2A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2020
LOCAL/REGION
DAILY Sumpter Valley Railroad rolls on during pandemic
PLANNER
By Lisa Britton
TODAY
For the EO Media Group
Today is Tuesday, July 14,
the 196th day of 2020. There
are 170 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On July 14, 2016, terror
struck Bastille Day celebra-
tions in the French Riviera
city of Nice as a large truck
plowed into a festive crowd,
killing 86 people in an attack
claimed by Islamic State
extremists; the driver was
shot dead by police.
ON THIS DATE
In 1789, in an event
symbolizing the start of the
French Revolution, citizens
of Paris stormed the Bastille
prison and released the
seven prisoners inside.
In 1798, Congress passed
the Sedition Act, making it
a federal crime to pub-
lish false, scandalous or
malicious writing about the
United States government.
In 1914, scientist Robert
H. Goddard received a U.S.
patent for a liquid-fueled
rocket apparatus.
In 1921, Italian-born
anarchists Nicola Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti were
convicted in Dedham, Mas-
sachusetts, of murdering a
shoe company paymaster
and his guard. (Sacco and
Vanzetti were executed six
years later.)
In 1933, all German polit-
ical parties, except the Nazi
Party, were outlawed.
In 1980, the Republi-
can national convention
opened in Detroit, where
nominee-apparent Ronald
Reagan told a welcoming
rally he and his supporters
were determined to “make
America great again.”
In 2013, thousands of
demonstrators across
the country protested a
Florida jury’s decision the
day before to clear George
Zimmerman in the shooting
death of Trayvon Martin.
In 2014, the Church of En-
gland voted overwhelmingly
in favor of allowing women
to become bishops.
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• 1 p.m.: 4-9-0-9
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• 1 p.m.: 6-0-4-3
• 4 p.m.: 1-2-6-1
• 7 p.m.: 2-9-3-8
• 10 p.m.: 4-8-6-4
DELIVERY ISSUES?
If you have any problems
receiving your Observer, call
the offi ce at 541-963-3161.
SUMPTER — The
Sumpter Valley Railroad
started steaming along its
tracks in the late 1800s, and
it continues today — even
in the midst of a pandemic.
The schedule, however,
is different this summer
to keep under the state
guidelines.
“We’re just trying to
accommodate,” said Kim
Svaty, depot manager.
“People are glad to be out.”
The train is seating about
65 passengers, which is half
its capacity. Family groups
can sit together, and then
6 feet of distance is kept
between the next riders.
In regular years, people
could board at either the
McEwen Depot or Sumpter
Station for a round-trip
ride. Now all trips begin at
McEwen. Riders disembark
at Sumpter, the train is dis-
infected, and then the same
group gets back on the
train. No new riders will be
allowed midtrip.
Masks are required for
passengers while walking
through closed cars, but are
not mandated for people sit-
ting in the open cars.
Reservations must be
made in advance through
the SVRR website, www.
sumptervalleyrailroad.org.
This enables the railroad to
track riders in case contract
tracing is necessary.
“We have a way to notify
Photo courtesy of Sumpter Valley Railroad
The No. 19 Mikado locomotive will turn 100 this summer.
The Sumpter Valley Railroad plans a birthday party for the
Mikado on Aug. 8.
people by the train,” Svaty
said.
Riders need to print their
Umatilla County commissioner candidates
dismiss systemic racism as local issue
Wanted man
arrested after
hit-and-run
By Alex Castle and
Antonio Sierra
The Observer
EO Media Group
UMATILLA COUNTY
— Umatilla County com-
missioner candidates
HollyJo Beers and Dan
Dorran, both of whom
are white, provided dif-
fering prospectives on the
local presence of systemic
racism in the wake of
recent protests.
Zaira Sanchez, census
equity coordinator for
Hermiston-based Latino
advocacy group Raices,
highlighted the COVID-19
pandemic has served as
a grim example of the
inherent inequalities that
exist.
