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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 2020)
2A — THE OBSERVER Daily Planner TODAY Today is Saturday, Dec. 19, the 354th day of 2020. There are 12 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On Dec. 19, 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the Repub- lican-controlled House for perjury and obstruction of justice (he was subsequently acquitted by the Senate). ON THIS DATE: In 1777, during the Ameri- can Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to camp for the winter. In 1843, “A Christmas Car- ol,” by Charles Dickens, was first published in England. In 1915, German psychi- atrist Alois Alzheimer, who discovered the pathological condition of dementia, died in Poland at age 51. In 1960, fire broke out on the hangar deck of the near- ly completed aircraft carrier USS Constellation at the New York Naval Shipyard; 50 civilian workers were killed. In 1972, Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, winding up the Apollo program of manned lunar landings. In 1974, Nelson A. Rocke- feller was sworn in as the 41st vice president of the United States in the U.S. Senate chamber by Chief Justice Warren Burger with President Gerald R. Ford looking on. In 2001, the fires that had burned beneath the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York City for the previous three months were declared extinguished except for a few scattered hot spots. In 2008, citing imminent danger to the national econ- omy, President George W. Bush ordered an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry. LOTTERY Megabucks: $5.8 million 13-15-18-31-34-42 Mega Millions: $262 million 1-10-18-20-46 — 15 x4 Powerball: $287 million 4-23-37-61-67 — PB 7 x2 Win for Life: Dec. 16 1-11-30-61 Pick 4: Dec. 17 • 1 p.m.: 9-9-5-1 • 4 p.m.: 5-4-3-6 • 7 p.m.: 0-9-5-1 • 10 p.m.: 0-4-3-1 Pick 4: Dec. 16 • 1 p.m.: 1-3-5-4 • 4 p.m.: 3-1-5-9 • 7 p.m.: 5-2-7-0 • 10 p.m.: 3-9-2-1 DELIVERY ISSUES? If you have any problems receiving your Observer, please call 541-963-3161. SaTuRday, dEcEmBER 19, 2020 LOCAL/REGION Joseph OKs $3.8 million sewer plant plan By Bill Bradshaw Wallowa County Chieftain JOSEPH — A larger- than-usual audience turned out for the final Joseph City Council meeting of the year, Thursday, Dec. 10, when the council gave its approval to a sewage treat- ment facilities plan and bade farewell to Mayor Teresa Sajonia as she pre- sided over her last session. Brad Baird of the engi- neering firm Anderson Perry and Associates pre- sented the council with a finalized plan for the more than $3.8 million project. He noted it has been more than 20 years since any the city made significant upgrades to the facility and it is not in compliance with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. “It’ll get you back into compliance with DEQ,” he said. He said the cost esti- mate is about $1 million lower than a previous plan. The city will have until late Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain Joseph City Administrator Larry Biden looks on as outgo- ing Joseph Mayor Teresa Sajoni in her final city council meeting on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020, reads a list of accom- plishments she said the council achieved during her two years as mayor. 2023 to adjust sewer rates so it can make its first pay- ment on the loan to cover the cost of the project. Sajonia reminded the council the project would require about a $10 increase in monthly sewer rates. Baird said some cities faced with a significant increase opt to break it up into mul- tiple increases rather than hit residents all at once. Sajonia said it’s the price of waiting too long to address the need for upgrades to the sewer plant. “This is one of the things that, after 14 years, we all have made mistakes in our careers on the council,” she said. “This is one of these things about whether or not we raise rates and then we don’t do it. Then what happens is these things increase in price. … It’s just the nature of the beast.” Public Works Director Levi Tickner agreed, saying if the city refused to go along with the plans, the DEQ would begin imple- menting fines and ulti- mately force the city into compliance. “We’ll start getting fines and more and more fines,” he said. Baird said he is sure the DEQ would not get too harsh as long as the agency knows the city is working to remedy the situation. The council voted to adopt the facilities plan. The other major event at the meeting involved Sajonia’s handing over the reins of city government to her successor, Belinda Buswell, who defeated Sajonia in the