December 10, 2007
By ED COX
The Dalles Chronicle

Former Gilliam County Judge Laura Pryor will head up NORCOR, the regional jail authority in The Dalles, until a head-hunting firm finds a permanent administrator, likely by March.

The jail’s board of directors voted unanimously to offer Pryor the $6,000-per-month interim position and she agreed to accept it in a phone conference at the board’s Wednesday meeting.

Pryor spent close to two decades as Gilliam County’s head commissioner and as NORCOR board chair set up the four-county jail that opened in 1998. She steps into a leaderless organization when she starts work Dec. 5.

The facility has been without a permanent head since Paul Barnett left at the end of 2005. Budget woes led the board not to replace him but rather assign his duties to Capt. Larry Lindhorst who, then as now, oversees the adult facility.

When the dual position became too much for Lindhorst, the board brought in retired Wasco County Sheriff Darrell Hill for six months as interim director, according to Wasco County Judge Dan Ericksen, who chairs the jail board.

Meanwhile, the board went through two failed search efforts for a permanent administrator. The first yielded only one respondent, and the second was scrapped because of an illegal meeting that resulted in the controversial selection of Lindhorst.

The captain, according to reports by Hood River News, is one target of a series of employee complaints currently being investigated by appointees of the sheriff’s board.

Hill, who had failed to provide notice of the meeting — which may have included an illegal executive session now being looked at by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission — returned to retirement at the end of September, leaving the jail without a director, temporary or permanent.

Earlier this month, the board hired Lake Oswego-based Waldron and Company to find that new head, in what promises to be a three-month process costing $18,500.

In the meantime, Pryor will step in and attempt to keep the organization, which she said she takes pride in, “at the same level as when it was built.”

Ericksen praised Lindhorst and Juvenile Administrator Jeff Justesen for building up a “great reputation” for the jail, which he said helped it rent beds to back-fill a loss of revenue that occurred when the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now Immigration and Customs Enforcement) cancelled a contract in fiscal year 2004-2005.

The jail depends on income from the beds, which it rents out to the U.S. marshals, other Oregon and Washington counties and, increasingly, Immigration. Thanks to Lindhorst and Justesen’s ability to keep it near capacity, the jail has become “fairly sound financially again on a year-to-year basis,” Ericksen said.

Still, he said he doesn’t want the organization’s image to get tarnished by recent events. Pryor agreed, saying that maintaining it “will be really high on the list of things” as she takes charge.

Ericksen expressed pleasure at having Pryor in the position.

“She has a great reputation as a leader, not only at the county but at the state level,” he said, adding that he hopes and expects NORCOR employees will have the same confidence in her that the board does.

Asked if NORCOR is a ship that needs to be straightened, he said it is “more a ship that everybody’s looking at and that nobody’s designated a captain for.”

His impression, he said, is that there’s nothing seriously wrong with the organization, but it needs a leader “to pull everybody back together.”

Pryor concurred: “If they’ve got a good staff ... even if they’ve got some problems, it should be fine. They just need a strong administrator, probably.”