WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2018
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
COMMUNITY
Drug court gets
another chance
By PHIL WRIGHT
STAFF WRITER
Drug court’s return to
Umatilla County could
take another step forward
Wednesday.
Dale Primmer, director
of Umatilla County Com-
munity Justice Depart-
ment, is asking the county
board of commissioners
to approve having Com-
munity Counseling Solu-
tions provide treatment
for drug court participants.
The board will consider
the request during it regu-
lar meeting Wednesday.
Having a treatment pro-
vider is a crucial step to
bringing back drug court.
Community
Justice
operated the program until
state funding declined last
year. Since then, Primmer
said, his department has
worked with the circuit
courts of the 6th Judicial
District and others to find
a way to restart the pro-
gram. The next iteration
plans to use a post-con-
viction but pre-sentenc-
ing model, so offenders
can work through treat-
ment to receive less severe
sentences or even have the
court dismiss charges. The
state courts and the local
public safety coordinating
council will oversee the
drug court.
Primmer said Commu-
nity Justice sought bids
for a treatment provider,
and Community Counsel-
ing Solutions, which offers
behavioral health services
in Morrow, Wheeler, Gil-
liam, and Grant counties,
came up with a proposal to
take on the job.
Under the plan, Com-
munity Counseling Solu-
tions will hire two full-time
certified alcohol and drug
counselors and a clinician/
program manger to provide
drug court treatment in the
6th Judicial District, which
encompasses Umatilla and
Morrow counties. The cli-
nician will work in Board-
man, where the company
has an office, and the coun-
selors in Pendleton and
Hermiston.
Community Counseling
estimated a drug court ser-
vices budget of $596,000
from April 1, 2018 through
June 30, 2019, including
for travel and offices. That
drops to about $536,000 if
the county provides work
space.
Insurance will cover
some of the costs, but
Primmer said that leaves a
gap of about $250,000, and
the funds from the 2017-19
Oregon Justice Reinvest-
ment Grant would fill that
hole. The state provides
those funds to programs
that keep offenders out of
prison.
The size of the gap
depends on several factors,
Primmer said, including
the number of participants
and insurance coverage.
The Oregon Health Plan,
for example, covers addic-
tion treatment.
“So that amount won’t
be static,” he said.
Drug court could com-
mence as soon as July
1, and Primmer said that
is probably a cautious
approach to make sure all
the pieces are in place.
State courts are writing the
polices and procedures for
drug court, and Commu-
nity Counseling Solutions
would have to hire the staff
and get them up to speed
on the program.
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Station director Phil Hamm gives a tour of the greenhouse facilities at the HAREC to U.S.
Rep. Greg Walden an Oregon Sen. Bill Hansell on Wednesday outside of Hermiston.
Walden tours upgraded station
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
After the 2018 federal
spending bill secured more
than $3 billion in funding
for agricultural research,
Rep. Greg Walden got to
see some of that work first-
hand last week at the Herm-
iston Agricultural Research
and Extension Center.
Walden got a tour of the
center last Wednesday as
part of a trip through Uma-
tilla County. Director Phil
Hamm, as enthusiastic as
ever in his promotion of the
experiment station, showed
off insect-raising rooms,
soil testing labs, green-
houses, bee research and
more.
“In your district you
have the best experiment
station anywhere,” Hamm
told the congressman.
After
making
sure
everyone — even Univer-
sity of Oregon Ducks fans
like Walden and state sen-
ator Bill Hansell — had
on their very own Ore-
gon State University Bea-
vers baseball cap, Hamm
showed Walden about $1
million in improvements
made to HAREC since
Walden’s last trip out to the
station a couple of years
earlier. Cam Preus, pres-
ident of Blue Mountain
Community College, also
touted the multi-million
dollar precision irrigated
agriculture facility the col-
lege built on the HAREC
campus last year to give
students hands-on training
with things like maintain-
ing the station’s 15 center
pivots.
“We’ve got to get those
students hands on, that’s
how they learn,” she said.
A few improvements
April means spring cleaning
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
It’s spring cleaning
month in Hermiston.
“Clean-sweep” events
the next three weeks offer
opportunities to get rid of
junk, weeds and litter com-
munity-wide before code
enforcement takes notice.
“We have three compo-
nents, none of which are
new, but they’re enhanced,”
parks and recreation director
Larry Fetter said.
The first is Sanitary Dis-
posal’s clean-up week,
which runs April 1-7. Uma-
tilla County residents can
dump loads up to 454.5
pounds and 2.5 cubic yards
for free, excluding tires.
Cash customers can receive
$14 off larger loads. The
loads can be dropped off
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon-
day through Friday and 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
The transfer station is two
miles north of Hermiston at
81144 N. Highway 395. For
information, call Sanitary
Disposal at 541-567-8842.
For recyclable items, all
Umatilla County residents
can take advantage of the
city’s free recycling event
Saturday, April 14 at Uma-
tilla Electric Cooperative,
750 W. Elm Avenue.
“We’re taking all the
standard recyclable items
we’ve taken in the past, the
bulk of which are tires,” Fet-
ter said.
