January 4, 2009

2008 Top Ten stories
The 2008 events that had or will have the biggest impact locally

By RODGER NICHOLS
of The Chronicle

    Now that the unexpectedly snowy and rainy holiday season is behind us, it’s time to look back at the stories that shaped the year locally and will continue to shape events in the future.
    The stories below were chosen by members of The Chronicle staff from a list compiled by the editorial department. That involved research on each of the previous 306 issues published this year.

1. Wal-Mart

     Though not a single shovel of earth has been turned yet, and no building permits have been issued, the Oct. 17 announcement by Arkansas’ Wal-Mart corporation that it had applied to build a 149,174 square-foot Superstore in The Dalles was unanimously chosen as the story with the most local impact.
     The store would include a full grocery section, and a Wal-Mart spokesperson said it would employ 300-400 people, with an average wage of $11.71 an hour.
The company would situate the store on 18 acres located on the river side of Interstate 84, just off the west exit for The Dalles, known for the steel salmon on the overpass.
     News of the announcement caused excited reaction, both pro and con, generating nearly two dozen letters to the editor in just over two months.
     A first planning commission hearing on the subject had to be postponed because too many people showed up at city hall, and there wasn’t room to fit them safely in the meeting area. The hearing was postponed and the venue changed to the Circuit Court chambers at the Wasco County Courthouse.
     The next hearing, on the division of a single parcel into five parcels, in relation to the Wal-Mart property, is set for Jan. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the Circuit Court Room 301 at the Wasco County Courthouse.

2. Columbia Gorge Community College

     Columbia Gorge Community College made a major investment in both The Dalles and Hood River with multimillion-dollar buildings.
     CGCC unveiled its new $8 million health and science building at The Dalles campus Sept. 11. The week before, the school opened its $6 million Indian Creek campus in Hood River.
     The 35,000-square-foot building in The Dalles houses the school's student services department, the nursing program offices, the IT department, 11 classrooms and four science labs. Along with the building, the construction included a basalt amphitheatre.
     The new buildings follow a long campaign to improve existing facilities and add new state-of-the-art construction. Several rooms in the buildings are “smart classrooms” with impressive interactive computer technology.

3. Celilo Village

     Residents of Celilo Village got new homes courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers to replace the shoddy ones they were hastily given in 1957 when The Dalles Dam was completed, and its impounded waters backed up over Celilo Falls, ending a 10,000-year fishery.
     The homes given to the tribal members, after they were relocated from the old village site now underwater, were later discovered to have been constructed out of substandard surplus material. But the prime reason for the past problems at Celilo was its failed sewer and water systems. For 40 years, the confusing web of jurisdictions that enveloped Celilo allowed every pertinent agency to avoid the problem.
     The Corps of Engineers effort was spurred by the interest generated by the 50th anniversary in March 2007 of the drowning of Celilo Falls.

4. Annexation

     The City of The Dalles took steps that will make the city considerably bigger by Feb. 11, 2011. Council members voted unanimously Feb. 11, 2008 to annex 233 lots into the city, as part of its two-year-old policy of expanding as quickly as legally possible out to the urban growth boundary.
     A number of residents at the Feb. 11 meeting and an earlier Jan 14 hearing opposed the move, saying they had voted overwhelmingly against annexation when it appeared on the Nov. 2006 ballot.
     That vote, however, was just to see whether residents would agree to an instant annexation.
     Under state law, property annexed by the island annexation method used by the city in this case won’t become legally part of the city for three years.

5. NORCOR

     NORCOR, the regional jail facility in The Dalles, had a troubled year in 2008, resulting from previous problems.
     Early in the year, Wasco County District Attorney Eric Nisley found no prosecutable offenses after an investigation into allegations of mismanagement and other problems at the prison.
     The facility, which has been without a permanent head since Paul Barnett left at the end of 2005, had several interim directors and eventually hired a Lake Oswego-based corporate recruiter at a cost of $18,500.
     The candidate who was ultimately chosen, former jail commander for Cochise County, Ariz., Ron Hager, began his job May 5, and abruptly resigned Sept. 12.
Reports published soon after in the San Pedro Valley News-Sun said the Tucson District Office of the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration had been investigating Hager since the fall of 2007 in regards to reputed drug smuggler Carlos “Calichi” Molinares Nunez.
     The paper said Hager had been Subpoenaed to testify at Nunez' Jan. 9 trial.
Meanwhile, county sheriffs from the four counties are helping with the administrative duties at the jail until a new administrator can be found.

