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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 2017)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2017 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3 NEWS STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS Umatilla County Fair day campers visit Bill Jennings and Bob Daniel at the American Legion booth in the EOTEC event center in August at the Umatilla County Fair. Estimate: EOTEC to be profitable in three years By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER T he Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Cen- ter board plans to contract with VenuWorks to run its facility, and the manage- ment company believes it can get EOTEC profitable in three years. The Iowa-based ven- ue-management company operates arenas, confer- ence centers, fairgrounds and other facilities, in- cluding Toyota Center and Three Rivers Convention Center in the Tri-Cities “I totally have confi- dence in VenuWorks,” board member and hote- lier Vijay Patel said. “I’ve seen how they operate in Kennewick ... I can assure you it’s a class A team and they will help us bring in more events than we would otherwise.” The board unanimously passed a motion directing a subcommittee and inter- im manager Nate Rivera to negotiate a contract with VenuWorks to vote on at a special Nov. 21 meeting. During a presenta- tion to the board, Corey Pearson, executive direc- tor of the Three Rivers campus in Kennewick, displayed a cost/revenue analysis estimating that under VenuWorks’ man- agement EOTEC would be at a $116,350 loss for the first year of the facil- ity, $93,362 loss for the second year and a $4,968 profit on year three. Built into those estimates is an assumption that the city and county will continue to pay $75,00 per year to EOTEC for operations as it is currently doing. One reason it would take time to become prof- itable, Pearson said, is that even though VenuWorks would “come out swing- ing” with its marketing strategy, most conventions and trade shows book their events two or three years out. “Year one you’re mar- keting to groups that have already made a commit- ment somewhere else,” he said. Under the VenuWorks model, the EOTEC board would still have full con- trol over setting budget and policies for the facil- ity, but VenuWorks would provide recommendations based on their expertise and run day-to-day op- erations. The company has proposed a base fee of $10,000 per month for services such as market- ing and financial manage- ment. Those costs would be in addition to payroll for a general manager, event manager/adminis- trative assistant and two operations staff. Rivera said EOTEC’s operating costs have been significantly more than budgeted in recent months because labor is being contracted, causing the current year’s budget to look a lot like VenuWorks’ year one projection. If EO- TEC doesn’t change how it is operating the facility, he said, the budget will continue to look that way each year. Rivera said he felt Hermiston and Uma- tilla County taxpayers would rather EOTEC go with the safest option most likely to help the center start turning a profit within a few years. When board members questioned whether Uma- tilla County and the city of Hermiston would be willing to cover EOTEC’s projected losses for the first couple of years in addition to the $75,000 per year each had already committed, Mayor David Drotzmann said that the city had expected to have to help subsidize EOTEC for the first few years and he thought the city coun- cil would be willing to support the amounts that VenuWorks had estimated. “We took a leap of faith together knowing there would be some losses in the first year,” he said, calling VenuWorks’ pro- jections of getting EOTEC out of the red by year three “exciting.” STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS Hermiston Foods on South Highway 395 in Hermiston will close this month, laying off 199 employees. Employees prepare for plant closure CAPECO and Worksource Oregon help train people looking for new careers By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER Nearly 200 Hermiston Foods employees are get- ting help seeking new jobs as the plant prepares to process its last vegetable this month. NORPAC Foods Inc. announced at the end of June that it would be shutting down the vege- table-processing plant — Hermiston’s ninth largest employer — in order to consolidate the plant’s op- erations with a facility in Quincy, Washington. According to a Worker Adjustment and Retrain- ing Notification sent to the state, 199 people will be laid off, including 14 sal- aried employees, and “clo- sure separations are antic- ipated to begin November 13, 2017 or within fourteen (14) days thereafter.” The notice states that there will be “some limited work” decommissioning the plant in the ensuing months. The notification is re- quired by law for layoffs involving at least 50 peo- ple. It gives