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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (July 24, 2019)
COMMUNITY Wednesday, July 24, 2019 HeRMIsTOnHeRald.COM • A7 CTUIR requests cultural preservation agreement with Hermiston By JADE MCDOWELL NEWS EDITOR staff photo by Ben lonergan A pile of rubble marks the former dugout at Weber Field at Hermiston High School. The field will be renovated over the course of the next year with the help of labor donations from local businesses. School district preps for fall Hermiston High School Gym and Weber Field are getting touch ups By JESSICA POLLARD STAFF WRITER While students enjoy summer break, Hermis- ton School District gets down to work, deep clean- ing and performing mainte- nance throughout to get the schools in good shape. Weber Field is getting updates this summer and over the next year, said ath- letic director Larry Usher. “We need to have another adequate field for our baseball,” Usher said. He said that right now, HSD has three teams and one field. Maria Duron, communi- cations officer at HSD, said that the updates were made possible with labor dona- tions from local businesses. They excavated the right field, which was sloped, and will be adding new fencing and dugouts. Usher hopes the renova- tions could help bring the varsity Hermiston Bulldogs to the high school in com- ing years. In addition to the recently renovated weight room at the high school, the main gym floor has received a new paint job with financial support from the Hermiston Basketball Club. “It looks pretty good,” Usher said. At Desert View Elemen- tary School, a sidewalk is being installed from West Joseph Street to the modu- lar buildings. Oregon OSHA offers safety grants Oregon OSHA (Occu- pational Safety and Health Administration) is seek- ing creative ideas related to workplace safety or health training programs. The agency is accept- ing grant applications for the creation of innovative on-the-job safety and health training programs. Oregon OSHA encourages unique projects, such as mobile apps, videos or online edu- cational games to engage workers. The training grants will focus on programs that tar- get a high-hazard Oregon industry, including con- struction or agriculture, or a specific work pro- cess to reduce or eliminate hazards. Any employer, labor group, school affil- iated with a labor group, or nonprofit organization may apply. Applicants may request up to $40,000 per grant project.Employers are not allowed to use grants to pay for training for their employees. The deadline to apply is Friday, Oct. 4 by 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.osha.oregon.gov/edu/ grants and click on “Grant programs.” For questions, contact Teri Watson at 503- 947-7406 or teri.a.wat- son@oregon.gov. Propane leak contained at Port of Morrow HERMISTON HERALD A propane leak out- side of the Port of Mor- row was contained Monday morning. Lawn maintenance, said economic development director Lisa Mittlesdorf, struck a small propane tank that feeds a backup gen- erator on the side of the building. After 8:30 a.m., the buildings on site were evacuated. Mittlesdorf said the leak was contained with help from the Boardman Fire District, Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office and the Boardman Police Depart- ment by 9:24 a.m. No one was injured. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation is hoping to strengthen ties with the city of Hermiston with a formal agreement on cultural preservation. Teara Farrow, manager of the tribes’ cul- tural resources protection program, told the city council Monday that a 1994 memo- randum of agreement between the city and CTUIR set guidelines for the city to notify the tribes of planned public projects, take input and allow for surveys to help discover any culturally-sensitive items, ranging from arrowheads to burial sites. The agreement expired and the CTUIR asked for a renewal in 2006, but the coun- cil at that time declined to sign a new agree- ment, she said. They hope the current city council will consider renewing the formal partnership. Kristen Tiede, an archeologist with the cultural resources protection program, said a partnership that fosters more cultural sur- veys of public land around Hermiston would be beneficial to development. “If we identify sites beforehand you don’t have to hold up a project, you can include it in the plan,” she said. When artifacts are discovered, she said, there are options to adjust the project so that a resource can be preserved or capped, or if disturbing the resource is unavoidable, they can talk about options for mitigation such as donating money toward preservation programs. “By working together we can help protect cultural resources without stopping develop- ment,” Tiede said. Farrow said surveys don’t take long. Their archeologists can do a 40 to 80 acre site in a day if they’re only examining the surface, and a few days more if they’re test- ing below ground. She said the CTUIR has similar agree- ments with cities such as Umatilla and Rich- land, and with ports and counties in Washing- ton. She said the agreement with Hermiston would ideally include provisions for volun- tary information sharing, giving first pref- erence to tribal archeologists to complete surveys, meeting with the CTUIR board of directors annually and other coordination. City manager Byron Smith told the coun- cil that staff had taken a look at the previ- ous agreement the city had with the tribes, as well as the current agreements the CTUIR has with other communities, and was pre- pared to come back at a future meeting with a recommendation. Mayor David Drotzmann said he hoped they could work out something that would be of mutual benefit to both entities, and a win for the region. “It’s been a nice relationship and I hope it continues to mature,” he said. School district On Monday the city council also listened to a request from the Hermiston School Dis- trict for a resolution supporting the school district’s bond campaign. The district plans to put an $82.7 million bond on the Novem- ber ballot that would replace Rocky Heights Elementary School with a larger school on the same site, add a new classroom annex to Hermiston High School and build a new ele- mentary school on Theater Lane. Property owners will see a drop on their next property tax bill, taking the school bond tax from about $4.09 per $1,000 or assessed value to about $3.65 per $1,000 thanks to paying off all pre-2008 bonds last month. District finance director Katie Saul told the council that if the new bond passes, the rate will stay at about $3.65, but instead of pay- ing off all school bonds in 10 years, taxpay- ers would be paying that rate for about 25. Councilors asked questions about the projects and were told that they would allow for modular classrooms at the high school and Sunset Elementary School to go away, as well as the ones at Rocky Heights not being used by Head Start. The current Rocky Heights building would remain in use while the new, larger building would be built on the other side of the property. As part of that, the softball fields there would be moved onto the old fairgrounds next to the high school. Later in the meeting, parks and recreation director Larry Fetter told the council that his department has started the process of cre- ating a master parks plan and is partnering with the school district so that both entities could assess all of their current green space and all of their recreational needs together. Drotzmann praised that idea as a way to reduce “dual taxpayer expense.” Public employees are only allowed by state law to give information about bond campaigns, not advocate a political posi- tion on it, but school board member Josh Goller was allowed to be more direct, ask- ing for the council to pass a formal resolu- tion in support. Multiple councilors voiced their approval of the idea, and Drotzmann asked staff to bring a formal resolution back at a later meeting. 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