NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2021
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
Hermiston City Hall demolition begins
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Contractors began tear-
ing down Hermiston’s for-
mer city hall on Wednesday,
March 17, to make way for
a new city hall in the same
location.
Demolition began briefl y
on the east side of the build-
ing, and then halted and
switched to tearing down the
Lanham Building next door,
which is being removed to
make way for additional
parking. During the Mon-
day, March 22, city coun-
cil meeting, City Manager
Byron Smith said the con-
tractor located some materi-
als that needed more careful
disposal.
“As often happens with an
old building like that, as they
were getting into city hall
they found a few more haz-
ardous materials in there than
our original report had shown
so we’re already going to get
a change order on that to take
care of those,” Smith said.
He said the project super-
visor has made introductions
City of Hermiston/Contributed Photo
An aerial shot shows the start of the demolition process for
Hermiston City Hall on Wednesday, March 17, 2021.
Jade McDowell/Hermiston Herald
Contractors begin tearing down the former Hermiston City Hall on the morning of Wednesday,
March 17, 2021. The building will be replaced with a larger facility in the same location.
with all the businesses sur-
rounding the construction
site, and the city is hosting
a meeting and distributing
fl yers with the timeline for
the project and how it may
aff ect businesses. Smith said
the parking lot behind Ban-
ner Bank and across from
city hall will be closed from
March 30 to about June 1 in
order to renovate the lot to
add additional parking.
The city hall building was
originally built as a bank
in 1965. According to the
Hermiston Herald’s archives,
the city purchased the build-
ing in June 1986 from Ben-
jamin Franklin Western Her-
itage Bank for $365,000
before remodeling it and
holding a public open house
for the new city hall in March
1987. Since then, the city’s
population has roughly dou-
bled, and city staff spread to
additional buildings when
city hall ran out of space.
In December 2019, a
fi re burned the building’s
HVAC system and caused
smoke damage through-
out the building, according
to the city, and city coun-
cilors voted to push ahead
with building a new city hall
sooner than expected rather
than put money into repair-
ing the old building.
The new city hall, planned
for the current space where
the old building is being
demolished, will be three
stories and include not only
space for city staff , but the
new home of the munici-
pal court and offi ce space
for some Umatilla County
departments.
Until construction is
complete, most city staff are
in the old Carnegie Library
or basement of the Herm-
iston Public Library. More
information, and a live
video feed of the construc-
tion process, can be found
at hermistonprojects.com/
cityhall.
Umatilla County school board races get competitive
for offi ce, especially in the
Pendleton and Hermiston
school districts.
By ANTONIO SIERRA
STAFF WRITER
This May, thousands of
Umatilla County residents
will get something that isn’t
supposed to be novel in a
democracy — a choice.
Each spring of every odd
numbered year, dozens of
seats governing services like
public education, fi re protec-
tion, parks and recreation,
public libraries and more
go up for election. During
most of those elections,
most candidates either run
unopposed or no one runs
at all, meaning the election
is determined by write-in or
appointment.
But after the Thursday,
March 18, fi ling deadline for
this year’s May 18 election,
residents stepped up to run
Multiple challengers
fi le against Hermiston
incumbents
The Hermiston School
Board hit a low in 2017,
when no one fi led for an
open Position 3 seat. In
a district that serves well
over 5,000 students, Mark
Gomolski won the write-in
election with a total of 14
votes.
In 2021, only Position 2
incumbent Bryan Medelez is
getting a free pass to a new
term.
Gomolski didn’t fi le
to run for a second term,
and Dain Gardner, a senior
trooper with Oregon State
Police, and Lili Gomez, a
records specialist with the
Hermiston Police Depart-
ment, are running to take his
place.
Karen Sherman, the
Hermiston School Board
vice-chair and 20-year vet-
eran of the board, is fac-
ing a challenge from Caitlin
Melhorn, a coder at Good
Shepherd Medical Center,
for Position 6. Brent Pitney,
the incumbent representing
Position 4, is facing a chal-
lenge of his own from attor-
ney Sally Anderson Hansell.
Jim Green, the execu-
tive director of the Oregon
School Boards Association
and a self-professed “school
board elections nerd,” said
he’s seen the same spike
in interest for school board
seats across the state.
The association has
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dents to run for their local
school board for years, but
he said this cycle may have
seen a greater interest in
educational policy following
the extended school shut-
downs during the COVID-
19 pandemic.
Other races
The races to govern the
rest of the county’s taxing
districts, such as fi re dis-
tricts and ports, are gener-
ally noncompetitive, with a
few notable exceptions.
With incumbent Heidi
Van Kirk retiring from the
Blue Mountain Commu-
nity College board, two can-
didates are vying for Zone
3, an area that includes
south Pendleton and south-
ern Umatilla County. Echo
farmer Kent Madison will
compete against Carrie
Sampson-Samuels, a project
director for the Northwest
Portland Area Indian Health
Board.
Zone 4, which is based
around west Hermiston,
will see a contest between
incumbent Kim Puzey and
Kipp Barron, a “global secu-
rity offi cer” from Umatilla.
Abe Currin, a cider maker
for Blue Mountain Cider
Co., is running unopposed
to succeed Tony Turner in
Zone 6, which encompasses
the Milton-Freewater area.
The Umatilla County
Special Library District,
which provides funding to
about a dozen public librar-
ies across the county, also
has multiple elections. A
board member resigning
mid-term means the board
will have two at-large elec-
tions: one election for one
two-year term and another
for a four-year term.
For the four-year term,
county voters will select two
from a fi eld that includes
incumbent John Thomas,
BMCC instructor Sharone
Pettus McCann and Caleb
Barron of Umatilla. For the
two-year term, voters will
only select one candidate
from a group that includes
Fatima Machado, an assis-
tant professor of library ser-
vices at Columbia Basin
College, Gaby Gonzalez,
a Umatilla property man-
ager, and Jubilee Barron of
Umatilla.
Ballots will start going
out April 28 for the May 18
election.