WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2018
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
LOCAL NEWS
Police investigate shooting
Hermiston man
hospitalized after
incident Monday
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
A 26-year-old man was
shot early Monday morning
on West Hartley Avenue in
Hermiston.
He was identified Mon-
day afternoon by police as
Erik Campos Navarrete of
Hermiston.
According to a news
release from Hermiston
Police Department, the
department received a report
of shots fired at approxi-
mately 1:20 a.m. in the 500
block of West Hartley Ave-
nue, two blocks west of First
Place.
Responding
officers
“located a 26-year-old male
with what appeared to be
a significant wound to his
head,” and the man was
transported to Good Shep-
herd Medical Center in
Hermiston and then Kadlec
Regional Medical Center
in Richland, Wash., where
he was listed in critical
condition.
He was still in the hospi-
tal as of Tuesday morning.
HH FILE PHOTO
A substation technician installs a ground wire on a riser
structure in December 2017 at the new Umatilla Electric
Cooperative substation on East Elm Avenue in Hermiston.
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL
A house in the 500 block of West Hartley Avenue in Hermiston is blocked off after a shooting
early Monday morning.
On
Monday
morn-
ing police were still out-
side the residence, which
was blocked off with crime
scene tape, and the release
from HPD stated that inves-
tigation is “still very much
active.”
The department has
not announced a person of
interest or arrest related to
the incident but is search-
ing for the person or per-
sons responsible. Anyone
with information on the inci-
dent is asked to call Herm-
iston Police Department at
541-567-5519 or leave a
message on their tip line at
541-667-5148.
An unrelated stabbing
incident on Kelli Boulevard
had taken place earlier that
evening, and between the
two incidents HPD received
assistance from Oregon
State Police, Umatilla
Police Department, Board-
man Police Department,
Pendleton Police Depart-
ment,
Milton-Freewater
Police Department, Blue
Mountain
Enforcement
Narcotics Team (BENT),
the Umatilla County Dis-
trict Attorney’s office,
Umatilla County Sheriff’s
Office and Morrow County
Sheriff’s Office.
Stabbing suspect arraigned on
charges of attempted murder
His two victims
are expected
to survive their
injuries
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
Two Hermiston men are
still in the hospital more
than a day after they were
stabbed by another man.
A nursing supervisor at
Legacy Emanuel Hospital in
Portland confirmed that Har-
old Piercy, 72, and Richard
Rukaveno, 64, were receiv-
ing treatment at the hospi-
tal, but would not offer more
about their condition.
According to Deputy
District Attorney Jaclyn
Jenkins, the two men are in
intensive care but expected
Aaron Zuwala
to survive their wounds.
The suspect in the stab-
bings, Aaron Zuwala, 34,
was arrested Monday morn-
ing and was arraigned
Tuesday afternoon at the
Umatilla County Court-
house in Hermiston. He
is being charged with two
counts of attempted mur-
der, two counts of first-de-
gree assault, and two counts
of unlawful use of a weapon.
According to a news
release from Hermiston
police, all three men knew
each other.
The stabbing took place
at 2350 Kelli Blvd. south of
Hermiston, at 9:55 Sunday
night.
It happened at a resi-
dence on the same property
as A and A Storage Units. A
representative for the stor-
age units, as well as Herm-
iston Police Chief Jason
Edmiston, said the business
had nothing to do with the
incident.
Jenkins said one man was
stabbed under the chin, and
the knife pierced his sinuses.
She said the other was
stabbed multiple times in the
chest, to the point where the
knife hit one of the vertebrae
in the victim’s spine.
Jenkins appeared by
video from the Umatilla
County Jail, along with
Zuwala.
Jenkins requested Zuwala
be held at $200,000 bail and,
if released, have no con-
tact with the victims or their
families. Judge Eva Temple
granted both requests.
Zuwala’s
preliminary
hearing is Monday, June 11
at 3 p.m. in Hermiston.
Zuwala has had sev-
eral criminal charges in his
background, but this is the
first in Umatilla County.
He was charged with theft
on two separate occasions
in 2017, in Jefferson and
Deschutes County, for steal-
ing merchandise from gro-
cery stores. He has a charge
of criminal mischief in the
second degree in Jeffer-
son County that same year,
as well as theft in the sec-
ond degree for stealing more
than $100 worth of water
from the Deschutes Valley
Water District.
Telecom execs buy out business
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
Umatilla Electric Coop-
erative announced Thursday
that it has sold its subsidiary
internet and phone provider,
Eastern Oregon Telecom, to
EOT company executives.
Joe Franell, EOT gen-
eral manager and CEO,
said the sale had been dis-
cussed for about four years,
and that three executive offi-
cers would share equal own-
ership of the company. The
three officers are Franell,
Chief Financial Officer Paul
Keeler and Chief Operating
Officer Richard Holbo.
