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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2018)
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2018 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A11 LOCAL Noise concern for EOTEC neighbors By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS PAWS Thrift Store manager Sara McCormack helps a customer on Thursday in Pendleton. Nonprofits protect against donation theft By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER Small nonprofits can do an outsized amount of good in their communities. But their part-time, volunteer nature can also make it easy for abuses to go unnoticed. It happens in Eastern Oregon. Shawn MacGregor, former director of the Pend- leton nonprofit shelter Ton- ya’s House, was arraigned earlier this month on charges of theft after being accused of embezzling more than $10,000 from the organization, which had to close its doors in 2017 for financial reasons. The Umatilla Chamber of Com- merce, Spray Rodeo Asso- ciation and Haystack Cem- etery Association have reported thefts by employ- ees in recent years. Nonprofit thefts in the news was what led Nicole Shelton to recently broach the subject with the board of the Hermiston Warm- ing Station. Shelton, who was a board member until she resigned March 11, said there were signs that donated items were being mishandled. Once, for example, she saw a board member take home a pair of bras that were among clothing items donated to the Warming Station. She said when con- fronted later the person said they had given them to their daughter’s friend who is on the verge of homelessness. Another time a volunteer told Shelton they witnessed a board member take home a donated tube of toothpaste with the comment they had run out of toothpaste at home. When Shelton com- plained, they said the tooth- paste was expired and slated to be thrown away anyway. Shelton said the organi- zation keeps careful track of financial donations and she hasn’t seen any indication of embezzlement, but she does have concerns that in-kind donations are handled less carefully. She wants to see the Warming Station keep a detailed ledger of all in-kind donations and put better procedures in place that avoid any impropriety. “I know they were small things, but theft of small things leads to theft of big- ger things,” she said. In addition to the con- cerns about in-kind dona- tions Shelton brought up a few other concerns during the March 11 board meet- ing, including what she saw as one board mem- ber’s aggressive treatment of guests. When she felt her concerns weren’t being taken seriously enough, she resigned. She also made an official theft report to the Hermiston Police Depart- ment, which is investigating with the cooperation of the Warming Station board. Trish Rossell, presi- dent of the board, said she didn’t want to comment on an ongoing police investiga- tion. She did say the Warm- ing Station has a rigor- ous accounting process for financial donations, which are documented and pre- sented to the board in an open meeting each month. As for in-kind donations, Rossell said the Warm- ing Station throws away expired hygiene and food items and keeps water and toilet paper. Anything else is donated to Desert Rose Ministries or another non- profit that can use the items to serve the homeless, and guests of the Warming Sta- tion are referred there. “We don’t want to be in the business of duplication of efforts,” she said. Local nonprofits — often run by volunteers — set their own policies and procedures for handling donations. Sara McCormack in mid-January took over man- aging the thrift store for the Pendleton Animal Wel- fare Shelter. The store sells donated goods and has a small shed near the front door for donations at all hours. When that fills up, people leave items out- side. McCormack said some Mondays she has to be part mountain goat just to get to the door. While a cash register at the front tracks every sale and print receipts, she said, there is no way to track all the items people donate. And too often those dona- tions are only fit for the gar- bage bin, she said, from soiled clothes to broken goods. Since taking over, McCormack said she is under more oversight than previous managers because the store was in such dis- array, but there is no doubt small nonprofits are vulner- able to theft. “I am here alone every day,” she said. “If I was not an ethical person, I could do whatever I wanted to.” At Made to Thrive, a Hermiston nonprofit that helps outfit and support at-risk kids for participation in extra-curricular activities, director Kris Dammeyer said being good stewards of donations is a top priority. She emailed statements from board president Tim Handforth and board trea- surer Mitch Boylan explain- ing how every donation goes back to youth in the com- munity. Boylan, a CPA at Barnett and Moro PC, said monthly financial updates are presented to the board and every financial transac- tion made is scrutinized by at least two people. “Every dollar we receive is carefully planned for use in accomplishing our mis- sion,” Handforth wrote. “Whether it is for participa- tion fees, equipment, cloth- ing or operating expenses it is tracked and recorded. An easy path to failure for an organization is to lose its integrity in the way it operates and laziness in its execution of policies and procedures.” Reporter Phil Wright contributed to this story. Aspen Springs gets approval from state HERMISTON HERALD Lifeways is now one step closer to opening its Hermiston-based psychi- atric facility. The Oregon Health Authority on Thurs- day approved the opening of the facility, pending final review. Before Lifeways can move forward, affected par- ties have until March 25 to request a hearing. OHA Certificate of Need Coor- dinator Jana Fussell said an affected party is some- one who has demonstrated private or public interest in the project, and groups or individuals must apply to qualify as affected parties. If