NEWS
A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2020
The Columbia
Development
Authority meets
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
A Hermiston Police car blocks access to Southeast Fifth Street in Hermiston due to downed power lines on Saturday, May 30, 2020.
Council adopts budget amid calls
nationwide to ‘defund the police’
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
The Hermiston City
Council adopted a new bud-
get for 2020-21 on Monday,
June 8.
The budget’s biggest cap-
ital improvement projects for
the year are water and waste-
water improvements, includ-
ing replacing wastewater
pipes along Newport Ave-
nue and water mains along
Ridgeway Avenue. The city
also plans to rebuild Funland
Playground at Butte Park
after it burned down in 2019,
and fi nish design work for
a restructuring of the three-
way intersection of Geer,
Harper and River roads.
The original plan had
been to give city staff a
2.75% cost of living increase
in July, but reduced revenue
because of the pandemic has
pushed that raise out until at
least January 2021.
The budget passed with-
out debate between coun-
cilors, but Mayor David
Drotzmann said he hoped
community members watch-
ing knew that the budget had
been discussed in depth pre-
viously at a budget commit-
tee meeting that included
multiple councilors and
members of the public.
“We’re very familiar with
this budget,” he said.
At a time when many
major metropolitan areas are
discussing calls by the Black
Lives Matter movement
to “defund the police” by
diverting more funding away
from police departments and
into social services, Herm-
iston’s police budget added
two positions. A new school
resource offi cer, paid 75%
by Hermiston School Dis-
trict, will be assigned to the
middle schools, and a new
records clerk will help the
department process increased
requests for body camera
footage and other records.
At the end of the city
council meeting, as coun-
cilors discussed recent pro-
tests in Hermiston, Drot-
zmann said he felt the
Hermiston Police Depart-
ment’s work was essential to
the community.
“We need you; we value
you,” he said.
He also said he was proud
of Hermistonians for making
their voices heard through
protest, and that they did so
without resorting to personal
violence or destruction of
property.
City councilor Lori Davis
said she had a constituent
who asked her to bring up the
Hermiston Freedom Rally,
which took place May 30
in protest against COVID-
19 restrictions. She said the
constituent felt frightened
and disturbed by the peo-
ple who showed up carry-
ing “assault rifl es,” with
their faces covered, and that
the image “didn’t represent
Hermiston.”
Drotzmann said he got
several calls and emails from
people who were also con-
cerned about that rally and
wanted the city to not allow
it to take place. The group
rented the downtown festival
street from the city.
“When we start silencing
one group, who gets to make
that decision, and when does
it stop?” Drotzmann asked.
City councilor Roy Bar-
ron also said he had heard
concerns, particularly regard-
ing the perception that speak-
ers for the rally were “bring-
ing white supremacy to
town,” but like Drotzmann,
he didn’t want to infringe on
others’ right to free speech.
He said he attended the
Black Lives Matter pro-
test on June 6 and he under-
stood that the anger motivat-
ing such protests around the
world are an expression of
pain that the black commu-
nity is feeling. He encour-
aged everyone to work
together to root out systemic
racism.
He also said he thought
Hermiston has a great
police department, but they
shouldn’t have to be the
ones handling so much of
the mental health and addic-
tion problems in the commu-
nity. He said he wanted to see
more help for them in those
areas, more training to equip
them to handle those situa-
tions and protocols to make
sure offi cers are taking care
of their own mental health so
that they can deal with high-
stress situations.
“I would encourage peo-
ple to engage with our police
department,” Barron said.
Monday’s regular meet-
ing was preceded by an hour-
long work session to discuss
possible changes to Hermis-
ton’s zoning rules to accom-
modate a proposed homeless
shelter.
The shelter, proposed by
a new local nonprofi t known
as Stepping Stones, would
be comprised of at least 20
Conestoga huts 6 feet by 10
feet wide on a lot behind
the Agape House. The huts,
which would have no run-
ning water or electricity,
would each offer a homeless
individual, couple or a par-
ent and child a place to sleep
in exchange for fulfi lling
steps, such as volunteer work
or applying for jobs to help
them move out of home-
lessness. The lot would also
include a common building
where guests could socialize
and charge their cellphones.
Guests would only be
allowed on the property in
the evenings to sleep and
would be supervised by a
paid security guard and cam-
eras. They would be required
to follow rules, such as pass-
ing a cleaning inspection
each morning and not leav-
ing the property again once
they arrived for the night.
