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
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