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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 28, 2018)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2018 HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3 NEWS Write-in options deliver variety in candidate choices Christmas arrives downtown By PHIL WRIGHT STAFF WRITER Umatilla County Com- missioner Larry Givens received 595 out of 783 write-in votes in the Nov. 6 election. He may have received another 20 or so write-ins, but the county Elections Division could not allocate those names to his total. Elections staff certified the tallies from the general election Wednesday morn- ing. The results confirmed Givens’ write-in cam- paign to retain the posi- tion 2 seat on the county board needed about 14,000 more votes to defeat John Shafer, the mayor of Ath- ena, who received 15,025 votes, a tick more than 95 percent of the total. While nearly 600 bal- lots displayed “Larry Giv- ens,” eight voters wrote in “Larry Gibbons,” the same number who wrote in Mickey Mouse and Rick Pullen, the challenger in the race for the position 1 seat on the county board. Tom Bailor, former com- missioner candidate, had 10 write-ins. Another six voted for “Givens,” and one person each voted for “Larry Givons,” “L. Giv- ens,” “Larry Gibens,” “Gibbons” and “Gibens.” County elections man- ager Kim Lindell said at first glance those names could all be for Commis- sioner Givens, but elec- tions staff cannot make those assumptions. “There could be a Larry Gibbons,” she said. “That could be an actual person.” Likewise, L. Givens could mean a Linda or Louise as a Larry. She also questioned if voters who wrote in some versions of the name knew who they were voting for. When in doubt, she said, the elec- tions office puts names in their own line in the tally. Just like Mickey and his buddy, Goofy, who ended up with one vote. Lin- dell said Mickey Mouse remains the most popular cartoon character that peo- ple write in. Goofy should not feel too bad. Bruce Wayne, Ms. America — the title, not the actual person — John Wayne, Tom Hanks, Dwayne Johnson, Barack Obama and “Basic Camp- fire” received single votes as well in the county com- missioner race, as did local real-life character Mark STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL City of Hermiston and Umatilla Electric Cooperative employees lower a giant Christmas tree into a special hole built into the new festival street. The tree, which arrived Monday morning after being donated from parks manager Jason Barron’s yard, will debut at a holiday celebration and tree lighting ceremony Dec. 6 at 6 p.m. next to city hall, 180 NE Second St. City postpones electric rate increase Hermiston council to vote Dec. 10 whether to increase rates by $2 a month By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER The Hermiston City Council postponed voting on a rate increase for Herm- iston Energy Services Mon- day in order to gather more information about the utili- ty’s costs. The council plans to vote on the proposed $2 per month increase during their Dec. 10 meeting instead, but City Manager Byron Smith said staff would likely still recommend a Jan. 1 implementation date for the increase. Hermiston Energy Ser- vices general manager Nate Rivera told the council that about 52 percent of HES’s expenses go toward purchas- ing wholesale power from Bonneville Power Adminis- tration, while about 17 per- cent of their costs come from their contract for ser- vices with Umatilla Electric Cooperative, 12 percent goes toward the utility’s debts and 11 percent goes toward sys- tem maintenance. HES pro- vides power to about 63 per- cent of Hermiston. Since 2009, Rivera said, BPA’s rates for wholesale power have gone up almost 39 percent, and another five percent increase is expected in 2019. Increasing whole- sale power costs, along with maintenance needs as HES infrastructure ages, have put HES on the path for a projected $157,151 deficit during the 2018-2019 fiscal year. With that in mind, Rivera is recommending that the city increase residential base rates from $14 a month to $16 a month, while keep- ing the charge for kilowatts- per-hour on top of that base rate the same. He also rec- ommended an increased base rate from $35 to $37 for small commercial users, a slight increase in demand charges for large commer- cial users and an industrial base rate increase from $200 to $250. Rivera said HES does not currently have any industrial users, and “those rates fully represent what it would cost to bring them into our system.” HES began in 2001 and first raised rates in 2005. The next rate increase was 10.95 percent in 2015 and 2.5 per- cent in 2016. The increase proposed for Jan. 1 would represent a 2.56 percent increase. Rivera said the increase would have been higher, but HES saved a combined $3 million on a refinance of its bond debt and savings on construction costs compared to what had been originally budgeted. However, he also said the increase before the coun- cil Monday did not fac- tor in whatever amount BPA increases its wholesale power rates by in 2019, or what costs might be added to HES by a capital improve- ment plan in the works — meaning he would likely be in front of the council a year from now asking for another increase. Mayor David Drotzmann said he didn’t like the idea of continuing to go back to customers with more rate changes each year, and city councilors pointed out that it was unfortunate timing with the recent rate increase for water and sewer that will kick in March 2019. Smith said staff thought it was better to raise rates only as needed. “The council had previ- ously said they didn’t want to wait, and see those 11 per- cent increases,” he said. Councilor John Kir- wan said he wanted to see a more specific breakdown of how the customer’s bill was divided between differ- ent costs such as wholesale power and construction. He asked that the council post- pone a vote on the increase until their next meeting so that Rivera could come back with that breakdown and a better explanation of how the savings from construc- tion and the bond refinance were being used. The council voted 6-1 to table the resolution. Coun- cilor Manuel Gutierrez was the dissenting vote, after pointing out that a Dec. 10 vote for a Jan. 1 increase would not give customers much time to prepare. Included in the resolution was a new program that, if passed, would allow cus- tomers to pre-pay their elec- tric bill with HES. Rivera said customers who prepaid at least $25 of their first bill would be able to avoid the $250 deposit that new cus- tomers are usually required to provide. Gomolski of Hermiston and Rex Morehouse of Pendleton. Every race with a can- didate on the ballot comes with a line for voters to write in someone else. But the elections depart- ment does not break out the write-ins for all races. In state races for supreme court judge, for exam- ple, the write-ins are too few to matter. Lindell said just about every big-name wrestler from the 1980s appeared on those ballots, from Andre the Giant to Randy Savage. “If they are not going to put people on the ballot, they need to make sure people are writing names in the right places.” Kim Lindell, County elections manager “We look at every ballot and any write-in,” she said. Adams and Helix res- idents continued to fol- low their tradition of using write-in votes to decide who will serve as major and city councilors. M. Dane Holmes remains the mayor of Adams with eight votes out of 40. Nine candidates received two votes each. And Kim Herron won the mayor’s seat in Helix with nine out of 37 write-ins. Jeff Rost won in the race for Adams City Coun- cil, taking 13 of the 47 votes. Monica Curtiss ran away from the field for position 4 on the Helix City Council, taking 22 of the 30 votes. Glen Tipton took the position 5 seat on the Helix City County with 19 of 29 votes, and Julie Harper received 20 out of 31 votes for position 6. Lindell said the tradi- tion can be troublesome. Past elections resulted in one person winning two seats. “If they are not going to put people on the bal- lot,” she said, “they need to make sure people are writing names in the right places.” ual Ann d r 23 CHRISTMAS OPEN HOUSE TWO DAYS ONLY! S UNDAY D EC . 2 ND • 1 PM - 4 PM M ONDAY D EC . 3 RD • 9 AM - 5 PM FREE GIFT WITH PURCHASE! ؏WHILE SUPPLIES LAST؏ • DOOR PRIZES! • HOLIDAY SNACKS & TREATS • ENTER TO WIN ALIVE & WELL GIFT CARDS! • EVERY $25 PURCHASE GETS A TICKET TO WIN! 5 Theater Cineplex • A MELISSA & DOUG DINOSAUR! 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