the state’s dislocated worker unit a chance to partner with state and local agencies to help Age 60+? Need legal help for: Keeping your income ▪ getting medical care ▪ moving into or out of a care facility ▪ housing problems ▪ utility shut-offs ▪ stopping abuse ▪ contesting a guardianship? For referral to an attorney, call toll-free: 1-855-673-2372. For a free handbook, “Legal Issues for Older Adults,” published by the Oregon State Bar, call: 503-945-6237 (available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian, or Chinese). I NTRODUCING P HONAK D IRECT C ONNECTIVITY H EARING A IDS • Direct connectivity to any cell phone * • Hearing aids used as a wireless head- set for hands-free calls • Excellent TV sound quality1 with hearing aids turned into wireless TV headphones Phonak direct connectivity hearing aids offer universal connectivity to any cell phone* regardless of the brand or operating system. With direct connectivity hearing aids, Phonak offers a solution that provides true hands-free functionality just like a Bluetooth® wireless headset. The hearing aids utilize it’s built-in microphones to pick up the clients voice for phone calls. A call can be heard ringing directly in the hearing aids and with a simple push of a button, can be answered or rejected. This can be done at distance from the telephone e.g. while a client is positioned on the other side of a room. Direct connectivity also extends to media playing with automatic connectivity to any TV or stereo system through a new and compact, multimedia hub called TV Connector. It delivers excellent stereo sound quality up to 15m away and does not require any additional streaming device. With Phonak direct connectivity hearing aids, clients can enjoy the freedom of universal connectivity RENATA ANDERSON M.A. 2237 Southwest • Court Place Pendleton, OR 97801 541-276-5053 workers with the transition to unemployment or their next job. “The goal is to re-em- ploy the workers as quick- ly as possible,” John Asher of the Oregon Dislocated Worker Unit said. For the Hermiston Foods closure, CAPECO (Com- munity Action Program of East Central Oregon) and Worksource Oregon have been making visits to Hermiston Foods each week to train employees on things like applying for unemployment, enrolling in health insurance plans in the Affordable Care Act marketplace and writing a resume. CAPECO held a job fair for workers recent- ly, and Worksource Ore- gon hosted individualized meetings with employees to discuss job hunting. “We know a lot of man- ufacturing plants in the area that are desperate for workers,” Tara Bishop of CAPECO said. For some laid-off em- ployees, immediately get- ting a job at another food processing plant in the area, such as ConAgra Foods or Shearer’s Foods, may be their preference. But Bishop said many of Hermiston Foods’ hourly workers lack English skills or a GED, and CAPECO is willing to help them get both — or other needed education and skills train- ing — in order to improve their job prospects in the future. “There are a lot of op- portunities for this group, but it’s also a great oppor- tunity for them to scale up, increase their education,” she said. NORPAC spokeswom- an Amy Woods said in an email that Hermiston Foods’ day shift ended ear- ly and its night shift started late last Wednesday in or- der to give employees an opportunity to go to the job fair, which featured booths by 22 local employers and five agencies. “The goal is to re-employ the workers as quickly as possible.” John Asher, Oregon Dislocated Worker Unit She said production su- pervisors and quality as- surance supervisors have also been encouraged to apply at NORPAC’s Quin- cy facility. Hermiston Foods has been an employer in Herm- iston since 1990, with hiring ramping up each harvest season. The facil- ity processes peas, sugar snap peas, edamame, lima beans, carrots and aspar- agus. Woods said most of the produce came from the Hermiston and Boardman area, except for the aspara- gus, and was sent to NOR- PAC’s warehouse facilities in Salem afterward. NOR- PAC will continue to con- tract for peas, sugar snap peas and carrots from area growers but will send them to other NORPAC facilities in future seasons, she said. In its 2016 financial re- port, the city of Hermiston listed Hermiston Foods as the ninth largest employ- er in town, making up 2.8 percent of the city’s total employment. Hermiston Foods was also the city’s largest water customer. It purchased $119,584 worth of water from the city over the course of a year. Hermiston Foods has been a community partner over the years in a num- ber of ways. It has donat- ed produce to the Agape House’s food bank, given tours to Leadership Herm- iston classes learning about agriculture, and processed food for Farmers Ending Hunger. The company has not released information yet on its plans for marketing or re-purposing the Herm- iston Foods facility. 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