A14 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
SENIORS:
continued from Page A1
Frank
Harkenrider,
whose name the center
will bear, was front and
center at the proceed-
ings, pumping his fist
and yelling “Yay!” when
he reached the row of
ceremonial golden shov-
els lined up for a photo
op.
Drotzmann said the
city felt it appropriate
to name the center after
Harkenrider in recog-
nition of the 50 years
of time he put in as a
Hermiston city council
member and mayor.
“That’s 50 years of
public service to the
community,” he said.
The building will
include a large gather-
ing space, two break-
out rooms, office, re-
strooms,
a
kitchen,
balcony, elevator and
unfinished
basement.
A landscaped parking
area will stretch across
where Ridgeway Avenue
curves into Northeast
Second Street and into
the current parking lot
behind Hermiston Pub-
lic Library.
To celebrate the oc-
casion the senior center
board arrived via lim-
ousine. Board member
Virginia Beebe said she
arranged the treat as a
surprise for the group
after the hard work they
EOTEC:
continued from Page A1
advertising.
During a public hearing
before the county commis-
sion on Wednesday, Culp
recommended that the city
instead change Airport Way
to Municipal Airport Way,
and commissioner Bill Elf-
ering said that was one op-
tion the county could bring
to the city before making a
final decision.
Others testified they
would go through similar
expense and inconvenience,
and presented the commis-
sion with a petition with 34
signatures, representing 17
addresses on Airport Way.
The language of the peti-
tion also stated that there
is “no system of checks
and balances” on EOTEC
since the project’s partners
are the city and county and
they are the ones making
decisions about things like
renaming Airport Road.
Chris Waine, a resident
of Airport Road who esti-
mated he lives about half
a mile from EOTEC, said
the clearest example of the
city and county’s conflict
of interest on EOTEC is
with noise complaints.
He said the pound-
ing bass from weddings,
quinceñeras and other par-
ties held at EOTEC on a
regular basis can be heard
from inside his home. The
noise used to go as late as
2 a.m., he claimed, as peo-
ple technically stopped
their events at midnight
but played music during
“cleanup.” After frequent
complaints, the noise usu-
ally stops at midnight now,
Waine said, but it still dis-
rupts neighbors’ way of
life.
“The neighbors don’t
feel midnight is a reason-
able time,” he said. “We
don’t go to bed at mid-
night. We have to sit there
and listen to the bass going
boom boom boom while
trying to sleep.”
When Waine com-
plained about the noise,
however, he was told by
the city that since his res-
idence was outside the
city limits the city’s noise
ordinance did not apply
to his complaints. He was
then told by the county that
since EOTEC is inside the
city limits the county had
no authority to enforce its
noise ordinance on events
at EOTEC.
He also said that neigh-
bors end up acting as “hall
monitors for EOTEC” as
party-goers
sometimes
park along Airport Road
or on private property af-
ter events, “getting high or
getting busy” in their vehi-
cles.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2017
FROM PAGE A1
have put in on the proj-
ect.
Beebe said right now
her biggest hope for the
new senior center is for
the city to “build it as
fast as they can.”
The building isn’t ex-
pected to be ready until
late 2017 or early 2018,
she said, but the seniors
will have to leave their
current building this
month to make way for
the school district’s
demolition of the build-
ings on the fairgrounds.
In the interim, Our
Lady of Angels Catholic
Parish at 565 W Hermis-
ton Ave. has offered up
space for the senior cen-
ter to continue to serve
meals to seniors starting
May 16.
“It’s a different kitch-
en, but it’s a doable
kitchen,” Beebe said.
Karen Blair, the se-
nior center’s cook, said
the site of the Harken-
rider Center is the for-
mer site of Armand
Larive Middle School,
where she attended sev-
enth and eighth grade.
“It’s kind of full cir-
cle,” she said. “It’s just
kind of crazy, so much
has changed. But this is
home, and to help out
with the seniors, it’s a
blessing for me.”
———
Contact Jade Mc-
Dowell at jmcdowell@
eastoregonian.com
or
541-564-4536.
Richard Misener, anoth-
er neighbor, echoed com-
plaints about the noise lev-
el during events and said
he was frustrated by the
lack of recourse.
“They think they’re ex-
empt from their own city
ordinance,” he said.
Smith
acknowledged
that neighbors were in a
legal “no-man’s land” the
way the city and county’s
noise ordinances were
written, but said the city
had tried to be responsive.
“We have been trying to
be conscious of that con-
cern and make sure things
get shut down at mid-
Jurisdiction issues held up child porn investigation
Jarvis Buck of
Echo has hearing
to change plea to
child porn charges
By PHIL WRIGHT
Staff Writer
Jarvis Donald Buck of
Echo has a hearing Fri-
day to change his plea
to charges he possessed
child pornography.
The deal comes almost
two years after police re-
ceived the initial tip that
led to his arrest.
Hermiston police chief
Jason Edmiston explained
the Oregon Department of
Justice — by way of the
National Center for Miss-
ing & Exploited Children
— contacted his depart-
ment in June 2015 about
potential child pornog-
raphy at an internet pro-
tocol address related to
Buck. An IP address is a
numeric designation that
identifies a computer’s
location on the internet.
Hermiston detectives
started working the case,
Edmiston said, but ran
into a significant hurdle
about a week later when
internet service providers
Charter Communications
and CenturyLink de-
manded subpoenas before
night,” Smith said.
