FROM PAGE ONE
A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 2021
Cool Rides
gears up for
25th annual
event in July
Restaurants:
Continued from Page A1
Delish Bistro is moving down
the road, from a location that only
allowed for outdoor seating to a
full sit-down restaurant location
at 1619 N. First St. They hope to
open by the end of the month.
A smoothie shop called Get Fit
Nutrition will open soon in the for-
mer Yo Country Yogurt building
on the corner of Hurlburt Avenue
and Southeast Third Street. Owner
Laura Davis said she wanted to
open it not only to provide healthy
options for the community, but
also to provide a “cool place where
people can hang out, get distracted
and forget about this pandemic that
it’s aff ecting all of us.”
She doesn’t yet know exactly
when she will be able to open,
because she is waiting on an inspec-
tion from the health department.
That’s a common refrain from
local restaurant owners who aren’t
ready to announce an opening date
yet.
Burt said OMG! Burgers is hop-
ing to open their Hermiston loca-
tion in mid-July, but that will all
depend on how quickly they are
able to hire enough staff , and how
quickly they can get the green
light from Umatilla County Public
Health. Every day they can’t check
off those items is revenue lost, he
said.
By TAMMY MALGESINI
COMMUNITY WRITER
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Elizabeth Stuart-Ramirez affi xes the lid to a to-go cup Thursday, June 17, 2021, after preparing a drink at Daily Fix
Nutrition in Hermiston.
Health department holdups
Umatilla County Public Health
Director Joe Fiumara acknowl-
edged that waits for food service
plan reviews have been longer than
usual for the past year.
That hasn’t been because of
more requests from restaurants
than normal, he said, but rather
that staff have been far more busy
with other things, including vac-
cinations and reviewing plans for
events to see if they meet the crite-
ria for COVID-19 protocols.
“A lot of that fell to the environ-
mental health folks,” Fiumara said.
He said when it came to choos-
ing between sending environmen-
tal health staff to a restaurant or
staffi ng a vaccination clinic, he
chose the latter, knowing that the
more quickly Umatilla County res-
idents were protected by vaccines,
the sooner the economy could
safely reopen.
While Umatilla County was in
what was fi rst known as baseline
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Owners Diana and Felipe Pena opened Daily Fix Nutrition this spring on
11th Street in Hermiston.
and later changed to extreme risk
— for more days than any other
county in the state, thanks to its
high spread of COVID-19 — the
health department wasn’t allowed
by the state to do on-site inspec-
tions at all unless responding to a
complaint. That not only hindered
inspections, but also made it dif-
fi cult to get a new environmental
health staff member trained.
“So many restaurants were
forced into new methods of opera-
tion, but at the same time, we were
not allowed to do inspections,”
Fiumara said.
Requests for site plan reviews
for restaurants, bars, food trucks
and other eating establishments
actually stayed fairly steady year
over year, Fiumara said. In the
fi rst half of 2019, there were 21
requests. In the fi rst half of 2020,
there were 20. This year so far
there have been 22.
He said the number for 2020
might not show the whole picture
— several of those were before the
pandemic began, and there is no
guarantee all of the sites that sub-
mitted plans for review actually
opened. He also noted that 2020
saw an unusually high percentage
of reviews go to mobile units, as
some owners tried to pivot away
from indoor dining.
Fiumara said the health depart-
ment is advertising for another
environmental health position and
also has brought back an environ-
mental health supervisor position
previously cut, which, once every-
thing is in place, will boost the
number of people able to handle
site plan reviews and inspections.
There is other good news for
restaurant owners opening now, as
well. When the health department
has been using environmental
health staff for vaccination events
and other duties, they have been
paying them from a diff erent pool
of money than what the county sets
aside for environmental health. As
a result of those savings to that
department budget, Fiumara said,
they have temporarily reduced all
licensed facility fees by 40%.
“We knew (the fees) wouldn’t
be something that will make or
break an operation over a year, but
it’s something we could do, so we
felt we needed it,” he said.
The Hermiston Classics Car
Club is getting revved up for its
25th annual car show.
The Cool Rides Car Show
is July 9-10 at McKenzie Park,
320 S. First St., Hermiston. The
vehicle entry fee is $25. Peo-
ple are encouraged to regis-
ter in advance at www.herm-
istonclassicscarclub.com. The
fi rst 100 entries will receive an
event T-shirt free of charge.
Juan Lopez, club president,
is excited for the event — espe-
cially after having to cancel in
2020. Lopez hopes people will
not only enter their vehicles but
come out and enjoy the day in
the park. People don’t have to
belong to the car club to enter
the show or to join the Friday
night fun, Lopez said.
“We have some special
things coming in,” he said.
“The National Guard will be
there and we’ll have a couple of
other special things in the park
for people to see.”
On-site registration is Sat-
urday, July 10, from 7-10 a.m.
at the park. The car show will
kick off with the singing of the
national anthem at 9 a.m. by the
Hermiston High School choir.
The awards presentation, which
will include nearly two dozen
categories, begins at 1 p.m.
The club will host a poker
run Friday, July 9. To partici-
pate in the poker run, head to
McKenzie Park to pick up a
map and scorecard. The cost is
$5 per hand. Participants will
have from 6-7 p.m. to collect
the cards for their poker hands.
At 7 p.m., the club will host
a dinner and determine win-
ners of the poker run. The car
club will provide the meal and
beverages.
The Hermiston Classics Car
Club is made up of local car
enthusiasts, who get together
to support each other with vehi-
cle-related projects.
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