NEWS
A12 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2020
Fair:
Continued from Page A1
and talking her animal up
to potential auction buyers
— something she’ll miss
doing this year.
But even with just a
photo to show bidders, she
said she had faith that the
community would come
through for its youth as
usual. Last year, the auction
raised more than $600,000
total for participating stu-
dents, who often use the
money for everything from
college savings to buying
their own head of cattle.
“It’s such a vital thing
that the community is not
just going to forget about
it,” she said.
Emily Lillegard, 16, of
Stanfi eld, said on Monday,
Aug. 10, that dropping her
lamb Bandit off was prob-
ably going to be a little
harder than saying goodbye
during the auction, because
she wouldn’t have spent all
week with Bandit.
She said raising a lamb
is still rewarding, hard
work, however, even if she
didn’t get to do the usual
showmanship activities at
the fair.
The absence of most of
the usual fair activities was
also hard for the adults who
usually participate. Gay
and Alice Newman were set
to be the fair parade’s grand
marshals this year, after
more than four decades of
participation in the fair.
Between the two of them,
the “dynamic duo” have
served on various fair com-
mittees, as leaders of 4-H
and FFA, on the fair board,
as a fair court chaperone
Council:
Continued from Page A1
which the city plans to cover
using payment from enter-
prise zone projects and from
Umatilla County.
The county plans to lease
space in the new city hall.
The agreement between the
two entities would give the
county about 5,000 square
feet of space for up to 15
years in exchange for $3
million, about $400,000 of
which would be represented
by the county giving the city
its building at 435 E. New-
port Ave.
The city council voted
unanimously to authorize
staff to execute the issuance
of full faith and credit bonds
up to $9.6 million.
Park plan
During the Aug. 10
meeting the council also
approved a new open space
master plan for parks and
recreation. Parks and Rec-
reation Director Larry Fetter
told the council that the plan
does not commit the city to
spending any money, but
rather provides a vision cre-
ated out of a yearlong pro-
cess of research and gather-
ing community feedback.
“I just want to remind
you this plan is intended to
be visionary, inspirational,
to provide alternatives and
partnerships to create new
park facilities and recreation
programming,” he said.
The 20-year master plan,
which the council discussed
in depth during a July 13
workshop, includes a well-
ness center with an indoor
pool likely built on the old
fairgrounds near the high
school and a multi-fi eld
sports complex across 11th
Street from Good Shep-
herd Medical Center. It also
includes new neighborhood
parks, trails and improve-
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
A goat peers from its pen in the livestock barn on the fi rst day
of the 2020 Umatilla County Fair Modifi ed Youth Livestock
Show on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020, at the Eastern Oregon Trade
and Event Center in Hermiston.
and as volunteers in nearly
every capacity possible at
the fair.
Gay Newman said they
would miss being able to
have their usual level of
participation, but they were
still helping weigh animals
on Tuesday morning, Aug.
11.
He said the fair has
always been his family’s
“big thing” and it was tough
not being able to enjoy all
the normal trappings of fair
week, even if they under-
stood why.
“I miss it,” he said. “You
don’t get to talk to the kids
and listen to their stories
and see the excitement on
their faces.”
Still, he said, the com-
munity has always been
supportive of the fair and
he has faith that they will
be back in strong form next
year.
“We’ll get through this,”
he said.
Anna Browne, 4-H coor-
dinator with the Oregon
State University exten-
sion center in Hermis-
ton, said 4-H participants
were uploading home-
made showmanship vid-
eos for judges to watch,
and the community can
watch confi rmation of the
animals each day through
a video feed Hermiston
School District has cre-
ated on its YouTube Chan-
nel at youtube.com/c/
HSDCommunications.
A link to the video, as
well as livestock scores,
photos, winners and more,
are being posted on the
Umatilla County Fair Youth
Livestock Auction page.
4-H youths have also
been participating online
by holding live competi-
tions over Zoom for cate-
gories, such as cooking and
public speech.
“It’s been a bit of a learn-
ing process,” Browne said.
“Some things we’ve done
have been fun, just differ-
ent. I appreciate the kids
who have been willing to
take the risk with the video
format.”
ments to current parks, such
as Steelhead Park.
City councilors praised
the plan.
“It’s a very good, all-in-
clusive parks plan,” said
Jackie Myers, who sits on
the parks and recreation
committee. “There’s a little
bit for everyone.”
and someone would put a
house and some barns there,
resulting in about $58,000 in
property taxes and $15,000
in base utility fees for the
city over the next 20 years.