He said recently after a
neighbor called dispatch to
complain about the noise,
a Hermiston police officer
headed to EOTEC to see if
he needed to tell event-go-
ers to quiet down. He said,
however, that the officer
reported that he could
“barely hear” the noise
while standing in the park-
ing lot.
Smith said Rotary Club
is donating trees to the
project and as those trees
grow they should help pro-
vide a natural buffer for
noise.
Planting trees was one
releasing any customer
information.
Detective Robert Guer-
rero testified to a grand
jury to obtain the court
order, Edmiston said,
which allowed for the de-
partment to uncover the
internet address. But that
presented another com-
plication — determining
police jurisdiction.
The IP address
returned to Buck,
who was living in
Echo, a city that
receives its police
services from Stan-
field.
Bryon Zumwalt, Buck
Stanfield
police
chief, said Hermiston de-
tectives told him about
Buck, but his small de-
partment lacked the re-
sources to take on the
case. Zumwalt also said
he knew Buck’s family
dynamics and did not con-
sider him an immediate
threat to the community,
and that Zumwalt knew
Hermiston’s investigation
was underway.
Edmiston said Herm-
iston detectives provided
all the case information to
a detective at the Umatil-
la County Sheriff’s Office
with the understanding
that it would pursue the
case. But Undersheriff
Jim Littlefield said sher-
iff’s detectives did not
investigate because Echo
is under Stanfield’s pur-
view.
Hermiston police on
March 8, 2016, received
more cybertips through
the Oregon justice depart-
ment pointing to Buck.
Edmiston said that led
to conversations with a
DOJ special agent and the
Umatilla
County
District Attorney’s
Office.
“When we got
the last tip and saw
this was a pattern,”
Edmiston said. “It
was clear we need-
ed to take (the case)
because we had the
resources to do it.”
Hermiston
detective
Randy Studebaker drew
the case. He also worked
on the Blue Mountain
Enforcement
Narcotics
Team, the local task force
that takes down criminal
drug operations. He was
due to rotate off the as-
signment in early 2017,
Edmiston said, so the
team conducted a sweep
Feb. 14, 2017 that includ-
ed Buck.
“Our detectives want-
ed to make sure Mr. Buck
was dealt with appropri-
ately,” the chief said.
Edmiston said Stan-
field police should have
been the agency on the
case, but Hermiston de-
partment members have
additional training on in-
ternet crimes. He said po-
lice have to take addition-
al precautions with child
pornography cases and
are “super sensitive about
even how information is
shared with another agen-
cy” to avoid breaking the
law by sharing exploitive
images of children.
Buck, 38, pleaded not
guilty to five counts of
first degree encouraging
child sexual abuse stem-
ming from the posses-
sion of digital images of
child pornography, ac-
cording to court records,
and in a separate case
he pleaded not guilty to
possession of metham-
phetamine. He remains
in the Umatilla County
Jail, Pendleton.
His defense attorney,
Thomas Gray of Pendle-
ton, filed a motion April 6
to delay the trial.
“Defendant had want-
ed to fire me but now
fences are patched,” Gray
stated in affidavit, and he
also needed more time to
prepare and work on “an
acceptable plea negotia-
tion.”
That deal could see
fruition Friday afternoon
during the change of plea
hearing in the Hermis-
ton courtroom of Circuit
Judge Eva Temple.
of the suggestions made by
neighbors, but another sug-
gestion — that events shut
down at 10 p.m. — Smith
said would be more diffi-
cult.
“People don’t want their
event to end at 10 and so
they would go somewhere
else,” he said.
Another complaint from
neighbors has been a lack
of communication. Mari-
ah Murray said her fami-
ly came home one day to
see their fence and trees
along the fenceline gone.
She said someone at the
county told the family that
they had re-surveyed the
property and found that the
fence was actually on EO-
TEC property. Later, she
said, they discovered more
trees had been removed to
make way for new power
lines running to EOTEC.
“We do not have a prob-
lem with change,” she
wrote in an email. “It is in-
evitable. We are willing to
coexist. But there has to be
communication and they
can not just waltz in and
take what they want.”
Smith
acknowledged
that there had been a “mis-
communication” with the
Murrays and also that the
fence could have been re-
stored more quickly than it
was.
He said that the city,
county and EOTEC board
understand that living next
to an event center instead
of an empty field is a hard
adjustment for neighbors.
They are striving to improve
their communication with
neighbors, he said, which
is why they went door to
door and invited them to a
meeting in March to air all
of their concerns. He said
the board is working to
find solutions for concerns
voiced at the meeting.
———
Contact Jade McDow-
ell at jmcdowell@eastore-
gonian.com or 541-564-
4536.
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Hermiston’s Aging Buildings
Rocky Heights Elementary (53 years old) , Highland Hills Ele-
mentary (35 years old) , and Sandstone Middle School’s utility
mechanisms are in need of repair due to failing infrastruc-
ture or core components. Roofs, mechanical units, and
utility mechanisms should be replaced.
Examples at Rocky Heights: Garbage cans have been placed
in various classrooms to catch water dripping from the ceiling.
Overheated or freezing cold classrooms are due to the outdated
heating & cooling system, making it an uncomfortable learning
environment.
2237 Southwest
Court Place
Pendleton, OR 97801
541-276-5053
PROPOSED SOLUTION:
• Replace Rocky Heights and Highland Hills Elementary
Schools on same site; address deferred maintenance
and obsolete, failing heating and cooling systems at
Sandstone Middle School.
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