NEWS
A12 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2020
Year in Review:
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Continued from Page A1
hamstringing the economic
opportunities and stability
of the entire region.” They
wrote that growers and other
shippers in the area had
already been complaining
of major issues with Union
Pacific after their first round
of layoffs, and cited safety
concerns that ex-employees
had expressed to the Herm-
iston Herald.
The
community
responded by offering up
services for families that had
lost their income and putting
together an emergency job
fair to encourage people to
stay in the community.
2) Water rate increases
anger residents
After the City of Hermis-
ton’s restructure of its water
rates kicked in on March 1,
anger built among residents
of the city who had seen
their bill go up significantly
in the wake of the new rates.
The updated rates were
based more heavily on
usage, with any water over
15,000 gallons a month
increasing from 50 cents
to $3.50 per 1,000 gallons.
While some residents saw
minimal increases, others
took to social media and an
August city council meeting
to testify that their bill had
doubled or more. They said
they had stopped watering
their lawns or taking daily
showers to afford their bill.
Despite pushback, the
city council kept the rates the
same, stating that the reve-
nue was needed for projects
to protect the integrity of the
city’s water system and keep
it running, including replac-
ing crumbling, century-old
pipes.
3) Voters pass $82.7
bond for Hermiston School
District
An $82.7 million bond
passed by voters in Novem-
ber will ring in the replace-
ment of the Hermiston
School District’s oldest ele-
mentary school, Rocky
Heights, and add a new ele-
mentary school on Theater
Lane. It will also fund an
annex to increase capacity at
the high school, elementary
school site improvements
and purchase of new prop-
erty for future growth.
The changes will eventu-
ally result in a redrawing of
elementary school boundar-
ies to ease crowding.
The passage of the bond
resulted from an election
that kept supporters and dis-
senters alike on the edges of
their seats until late into the
night. Eventually, the mea-
sure was approved by 52.4%
of Hermiston voters.
That success was the first
of its kind in over a decade
and followed a failed mea-
sure in 2017, for a $104 mil-
lion bond which aimed to
replace Rocky Heights and
Highland Hills, among other
projects. This year, adminis-
trators and board members
acknowledged that the bond
was too big an ask for the
community.
It was the first bond to
pass under Superinten-
dent Tricia Mooney’s lead-
ership. It was also the first
time that the political action
committee, Yes for Herm-
DONATIONS:
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she said. “It’s a good feeling.
For Eastern Oregon
Mission’s Agape House in
Hermiston, the story is a lit-
tle different.
“November and Decem-
ber are our biggest months
for people to give,” said
Cathy Putnam, interim
director of the organization.
Each year, Agape House
is the site of Christmas
Express, a program put on
by city employees to pro-
vide people in need with
gifts and food. Usually, the
event reaches 500 fami-
lies. Putnam said this year,
the event served fewer than
400, and the organization is
not sure why.
Putnam said Agape
House is in awe of how gen-
erous the community is in
providing support to the
organization.
HH file photo
A man speaks to the Hermiston city council Aug. 26 about frustrations with a March water rate
increase. The audience for the meeting filled the seats in the council chambers and spilled over
into the lobby.
City builds new water tower
Union Club opens
Fiesta Foods closes
City launches food truck pod
“Watermelon king” Skip Walchli dies
Hermiston sees record-breaking February snows
Major drug bust puts strain on local foster care system
Maxwell Pavilion opens
Former city manager Tom Harper dies
Riverfront Park damaged by floods
Hermiston Chamber of Commerce gets new director
Chamber of Commerce purchases land for new building
Hermiston woman killed in unsolved hit and run
Two boaters drown in Columbia River
Walker’s Farm Kitchen closes
Chuckwagon closes
Lifeways prepares to open Aspen Springs psychiatric facility
Boiler fire closes city hall for more than a month
Panda Express opens
Woman arrested for DUII after fatal crash
Cities plan Umatilla River Trail
Hermiston residents file for county commissioner
HH file photo
Agape House Executive Director Dave Hughes poses for a
portrait at his desk.
HH file photo
iston Schools sought cam-
paign management from
a third party, Pac/West
Communications.
4) Funland playground
burns down
On May 10, Hermiston
lost a treasured piece of the
community when the Fun-
land playground at Butte
Park burned down in the
early morning hours.
The large wooden struc-
ture was originally built by
volunteers in 1996, then
rebuilt with an even larger
community effort in 2001
after arson destroyed it.
After the fire in May, the
city put together a commit-
tee of citizens and city coun-
cilors to choose a company
to build a new playground.