A press release from UEC
stated that the EOT execu-
tive team did business under
the name Columbia Basin
Development Group.
Franell said he could
not discuss the terms of the
sale, but said he hopes that it
will eventually allow for all
employees to have a stake in
the company.
“Step one was to get own-
EO FILE PHOTO
Joseph Franell is the CEO of
Eastern Oregon Telecom.
ership of the company,” he
said. “Our corporate attor-
ney is looking at options for
us.”
The most formal option,
he said, would be to form
an
“Employee
Stock
Option Program,” or ESOP.
Employee-owned compa-
nies such as Bi-Mart use
this structure, he said. Other
possibilities include allow-
ing employees to purchase
stock options, or profit-shar-
ing, which Franell said is not
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true ownership.
He said they have no set
timeline for when employ-
ees will be able to have a
stake in the company’s own-
ership. He said when they
do provide that option, the
three current owners intend
to remain equal partners.
Franell said the goal with
taking over ownership of the
company was to serve other
areas not currently in the
UEC footprint.
“Our intent is to look at
opportunities to grow the
business,” he said.
Without naming specific
locations, he said they are
considering areas in adja-
cent counties on both sides
of the river.
“Anything east of the
Cascades in Oregon and in
Washington is fair game,”
he said.
He said they will likely
see employee growth with
that expansion.
Eastern Oregon Telecom
currently has about 3,500
customers, and covers area
from Tower Road, west of
Boardman, to Pendleton.
They also provide service to
some areas in Washington.
They have been in a
new building, on 2180 SE
Kelli Blvd., Hermiston, for
a month, and have an open
house on June 14.
EOT was formed in 1999,
and was initially owned
by UEC, Douglas Electric
Cooperative, four telephone
cooperatives and a telecom-
munications consulting firm.
Initially offering telephone
services, EOT expanded to
high-speed internet in 2003.
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Contact Leah with questions, 503-901-5374
Electric utility
learning from
rash of outages
Car crashes, wind,
equipment failure
behind some
recent incidents
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
Hermiston’s
electric
utilities have heard the
message loud and clear
that people are tired of
power failures.
Nate Rivera, gen-
eral manager of Herm-
iston Energy Services,
apologized May 29 to the
city council and Hermis-
ton residents for the rash
of outages that occurred
recently.
Between April 27 and
May 16, Hermiston-area
residents — depending on
their address — experi-
enced anywhere from one
to six outages, he said.
Since then he has heard
from a number of people
about how those outages
affected their businesses
and homes.
“We understand that is
too much,” he said, add-
ing he wanted to assure
the council and the com-
munity that there is a
“laser focus” at Hermis-
ton Energy Services and
at Umatilla Electric Coop-
erative on improving
reliability.
While UEC and HES
are separate entities, HES
contracts operation and
maintenance of infrastruc-
ture, meter reading and
some other tasks to UEC.
According to informa-
tion provided by Steve
Meyers of UEC, there
were outages affecting
more than 1,000 UEC cus-
tomers on April 27, May
3, May 8, May 9 and May
16, with multiple outages
on the 16th.
The disruptions to ser-
vice on April 27 and May
8 were caused by wind-
storms and May 9 was
caused by a van colliding
with a transmission pole.
The single-vehicle crash
at Northeast 10th Street
and East Elm Avenue
caused extensive damage
to the pole and transmis-
sion lines that took several
hours to repair.
On May 3 at about 5:10
p.m. an equipment fail-
ure at the new Hermiston
East Substation caused an
outage, and on May 16 an
equipment failure at the
Hermiston Butte Substa-
tion caused a series of four
outages over a three-hour
period in the middle of the
day.
Meyers said in an email
that the new substation
at Hermiston East helped
reduce the number of cus-
tomers affect by the out-
ages and allowed for
quicker restoration times
by providing an alterna-
tive source to transfer
customers.
New automated meters
that have been installed at
buildings around Herm-
iston also helped the util-
ity company pinpoint the
problem more quickly
and respond with “greater
speed and accuracy.”
“After every major out-
age, we assess our resto-
ration efforts and look for
opportunities for improve-
ment, with the emphasis
on being protective of our
members, the general pub-
lic and employees,” Mey-
ers said. “We understand
the impact of these out-
ages, and we are commit-
ted to reducing restoration
times.”
Rivera said the outages
had been learning oppor-
tunities that should lead to
better service in the future,
but in the meantime he
wanted to sincerely apol-
ogize to all who had been
inconvenienced.
“I just wanted to let you
guys know that we have
heard the message and we
are listening and respond-
ing,” he said.
During power outages
in the Hermiston area cus-
tomers can call 888-465-
5701 to report an outage
or check UEC’s real-time
outage
map,
which
includes information on
estimated
restoration
times, at outageviewer.
umatillaelectric.com.
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