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.