Nov. 3 elec- tion. It also involved filling two vacant council seats and preparing for the coun- cilors who voters elected in November — sitting Coun- cilors Kirsten Rohla and Matt Soots and new Coun- cilor Stephen Bartlow. The deaths of Marty Hamilton in November 2019 and Richard Pointer in July created vacan- cies on the council. Six people applied for the two seats, and the council voted Thursday to appoint former Councilor Kathy Bingham and newcomer Tamera Jones to fill the seats. Jones wasn’t present Thursday, but Bingham took her oath of office and immediately joined the council. As part of her departing address, Sajonia spoke highly of the late councilors, “There are two coun- cilors I dearly wish were here so I could thank them: Marty Hamilton and Richard Pointer — they deserve so much credit,” the mayor said. “They worked so hard to change what was broken.” Alpenfest plans move to Joseph in 2021 Wallow County Chieftain JOSEPH — After more than four decades at Wal- lowa Lake, Oregon’s Alpen- fest will have a new home in 2021. Directors of the Alpen- fest decided in November to move the annual event from its prior location to Joseph, and the festival in Sep- tember 2021 will be at the Harley Tucker Memorial Grounds. According to a press release, “a cascade of inci- dents” prevented the con- tinuation of the festival at Wallowa Lake, where it has been since 1975. The festival had taken place at Edelweiss Inn for 43 years, according to the press release, but the build- ing’s owners deemed it to be too dangerous for future public events after the 2018 festival. The 2019 festival took place in two large tents at the Wallowa Lake Marina, an effort to keep the event at the lake. But weather, timing, electrical issues, heating and lighting all made Mollie B & Squeezebox/Contributed Photo The Midwest polka band Mollie B & Squeezebox will entertain at Oregon’s Alpenfest in 2021. From right are Joe Poper, guitar and mandolin player; Mollie Busta, instrumentalist and vocalist; Ted Lange, accordion and vocalist; and drummer Dana Linblad. the idea of holding the event in a tent unattain- able, according to Chuck Anderson, festival president and alpenmeister. Organizers canceled the 2020 Alpenfest altogether because of COVID-19 restrictions. Anderson called the move away from the lake a “very reluctant decision.” “We know that our loyal attendees look forward to the lake environment and some will be disappointed,” he said in the release. “But recent circumstances forced us to make a hard decision, and we trust that Alpenfest will continue to provide a rousing good time.” The return of the fes- tival in 2021 will bring with it internationally pop- ular polka band Mollie B & SqueezeBox, and Alpenfest regulars Tirolean Dancers, Shelby Imholt, a Swiss yodeler, and virtuoso accor- dionist Alicia Straka. Addi- tionally, Randy and Ashley Thull will provide free polka lessons. The 2021 event, which will run from Sept. 23-26, features a procession down Enterprise’s Main Street on Thursday, Sept. 23, and “Accordions at Alpenfest” at Terminal Gravity. TG also will be the location of a tradition tapping of the first keg of Alpenfest beer, and the brewery will pro- vide the bulk of the festi- val’s brews, according to the release. Performances take place Friday and Saturday eve- ning, and Saturday after- noon, and the Alpine Fair plans to operate Friday through Sunday. Oregon group continues push for universal health care Union County chapter hears comparison with U.S., Canada By Kaleb Lay The Observer LA GRANDE — The debate over implementing a single-payer health care system in the United States may have fizzled out with the nomination of now President-elect Joe Biden, but that hasn’t stopped one group from pushing for such a system in Oregon. Health Care For All Oregon, a statewide advo- cacy network with some 130 members, wants to bring that single-payer system to the Beaver State, and the group’s Union County chapter has been doing its part to help in that fight. HCAO’s Union County EO Media Group/File Photo Supporters of Health Care for All Oregon convene at the Capitol in Salem in April 2017 to encourage their legisla- tors to work toward universal publicly funded health care. The Union County chapter of Health Care for All Oregon held a virtual meeting Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, to learn about Canada’s single-payer health care system. chapter held a Zoom meeting Tuesday, Dec. 15, with guest speaker Fran- cine Brazeau, a Canada native who worked in the U.S. health care system before returning north. The meeting focused on the differences between U.S. and