If the city were to make
an agreement with a devel-
oper specializing in senior
citizen housing develop-
ments, Morgan estimated
that if a developer put in a
$3 million assisted living
facility and a 28-unit duplex
development the city would
get $1.14 million in prop-
erty taxes and $1.8 million
in base utility fees over 20
years.
He said the development
would provide a psycholog-
ical buffer against the treat-
ment plant for other potential
developers for land farther
south of the plant, and such
a development would create
jobs and provide more hous-
ing options for the wave of
retiring Baby Boomers.
Mary Gill told the coun-
cil her property ran along
75% of the property’s south-
ern border, and other fam-
ily members own other
land nearby. She asked that
the city consider selling the
property to her family at fair
market value. She acknowl-
edged that she would plan
on making a boundary
adjustment that would pull
the property back into the
county, meaning the city
wouldn’t make additional
money from the property,
but said she didn’t think the
site was a good location for
housing.
“The thought of having
duplexes on that side of my
property breaks my heart,”
she said.
The council voted unani-
mously to allow city staff to
market the property to devel-
opers and see what types of
proposals those developers
were willing to put forth.
Land surplus
Assistant City Manager
Mark Morgan proposed the
city use what is known in
the business world as the
“razor and blade” approach
to recoup some of its invest-
ment on a 20-acre property
known as the Green Prop-
erty on the south side of the
city’s wastewater treatment
plant.
The razor and blade strat-
egy refers to giving some-
thing of value away or sell-
ing it cheaply in order to
cause people to spend more
money later on — such as
a razor company selling a
razor handle at cost to hook
people into buying profi table
replacement blades from the
company again and again.
The
city
purchased
the Green Property for
$420,000 in 2006 with the
idea of using the land to
cool down recycled water
coming out of the treatment
plant before it hit the Uma-
tilla River. Tests on the site
to that effect did not pan out,
Morgan said, and now the
city pumps that water into
irrigation ditches instead of
the river during the summer.
Morgan said because
the city removed the home
and barns that had been on
the property, and then built
monitoring wells, it is highly
unlikely that if the city put
the entire property up for
open auction that it would
get what it paid for.
He said judging by sim-
ilar property in the vicin-
ity, the city would likely get
about $325,000 at auction
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Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Volunteers check in animals on the fi rst day of the 2020 Umatilla County Fair Modifi ed Youth
Livestock Show on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020, at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center in
Hermiston.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Volunteers show market lambs on the fi rst day of the 2020 Umatilla County Fair Modifi ed Youth
Livestock Show on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020, at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center in
Hermiston. Due to COVID-19 safety precautions, all animals were shown by the same group
of volunteers and members of the public, and those who raised the animals were required to
watch via livestream if they wanted to take part.
During the Aug. 10 meet-
ing, the council also dis-
cussed a variety of other
topics, including ways
COVID-19 continues to
impact the community.
Mayor David Drotzmann
said he seemed to be seeing
a lot of “new faces” on the
street and asked Hermiston
Police Chief Jason Edmiston
if it seemed like there had
been an increase in Herm-
iston’s homeless population
this year.
Edmiston
said
the
department doesn’t make
any offi cial counts of home-
lessness in Hermiston, but
he had noticed an uptick
in calls for service relat-
ing to transient individuals.
He said for the fi rst 10 days
of August, 39% of the calls
the day shift responded to
involved a homeless resi-
dent, and 30% of calls on
the night shift.
“It’s to the point where
I’ve had several conversa-
tions with the city manager,”
he said.
When Drotzmann asked
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whether they were people
who had previously lived
in the area but were newly
homeless or had recently
moved to the area, Edmiston
said some people are Herm-
iston residents “we have
dealt with over the years
and are now transient.”
But he also said the depart-
ment arrested one person
from Washington who spe-
cifi cally told them he had
come to Hermiston to wait
for the possibility of getting
a hut through the Stepping
Stones project that a pri-
vate group has proposed as
a way of creating additional
shelter for the homeless in
Hermiston.
Edmiston said there were
other reasons a homeless
individual might move to
Hermiston as well, including
Oregon’s continued steps in
decriminalizing controlled
substances. He said some
individuals with mental ill-
nesses also prefer to live in
rural areas with fewer men-
tal health services available
so they won’t be “forced”
into treatment.
Drotzmann
reminded
the audience that the city
is using some of its federal
CARES Act stimulus money
to create a new rental and
mortgage assistance pro-
gram through the nonprofi t
CAPECO, which people can
access if they are struggling
to keep their home.
Smith noted that the
city’s planning commis-
sion will be discussing pos-
sible changes to the city’s
zoning rules on Wednes-
day, Aug. 12, at 7 p.m. at the
Hermiston Community Cen-
ter that would allow emer-
gency shelter projects, such
as Stepping Stones, to exist.
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