DECADE IN REVIEW
19C — THE OBSERVER
MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2019
2015: New president at EOU; record number of wildfires
10 — Union mayor resigns
to keep promise
Bill Lindsey resigned as mayor
of Union in May 2015 to keep a
promise he made years earlier to
his wife.
Lindsey, who won a three-way
race for a fourth term as mayor in
November 2014 announced his re-
tirement to the Union City Council.
9 — Series of crashes
closes I-84
A massive 26-vehicle mash-up
in Baker County closed Interstate
84 and injured 12 people, some
seriously, but offi cials at the time
reported none appeared to be life-
threatening.
Black ice, steep grades and poor
visibility were contributing factors
in a series of crashes early on Jan.
17, 2015, on the eastbound lanes
about 33 miles southeast of Baker
City. The collisions involved more
than a dozen semitrailers and led
to the closure of the freeway from
Ontario to Pendleton. The wrecks
also caused delays on the west-
bound side as authorities worked to
clear the road.
One of the crash victims, Kaleb
Whitby of the Tri-Cities, Washing-
ton, somehow escaped with only
minor injuries after ending up in a
cocoon of metal when two trailers
smashed the sides of his pickup.
8 — Investigation of dead
wolves goes unsolved
Wolf pups from Northeast
Oregon’s Sled Springs pair hadn’t
been seen since their parents were
found dead within 50 yards of each
other during the week of Aug. 24,
2015. Oregon State Police investi-
gated the deaths. State and federal
laws protected wolves, making
killing them a crime. State police
asked the public to help provide
any information about the case.
Oregon Wild, the Portland-based
conservation group that pushed
for conditions adopted in Oregon’s
wolf management plan, stated the
deaths were “defi nitely a cause for
suspicion.”
The Oregon Cattlemen’s Associa-
tion, whose members bear much of
the expense of defensive measures
against wolf attacks on livestock,
called the killings “surprising news.”
The investigation began when
a tracking collar worn by OR-21, a
female, emitted a mortality signal,
leading to the discovery of her car-
cass along with that of her mate. The
pair had pups that would have been
about 5 months old and weaned at
this point, but the pups presented no
signs of being in the area.
Investigators at the time con-
fi rmed wolves killed 76 sheep, 36
cattle and two goats from 2009
through 2014, plus several sheep
up to that point in 2015. Ranchers
believe wolves are responsible for
many more livestock deaths and
said grazing cattle often simply
disappear.
The Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife killed four wolves for
chronic depredation on livestock.
One wolf died from a vehicle strike.
And seven from 2000 through 2015
died from illegal shooting.
The Oregon State Police also
called the Sled Springs deaths
suspicious, but in October the law
enforcement agency suspended its
investigation, reporting there was
too much decay to determine what
caused the deaths.
7 — Mishandling of drug
evidence leads to dozens
of case reviews
The Union County District At-
torney’s Offi ce reviewed more than
100 cases after the discovery in
April that an Oregon State Police
forensic analyst may have pilfered
Observer fi le photo
Tom Insko became the 12th president of Eastern Oregon University in 2015.
pills from crime labs across the
state.
The investigation led to the more
than 1,000 such reviews statewide.
The crime labs in Pendleton and
Bend also stopped processing drugs
because of the scandal.
Union County District Attorney
Kelsie McDaniel in late 2016 re-
ported the circumstances ended up
having little effect in the Grande
Ronde Valley.
6 — Joseph Building’s
future uncertain
A 2008 study called the Joseph
Building the worst courthouse in
the state. Union County in 2014
received $2 million from the state
to help fund the construction of a
new courthouse.
But it turned out only the court
and court staff were moving out of
the Joseph Building once the new
Union County Courthouse was
built. While several offi ces stayed,
the county had to fi nd tenets for
vacant spaces.
The controversy also continued
about the county evicting the do-
mestic violence services nonprofi t
Shelter From the Storm so it could
build the new courthouse.
5— Blue Mountains Forest
Plan Revision team tries
new approach
U.S. Forest Service representa-
tives sat down to a roundtable
discussion in July 2015 with Wal-
lowa County citizens to discuss
the overwhelming backlash to the
federal agency’s Blue Mountains
Forest Plan Revision. The move
to ask the public what was wrong
was a major shift from the agency’s
standard operating procedure.
