2A — THE OBSERVER
DAILY
PLANNER
TODAY
Today is Tuesday, Sept. 1,
the 245th day of 2020. There
are 121 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On Sept. 1, 1945, Amer-
icans received word of
Japan’s formal surrender
that ended World War II. (Be-
cause of the time difference,
it was Sept. 2 in Tokyo Bay,
where the ceremony took
place.)
ON THIS DATE
In 1894, the Great Hinck-
ley Fire destroyed Hinckley,
Minnesota, and fi ve other
communities, killing more
than 400 people.
In 1923, the Japanese
cities of Tokyo and Yokoha-
ma were devastated by an
earthquake that claimed
some 140,000 lives.
In 1939, World War II
began as Nazi Germany
invaded Poland.
In 1942, U.S. District Court
Judge Martin I. Welsh, ruling
from Sacramento, Calif., on
a lawsuit brought by the
American Civil Liberties
Union on behalf of Fred
Korematsu, upheld the
wartime detention of Japa-
nese-Americans as well as
Japanese nationals.
In 1972, American Bobby
Fischer won the internation-
al chess crown in Reykjavik,
Iceland, as Boris Spassky of
the Soviet Union resigned.
In 1983, 269 people were
killed when a Korean Air
Lines Boeing 747 was shot
down by a Soviet jet fi ghter
after the airliner entered
Soviet airspace.
In 1985, a U.S.-French
expedition located the
wreckage of the Titanic on
the fl oor of the Atlantic
Ocean roughly 400 miles off
Newfoundland.
In 2005, New Orleans
Mayor Ray Nagin issued
a “desperate SOS” as his
city descended into anarchy
amid the fl ooding left by
Hurricane Katrina.
In 2009, Vermont’s law
allowing same-sex marriage
went into effect.
In 2018, at a nearly three-
hour memorial service for
the late Arizona Republican
Sen. John McCain in Wash-
ington, McCain’s daughter
and two former presidents
led a public rebuke of
President Donald Trump’s
divisive politics and called
for a return to civility among
the nation’s leaders.
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DELIVERY ISSUES?
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receiving your Observer, call
the offi ce at 541-963-3161.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
LOCAL/REGION
200 march in Pendleton for BLM
By Alex Castle and
Antonio Sierra
EO Media Group
PENDLETON —
Despite a palpable sense of
anger, a Black Lives Matter
march on Saturday, Aug.
29, in Pendleton remained
peaceful and unimpeded.
By 3:30 p.m., about 150
people gathered opposite of
Roy Raley Park on South-
west Court Avenue with an
array of American, Confed-
erate, “Trump” and “Thin
Blue Line” fl ags. Others
carried signs indicating
their support for police,
while offi cers with the
Pendleton Police Depart-
ment stationed themselves
at the street corners.
Counter protesters joined
in chants of “Blue lives
matter,” “All lives matter”
and “U-S-A” as roughly
200 protesters against
police brutality and racial
injustice trickled into the
park to listen to community
speeches at 4 p.m.
“We will not acknowl-
edge them. We will not be
them. Ignore them,” Briana
Spencer, one of the pro-
test’s organizers, said at
the opening of the event as
attendees donning masks
and carrying signs circled
around the park lawn.
Spencer, a Black, Puerto
Rican woman of the Con-
federated Tribes of the
Photo by Ben Lonergan/EO Media Group
Black Lives Matter protesters begin to march Saturday, Aug. 29, through Pendleton.
Umatilla Indian Reser-
vation, worked alongside
Nolan Bylenga, a Black
Pendleton resident run-
ning for House District 58,
and John Landreth, a white
Boardman resident, to orga-
nize the protest. The three
met weekly with Pendleton
Police Chief Stuart Roberts
to create safety plans for
each stage of the protest.
Roberts also provided
a statement to organizers
that supported protesters
voicing their pain over the
killings of George Floyd
and other people of color,
which he condemned as
“inexcusable,” while urging
protesters to hold offi -
cials accountable and seek
change peacefully.
The event included
groups and organizers from
the Walla Walla and Tri-
Cities areas, and refl ected
its young and diverse crowd
in its pre-selected speakers.
“The youth is what is
going to change what is
wrong,” said Max Jean
Maddern, a 17-year-old
non-binary member of
the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation.
Maddern also spoke
Mural restoration underway
By Sabrina Thompson
The Observer
Photo contributed by Chris Jennings
Local artist Lea Over paints over the graffi ti Saturday
Aug. 29, on the mural at 110 Depot Street, La Grande.
This is the fi rst step of the project to restore the mural.
are a little brighter, but it
doesn’t look bad at all.”
