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WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2021
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2021
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UPDATES
Offi cials
unlikely to
reinstate
restrictions
By BRYCE DOLE
STAFF WRITER
UMATILLA COUNTY
— Umatilla County con-
tinues to report some of
the highest COVID-19
infection rates statewide,
but county commission-
ers say they won’t step
in to reinstate pandemic
restrictions.
“I think if we tried to
implement any kind of
restrictions, I don’t think
anybody would follow
them,”
Commissioner
John Shafer said Monday,
July 26.
With almost 80,000 res-
idents, the county saw 8%
of Oregon’s total COVID-
19 cases over the past two
weeks, despite account-
ing for less than 2% of the
state’s total population.
During that same period,
the county reported the
second highest posi-
tive test rate statewide
at 17.6%, as hospitals in
Pendleton and Hermis-
ton reported an uptick in
patients hospitalized with
COVID-19.
Only neighboring Mor-
row County had a higher
rate at 17.9%. Wallowa
County had the third high-
est rate, 14.8%
The county in the past
two weeks has averaged
32 cases per day, a sharp
rise from the nearly 10
cases per day the county
was reporting earlier this
month. It’s a total that tops
several densely populated
counties in Western Ore-
gon and amounts to a case
rate nearly seven times
higher than Multnomah
and Washington counties,
according to the state.
Umatilla County Pub-
lic Health Director Joe
Fiumara said the county
is expecting to report an
especially high case count
July 27. By noon July 26,
the county added up more
than 80 new COVID-19
cases from the weekend,
and Fiumara expected that
number to continue to rise.
According to the Ore-
gon Health Authority as of
12:01 a.m. July 26, Uma-
Kathy Aney/Hermiston Herald
First grader Sebastian Macias receives some help from teacher Yisel Amaya on Thursday, July 22, 2021, to log onto a laptop during summer school at
Sunset Elementary, Hermiston.
Learning is fun
Hermiston’s summer school a hit
By NICK ROSENBERGER
STAFF WRITER
See Restrictions, Page A1
Kathy Aney/Hermiston Herald
Nona Buschke raises her hand Thursday, July 22, 2021, in Yisel Amaya’s fi rst
grade summer school class at Sunset Elementary, Hermiston.
Hermiston School District’s
wildly successful free summer
camp program, running from
June 21 to July 31, is reintroduc-
ing children to the fun of learning
after a year of online and hybrid
school.
The program, which is broken
up into two sessions and open to
all students grades K-12 enrolled
in the Hermiston School District,
has been a smash hit with both
parents and students. Along with
free meals and childcare, the pro-
gram off ered a more hands-on and
experiential learning focus after a
year disrupted by COVID-19.
The classes were centered on
matter the students don’t nor-
mally experience and tried to
cover more subjects than the
usual slate of academics, such as
math and English. Some of their
off erings included opportunities
to learn about physics by build-
ing a rollercoaster or solving a
crime scene for a forensic sci-
ence class.
“So just lots of diff erent activ-
ities and learning than the tra-
ditional classroom,” said Tanya
Kennedy, a summer program coor-
dinator and dean of students at
Desert View Elementary School.
Student built bridges and cata-
pults for civil engineering and con-
struction, had the chance to try
diff erent sports or even take an
Ethiopian culture and history class.
Some also learned how to code,
build solar race cars and learn
about history through simulations
to give them a hands-on approach
to learning.
One such hands-on activity for
third grade had students excavate
chocolate chips from soft cook-
ies as if they were digging for fos-
sils during their dinosaur-themed
week.
On top of this, the district off ered
sports camps every other week that
high school athletes and coaches
run while fi rst through third grad-
ers got two weeks of free swim les-
sons. Additionally, each elemen-
tary grade went on two fi eld trips
See School, Page A8
Stanfi eld fi nishing water tower renovations
By NICK ROSENBERGER
STAFF WRITER
Cecili Longhorn/Contributed Photo
The Stanfi eld water tower has stood for more than 100
years, and while the city no longer uses it, it remains a local
landmark. The water tower is undergoing the fi nal stages of
renovations, including fresh coats of paint.
INSIDE
STANFIELD — For a
century the Stanfi eld water
tower has stood over the
town and provided a recog-
nizable landmark for gen-
erations of locals, and now,
after three years of work,
the 50,000-gallon water
tower nearly is complete
with renovations.
With painters adding
their fi nishing touches in
the next two weeks, Stan-
fi eld residents will be able
to see the completed tower
with up-to-date metalwork,
a fresh coat of paint and
new lighting, according to
Scott Morris, Stanfi eld’s
public works director.
Morris said an inspec-
A3 Home manufacturer sued
for alleged civil rights violations
tion a few years ago of the
out-of-use water tower had
shown defi ciencies in the
structure, and they faced
the choice of either tear-
ing down the tower or fi x-
ing it up.
The price to tear it down,
however, was the same
price to fi x it. With this
in mind, the city manager
put out a survey to gauge
public support for the two
options, and the consensus
was to keep it.
“For a good portion of
the people who have been
here for a long time, they
wanted to see it stay,” Mor-
ris said.
Like for many in Stan-
fi eld, the tower is an
important fi xture for Mor-
ris and an important part of
A3 Traffi c changes coming on
East Diagonal Boulevard
the town’s history.
According to histori-
cal city minutes, a special
council meeting was held
Oct. 2, 1919, to accept bids
for the construction of the
new city waterworks. Pitts-
burgh-Des Moines Steel
Company won the bid to
install the tower for $9,410
and fi nished construction
in 1920. The whole water
system was approved with
a 20-year loan of $30,000
— or about $470,000 in
today’s dollar value.
And, with the 150-foot
tower visible from Inter-
state 84, it has been a
marker for generations of
families coming home.
Morris explained when
he was a child and return-
ing from trips to Portland
A6 Summer events returning
to the area in force
with his family, they’d see
the tower and get excited
they were almost home. He
said the tower is a logo and
a landmark for the town.
When Stanfi eld residents
decided to refurbish the water
tower, planners and city offi -
cials decided to split the
$180,000 budget into thirds.
Construction began in Octo-
ber 2019, with the fi rst year
dedicated to fulfi lling dif-
ferent Oregon Occupational
Safety and Health require-
ments and fi xing structural
issues. The second year was
focused on metalwork and
fi nishing up the structural
repairs, while the third year
was focused completely on
painting, which was done by
See Tower, Page A8
A7 Law fi rms in Easterday
case charging $1 million a month