They unveiled designs for
a “bigger, better and stron-
ger” playground in Decem-
ber that would be made out
of fire-resistant recycled
plastic with an ADA-acces-
sible rubber ground cover-
ing, broken up into themes
such as Wild West and agri-
culture. They plan to begin
fundraising as much as
$810,000 before attempting
to complete the new play-
ground by Sept. 2020.
5) Amazon offers $40
million in lieu of taxes for
Hermiston project
In October, the Hermis-
ton City Council and Uma-
tilla County Board of Com-
missioners agreed to give
Amazon a 15-year property
tax break for a new devel-
opment the tech giant has
planned for southeastern
Hermiston.
In exchange for not pay-
ing property taxes, Amazon
promised to pay $40 mil-
lion over the course of the
15 years, spread between
the city, county and other
local taxing districts such
as Hermiston School Dis-
trict and Umatilla County
Fire District 1. The city and
county have not made final
decisions on how their por-
tion will be spent, but have
discussed using it for mutu-
ally beneficial projects such
as paving Gettman Road in
Hermiston.
The decision caused dis-
cussion in the community
about the role of such tax
breaks. While some pointed
out that $40 million is much
more than the taxing dis-
tricts get each year from
the bare ground currently
there, others questioned why
a trillion-dollar company
shouldn’t pay its full share
of local property taxes.
6) Hermiston Foods
plant purchased for CBD
processing
NORPAC’s closure of the
Hermiston Foods vegetable
processing plant was one of
the top stories of 2017, but
in 2019 the facility finally
found a buyer in local farmer
Alan Cleaver.
Cleaver, who owns
Columbia Basin Onion and
related companies in Herm-
iston, announced in May that
he was purchasing the plant
in order to use it to extract
CBD oil from hemp for
pharmaceutical purposes,
under the name Columbia
Basin Extraction.
Since the federal gov-
ernment legalized indus-
trial hemp — which does
not contain the high-induc-
ing THC that its cousin mar-
ijuana does — last year,
Cleaver has been growing
the new crop to be used for
medicinal purposes. He ret-
rofitted the former Hermis-
ton Foods building to extract
CBD from dried hemp pel-
Hermiston Parks and Recreation director Larry Fetter (right) assists Kayla Sandlyn and Dylan
Duke earlier this year in locating a wooden fence board carved with the name of Dylan’s father
Scott Duke, who passed away several years ago.
“We’re just stewards of
what is given to us,” she
said.
Putnam added that Agape
House’s needs are often
greatest, not during the holi-
days, but during fall.
“At the beginning of the
school year, we’re really in
need of school clothes,” she
said. “A lot of times parents
won’t have the furniture
they need when they’re new
to town.”
And when the organi-
zation is accepting larger
items like furniture, Putnam
said, they’ve been increas-
ingly careful about what
they accept.
“We’re trying to be good
stewards; if it’s not usable,
we have to pay to get it taken
away,” she said. “We’re ask-
ing people to think about if
it’s something they would
still use.”
Marilyn Johnson, who
coordinates the Outreach
Food Pantry in Pendleton,
said this winter the Pendle-
ton School District donated
nearly 4,000 pounds of food
to the organization.
“We get these massive
inflows,” she said. “But
this community always has
donated food throughout
the year. We get donations
almost daily.”
She added that monthly
shipments from the Ore-
gon Food Bank branch at
CAPECO helps bolster the
rise and fall of seasonal
donations.
“That’s the one depend-
able shipment we know
we’re going to get,” she
said.
It’s not all human needs
organizations
that
see
upticks in giving during the
holidays.
Michelle Glynn, manager
at Pendleton Animal Wel-
fare Shelter, noted Decem-
ber is a time of heavy dona-
tions to the organization.
“I’ve seen quite an
increase during the holi-
days. We need all the dona-
tions we can get, and espe-
cially during the spring,”
she said.
Each spring, PAWS espe-
cially needs cat litter due to
an influx of kittens.
And while the donations
flow freely during winter,
she said the adoption and
surrender rates stay roughly
the same.
Fuzzball Animal Rescue
in Hermiston has received
a few calls about people
looking to surrender their
pets, and the organiza-
tion has picked up a few
strays near Christmastime,
too, board member Robin
Barker said.
But adoptions are slow.
“People are looking
for puppies and kittens at
Christmas, and most of our
rescues are older than that,”
she said.
“We’re terribly over-
loaded. The community is
very supportive of us, but
people don’t want to adopt
(animals).”
lets using a cold extraction
method with denatured eth-
anol, and told the Herm-
iston Herald in May that
he planned to hire 30 to 40
employees.