According to data on
650,000 of the United
States’ COVID-19 cases
from the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Preven-
tion that the New York
Times reported on July 5,
Black and Latino people
have been three times as
likely to contract the virus
and nearly twice as likely
to die from it in compar-
ison to white people in the
United States.
While that CDC data
only includes information
on 82 cases reported in
Umatilla County as of May
28, 63 of those cases were
Hispanic or Latino people
and 19 were white. Those
numbers would mean
Latino and Hispanic resi-
dents of Umatilla County,
which account for roughly
27% of the population,
accounted for nearly 77%
of the county’s cases at the
time.
Umatilla County Com-
missioner George Murdock
acknowledged these dis-
parities in a July 8 inter-
view with Oregon Public
Broadcasting, during
which he stated local
migrant workers are at
greater risk of exposure
because they are often
living in “dormitory-like
situations” and traveling
to work in tightly packed
vans.
Hermiston City Coun-
cilor Roy Barron, who also
is the community part-
nership liaison for Raices,
pointed out these dispari-
ties in living conditions and
wealth put people of color
at greater risk of the virus
are a result of systemic
inequalities — inequali-
ties derived from a history
of housing discrimination
against people of color and
land ownership restrictions
that limited people of col-
or’s ability to pass wealth
down to future generations.
Beers, however, said she
felt the biggest issues with
local racism stem from
the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation.
“A lot of people will say
it does. I think the obvious
population here is the
tribes. The tribes are the
most racist people I’ve ever
encountered,” Beers said.
“The racism goes both
ways.”
Beers claimed the
tribal government is
racist toward white resi-
dents through preferential
hiring at its workplaces
by choosing tribal mem-
bers over “more qualifi ed”
applicants. While she said
she doesn’t think all tribal
members are personally
racist, she believes there is
a general prejudice against
white residents because
of the historical injustices
the American government
perpetrated against indige-
nous communities.
“There’s many of them
out there that are very prej-
udiced and still cling to
the ‘white man screwed us
over’ type deal, and it’s the
same with slavery. None
of us have owned slaves
here that live today and
we didn’t cause them all
that,” she said. “And it’s
the same thing with the
Native Americans. We’re
not the ones that did that
to you. So people need to
get over it and move on.
They’re being prosperous.
They’re looked up to for
what they’ve done. And
they need to leave that neg-
ative behind.”
Chuck Sams,
spokesman for the
CTUIR, said Beers’ com-
ments showed a “shock
of ignorance” and were
“extremely disappointing.”
Sams noted Beers is
a member of the Oregon
Three Percenters and con-
siders herself a consti-
tutionalist, but she was
EO Media Group
BEND — Members of
the Unity Community of
Central Oregon are inviting
the public to walk through
their new labyrinth during
this time of a global pan-
demic and civil unrest.
About a dozen volun-
teers gathered Saturday at
the spiritual organization’s
property off Cooley Road in
Bend to build the labyrinth.
The group placed stones
along a circular path, sim-
ilar to a maze but with no
dead ends.
Bend resident Lisa Gott-
wald, who joined the orga-
nization last year and led
the effort Saturday, said
walking through a labyrinth
can help heal people who
have been through trau-
matic events. She has been
through her own struggles,
after her husband died a few
years ago, and she lost her
home in a wildfi re when she
lived in California. She sees
a labyrinth as a kind of cure.
“It is a tool that gives
you peace as you walk it,”
Gottwald said. “If you are
really feeling shattered or
blown apart in your family
life during this time, a walk
through the labyrinth is
an opportunity to just stop
everything.”
Before entering the lab-
yrinth, people should state
what they want to address in
their lives, Gottwald said.
“Start at the begin-
ning with that in mind,”
she said. “Then as you are
winding your way back out,
you are walking into your
intention.”
LEN Meserve, 77, a
builder in Bend, designed
the labyrinth for the orga-
nization. Meserve has built
more than 100 labyrinths
across the United States.
Since he moved to Bend, 14
years ago, he has built about
20 in the city.
He said he is drawn to
how labyrinths connect
people with the Earth and
the ancestors and indige-
nous peoples who walked
on the land. He also said
people often come to laby-
rinths looking for guidance.