6. Life Flight

     In March, Life Flight, the Portland based air ambulance service, announced plans to expand its operations to The Dalles and Eugene.
     "This is huge," said Duane Francis, President of Mid-Columbia Medical Center. "This is one of the top two or three enhancements to health care in this region for the last five or ten years."
     By the middle of June, the operation at the the Columbia Gorge Regional Airport in Dallesport was up and running
     The Bell 407 helicopter can reach the landing area at Mid-Columbia Medical Center in The Dalles in less than 10 minutes, and it takes 5 minutes to warm up and pre-flight the helicopter.
     From MCMC to a Portland hospital, flight time is only 35 minutes.
The service has about 15 local employees, and is available 24 hours a day.

7. Pugh scholarship donation

     A remarkable gift from Annette Pugh will help generations of local children in ways that have yet to be imagined.
     When the 99-year-old woman died in March, she left more than $500,000 to North Wasco School District Scholarship Foundation. Interest from that money will allow for two annual four-year scholarships.
     Pugh had never attended a school in The Dalles, nor did she have any children. But her gift will make it possible for two graduating The Dalles seniors each year to go to college.
     Pugh moved to The Dalles in 1955, when her husband was hired as a lineman with the Bonneville Power Authority.
     She was actively involved with many causes in town, including volunteer work at St. Peter's Landmark and working to get the Mid-Columbia Senior Center built.
     "She didn't have any children and nobody went to school here. I think she just wanted to leave it for some children who might not otherwise have a chance to go to college," said Barbara White, friend and conservator of the Pugh estate.

8. Gas Prices

     Local drivers, like those across the nation, found the price at the gas pump soaring to more than $4 per gallon at one point this year, prompting a number of conservation efforts. Particularly hard hit were the drivers of large SUVs and heavy-duty pickups, which gulped expensive fuel.
     But by year’s end, the financial meltdown had affected gas prices as well, and pump prices receded below $2 per gallon again.

9. Public Works Department

     The Public Works Department of the City of The Dalles spent much of the year on building a new home for itself.
     The project was initially announced in July 2007, after the city had worked out a three-way land deal with Greenhill Lumber company and Griffith Motors.
     Under the deal, Griffith bought the 4.43 acre Greenhill site and adjoining .86 acre John's Auto Body land on West First Street and swapped it for the city's former 4.23 acre public works site on West Sixth Street.
     The swap took the former Greenhill site (zoned industrial) off the tax rolls, but added the former city public works, zoned at the higher commercial tax rate back onto the tax rolls.
     Now that the city is completely out of the West Sixth site, Griffith Motors will relocate there, opening several choice downtown lots for redevelopment
     “This turned out to be an incredibly good investment for The Dalles," said Councilor Jim Wilcox, adding that the city got a better facility for the money by modifying existing buildings than it could have if it had built new from scratch.      "We couldn't replicate this for the dollars we spent," he said. "We just couldn't."

10. East Gateway Project

     The Dalles City Council voted in September to take over maintenance and responsibility of 2,000 feet of East Second Street between the bottom of Brewery Grade and the Exit 85 onramp from Oregon Department of Transportation.
     It was the first step toward the city's long-range plan of converting the awkward intersection at the base of Brewery Grade to a roundabout, or traffic circle.
     That, in turn, is part of the East Gateway urban renewal project, which will see the conversion of the former Sunshine Biscuit Mill into a multi-use artisan food and wine facility and its towers into a luxury hotel.
     Work on the roundabout is expected to take place in 2009.
     “As far as I know, this would be the only place that guests could stay at a working winery,” said James Martin, who has an option to buy the Sunshine property from the city.
     A $4.1 million investment is planned for the redevelopment.

&. But wait, there's more...

     There were some unusual stories during the year. In January, the Wasco County Court approved a name for a short access road serving two properties. Steven Bleiler and Robert Dys now live at "Wits End Drive."
     Also in January, Arlington mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist’s MySpace webpage drew lots of local comment. It featured photos of her clothed only in a black bra and panties on one of the town's fire engines.
     She had been fire department's administrator’s secretary, and said the pictures were shot with fire chief permission before she was elected mayor. In February, local voters recalled her from the unpaid office by a 142-139 vote, and the former fitness trainer appeared on the Today show.
     And then there was the May primary race for Democratic precinct representative in District 2 in The Dalles. No Democrat filed for the office, but three people wrote in Laura Comini, who had served in the office for many years.      Three others wrote in Dixie Parker. The problem? Dixie Parker was running in District 4, which she won. She could also serve in an adjoining district, but Districts 2 and 4 do not touch. Parker could not legally serve, and Comini refused to.
     But state law demanded the 3-3 tie between the candidates unwilling and unable to serve undergo an official recount before the office could be declared vacant.
     And a video of Democratic senate candidate Jeff Merkley shot during an August campaign stop in The Dalles became an issue. When a citizen asked for his opinion on what was going on in Georgia, he at first thought they were referring to the U.S. state, not the country invaded by Russia.
     Merkley won the race anyway. He takes office this month.