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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 2020)
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2020 THE OBSERVER — 7A DATA Continued from Page 1A Sabrina Thompson/The Observer The Blue Mountain Humane Association’s feral cat barn now is safe for cats. Prior to the departure of the former director, the barn contained dead cats, trash and lumber, accord- ing to the board’s president, Beverly Beach. BMHA Continued from Page 1A “We got a bill for $4,800 because Brinlee was doing his own payroll in 2016,” Beach said. “We paid a portion and are asking for an abatement for the rest. But this is money we could have put toward any number of projects for the shelter.” Cleaning up the sections for keeping animals has been the biggest and most successful project, Beach said. The room that housed adult cats had urine-soaked hay, and many of the cats were not socialized prop- erly, she said. Now the cats seem happier and roam more freely and interact with the shelter staff more frequently. Because of old appli- ances, scrap metal and trash in the back area of the shelter, Beach said, dogs had not been able to get fresh air and run around outside, despite the multiple acres of land the shelter sits on. The back area of the shelter now is clean and every dog goes outside at least once a day, Beach said. Another project has been dealing with the property’s feral cat population, many of which used the barn on the property as their shelter. Beach said the barn was fi lled with old hay and trash and they found several dead cats, all of which has been cleaned out and the barn refurbished for the feral cats to enjoy safely. “The board itself and their family members have been great about donating and putting in time to clean the barn out,” Beach said. When Brinlee was director, Beach said, the feral cats the shelter received were not spayed and neutered. This caused a boom in the cat population, which the shelter is hoping will be reduced with its newly implemented “trap neuter return” program. “We can’t get the feral cat population under con- trol without TNR,” Beach said. “So we will use this barn as a gauge to see if the program is working for the next kitten season.” The shelter has improve- ments still to make, including continuing to clean the site, tear down walls Brinlee put up to create storage closets and update appliances and fi x maintenance problems. With COVID-19 shutting down the shelter to volun- teers, Beach said getting this work done has been a struggle. “We are working with a skeleton staff,” Beach said, “and with a large number of animals coming in, cleaning out things doesn’t always take precedent.” Beach said the main focus is on taking care of the animals at the shelter, making sure they are in a safe and clean environment and properly documented. The shelter’s record keeping has been rein- stated, including keeping track of shots and other care, and every animal is in the system now, Beach said. The board also closed Barkin’ Basement, a thrift store that benefi ted the shelter, after COVID-19 hit. The store cost more to run than it was making, Beach said, and customers couldn’t come in while they were shut down, so the board decided it was best to close the store and sell off what items were left. Beach also said the FBI is investigating Brinlee but she has not received any updates on the case. The Observer tried to contact Brinlee but has not been able to reach him. Shelter board members and his ex-wife reported they do not know how to contact him. A social media search for Brinlee also came up empty. we had pushed and that is where we got started,” said Wallowa County Commis- sioner Susan Roberts. “(We want) to do an economic analysis of the affected counties and the communi- ties within those counties.” Union County Commis- sioner Paul Anderes said the research will provide a more accurate depiction of how forest policies effect the local economy. “In the original forest service plans, the socio- economic impact was too broad and general- ized,” Anderes said. “This new plan can include the countywide profi le of socioeconomic status, spe- cifi cally for communi- ties within rural Eastern Oregon.” The research and data will provide more context for the impact of the plans. “The Forest Service cannot get into each com- munity, but we can,” McConnell said. The project will include data from 10 counties in Oregon and four in South- east Washington, according to a press release from EOU. The updated analysis plan will include counties, such as Wallowa County, that do not have a main traffi c vein, and Union County, which is full of communities that will be impacted by the forest plan. The intent is for the analysis to be more than just a glance at the counties as a whole. Maille said the plan also is to involve coun- ties and communities in the discussion so the data will be an accurate refl ection of how the people living in these areas feel about and experience use of the forest. Anderes said Union County commissioners selected cities in the county where timber mills con- tinue to run or have closed down, including Elgin, Union, North Powder and La Grande. Julie Keniry/ The Rural Engagement and Vitality Center Quincy Backes and Sarah Buddingh, Eastern Oregon University student interns at the Rural Engagement and Vitality Center, visit with Jim Zacharias, owner of Jayzee Lumber in Joseph in August. The visit gave the students a chance to learn about the timber/lumber industry as part of a project to gather data on how the Blue Moun- tains Forest Plan could affect local economies. Christoffersen also spoke about the importance of a more in-depth analysis for the counties, noting it would prevent viewing the economic impact of forest management decisions through one lens. “The desire was to create a system to get more localized analysis of what would be the impact of increasing or decreasing timber harvest on national forest land, (or) increasing or decreasing the grazing activities,” he said. “(It’s) trying to understand the rel- ative economic importance of the national forest system land and their management to the economics of the Eastern Oregon counties.” He explained that counties with a diverse economy — such as Uma- tilla County, which has, he said, industrial activity along the Columbia River, farming, the Pendleton Round-up and Blue Moun- tain Community College, for example — are going to experience different effects than a county that has a large portion of land in the forest system. He noted 58% of Wallowa County land is national forest land and the county has a strong ag, ranching and forest sector, plus a number of small businesses related to forest management and Cliff Bentz for Congress RANCHER. FARMER. BUSINESSMAN. Paid For By Cliff Bentz For Congress CLIFFBENTZ.COM forest contracting. “You have, in one sense, winners and losers in any decision like that, or sec- tors that would benefi t,” he said. “If they, for example, decided to increase timber harvest as a hypothetical, those counties that still have sawmills would ben- efi t the most, and those counties that have a strong forest service would still have a benefi t.” He said this process is to inform the Forest Service about the values and prior- ities in Northeast Oregon that can then help inform the future management. “At the same time, we’re going to try to be creative and promote innovation about how our communi- ties try to take advantage of the opportunities that dif- ferent management deci- sions in the National Forest Service offer,” Christof- fersen said. McConnell said this project also is a good way to discover a county’s ability to resist or reduce shock to its system through management tactics. According to Keniry, the U.S. Forest Services and Eastern Oregon Coun- ties Association provided $105,000 in funding. The plan is to complete the project within that funding amount in one to two years.