WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2018
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
NEWS
Lamp blamed for fire at local Adventist church
Initial damage
estimated at
$3 million
Other emergencies strike
during the weekend
The Umatilla County
Fire District stayed busy
this weekend with several
major structure fires.
In addition to a blaze that
damaged the Seventh-day
Adventist church in Herm-
iston, crews on Sunday
morning also responded
to a fire on Northeast 10th
Street and on early Monday
morning to an RV and shed
fire on Echols Road.
Around 6:30 a.m. Sun-
day, crews responded to
a fire in the 2100 block of
Northeast 10th, where a
single-wide manufactured
home was fully engulfed.
Fire Marshal Scott Goff
said the cause of the fire
was determined to be a
faulty water heater. He said
the couple who live on the
property were not home at
the time and no one was
hurt. The damage from the
fire is estimated at $75,000.
Shortly after midnight on
Monday, crews responded
to a fire on Echols Road.
This blaze burned a 25-foot
motor home and a fifth-
wheel trailer, as well as a
small barn and some other
items, including an area
full of scrap metal, wood
and car parts. There was
also a 100-gallon propane
tank that was actively vent-
ing and on fire.
The fire spread to about
half an acre. Crews had put
the fire out and were back
to the station within about
three hours.
Goff said the property
owners were in the house,
and there is a person who
was living in the motor
home, but they were not
inside at the time.
Goff said the cause of
that fire has not yet been
determined, but no foul
play is suspected.
The
crews
who
responded to the fires this
weekend also covered sev-
eral medical calls and an
assault call in Umatilla,
receiving help from off-
duty firefighters and other
departments.
they were comforted by the
knowledge that their church
family still exists, just in a
different location.
The church, at 855 W.
Highland Ave., is best
known in the community for
its annual Journey to Beth-
lehem living nativity. Rob-
ins said most of the scenery
is stored in a separate stor-
age shed.
UCFD was assisted by
Boardman, Echo and Uma-
tilla rural fire departments in
fighting the fire.
HERMISTON HERALD
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
A fire early Sunday
morning destroyed much
of the Hermiston Adven-
tist Church, as flames and
extensive smoke damaged
the decades-old house of
worship.
Umatilla County Fire
District Marshal Scott Goff
said investigators think the
fire was caused by a lamp
that was too close to a
wooden table. Foul play is
not suspected.
“It was a long, slow,
smoldering fire that kind of
cooked the whole building,”
Goff said.
As flames engulfed the
west side of the building
before dawn on Sunday,
some church members were
quick to jump to action.
Larry Hanson, a former
head elder in the church,
helped fight the fire as a
volunteer for the Echo Fire
Department.
“It’s kind of hard to say
how long it had been burn-
ing,” Hanson said.
He arrived around 5:15
a.m., close to an hour after
UCFD reached the church,
and remained on site until
about 9 a.m.
Hanson, a longtime
member of the church,
said the building was con-
structed in the mid-1960s.
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Flames erupted out of these doors on the west end of the Seventh-day Adventist church on
Sunday in Hermiston.
Hanson said on Monday
that they wouldn’t know the
extent of the damage until
an insurance adjuster arrived
Tuesday.
Goff said he estimated
the damage at $3 million.
Hanson said the church’s
insurance would cover those
costs.
While the building is
under repair, he said the con-
gregation will hold church
services at the Hermiston
Junior Academy, the school
run by the Seventh-day
Adventist church, on North-
west 11th Street.
Carl Robins, a member of
the Hermiston Seventh-day
Adventist church for the past
seven years, was standing
in the parking lot and sur-
veying the damage Monday
morning.
“I’m sad,” he said. “I’d
be lying if I said I wasn’t.”
Robins said he had
looked at the damage inside
the building on Sunday, and
said it appeared that much
of the building’s interior had
been burned.
“The guy who does the
sound equipment went into
the sanctuary, and he said
pretty much everything in
there is toast,” he said.
Robins said he was
relieved no one was injured,
which was the most import-
ant thing. As he was stand-
ing there, a man drove up
and handed him a bag.
“I brought cookies for
your congregation,” he said.
“I know that’s not much.”
Hanson said the church
currently has about 175
active members, and they
had varying responses to the
fire.
“It’s interesting,” Han-
son said.
“People react in differ-
ent ways. There certainly
were a few people crying —
I think especially those who
grew up with this being the
only church they’ve ever
known.”
He said for others, the
fire was disappointing, but
Council unpacks property rule issues
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
The Hermiston city
council changed its mind
mid-meeting on one prop-
erty issue Monday and
decided to ask the public
about another before mov-
ing forward.
The council first rejected
a proposed update to acces-
sory dwelling regulations,
then after further discussion
gave the planning commis-
sion the go-ahead to start
the public hearing pro-
cess. After hearing mixed
reviews on an idea to ban
use of metal shipping con-
tainers for storage in resi-
dential zones, they asked
city staff to survey the pub-
lic about it.
Councilor John Kir-
wan had commented at a
previous meeting that he
was seeing an increase of
metal shipping containers
being used as storage sheds
next to houses. He inquired
about regulations for such
use, and after finding out
there were none, councilors
asked city staff to consider
drafting some rules.
On Monday during a
work session, city planner
Clint Spencer presented
a “first draft” recommen-
dation from the planning
commission for feedback.
