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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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
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5:30 to 6:30 PM $75 • Private meet and greet with
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