This year, however, tires
do not have to be sepa-
rated from rims before drop-
off. Other items collected
include appliances, electron-
ics, glass, metal, untreated
wood with no nails in it, latex
and oil-based paints, news-
paper, cardboard and bat-
teries. For items like motor
oil and sensitive documents
that need shredding, which
the city won’t take that day,
they will provide informa-
tion about where those items
can be disposed of.
Once people have taken
care of the junk on their own
properties, they’re invited to
help clean up public prop-
erty around town on Satur-
day, April 21.
Fetter said the “I Love
My City” activity should be
the biggest yet. Current esti-
mates show about 400 peo-
ple are expected to partici-
pate in the clean-up day.
While I Love My City
was started by Hermiston
Assembly of God as a series
of service projects, other
churches have since signed
on. The April 21 clean-up
event is open to anyone who
wants to help. Participants
are invited to show up at 9
a.m. at McKenzie Park.
“Anyone can show up,
and if they’re looking for a
job to do they can check in
at the big tent,” Fetter said.
The group will be divided
into six teams that will each
be given a zone to clean up.
Zones will be along North
First Place and the railroad
tracks, on the west side of
Highway 395 between Elm
Avenue and Jennie Avenue,
and four downtown zones
stretching from Highland
Avenue to Gladys Avenue.
Each zone will be given
specific tasks, including
picking up litter, weed-
ing, scrubbing graffiti and
removing leaves and other
debris piled along the sides
of buildings.
He said graffiti has been
a problem in Hermiston
recently and he hopes peo-
ple will help police catch
the vandals and that people
will let the city know about
graffiti in public parks so
they can remove it quickly.
made to the station in
recent years includes the
remodel of some research
labs, solar panels that save
the station about $30,000
per year on their electri-
cal bill, two new crop cir-
cles and the Don Horneck
Memorial Building, which
includes an agronomy lab
and insect-rearing rooms.
Currently in the works is
also an expansion of the
plant pathology lab and
new conference room.
Hamm
said
the
improvements are thanks
to generous support from
farmers and other stake-
holders in the area, who
are unmatched around the
state in their support for the
extension center.
“No one, absolutely no
one, can come close to the
support we get from our
stakeholders,” Hamm said.
He said later in the year
HAREC plans to hold a
“thank you day” during
which they will add new
names to the list of sup-
porters on a large stone out-
side the front office. Hamm
said Walden’s name will
be on that list for his work
to remove a federal rever-
sionary clause that had pre-
viously stipulated that the
land where HAREC sits
would revert to the federal
government if any part of
it were ever used for some-
thing other than agricul-
tural research.
Preus, during her part
of the tour, told Walden
that without the change to
the reversionary clause the
partnership with BMCC
and HAREC to build the
precision ag building on
the HAREC campus would
not have been possible.
She said not only are full-
time students able to get a
BRIEF
Officers investigate
shooting of car near
Newport Park
Newport Park. Once they
arrived at Northeast Sixth
Street and East Hurlburt Ave-
nue, they found a dark-col-
ored Honda sedan with sev-
eral bullet holes in it.
“Preliminary investiga-
tion found that three occu-
pants were in an argument
with a male in a light-col-
ored SUV,” Edmiston said.
“The argument continued
with one of the three males
Hermiston police are
investigating a shooting that
took place near Newport
Park on March 27.
According to Police
Chief Jason Edmiston, offi-
cers responded at 8:27 p.m.
to reports of gunshots near
breaking out the back win-
dow of the SUV with a bat.
The male in the SUV pulled
a firearm and the three males
fled the scene.”
Edmiston said officers
believe the male in the SUV
pulled up to the unoccupied
Honda and shot at it numer-
ous times.
They found shell casings
near the Honda, and the SUV
fled the area.
Edmiston said they have
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made contact with people
involved in the incident, but
did not say how many.
He would not disclose
whether officers knew the
relationship between the two
parties.
good hands-on education
on precision irrigation, but
BMCC also uses the build-
ing to hold “compressed”
workshops where peo-
ple from the agricultural
industry can get training
on changes to the industry
over two full days instead
of a series of hour-long
classes in a semester.
“The industry folks
really like that,” she said.
Hamm
added
that
HAREC and BMCC hope
someday people will come
from all over the world,
not just the Pacific North-
west, to learn about preci-
sion irrigated agriculture in
an arid climate. Carl Melle,
dean of career technical
education for the college,
said they were also plan-
ning to begin a series of
Wednesday morning work-
shops for high school stu-
dents interested in pursuing
a career in agriculture.
Walden said he was
pleased that the federal
omnibus spending bill had
increased the amount of
funding for agricultural
research from the previous
year.
“It’s so important, the
work you do, and the work
they do across the state,” he
said.
Later that day Walden
visited Pendleton, where
he discussed rural school
funding with county offi-
cials and the opioid crisis
with Sheriff Terry Rowan.
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