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. To request an
accessibility accommodation, please call 541-963-1330 or statewide relay 711
at least 48 hours in advance. Meetings sites are accessible to persons with
disabilities per ADA requirements.
We hope to see you Feb. 27
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