During the meeting, city
planner Clint Spencer pro-
posed new rules to allow
“temporary emergency shel-
ters” in light industrial zones.
The rules included provi-
sions, such as surrounding
the property with an 8-foot,
chain-link fence with pri-
vacy slats, providing ade-
quate lighting and providing
one permanent toilet per 10
residents.
Those rules will be dis-
cussed at the next planning
commission meeting before
going to a public hearing
sometime in July.
As
the
Columbia
Development Authority
continues to wait on the
fi nal approval needed for
the Army to transfer the
former Umatilla Chemi-
cal Depot to local control,
CDA director Greg Smith
worries about what might
slow the transfer down.
He told the board
during its June 4 meeting
that many of the key play-
ers with the U.S. Army and
Oregon Military Depart-
ment, who have been
working with the CDA,
are retiring soon or have
recently retired, replaced
by new people who aren’t
familiar with the years of
work that have already
been done on the transfer
agreement.
“I want to share that’s
a real vulnerability for the
CDA,” he said.
The former Army depot,
which closed in 2012,
comprises about 17,000
acres in Umatilla and Mor-
row counties along Inter-
state 84. About 7,500
acres have already been
turned over to the Ore-
gon Military Department
for a National Guard train-
ing facility. The Army is
working to turn over con-
trol of the rest of the prop-
erty to the CDA, which is
a partnership between fi ve
local governments, for
development of a wildlife
refuse and approximately
3,965 acres of industrial
and commercial land.
So far, the transfer deal
has hit seven years worth
of speed bumps, from dis-
agreements about water
rights to drawn-out nego-
tiations on preserving cul-
tural sites, such as the
Oregon Trail ruts that run
through the property.
The agreement over
cultural sites, known as a
programmatic agreement,
is one of the last pieces
of the puzzle. Now that
the CDA has come to an
agreement with the Con-
federated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion, Smith said the docu-
ment needs to be approved
by the federal Offi ce of
General Counsel.
“I’m nervous, because
what I’m hearing from
folks in D.C. is that the
OCG is signifi cantly back-
logged, so we need to fi g-
ure out how to make this a
priority,” Smith said.
He said companies
continue to express inter-
est in industrial land on
the depot, as soon as the
CDA has the authority to
lease or sell the property.
The CDA’s infrastructure
committee has been meet-
ing with Anderson Perry &
Associates, Umatilla Elec-
tric Cooperative, Cascade
Natural Gas, railroad con-
sultants and other com-
panies as they create a
plan for extending needed
infrastructure to those
sites.
The CDA didn’t have
much business to con-
duct during its meet-
ing, but they did approve
Smith to work with Uma-
tilla County Emergency
Manager Tom Roberts
on an agreement for the
county’s emergency man-
agement department to
use some equipment the
CDA had been left. Rob-
erts also thanked the CDA
for allowing his depart-
ment to use a couple of the
depot’s concrete igloos,
built to store munitions,
for storage.
SAVE $10 ON
THIS GREAT
GIFT FOR DAD!
$34.95
PET OF THE WEEK
All Fuzzball Rescue Animals
have been adopted!
K
N
A
TH
YOU!
We will have more soon, so keep
watch on our website or Facebook.
Order online and save with flat-rate shipping at
Umatilla.PictorialBook.com
Order by mail now (discount expires 6/21/20):
☐ Ship my order to me: $34.95 plus $6.95 shipping and handling per book. Order will be shipped to the address
below. Quantity: ___ x $41.90 = $______ total
Payment method: ☐ Check/Money Order
Credit card orders can be placed online: Umatilla.PictorialBook.com
Name
Address
D ONATIONS
N EEDED !
Did you know that you
can call and donate to
Oregon Trail Veterinary
Clinic directly? Just let
them know your donation
is for Fuzzball Rescue.
Please go to fuzzballrescue.come and fill out application to adopt. If you are not able to
adopt, but would like to foster or donate, visit our website or you can mail in donations to
Fuzz Ball Animal Rescue, PO Box 580, Hermiston, OR 97838
$44.95
plus shipping
offer expires 6/21/20
City
State
Phone
E-mail
Zip
From the archives of Athena Public Library, City
of Echo, Milton-Freewater Area Historical Society,
Pendleton Round-up, Tamástslikt Cultural Institute
and Umatilla County Historical Society
Send form and payment to:
East Oregonian
211 SE Byers Ave.
Pendleton, OR 97801
or call 800-522-0255