WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2018
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
LOCAL
Hermiston assumes
control of EOTEC
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL
The Department of Motor Vehicles office in Hermiston has moved to the Hermiston Plaza, 810 S Highway 395.
New DMV building opens
HERMISTON — The
Hermiston DMV has moved
into a new office.
The Department of Motor
Vehicles office was closed
for part of last week as it
moved across the street to
810 S. Highway 395. The
new building, next to Shari’s
Cafe & Pies, is larger and
has more parking than the
former location, where the
DMV has been since 1981.
David House, a DMV
spokesperson, said the
department has to relocate
two or three of its offices per
year that have outgrown their
old building, and Hermiston
was due for a change. While
right now the number of
counters, hours and person-
nel levels will stay the same
there is more lobby space
and it gives the office room
to grow with Hermiston.
“It was a pretty rou-
tine move and from what
I understand it went pretty
smoothly,” he said.
For people who still
don’t like waiting in line in
the larger lobby, House rec-
ommended they first visit
www.oregondmv.com to see
if whatever business they
need to take care of can be
handled online, or to print
out forms and fill them out
before they arrive. He also
said that days with no school
— particularly spring break
and summer vacation —
tend to see the heaviest foot
traffic because teenagers are
coming in to get their learn-
er’s permit or first driver’s
license.
Four contested races for Hermiston council
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
Hermiston will have four
contested city council races
during the May election, not
three.
After the filing deadline
passed March 6, a list pro-
vided by city hall after a
public records request inad-
vertently left off a candi-
date. The candidate had
filed paperwork on time
but it had not made its way
to city recorder Lilly Alar-
con-Strong yet.
That candidate — Roy
Barron — is running for
Ward 2 against Shean Fitz-
gerald, a “semi-retired”
construction engineer and
husband of current city
councilor Clara Beas Fitz-
gerald, who has decided not
to run again.
Barron moved to Herm-
iston in 2015 after grad-
uating from college and
has worked for the county
ever since, first in the dis-
trict attorney’s office and
then with drug court and
now with the RISE pro-
gram that provides men-
tal health resources for stu-
dents in area schools. He
said he likes Hermiston
and is committed to stay-
ing in the community for
a while, and would like to
help make decisions about
important issues such as
the Eastern Oregon Trade
and Event Center, economic
development and downtown
revitalization.
“Things are getting better
and better here and I want to
be a part of it,” he said.
The addition of Barron
means that all four races for
city council this year will be
competitive ones.
In Ward 1, incumbent
Lori Davis is being chal-
lenged by school board
member Mark Gomolski
and resident Jackie Linton,
who grew up in Hermiston
and returned in 2012 after
retiring from the post office
in Federal Way, Washington.
In Ward 3, Kyran Miller
is challenging incumbent
Jackie Myers, who was
first elected to the coun-
cil in 1994. Miller, a retired
funeral home director who
moved to Hermiston from
Michigan in 2016, said he
doesn’t think the council-
ors are doing a bad job but
wanted to throw his hat in
the ring to provide a small
business owner perspective.
The race in Ward 4 is
between incumbent Doug
Smith, who was elected in
2015 and works as a gen-
eral contractor after retiring
from the Hermiston Police
Department, and Michael
Engelbrecht. Engelbrecht
said he is running for city
council because he wanted
to be more involved in the
community and was con-
cerned about the men-
tal health challenges fac-
ing youths and the opioid
epidemic.
The Eastern Oregon
Trade and Event Cen-
ter is officially the city of
Hermiston’s.
After the Umatilla
County board of commis-
sioners voted to withdraw
from the joint project last
week, the Hermiston city
council voted Monday to
approve the deal, taking
on full ownership and lia-
bility for EOTEC in the
hopes that the switch will
help the center run more
efficiently and cut down
on the amount of hoops
other organizations have
to jump through when
dealing with EOTEC.
“As my Scottish grand-
mother used to remind me,
too many cooks spoil the
broth,” said commissioner
George Murdock.
Representatives of the
city and county alike took
pains to stress that the
breakup was an amicable
one.
“You are part of Uma-
tilla County and own the
home of one of our big-
gest events and so obvi-
ously we want you to be
successful,” Murdock told
the council.
