Hermiston herald., October 24, 2018, Page A8, Image 7

A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2018
NEWS
City, feds and volunteers 152 voters’ pamphlets lacked
Umatilla County section
maintain Oxbow Trail
County elections
office has
complete guides
on hand
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
Four and a half years
after the Oxbow Trail was
dedicated, several sets of
eyes are working to keep
the area friendly to both
humans and wildlife.
The land is owned by
the Bureau of Reclama-
tion, which allowed the city
of Hermiston to build the
paved trail that stretches
from 11th Street to River-
front Park.
Sean Kimbrel, field
office manager of the
bureau’s Umatilla office,
said the bureau is work-
ing to maintain the Oxbow
property’s primary intent,
which is to protect fish habi-
tat along the Umatilla River.
After a July 2017 fire
burned through a dry field
along the trail and spread to
a nearby duplex, the bureau
has also started working
with the city and the prop-
erty’s neighbors to manage
vegetation and mow a fire
buffer near residences.
The property, like many
areas along the Umatilla
River, has drawn some
homeless camps.
Kimbrel said the Bureau
of Reclamation works with
law enforcement when
that happens to enforce the
camping ban and ask peo-
ple to move along.
Hermiston Police Chief
Jason Edmiston said the
department gets “sporadic”
complaints about transient
activity in the Oxbow area.
He said occasional meet-
ings with the bureau have
proved productive, and the
department does what it
can to keep an eye on the
area.
“It’s a unique situa-
tion, because the city has
a vested interest with the
trail, but it’s federal land,”
he said.
Edmiston
said
the
Oxbow Trail, which is
HERMISTON HERALD
HH FILE PHOTO
The Oxbow Trail in Hermiston is owned by the Bureau of
Reclamation and managed by the city of Hermiston.
“I spend a lot of time down
there.”
Eileen Laramore has partnered with SOLVE and
Columbia Riverkeeper to adopt that area
inaccessible to patrol cars,
is one of the reasons Herm-
iston Police Department
bought a side-by-side ATV.
The smaller vehicle can
provide quick access if
there is an emergency call
half a mile down the trail,
or allow officers more of a
presence along the trail.
The department even
used it last winter to clear
snow off the trail, which
gets used year-round.
Edmiston said dealing
with homelessness issues,
such as panhandling and
illegal encampment, is
always a balance between
being compassionate while
also promoting public
health, safety and livability.
Helping maintain Hermis-
ton’s livability is one of the
department’s goals, he said.
There is also a balance
that must be struck between
maintaining habitat areas
while also making problem
areas more visible from the
trail.
From a safety stand-
point, Edmiston encour-
aged anyone walking the
Oxbow Trail or other simi-
lar trails to take a cellphone
with them in case of emer-
gencies, and to avoid walk-
ing at night where there is
poor lighting.
Private citizens have
also worked to help main-
tain the Oxbow area’s
usability.
Eileen Laramore has
partnered with SOLVE and
Columbia Riverkeeper to
adopt that area and often
brings groups of volun-
teers down to pull out inva-
sive weeds such as garlic
mustard.
Laramore said she has
been troubled by garbage
she sees left behind some-
times in homeless camps,
and tries to alert the Bureau
of Reclamation when
she sees problems on the
property.
“I spend a lot of time
down there,” she said.
Human error looks to be
at blame for why a fraction
of Umatilla County voters
received a state voters’ pam-
phlet without the county’s
section.
State contractor Signa-
ture Graphics of Portland
produced 31,570 of the
informational
pamphlets
for Umatilla County house-
holds, according to informa-
tion from county elections
manager Kim Lindell, and
152 books lacked the section
for Umatilla County.
Kim Forbis with Signa-
ture Graphics explained in
an email to the county that
an employee “manually
feeds the county insert into a
pocket on a binding machine
that marries it up with the
state book.” The machine
has a detector that measures
the caliper of the entire book
to make sure all sections and
inserts are inside prior to
stapling and trimming. But
Umatilla County’s insert
was just eight pages. The
thin section made it difficult
to detect when becoming
part of the 132-page state
book.
Lindell said county elec-
tions received 20 calls con-
cerning pamphlets lacking
the insert, and based on the
numbers, it appears less than
half a percent of all the pam-
phlets did not get the insert.
And for anyone who
wants a complete pam-
phlet, she said, the office has
plenty available.
Umatilla County gets funding
to plan new trail system
Trail would run
25 miles from
Umatilla to Echo
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
Backers of the West
County Trails project now
have some funding to get the
project off the ground.
The proposed network of
trails would connect roughly
25 miles of new and exist-
ing trails around Umatilla,
Hermiston, Stanfield and
Echo.
The trails could be used
for walking, running, bicy-
cling and horseback riding
and would provide views of
the Columbia and Umatilla
rivers.
On Tuesday Umatilla
County announced it had
received a $150,000 tech-
nical assistance grant from
the National Park Service.
The money will be used for
the initial planning stages,
including trail route plan-
ning, identifying materials,
construction cost estimates
and identifying funding for
the rest of the project.
According
to
the
announcement, the proj-
ect “will include a vari-
ety of community meetings
to gather information” and
“will require collaboration
with Confederated Tribes
of Umatilla Indian Reser-
vation and other state and
federal agencies to iden-
tify culturally and environ-
mentally sensitive sites, and
how those can be best incor-
porated into a regional trail
system.”
Umatilla County is also
submitting an application
to Portland State Univer-
sity’s Master of Urban and
Regional Planning Program
in hopes of receiving addi-
tional help.
Graduate students in the
program assisted the city of
Umatilla in developing its
Umatilla Together frame-
work plan for downtown
Umatilla in 2017.
Technical
assistance
on writing both the parks
grant and the PSU appli-
cation is being provided
by Eastern Oregon Busi-
ness Source through the
Umatilla County Regional
Capacity Building Initia-
tive, a public-private part-
nership funded by Umatilla
County economic develop-
ment funds.
A similar regional net-
work of trails, known as
the Blue Mountain Region
Trails, is in the early plan-
ning stages in Walla Walla.
That project would create a
network of trails through-
out Walla Walla and Colum-
bia counties in Washington
and northeastern Umatilla
County.
According to the county,
the West County Trails proj-
ect would explore options
for connecting to other
trail systems in Umatilla,
Morrow and Walla Walla
counties.
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