GOVERNMENT
A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2022
Senator drops into Hermiston, Pendleton
Wyden visits
Umatilla County,
discusses Latino
issues, veteran
affairs, drone testing
BY ANTONIO ARREDONDO
Hermiston Herald
Yasser Marte/Hermiston Herald
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden speaks Thursday, July 7, 2022, at the Oregon Na-
tional Guard Aviation Facility in Pendleton.
Agape House receives food
from several vendors, it gets
very little Hispanic food. Go-
molski often has to travel to
fields to distribute what little
rice and beans he has.
Wyden agreed with most of
the points made and challenged
the group to take the next step.
“We need to start talking
about what the legislative steps
are,” Wyden said. “I don’t think
we can recreate a big bill right
now, I don’t think we can, but
we ought to get started.”
After an hour, Wyden closed
the meeting with the commit-
tee by offering his support. As
a child of immigrant parents
who escaped the Nazis from
Germany, he related to many
of the issues that the Hermis-
ton Latino community is still
dealing with today, including
Duron’s point made at the be-
ginning of the discussion.
“A lot of people are angry
about immigration, but they
forget where they come from,
“Wyden said. “Unless you are
Native American, you are part
of the immigrant experience
like the Wyden family.”
SENATOR MAKES MORE STOPS
Wyden held a press confer-
ence in the morning at the Or-
egon National Guard Aviation
Facility at the airport in Pendle-
ton to discuss the VA’s Asset and
Infrastructure Review Commis-
sion’s proposals to reclassify the
Walla Walla veterans facility as
a community-based outpatient
clinic and move its 31-bed resi-
dential rehabilitation treatment
program 180 miles north of
Walla Walla to Spokane. That
proposal would have caused
Eastern Oregon veterans to have
to drive 180 miles to Spokane
for other care.
“I’m also a veteran,” Pend-
leton Mayor John Turner said,
“and I use the VA in Walla Walla
all the time, and I know that
there are hundreds of veterans
in Oregon who do the same.”
Wyden recently held town
halls for Eastern Oregon vet-
erans, their families and vet-
erans service providers to ask
top VA officials about the pro-
posals to change the Jonathan
M. Wainwright Memorial VA
Medical Center in Walla Walla.
In the end, a bipartisan Senate
committee, including Wyden,
blocked the commission, secur-
PENDLETON UAS RANGE
Wyden headed to the nearby
Eastern Oregon Regional Air-
port for a meeting to discuss
drone testing and its economic
impact on the airport.
Wyden remarked he was
shocked when driving in, noting
the newly-built Radisson Hotel.
It’s certainly a far cry from what
the airport used to be, a senti-
ment Steve Chrisman, Pend-
leton economic development
director and interim airport
manager, agreed with.
“The airport was dying, there
was no hope in generating oper-
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Antonio Arredondo/Hermiston Herald
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, center, addresses the Hermiston Hispanic Advisory Committee before a discussion
Thursday, July 7, 2020, at the Hermiston Public Library in Hermiston.
ations,” Chrisman said.
Chrisman estimates Pend-
leton’s UAS range is one of the
best in the nation, and the bur-
geoning work at the range is
driving the construction of the
Raddison and more.
The drone tech is something
that interests Wyden.
“I am a privacy hawk,” he
said, “I think we’ve seen the
needs for some of that recently,
but part of privacy policy is not
freezing technology out, but
about how we use technology.”
The technology not only has
increased airport revenue, it
also increased interest. Sitting
next to the senator and local
officials were four interns — re-
cent Pendleton High graduates
interested in the program.
With all that interest comes
some complication.
“It’s all about the red tape,”
UAS pilot and instructor Mi-
chael Avery said. ”If it wasn’t
for the (certificates of waiver
or authorization) with the
UAS, we wouldn’t be able to
get off the ground.”
ing the Walla Walla center for
years to come.
Ken McCormack, chair for
the Veterans Advisory Council
in La Grande, covered some of
the staffing issues the VA has
faced, a problem Wyden said he
would look into.
“I want to pledge today that I
will keep watchdogging this is-
sue on behalf of rural veterans,”
Wyden said, “because I know
that there are a lot of questions.”
RD
Oregon U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
on Thursday, July 7, swung
through Umatilla County, as he
visited the Hermiston Hispanic
Advisory Committee and learned
more about the Pendleton Un-
manned Aerial Systems Range.
It was a busy day for Wyden
in Eastern Oregon. His day be-
gan at 8:30 a.m. with a meeting
with the Hermiston Hispanic
Advisory Council at the Herm-
iston Public Library.
“There’s a lot of hate in the
world towards immigrants right
now,” City Councilor Maria
Duron told Wyden. “About how
we’re here to take other people’s
jobs. I would like for that to turn
around.”
Wyden used the meeting as
one to build ideas, aiming to
work with the committee to
solve problems. He suggested
designating Duron as someone
who could find immigrant suc-
cess stories to tell.
Other issues also arose.
Some Hermiston Latino resi-
dents may not understand how
to file taxes and delegate that
task to their children.
“The children end up edu-
cating their parents and play a
third parent role,” City Coun-
cilor Roy Barron said, “We want
the next generation to be suc-
cessful and balance those roles.”
Mark Gomolski, vice-chair
of the committee as well as the
executive director for Agape
House food bank, raised con-
cerns about food access. While
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