017• 6-8 p.m. Pacific Time (Ontario site: 7-9 p.m. Mountain Time) Meeting Locations: Eight eastern Oregon sites listed below 1 2 3 Attend at one of these eight meeting sites Feb. 27, 6-8 p.m. Burns - Harney County Courthouse La Grande - Eastern - Oregon University Basement Mtg. Room, 450 N. Buena Vista Inlow Hall, Room 013, One University Blvd. John Day – Oregon Telephone Conf. Room, Boardman - Blue Mountain Comm. College 155 W Main Street 300 NE Front Street Baker City - Public Library Enterprise - Wallowa County ESD 2400 Resort Street, Baker City, OR 107 SW 1st Room #105 Pendleton - Blue Mountain Comm. College Ontario - OR Dept. of Transportation Office Emigrant Hall Rm. 128, 2411 NW Carden Ave. 1390 SE 1st Ave. (7:00 p.m. Mtn. Time – Ontario site) Or, connect remotely to the Feb. 27 meeting via computer, tablet or smart phone. If you can’t make it to one of the above meeting sites, you can connect to the meeting on-line at Zoom.com. Type https://zoom.us/join in your internet browser, enter Meeting ID: 175-119-566 and password: odotstip This Zoom connection information is also posted on the ODOT Region 5 web (see below) Busy Feb. 27? View the STIP information anytime at www.tinyurl.com/odot-region5. There you will find project listings, maps, comment forms and other information about Oregon’s Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. Have questions about the meeting, Zoom connection or ODOT website, call ODOT Public Information Officer Tom Strandberg at 541-963-1330 (email: thomas.m.strandberg@odot.state.or.us). This meeting is open to the public and accommodations will be provided to persons with disabilities. 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