The next step in the
process will be to repaint
the mural. Jennings said
he would like to keep as
much of the original look
as possible, but with how
old and faded the mural
is, fi nding the right color
matches may be diffi cult.
Jennings still is consid-
ering how the repainting
will work, deciding
between groups working
in shifts over the next
month or possibly painting
it all one night.
Jennings said, “About
15 to 20 people have
signed up to revitalize
and repaint.”
Local artists and com-
munity members have
begun volunteering time
and donating funds for
the project. Jennings esti-
mated the total cost to be
around $1,000, and as of
Monday, Aug. 31, he has
collected a little more than
$400.
“Ultimately it looks
like it will be a cool col-
laboration with local art-
ists,” Jennings said. “We
are going to make it about
keeping our downtown
beautiful and rich with
culture and vibrancy.
Hopefully something like
this doesn’t happen again.”
State reduces steelhead bag limit for
Oregon’s Snake River and tributaries
EO Media Group
SALEM — Due to low returns,
daily bag limits for hatchery summer
steelhead will be reduced to two fi sh
per day for the Snake River and trib-
utaries when the season opens on
Tuesday, Sept. 1, according to a press
release from the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife.
Fishery managers in the Snake
River basin estimate about 32,000
hatchery steelhead are bound for the
Snake River and its tributaries. While
this is still well below the 10-year
average of about 90,000 fi sh, it’s an
improvement over the previous year’s
run of about 23,000. Additionally, pre-
season forecasts indicate about 18,000
wild steelhead will cross Lower
Granite Dam, nearly twice last year’s
return and about 70% of the 10-year
average.
The intent of reducing the bag limit
to two fi sh per day is to ensure enough
hatchery fi sh return to hatchery facili-
ties to meet production objectives.
“While we expect to meet brood-
stock collection goal, we’re dealing
with small margins for error. Man-
aging conservatively ensures we
can overcome any unforeseen cir-
cumstances if they arise,” said Kyle
Bratcher, ODFW District fi sh biolo-
gist in Enterprise. “Luckily, the uptick
NEWS BRIEFS
13 seeking seats on
Baker City Council
Covering graffiti
is the first step
LA GRANDE — Work
began during the weekend
to revitalize a recently
defaced mural in down-
town La Grande.
Christopher Jennings
the morning of Saturday,
Aug. 22, discovered
someone had spraypainted
comments, including a
curse word and racial slur,
across the mural in the
alley outside his venue, hq,
10 Depot St. After fi ling
a report with the police
and talking to the building
owner and the city, Jen-
nings received permission
to revitalize the mural.
Jaime Gustavson and
Lea Over worked on
cleaning up the graf-
fi ti Saturday morning,
Aug. 29. The local art-
ists painted over the van-
dalism with a color closely
matching the base as part
of the fi rst phase of the
project.
“We took some of the
actual paint chips from
parts of the wall that were
crumbling and got them
matched,” Jennings said.
“It doesn’t look like it
has been tagged at all,
although a couple of spots
to their experiences with
racism in local schools,
and detailed some changes
they’d like to see imple-
mented in policing, such
as higher training and edu-
cation requirements for
offi cers.
In addition to reading
other prepared statements
from Sens. Jeff Merkley
and Ron Wyden, Bylenga
ended the community
speeches with some of his
own remarks before the
demonstrators entered the
streets of Pendleton.
“Only light can drown
out darkness,” Bylenga
Photo by Eric Barker/Lewiston Tribune
Due to low returns, daily bag limits for hatchery summer steelhead will be
reduced to two fi sh per day for the Snake River and tributaries when the
season opens on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
in this year’s run allows us a little
more wiggle room to avoid a situation
like last year when we had a one-fi sh
limit.”
Steelhead are currently making
their way through the mainstem
Columbia and Snake rivers. While
the steelhead season opens on Sept.
1, Bratcher doesn’t expect catch rates
to pick up until the later end of the
month. The best fi shing is typically in
October and November in the Grande
Ronde River and during late winter
and early spring in the Wallowa and
Imnaha rivers.
Daily bag limits for hatchery
summer steelhead will be reduced to
two fi sh per day for the Snake River
and tributaries when the season
opens on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
said. “Only love can drive
out hate.”
As protesters began to
march across the 10th Street
Bridge, a contingent of anti-
Black Lives Matter demon-
strators approached the rear
of the march to confront the
crowd. Police offi cers and
the protest’s internal secu-
rity separated the counter
protesters from the rest of
the marchers.
Throughout down-
town Pendleton, men car-
rying assault rifl es would
sometimes appear to either
stand in front of a busi-
ness or track the protesters.
