SPORTS
HERMISTON VOLLEYBALL WINS ONE, LOSES ONE >> PAGE A10
HermistonHerald.com
INSIDE
RACE IS ON
Rick Pullen challenges
George Murdock for county
commissioner seat while
Larry Givens launches a
write-in campaign.
PAGE A3
STILL GOING
Retirement hasn’t made
life any less busy for former
Hermiston Christian School
principal Rod Hardin.
PAGE A8
HIGH HONOR
Good Shepherd Health Care
System was named one of
Oregon’s top workplaces
in 2018.
PAGE A15
BY THE WAY
Five apply for
Hermiston school
board
The Hermiston School
Board will decide how to
fill its vacancy at the next
school board meeting,
after hearing pitches from
applicants on Monday.
The board had five
applicants to fill the posi-
tion vacated by Jason
Middleton
after
he
resigned in September.
Those applicants are Kris
Lerten, Mark Millard,
Brent Pitney, Trish Ross-
ell and Mike Todryk.
Four candidates (Mil-
lard was absent) answered
a series of questions from
board members on Mon-
day, ranging from their
reasons for wanting to join
the board, to what they
believe the role of a super-
intendent should be. Sev-
eral said they have chil-
dren in the district and
that prompted them to get
more involved.
• • •
Don’t forget about the
candidate forum tonight
(Wednesday) hosted by
the Hermiston Chamber
of Commerce and KOHU
& The Q. The forum goes
from 5:30-7 p.m. in room
134/135 at the Hermiston
campus of Blue Moun-
tain Community Col-
lege, 975 S.E. Columbia
Drive. Umatilla County
Board of Commissioners
See BTW, Page A16
STAFF PHOTO BY JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
TOP: Hunter Dyer, Malayna Anderson, Koi Mikami, Julianna Joyce and Grace Lind dressed up as doctors from the T.V. show Grey’s
Anatomy for Tuesday’s Homecoming dress-up day. BOTTOM LEFT: Eseta Sepeni, Keali’imanaole Hamilton and Moana Peterson
dressed up as characters from the movie “Moana” for Tuesday’s homecoming dress-up day. BOTTOM RIGHT: Jenna Wallace and Isel
Tejeda Urenda dressed up as hot sauce packets for Tuesday’s homecoming dress-up day.
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
For some students, Homecoming means dress-up days and
tug-of-war. For others, it’s all about football. But the week in
October is a chance for all students to celebrate their school,
whatever that means to them.
The Hermiston High School leadership class starts planning
the event in summer, with several brainstorming sessions and
meetings to decide themes and activities.
“It takes a lot of voting, time and opinions from a lot of peo-
ple,” said Kaylee Young, a Hermiston High School leadership
student.
On Tuesday, students came to school decked out for the
dress-up day, “Kickin’ it With Your Crew” — where students
were encouraged to dress up as a group. The halls were filled
with TV, movie and cartoon characters, and some got even more
creative — a group students of dressed up as hot sauce packets,
ranging from Mild to Fire.
HHS Leadership adviser Dave Rohrman said the students
mix in some new events each year with Homecoming traditions.
This year, the students held a new event, a carnival game night,
on Monday. The pancake feed and the noise parade are back
this year, along with traditions like the dance and Homecom-
ing assembly.
Though the event is planned by a small group of kids, the
leadership students try to make sure they receive input from the
rest of the student body, promoting events and advertising on
See HOME, Page A16
Water, sewer rates to go up in March
Hermiston will use the
money to replace old
pipes, boost capacity
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
The Hermiston City Council
voted unanimously to raise water
and sewer rates Monday.
The rate restructure will take
effect in March 2019 and is expected
to raise about $2 million additional
revenue per year that the city plans
to put toward maintenance and
upgrades.
Instead of merely increasing cur-
rent rates by a specific percentage,
the council approved a complete
rate restructure. Rates will be the
same for residential and commercial
customers, based entirely on usage
and flipping the script so that larger
users will now pay more per 1,000
gallons instead of less.
The new structure will charge
$35 a month for sewer service plus
$3 for each 1,000 gallons of use,
based on wintertime usage. Water
users will pay a base charge of $30
per month, plus 50 cents per 1,000
gallons up to 15,000 gallons and
$3.50 per 1,000 gallons thereafter.
Assistant city manager Mark Mor-
gan said he calculated his own bill
will go up about $14.39 a month for
sewer and an average of $18.03 a
month for water under the changes.
Morgan said even after paring
down the list of capital improve-
ment needs by millions of dollars,
the public infrastructure committee
has still determined the city needs
$600,000 per year to replace old
water and sewer pipes, plus addi-
tional money for new projects to
increase capacity.
“We’re to the point where we’re
getting down to projects that need
started sooner rather than later,” he
said.
Under its current rate structure,
Morgan said, revenue falls “hope-
lessly short” of paying for any of
that, mainly because of the $2 mil-
lion a year the city is paying on the
debt service for the new recycled
water treatment plant built in 2014.
When the treatment plant came
online in 2014, the city reported
that the $17.2 million upgrade was
putting out recycled water “virtu-
ally indistinguishable from drinking
water,” with suspended solids at 0.7
parts per million instead of the pre-
vious 20 ppm. The city won a state
award for its innovation in sending
the recycled water to an irrigation
canal for agricultural use instead of
into the river. City manager Byron
Smith told the city council that year
that the final phase of the project,
the outfall pipe carrying water away
from the plant, came in $1 million
under budget.
Councilors said they felt the new
structure was the most fair way to
raise revenue. Commercial users
like car washes will now pay more
See WATER rates, A16