2A — THE OBSERVER
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019
LOCAL
Turnout
sparse
for ATV
meeting
D AILY
P LANNER
TODAY
Today is Wednesday, Nov.
13, the 317th day of 2019.
There are 48 days left in the
year.
By Bill Bradshaw
EO Media Group
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On Nov. 13, 1982, the Viet-
nam Veterans Memorial was
dedicated on the National
Mall in Washington, D.C.
ON THIS DATE
In 1789, Benjamin Frank-
lin wrote in a letter to a
friend, Jean-Baptiste Leroy:
“In this world nothing can
be said to be certain, except
death and taxes.”
In 1942, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt signed a mea-
sure lowering the minimum
draft age from 21 to 18.
In 1956, the Supreme
Court struck down laws call-
ing for racial segregation on
public buses.
In 1969, speaking in Des
Moines, Iowa, Vice President
Spiro T. Agnew accused
network television news
departments of bias and
distortion, and urged
viewers to lodge com-
plaints.
In 1974, Karen Silkwood,
a 28-year-old technician and
union activist at the Kerr-
McGee Cimarron plutonium
plant near Crescent, Okla-
homa, died in a car crash
while on her way to meet a
reporter.
In 2000, lawyers for
George W. Bush failed to
win a court order barring
manual recounts of ballots
in Florida. Florida Secretary
of State Katherine Harris
announced she would end
the recounting at 5 p.m.
Eastern time the next day
— prompting an immedi-
ate appeal by lawyers for Al
Gore.
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Courtesy photo
A dark-colored Toyota Tacoma truck travels the wrong way in the eastbound lane of I-84 near milepost 224 in this
image captured on Brad Samuelson’s dashcam on Nov. 7 on Cabbage Hill near Pendleton.
Wrong-way driver on I-84
■ Utah man faces charges after driving westbound in eastbound lanes on Interstate 84
around a blind corner near milepost
224 and saw the Toyota pickup moving
PENDLETON — Cody Vela of
the opposite direction in the far left
La Grande was returning home on
lane.
Nov. 7 with his girlfriend and their fi ve
“At fi rst it didn’t even register
children when he saw the dark pickup because he passed me on my left,”
bearing down at them on Cabbage
Samuelson said. “Then I went, wait a
Hill.
second.”
“I was like, what the heck is that?
He got on his CB radio and asked
Was that guy in the lane?” he recalled
other drivers if he saw what he
Monday. “It takes you a second.”
thought he saw. Truckers confi rmed
The 6-mile-long grade on Interstate
it, he said, and one claimed the pickup
84 east of Pendleton spans three lanes driver had a bottle of whiskey to his
along the climb into the Blue
lips.
Mountains. Vela and his family
Samuelson said he pulled over
were heading east in their SUV
as soon as he as could and called
in the far left passing lane. The
911, then realized how close a
Toyota Tacoma was in the same
call this was.
lane, but heading west, directly
“Just moments before that, I
Field
toward them. Vela estimated he
was in lane 1,” he said.
was going about 70 mph and
Samuelson’s dashcam cap-
the pickup was zooming along at 80-85 tured video of the pickup at 3:36 p.m.
mph.
going west in the eastbound fast lane.
“Luckily, we didn’t have anybody to
He provided the video to the East
the right of us in the second and third
Oregonian, which shared it on Face-
lanes,” he said. “I told everybody to
book and with other company news-
hang on.”
papers.
Vela crossed out of the way and
State police trooper Jeremy Gunter
watched the Toyota Tacoma zoom by
responded to the emergency calls
and noted the driver, a man, was the
about the wrong-way pickup and found
lone occupant. Vela said he was able
it near milepost 219, where other
to pull over about a quarter-mile later
motorists had forced it to stop after a
and called 911. He said he overheard
minor collision.
another dispatcher talking to another
The driver, Kenneth Oscar Field,
motorist about the same wrong-way
50, of St. George, Utah, appeared
driver.
impaired, according to state police,
Brad Samuelson of Pocatello, Idaho, and Gunter arrested him for driving
may have been the fi rst to call 911
under the infl uence of intoxicants and
about the wrong-way driver.
booked him into the Umatilla County
Samuelson, a pilot car driver, said
Jail, Pendleton, on the DUI charge and
he left a manufactured home in The
charge of reckless driving and four
Dalles that day was heading up the big counts of reckless endangering. Each
hill in the far right lane when he came reckless endangering charge relates
By Phil Wright
EO Media Group
to someone who had to share the road
with Field.
More charges could be coming.
Gunter contacted the East Oregonian,
which provided him with Samuelson’s
contact information. Samuelson said
he talked to state police and handed
over a copy of the video.
Kristi Flanagan is glad she started
her drive from Pendleton to her home
in Baker City as late as she did.
Flanagan, whose daughter is a
student at Blue Mountain Community
College, said she was ascending the
curves of Cabbage Hill when she saw
the pickup parked on the left shoulder
of the eastbound lanes.
The pickup was nose-to-nose with
an Oregon State Police car and point-
ing downhill. Flanagan said she was
curious because the pickup seemed to
have been heading downhill when it
stopped.
It wasn’t until the morning of Nov.
8, when she saw the Facebook post
on the Baker City Herald’s page, that
Flanagan realized what had happened
not long before she passed that pickup.
Flanagan said that’s quite likely the
lane she would have been driving in —
going the opposite direction.
“There’s usually trucks in the right
two lanes,” she said. “Thank good-
ness we weren’t going up 20 minutes
earlier.”
Vela said he was glad state police
took the driver off the road. Samuelson
expressed a similar sentiment.
“I’ve never encountered anything
like that,” he said, “and I’m just glad no
one was hurt.”
Baker City Herald editor Jayson Jacoby
ENTERPRISE — Only
four members of the public
showed up at Enterprise City
Hall on Nov. 6 for a town hall
forum for the city council to
take comments from the pub-
lic on a proposed change to
the city ordinance governing
the use of all-terrain vehicles
within city limits.
“I was hoping we’d have a
bigger turnout to get more
comments,” Councilman
Chris Pritchard said.
City Administrator Lacey
McQuead emphasized that
the town hall was an offi cial
meeting, but it was not an
offi cial council meeting and
no decision on the ordinance
was to be expected. It was
simply an opportunity for
members of the public to
speak out on changes to the
ordinance.
She said that while the
council can be expected to
discuss the town hall, it’s un-
likely they’ll make a decision
at the next meeting Nov. 18.
Of the suggestions made
at the meeting, she expects
most to be considered for in-
clusion in the new ordinance.
Mayor Stacey Karvoski
read aloud the two letters the
city has received on the issue.
One of the letters was from a
coalition of groups generally
opposed to the relaxation of
regulations on ATVs and was
received three times. McQuead
said she knew of only one of
the people sending the letter
to be from Oregon, and that
person from Portland. The oth-
ers listed as backing the letter
were from numerous places
around the country.
The fi ve-page letter —
including the list of those
supporting it and a list of
sources for its statistics —
cited numerous statistics on
deaths and injuries involving
crashes of ATVs and similar
off-road vehicles.
City resident Dennis Burt
said the long letter was
“obviously written by some
corporate lawyer and the
logic for that is totally inane.
If we’re going to cite deaths
for a certain vehicle, then
we should ban all vehicles,
including bicycles and roller
skates.”
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