The police escort was also
accompanied by protester
security mounted on motor-
cycles that constantly cir-
cled the route.
As the march returned
to the park, many of the
counter protesters awaited
them across the street in the
parking lot of the Dave’s
convenience store.
Organizers assembled
the protesters at the amphi-
theater and requested they
all lay on their stomachs for
8 minutes and 46 seconds,
the same amount of time
a dying George Floyd was
pinned down by Minneap-
olis police in May.
Multiple counter-pro-
testers refused interview
requests with the EO Media
Group.
BAKER CITY — A
baker’s dozen of candidates
will vie for six seats on the
Baker City Council in the
Nov. 3 election.
A total of 13 people have
qualifi ed for the ballot,
said Katie LaFavor, city
recorder.
The deadline to fi le as
a candidate was 5 p.m.
Tuesday, Aug. 25.
The list of candidates
includes three incumbents
— Doni Bruland, Arvid
Andersen and Jason Spriet.
The other candidates
are: Shane Alderson, Annie
Croucher, Joanna Dixon,
Kerry McQuisten, Betty
J. Milliman, Damon Rose,
Heather Sells, Gretchen
Stadler, James C. Thomas
and Johnny Waggoner Sr.
Voters will pick six can-
didates in the Nov. 3 elec-
tion, as six of the seven
seats on the city council are
up for election.
Typically there are only
four openings. But this
year there are six because
two councilors resigned
earlier this year, and their
replacements, appointed by
remaining councilors, serve
temporary terms that end
Dec. 31. The two appointed
councilors are Spriet, who
is running for a full term,
and Larry Morrison, who
did not fi le as a candidate.
Councilor Lynette Perry
is the only councilor whose
term continues into 2021.
She was elected in 2018 to a
4-year term.
Mayor Loran Joseph and
Councilor Randy Schiewe
can’t run for re-election due
to the term limits clause in
the city charter.
Among the six candi-
dates who are elected Nov.
3, the top three, in terms of
votes received, will serve
4-year terms. The three
others will serve 2-year
terms. The newly elected
councilors will begin their
terms in early January.
Baker City Council
members receive $10 per
meeting, to a maximum of
$150 per year. Voters in the
May 2020 primary rejected
a measure to remove
council pay from the city
charter.
Grandmother raises
funds for ailing
grandson
LEXINGTON — Kelly
Boyer doesn’t see her
grandson much these days.
COVID keeps the Lex-
ington woman away.
It’s a frustrating reality,
especially since this spring
5-year-old Evan Kates suf-
fered a brain aneurysm and
several strokes that left
him fi ghting for his life.
The brain bleed resulted
from a congenital abnor-
mality called arteriovenous
malformation (AVM), a
tangle of abnormal blood
vessels connecting arteries
and veins in the brain. The
knot of vessels impedes
normal blood fl ow.
The abnormality is rare
in children. People with
AVM sometimes go their
entire lives without a rup-
ture. The average age of
diagnosis is 31 and the risk
of hemorrhage for untreated
AVM is between 2% and
4% yearly.
Evan lives with his par-
ents, Jon and Brooke Kates,
and his older brother, Cole,
9, in Boise, Idaho. Brooke,
a former nurse, real estate
agent and 1999 Heppner
High School graduate,
knew something was awry,
and took her son to the hos-
pital on March 3, according
to Boyer.
The little boy, who Boyer
described as “bright and
very active,” had suffered a
brain hemorrhage that trig-
gered a fl urry of strokes
and other complications.
Evan spent three weeks in
a medically induced coma.
On March 28, he began to
wake up slowly. He and his
family traveled to Salt Lake
City where Evan began
the process of rehabilita-
tion and therapy. Boyer said
the several-month program
involved six hours of rehab,
four days a week, as the boy
worked to regain his ability
to walk and talk.
The trauma of Evan’s
medical troubles was
heightened because of
COVID. Brooke was
the only family member
allowed to visit him. Jon, a
surgical equipment repre-
sentative, was laid off.
Boyer and her hus-
band John, a local crop
duster, struggled to come
up with how to help. The
couple often supports com-
munity members in need
by participating in local
fundraisers. Because of
the virus, the usual fund-
raising methods aren’t
practical.
“We normally have din-
ners, but we can’t because
of COVID,” Boyer said.
“We can’t set out money
jars in town either.”
So she set up an account
at the Bank of Eastern
Oregon. Boyer said her
daughter doesn’t know
about the fundraising
efforts.
“I’m going to surprise
her,” she said.
Donations can be made
at any Bank of Eastern
Oregon branch. The
account is in the name of
Kelly Boyer for Evan.
— EO Media Group