As a result, the county
is still living up to its share
of several costs of EOTEC
in the deal, the compo-
nents of which include:
•The city takes full
ownership of EOTEC and
the land it is on
•The city takes own-
ership of Ott and Airport
roads after the county
improves them to a cer-
tain standard, with the
help of $1.5 million from
the state’s transportation
package.
•The city pays half of
the cost of building office/
storage space for the Uma-
tilla County Fair, up to
$250,000.
•The county pays an
annual contribution of
$75,000 per year for oper-
ations through 2022 and
an additional $160,574 in
2018 for expected opera-
tional losses.
•The county pays
$105,000 to cover its half
of construction budget
overruns.
•The county pays
$595,000 by June 1 to pro-
vide half the cost Venu-
Works estimates for fully
equipping the facility.
•The county agrees
to loan the city up to
$500,000 for EOTEC if
needed in the future.
•The fair lease increases
from $10,000 annually to
$100,000 annually for the
use of the fairgrounds for
six weeks each year.
The lease for the fair
was renegotiated, and
Smith said there were a
few things that were clari-
fied, such as the guarantee
that the county can hold
the fair appreciation din-
ner at EOTEC each win-
ter. He said there were
no plans to renegotiate
the Farm-City Pro Rodeo
lease.
Mayor David Drotz-
mann said the city was
aware that the county
could have just left the
city “holding the bag” and
was grateful for the coun-
ty’s willingness to be a
good partner even as they
dissolved the intergovern-
mental agreement that first
formed EOTEC.
“It was a great part-
nership and we achieved
some awesome things,” he
said.
Councilor John Kir-
wan said the deal repre-
sented the next chapter for
EOTEC and said he was
excited to see how it will
grow.
When it came time for a
vote on the deal, councilor
Lori Davis made a motion
to delay the decision for
one more meeting, but
the motion died for a lack
of second. Davis did not
explain why she wanted
to wait. When a second
motion was made by Kir-
wan to approve the deal, it
was passed unanimously.
Afterward the coun-
cil approved the first read-
ing of an amendment to
the city’s charter, adding
an EOTEC advisory com-
mittee to the city’s list of
committees. The com-
mittee will be made up
of a member of the Uma-
tilla County Fair board, a
member of the Farm-City
Pro Rodeo board, a mem-
ber of the hospitality/tour-
ism community and two
at-large members who can
apply through the city’s
usual committee applica-
tion process. The city man-
ager, the general manager
of EOTEC hired by Venu-
Works and at least one city
councilor will also attend
meetings as liaisons.
City, county sign memorandum on $4.6 million water project
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
A new water proj-
ect co-funded by the city
of Hermiston and Uma-
tilla County could increase
housing development in the
northeast part of Hermiston
and save taxpayers money
on a future school bond.
The two entities have
approved a memorandum of
understanding to use approx-
imately $4.6 million of pay-
ments in lieu of taxes from
Lamb Weston to construct a
new 1 million gallon water
tower and distribution sys-
tem in northeast Hermiston.
Assistant city manager Mark
Morgan said the new stor-
age tank and system would
increase the city’s water
storage capacity beyond its
current 18 hours worth, and
would make future develop-
ment in the northeast part
of the city easier and less
expensive.
“That area up there holds
most of the developable land
in the city of Hermiston,” he
said.
Area employers have
noted that Hermiston’s
housing shortage has made
it difficult for them to find
a large enough workforce
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said in 2015 the U.S. Census
Bureau found that 53 per-
cent of jobs inside Hermis-
ton were filled by people liv-
ing outside Hermiston.
Developers have said that
the price of land in Herm-
iston has gone up so much
that it is hard to turn a profit
on new housing if any extra
expenses come up. Morgan
said developers have come
up with expensive “piece-
meal” solutions to the water
pressure issues. The new
water project, the city and
county hope, will decrease
expenses for developers and
for Hermiston School Dis-
trict, which hopes to pass a
bond to build a new elemen-
tary school on Theater Lane.
Starting in 2020 and run-
ning for 15 years, Lamb
Weston will pay $1 million
per year split evenly between
the county and city instead
of property taxes on a $225
million expansion in Herm-
iston. The county has agreed
to give its first $2 million to
the city for the water proj-
ect. The city will cover the
rest and handle design and
construction.
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