Canadian health care, the latter of which is a single-payer system. “It’s been pretty amazing to see the (Cana- dian) system at work,” Brazeau said. Brazeau said while health care procedures in the U.S. were advanced and high quality, they were far more difficult to access compared to Canada, where the medicine is just as advanced. Meeting-goers ques- tioned Brazeau on how the Canadian system func- tioned — how it was funded, what problems it had, its effects on different parts of the population — to understand how such a system in Oregon might work. Brazeau noted Cana- da’s health care is funded nationally but adminis- tered provincially and population-dense parts of the country tended to pay disproportionately more than those in rural areas. She also said many of the common criticisms of sin- gle-payer health care in the U.S. didn’t materialize in Canada’s system. “The atrocious wait times? I’m not seeing them,” Brazeau said. “One of my friends in Toronto, he’s about 76 years old, he got a hip replacement last June and he was on the waiting list. He only waited three weeks for the hip replacement. The myth that there are people dying waiting is just, I’ve never seen anything like it. If you need a medical proce- dure done, you will get it.” The wait times, Brazeau said, were reasonable in her experience caring for her elderly father as well. She said Canadian health care allows its users to choose their provider and a doctor being “out-of-network” was a foreign concept. HCAO’s efforts to imple- ment a single-payer system in Oregon center around the formation of a legisla- tive task force due to the passage of Senate Bill 770 last year. The task force is charged with recom- mending a plan for uni- versal health care in Oregon to the Legislature, and a member of the task force attended Union County HCAO’s meeting with Brazeau. Cliff Bentz, who repre- sented Union County in the Senate at the time, and Greg Barretto, who continues to serve in the House, both voted against SB 770. Health Care for All Oregon remains far from realizing its goal, and Union County’s chapter faces a steep uphill battle in selling any such uni- versal health care plan in the rural, conserva- tive-leaning locale. None- theless, the small but determined group will surely continue to advocate for health care as a right to all Oregonians. For more information on HCAO’s Union County chapter, visit unioncountyhealth.org. Two hospitalized after prison brawl Suspect in attempted murder caught By Liliana Frankel Malheur Enterprise via AP StoryShare ONTARIO — Two inmates needed medical care last week after a fight at Snake River Correc- tional Institution, Ontario, that involved 36 inmates, according to Oregon State Police and prison officials. Amber Campbell, prison spokesperson, said the fight on Wednesday, Dec. 9, started over an incident of perceived disrespect in the dayroom associated with the inmates’ housing unit. Although the fight involved three dozen men, it didn’t spread beyond the housing unit to other parts of SRCI, Campbell said. She said correctional offi- cers halted the fight with chemical spray and verbal commands, and that no weapons were involved. However, two inmates were hurt badly enough to need outside medical care. They were treated and returned to the prison. State Police Sgt. Javier Marquez said a third man also was injured badly enough to merit investigation. “Our focus was to concen- trate on those three adults in custody who were injured,” he said. Campbell said the facility placed all 36 men involved in the disciplinary segregation following the fight, and the prison is conducting its own review of the incident. Baker City Herald BAKER CITY — Oregon State Police reported troopers Thursday evening, Dec. 17, arrested an attempted murder suspect from South Carolina near Baker City. According to a report from OSP Senior Trooper Nicholas Hagedorn, South Carolina police notified state police the department was tracking James Shawn Nichol, 48, of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and he might be at the rest area north of Baker City. Nichol was wanted for the attempted murder of his mother, Nichol and a nation- wide warrant was issued for his arrest. South Carolina police reported Nichol may have been driving his mother’s 2015 Subaru Forester. Troopers found the vehicle at the Baker Valley Rest Area on the westbound side of Inter- state 84 near milepost 295 at about 5:50 p.m. Thursday. Nichol was alone in the vehicle and sitting in the driver’s seat. Troopers arrested him without incident and took him in the Baker County jail on the attempted murder warrant.