7)
New
housing
announced
Hermiston’s
housing
market got set to grow this
year, as new subdivisions
broke ground or passed
through initial hurdles such
as annexation or rezoning.
In April, the city coun-
cil annexed 11 acres on the
northwest corner of West
Theater Lane and North-
west Geer Road for Monte
Vista Homes, which planned
to build 53 single-family
houses and one multi-fam-
ily project on the property.
The same month, Northwest
Housing Alternatives broke
ground on a 48-unit apart-
ment complex on Southeast
Sixth Street.
In May, the council
approved another annex-
ation, this time 9.35 acres
on Elm Avenue across from
the Oxbow Trail entrance,
where FDM Development
plans to build 39 new homes.
In July, the council
approved the final plat for
the eighth and ninth phase
of the Highland Summit
subdivision, which includes
another 40 lots.
In November, the city
annexed 36 acres at the
intersection of Elm Avenue
and Diagonal Road, where
Lloyd and Lois Piercy plan
to build 25 acres of “mod-
erate” single family homes
and a selection of duplexes
and triplexes containing
approximately 45 accessible
units designed for residents
age 55 and older.
In December, after add-
ing dozens of townhomes to
the first phase of the Cim-
maron Terrace subdivision,
VestCapital broke ground on
the second phase, which will
begin with 38 new single
family homes and include a
new 7-acre public park.
8) City considers pos-
sible sale of Hermiston
Community Center
It was the news that didn’t
actually happen: city man-
ager Byron Smith confirmed
to the Hermiston Herald
in October that a poten-
tial buyer for the Hermis-
ton Community Center had
come forward and was in the
process of doing due dili-
gence on the property before
making an unsolicited offer.
The plan back then was
for the person or company,
who the city declined to
name, to present a proposal
to the city council at a date
in the near future, but by
the end of 2019 the mys-
tery buyer had yet to step
forward.
If the sale did take place,
it would be big news for
Hermiston. The city pur-
chased the former Safeway
and surrounding property
for $544,000 in 1994 and the
community raised another
$665,000 for its renovation,
according to the Hermis-
ton Herald archives. It has
since been used regularly
for community and private
events, and currently houses
the offices of the city’s parks
and recreation department.
9) Ranch & Home opens
Many businesses opened
and closed in Hermiston
during 2019, but likely the
most anticipated opening
was Ranch & Home, a large
retailer based in the Tri-Cit-
ies that offers western cloth-
ing, tools, hunting and fish-
ing supplies, barbecue grills,
lawn care supplies and other
outdoor-related items.
The retailer announced
plans for a Hermiston store
in early 2016, planning to
open by the end of 2017.
The store’s actual opening
date was April 19.
10) Dave Hughes retires
from Agape House
After more than 15 years
at the helm of Hermiston’s
food bank and social ser-
vices organization, Dave
Hughes retired from the
Agape House (run under
Eastern Oregon Mission,
along with family shelter
Martha’s House), in October
and loaded up an RV with
his wife Jodene. The pair
headed straight to Globe,
Arizona.
Hughes, 73, took the
director position at the orga-
nization back in 2002.
Under his leadership,
Agape House headed to its
current location on West
Harper Road, and developed
new ways of helping North-
eastern Oregon’s vulnerable
populations— including ini-
tiating a backpack program
for food insecure elementary
schoolers Umatilla and Mor-
row Counties.
Until the Eastern Oregon
Mission board selects a new
director, Cathy Putnam of
Hermiston is currently serv-
ing as interim director of
Agape House.
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information can be found at www.saif.com/agseminars.
• • •
The Hermiston Herald offices will close at noon
on Tuesday and all day on Wednesday in honor of the
New Year’s holiday. After this week the Herald will
resume its normal schedule of releasing a print edition on
Wednesday.s
• • •
Tickets are now on sale for the Melonville Comedy
Festival. In its 27th year, the event will be held Friday,
Jan. 24 at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Cen-
ter, Hermiston.
The tickets are $35 if purchased in advance ($40 at the
door) and are available online at www.melonvillecome-
dyfestival.com or from Last Chance Tavern or Midway
Bar & Grill. Also, tables of 10 are available for $300.
See next week’s Hermiston Herald for a full story.
• • •
The Harkenrider Senior Activity Center is closed
for New Year’s on Wednesday. The menu for Thursday
is scrambled eggs with ham, hash brown patties and bis-
cuits with sausage gravy. Friday is cube steak sandwich,
salad and dessert.
— You can submit items for our weekly By The Way
column by emailing your tips to editor@
hermistonherald.com.