Pressure from the county board
of commissioners and members
of the Natural Resource Advisory
Committee convinced members
of the Blue Mountains Forest
Revision Plan team to try a new
approach — sit down at a table
with people who were critical of
the 1,400-page document and
work on solutions together to meet
the needs of forest users. Some
two dozen attended a subsequent
workshop in November on for-
est restoration efforts in the Blue
Mountains and represented a
variety of interests.
4 — Wes Kilgore resigns
as Enterprise police chief
Wes Kilgore handed in his resig-
nation as police chief of Enterprise
March 18, 2015, two weeks and two
Observer fi le photo
A property near Sanderson Road north of Summerville stands before the afterglow of the 2015 Phillips
Creek Fire.
days after the city placed him on
administrative leave.
The Enterprise City Council did
not want to talk publicly about the
situation but asked the Oregon As-
sociation of Police Chiefs to review
the four-offi cer department. Pendl-
deton Police Chief Stuart Roberts
headed up the review team.
The 27-page report that came
out of the review noted “the
Enterprise Police Department has
a protracted history of accepting
mediocrity” while taking up 37% of
the city’s general fund.
The report praised the offi cers
who stuck it out in Enterprise
but was critical of Kilgore, chief of
police from 2002 to 2015, with ob-
servations from “there is no excuse
for such complacency” to “lacking in
ethics, role modeling and showing
favoritism.”
The report also noted the “mili-
tary surplus program cannot all be
accounted for due to defi ciencies in
documentation” and the “haphaz-
ard way the weapons have been
managed.”
Kilgore was defi ant in light of
the report.
“They can put me under a mi-
croscope,” he said then. “I’ve done
nothing wrong.”
State police certifi cation records
show Kilgore did not take another
policing job in Oregon.
3 — Insko takes helm
of EOU
The Oregon Board of Higher
FAIRWAY
Education in May 2015 voted
unanimously to elect Tom Insko
as the 12th president of Eastern
Oregon University.
Insko right off knew what he had
to take on.
“We face many challenges,”
Insko said at the time, “but with
our complementary talents we’ll
restore and sustain fi nancial
stability, reinvigorate the univer-
sity academic experience and be
partners in discovery as we create
pathways to new possibilities for
our students and the communities
that we serve.”
Insko was appointed to a two-
year term with an annual salary of
$228,000. Of the four fi nalists the
university invited to the campus,
Insko’s lack of higher education ex-
perience stood out. An EOU gradu-
ate, he was a 20-year employee
with Boise Cascade. He said he
regarded his seeming lack of expe-
rience as an advantage because he
lacked preconceived notions.
“I get the opportunity to really sit
down and listen and form perspec-
tives from the people here versus
coming from somewhere else where
my context has been formed from
other people’s perspectives,” he said
then.
Insko remains president of EOU.
2 — Local governments
opt out of recreational
marijuana
The Oregon Legislature came
out with a measure to allow
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1 — Record season for
wildfi res
The 2015 fi re season in the
Pacifi c Northwest was the worst in
modern history. Oregon had almost
2,300 wildfi res, according to the
U.S. Forest Service, and Wash-
ington had more than 1,500. The
Canyon Creek Complex near John
Day became the No. 1 priority fi re
in the nation. The fi re would burn
across 110,000 acres and destroy
43 homes.
The scene in Union County was
not that dramatic, but fi re was a
serious threat throughout the sum-
mer. The Phillips Creek Fire that
started in early August near Elgin
spread to more than 1,500 acres
and prompted a Level 1 evacuation
notice for more than three dozen
homes. The fi re remained a threat
until Aug. 17.
The fi re season continued for
weeks longer, with lightning storms
sparking multiple blazes.
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local governments to opt out of
allowing the sale of recreational
marijuana. Local city councils
and the Union County Board of
Commissioners each had mul-
tiple, lengthy and sometimes
contentious public meetings on
the issue. But in the end, not one
voted to OK businesses that sell
recreational pot.
North Powder took the route of
some communities and referred the
matter to the voters. They turned it
down 57% to 42%.