“If you have a question,
come with your question,”
Meserve said. “I tell people
to come with a loving heart
and your highest aspirations
and feed the labyrinth.”
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Photo by Ryan Brennecke/EO Media Group
Members of the Unity Community of Central Oregon work
to place stones Saturday, July 11, while building a laby-
rinth on the spiritual organization’s property in Bend.
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Nicole Cathey
LA GRANDE — A
hit-and-run Saturday
afternoon in La Grande
led to the arrest of a man
who was wanted for theft
and sexual crimes going
back more than a decade.
La Grande police
at 2:53 p.m. received a
report of a hit-and-run on
the 2200 block of Adams
Avenue, according to the
department’s daily bul-
letin. Offi cers arrived and
arrested Christopher Wil-
liam Burrows, 37, for mis-
demeanor hit-and-run.
Police also found Burrows
had two arrest warrants
out of Umatilla County.
State court records
show one warrant was
from 2006 for two counts
of identity theft, two
counts of forgery and one
count each of attempt to
commit a crime and theft.
The identity theft
charges are felo-
nies, and the others are
misdemeanors.
The other warrant was
from 2005 for three mis-
demeanor sexual crimes
of sexual abuse, contrib-
uting to the sexual delin-
quency of a minor and
sexual misconduct.
Court records also
show Burrows has a Pend-
leton address, but Bur-
rows on his Facebook
page reported he moved to
Baker City on March 8.
For now, Burrows
will reside in jail in La
Grande.
“People Who Care”
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seemingly unaware the
issue of tribal preference
had already passed consti-
tutional muster.
In the 1974 case Morton
v. Mancari, a group of
Indian employees at the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
legally challenged the
bureau’s Native Amer-
ican hiring preference on
the grounds that it was
a violation of the Equal
Employment Opportu-
nity Act of 1972. The U.S.
Supreme Court upheld the
hiring preference, arguing
a hiring preference for
American Indians wasn’t a
matter of race.
Despite the tribes’
hiring policy, Sams said
64% of the CTUIR’s work-
force are non-Indian. A
2018 report found an over-
whelming majority of
workers at tribal enter-
prises, such as Wildhorse
Resort & Casino and
Cayuse Technologies, are
non-Indians, while CTUIR
members and other Amer-
icans Indian only hold a
slight lead on non-
Indians working in tribal
government.
Sams said the tribes
don’t consider using tribal
preference unless an appli-
cant meets the minimum
qualifi cations for the job.
Responding to Beers’
“tribes are the most racist
people I’ve ever encoun-
tered,” Sams suggested she
brush up on Oregon’s early
history as a territory and
state.
In light of the recent increase in COVID-19 cases in Union County we are taking extra
precautions to ensure all of our customers safety. Red Cross will be closed from 1:30-
2:30 PM, Monday through Friday, in order to clean the contact areas of the pharmacy
Stay home let more thoroughly. Olive Branch will be open and doing Drivethru ONLY.
Please feel free to call in and leave refills on our phone line for
us Deliver your continued service. 541.963.5741 ext. 1
medicines to you Thank you for your support as we make every effort to keep you and your loved ones
safe during this time.
Red Cross Drug Store Management
Bend group creates labyrinth for peace amid pandemic
By Kyle Spurr
ticket, then show it at the
McEwen Depot’s window
(the depot is closed to vis-
itors). The train leaves
McEwen at 10 a.m. and
1 p.m. most weekends. At
times, a short train will
be added that runs from
Sumpter to the river and
back. Updates are posted
on the SVRR website and
Facebook page.
Round trip fares are $24
adults, $20 seniors, $14
children, or $70 for a family
(two adults, two chil-
dren). The short trains have
reduced ticket prices.
Staged train robberies
are set for July 25 and 26
when bandits ride up and
pretend to rob the train.
“We have a bunch of
new bandits — and they
don’t complain about
wearing masks,” Svaty said.
541-975-1364
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Kevin Reed