no one requests a hear- ing, OHA will issue a final decision. From then, Fussell said, affected parties have 60 days to request a contested hearing. After that Lifeways still must go through the licens- ing process for the facility, and may have to take other steps. Visit us online at www.HermistonHerald.com The completed facility, which is located near Good Shepherd Medical Center, is slated to have 16 beds, and serve people 18 and older who are going through mental health episodes. Lifeways applied for state approval on the project in August 2017, a process that was delayed by other facilities’ applications, according to spokesman Rick George in August. EOU It’s official: IS CONNECTED Now that the city of Hermiston has taken full ownership of the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center, it will also take on the responsibility of responding to complaints about the facility. There have been plenty from neighbors, some of whom formed the Hermis- ton Airport Road Neighbor- hood Association last year when the county was con- sidering changing the name of the road to make it easier to find EOTEC. They won a partial victory — the county decided to put off the deci- sion until after the road has been improved using trans- portation package dollars from the state. Last spring some of the 34 neighbors (repre- senting 17 addresses) also complained during a board of county commissioners meeting about bass-heavy music blasting from the event center until midnight or later during events, about party-goers who drive reck- lessly or trespass on private property after events break up, and about traffic and dust problems generated by EOTEC. HARNA president Chris Waine said in the last year response to his complaints has been a mixed bag, with noise still a major concern but dust issues getting bet- ter. He said he and neighbor Mariah Murray met with city manager Byron Smith two weeks ago about a request they have made for the city to update its noise ordinance. Noise has been the main complaint of property own- ers near the event center. Waine said people on social media have made com- ments about not being sup- portive of the fair and rodeo, saying neighbors of the old fairgrounds dealt with sim- ilar issues for decades. But he said the neighbors are willing to put up with noise during fair and rodeo week for the sake of support- ing those events — it’s the weddings and quinceañeras blasting music until mid- night on other weekends that concerns them. “We’ve been dealing with this for over two years and we’ve still made no progress today from where we were two years ago,” he said. Waine said the city’s noise ordinance measures dBA, which measures deci- bel levels for mid-range fre- quencies, instead of dBC, which measures decibel levels for high and low fre- quencies. As a result, he said, police can come out and take dBA readings during a party and find they don’t violate the noise ordi- nance even though neigh- bors are being kept awake by pounding bass. Waine wants the city to adopt an ordinance similar to Pendleton’s, which states the operation of sound-pro- ducing devices such as radios “between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., so that it is plainly audible at a distance of 50 feet from the building, structure, vehi- cle, or place in which it is located” is a violation of the nuisance ordinance, as is action to “make, continue, or cause to be made or con- tinued any loud, unneces- sary or unusual noise nor any noise, which annoys, disturbs, injures or endan- gers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of others, within or over the limits of the city.” However, he said Smith has so far declined to bring the issue before the city council. Smith said Tuesday that he hadn’t closed the door on that option, but was still having the city’s attorney research the legal issues surrounding noise ordi- nances and enforcement before deciding how to move forward with HAR- NA’s concerns. One request that has been made in the past is to shut down events at 10 p.m., but Smith said the city believes the earlier deadline would hamper EOTEC’s ability to attract events. In January the event-management com- pany VenuWorks was hired to run EOTEC’s day-to- day operations. Al Davis now serves as general man- ager. Smith said as the city partners with VenuWorks on policies and planning, issues like noise control will be part of the conver- sation. He said trees planted and growing to maturity should help as well. “We’re going to do the best we can with operating an entertainment facility,” he said. “We try to have as little impact on the neigh- borhood as possible, but it is a big change for that neighborhood.” EOTEC has tried to mitigate other complaints neighbors have, including laying down dust abatement chemicals and winter wheat to help with blowing dust. 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Certificate C250A (ID: C250E; PA: C250Q); Insurance Policy P150 (GA: P150GA; NY: P150NY; OK: P150OK; TN: P150TN) 6096E-0917 MB17-NM008Ec UMATILLA COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY 2018 LINCOLN DAY DINNER FUNDRAISER TIME & DATE 6:30 pm • Wednesday, March 28, 2018 GUEST SPEAKER: Secretary of State Dennis Richardson • Silent Auction • Raffle • Live Dessert Auction RSVP DON MARLATT • 541 861-0209 EOU has been designated Oregon’s Rural University! priorities A hundred years from now it will not matter what My bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... but the world may be different because I was important in the Life of a Child. WHERE Blue Mountain Community College, Student Union Hall In Pioneer Hall MENU Barbequed Tri-Tip, Salmon, with vegetables and Salads. Vegetarian by Request COST Early Bird Special • $35 ea /2 for $60 At the door • $40 ea / 2 for $70 PACHYDERM CLUB eou.edu/connected 5:30 to 6:30 PM $75 • Private meet and greet with Secretary of State Dennis Richardson Congressman Greg Walden • Senator Bill Hansell Representative Greg Barreto