Clear the streets — Dress-Up Parade returns
Published 6:00 am Thursday, September 9, 2021
- A group of four Bird electric scooters sits parked along East Main Street in Hermiston on March 10, 2021. Bird also operates 55 of the scooters in Pendleton, but they are going into storage for the week of the Pendleton Round-Up.
PENDLETON — The first major event kick starting the week of Pendleton Round-Up rolls out Saturday morning. And Pendleton police as usual will close access to Court and Dorian avenues and call the tow truck to clear the way.
The Main Street Cowboy’s Dress-Up Parade gets rolling Saturday, Sept. 11, starting at 10 a.m. in front of Pendleton City Hall on the 500 block of Southwest Dorion Avenue and heads east, takes a turn north on Southeast Fifth Street on the back side of the Umatilla County Courthouse and then a turn east onto Court Avenue, where it trucks along until the finish past the Pendleton Round-Up Grounds.
Local start claiming spots early to catch the parade, and city crews and police start shutting down access to Court and Dorion at 7 a.m.
Pendleton Police Chief Chuck Byram said managing the Dress-Up and the Westward Ho! Parade are among the Round-Up elements that are most demanding on his 24-officer department.
That stems from folks who try to drive past barricades and express their ire to officers just doing their jobs to calling for a contractor to tow vehicles off the route.
In spite of advisories about not parking vehicles on the route Saturday morning, Bynam said every year 10-15 cars end up hitched to a tow truck.
Rather than impound the rides, he said, the company leaves them in a nearby lot, where their owners can walk to get them for free.
Byram also said no one gets to ride around on the electric Bird scooters that dot the town. Those are going into storage for Round-up starting Sept. 11 and coming back out Sept. 19.
The Pendleton City Council in March approved a local law allowing electric scooters on city streets. The electric scooter company Bird of Southern California brought 55 scooters to town.
Pendleton’s population booms during Round-Up, and the police chief said with the extra traffic and pedestrians, adding scooters to that mix creates the potential for conflicts and accidners.
“I think it’s best for the safety and health of the public to put the scooters away for the week,” he said.