The rules would ban use of
the containers in residential
zones, leaving an exemp-
tion for temporary uses up
to 60 days in a year or up to
120 days when connected to
a construction project that
has been issued a building
permit. In commercial and
industrial zones one con-
tainer per lot (in a commer-
cial zone) or per acre (for
industrial) could be used,
provided it was painted
the same color as the pri-
mary building, rust-free,
logo-free, on a concrete or
asphalt slab and has been
granted a building permit.
In all zones, the regulations
would apply to new con-
tainers, not existing ones.
Councilors had mixed
feelings about the proposal.
Doug Smith said he didn’t
want to see a lot of the ship-
ping containers popping
up in residential neighbor-
hoods, but later during the
council’s regular meet-
ing said he thought the city
should get feedback on
what seemed like it could
be a polarizing issue.
Mayor David Drotz-
mann said some shipping
containers next to houses
were unsightly, but he
wouldn’t necessarily have a
problem with one in some-
one’s back yard, painted a
subtle color and mostly out
of sight. He said he “under-
stood the visibility issue”
but wasn’t sure he wanted
to see the city take away an
affordable storage option
for people.
“I’m struggling with it a
little bit,” he said. “I don’t
like the way they look, but
I don’t like the way some of
my neighbors’ houses look
either.”
Comments from the pub-
lic were mixed too. Jackie
Linton said she thought
shipping containers would
look out of place in her
Beebe Avenue neighbor-
hood, but she didn’t have a
problem with them in more
rural neighborhoods with
larger lots. Rhonda Sal-
lee and Randy Smith ques-
tioned why the city needed
such an ordinance at all.
Councilors asked staff to
survey Hermiston residents
and bring the feedback to a
future council meeting.
The council also dis-
cussed another set of rec-
ommendations from the
planning commission Mon-
day, for accessory dwelling
units. Spencer said those
could include guest houses,
basement
apartments,
apartments over garages
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and other “mother-in-law”
apartments.
Spencer said the state
legislature passed new laws
for ADUs that take effect
July 1, including a require-
ment that new ADUs have
permits.
Spencer said Hermiston
has always allowed acces-
sory dwelling units only
if no rent was charged for
them, but the new law forces
the city to let people charge
rent for guest houses, base-
ment apartments and other
ADUs on their property.
He said it was “frustrating”
that the state had arbitrarily
changed the character of
Hermiston’s zoning code
by turning all of its sin-
gle-family residential zones
into multi-family residen-
tial areas.
To address the changes,
the planning commission
spent three months crafting
amendments to the city’s
code. The new require-
ments state that accessory
dwelling units must meet
all building codes, include
a bathroom and kitchen,
be accessible from a sepa-
rate entrance than the main
dwelling and come with
one to two additional paved
offstreet parking spaces
depending on the number
of bedrooms. The dwellings
will be subject to a permit
and permit fee, and will be
charged the utility rate for
multi-family dwellings.
City councilor Jackie
Myers wanted to see addi-
tional rules about the ADU
having to match the primary
dwelling and setting aes-
thetic standards, and other
councilors agreed, but Spen-
cer said the advice of legal
counsel was that wouldn’t
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hold up as a “reasonable”
standard under the law
because the city doesn’t have
rules for what colors people
can paint their primary resi-
dence, for example.
When it came time for a
vote, only councilors Doug
Primmer and Lori Davis
voted in favor of having the
city start the public hearing
and notice process to turn
the regulations into law.
But afterward Drotzmann
expressed the feeling that
the regulations were likely
as extensive as the plan-
ning commission was able
to make them, and Spencer
confirmed that there wasn’t
much more the commis-
sion could add after legal
counsel had directed them
to take out multiple design
standards that had origi-
nally been included. He
also said that the state law
takes effect July 1 no mat-
ter what the city passes to
“put siderails” on the issue,
and that it could always be
revised later.
That persuaded Myers,
Gutierrez, Smith and Har-
din, who voted with Prim-
mer and Davis this time
after Myers made another
motion to once again con-
sider moving forward with
the public process to adopt
the new standards.
Shooting victim taken
off life support, homicide
investigation underway
HERMISTON HERALD
The investigation into
the shooting of Erik Navar-
rete Campos, 26, has turned
into a homicide investiga-
tion, according to Herm-
iston Police Chief Jason
Edmiston, after the young
man was removed from life
support Friday.
An autopsy determined
the cause of death was a
gunshot wound to the head.
Police responded to
Navarrete Campos’s resi-
dence in the 500 block of
Hartley Avenue in Hermis-
ton about 1:20 a.m. on June
4 after a report of gunshots
and found Navarrete Cam-
pos injured. He was taken
to Kadlec Regional Medical
Center in Richland, Wash.
Police have not released
information about sus-
pects or the circumstances
surrounding the incident.
Anyone with information
is encouraged to call 541-
Erik Navarrete Campos
567-5519 to speak with a
detective.
Navarrete
Campos’s
family and friends held two
car washes over the week-
end to help raise money for
his medical expenses and
have set up a GoFundMe
page online. He was a life-
long Hermiston resident.
The victim’s legal name
is Campos Navarrete, but
family and friends knew him
as Navarrete Campos.
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June 19, 1928
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