Home & Living
Inside
Humble & hearty
School modular remodel, 2A
No fans allowed, 6A
Follow us on the web
TUESDAY • March 16, 2021
• $1.50
Good day to our valued subscriber Paige Sully of Enterprise
Holding
a virtual
FEAST
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — Locals on
Tuesday, March 16, have a chance
to take part in the third Wal-
lowa County FEAST community
forum, a virtual event in 2021, that
will discuss food systems and food
resources, according to a press
release.
The event provides an opportu-
nity for discussion about the food
system and will include keynote
speakers who will discuss their
varied perspectives and challenges
they have faced, according to Sara
Miller, deputy director for North-
east Oregon Economic Develop-
ment District.
“A FEAST event gives people a
chance to meet others interested in
our food system and those connec-
tions sometimes lead to collabora-
tive projects or volunteer opportu-
nities,” Miller said.
The acronym stands for Food,
Education, Agriculture, Solutions,
Together. Funding to put on the
event comes from the Oregon Food
Bank. The discussions are cen-
tered around addressing challenges
in the food system, and Miller said
a prior event prompted conversa-
tions that resulted in some changes
in the county.
“Discussions at the event led
to volunteers organizing to host a
Rural Resources for Rural Econo-
mies AmeriCorps volunteer, com-
pletion of a Community Food
Assessment for Wallowa County,
formation of the ad hoc Wallowa
County Food System Council to
continue the sharing of informa-
tion and help people make connec-
tions and collaborate on projects
to meet community needs,” Miller
said.
Food security, and helping
establish it, is a key point of the
FEAST forum.
“(The event) brings people
together who are either interested
or involved as a profession in the
food system locally,” event co-or-
ganizer Katy Nesbitt said. “It’s
to evoke conversations and help
people dream about what else we
can do in our community to have a
more secure food system.”
Nesbitt referred to the terms
“food securty” and “food desert,”
which are used in food communi-
ties. She said in Wallowa County,
for example, small isolated towns
such as Troy and Imnaha each
could be considered a food desert
in that they are farther away from
a distribution point. People who
live in outlying areas may have
more assets such as chickens or
See, FEAST/Page 5A
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Vehicles line Adams Avenue in downtown La Grande the evening of Friday, March 5, 2021. The city resumes parking enforcement in downtown
on Monday, March 22.
Parking fi nes to return
to downtown La Grande
Resuming enforcement receives
mix reviews from businesses
By DICK MASON
The Observer
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
LA GRANDE — The city of La Grande
soon will be issuing parking tickets again in
the downtown area.
The city has not enforced downtown
parking regulations since late March 2020
because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The
city resumes enforcing downtown parking
rules beginning Monday, March 22.
The change comes after the state down-
graded Union County’s COVID-19 risk cat-
egory from extreme to moderate, allowing
more businesses to serve more customers,
particularly restaurants and bars, which now
can operate at 50% capacity for dine-in ser-
vice. That means more people are visiting
downtown, where fi nding a parking spot can
be diffi cult.
“With most of our retail and restaurants
A parking enforcement vehicle sits in the parking lot of the La Grande Police Department on
Monday, March 15, 2021.
See, Parking/Page 5A
Oregon’s 2020 political redistricting: Fuzzy math and absent maps
Eastern Oregon leaders,
residents weigh-in on
changing the state,
federal district lines
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — The fuzzy future
of Oregon politics east of the Cas-
cades was unveiled to the public
last week: No diagrams, charts,
data — really nothing tangible at
all to show how new legislative
and congressional districts should
be drawn.
“We don’t have any maps,”
hot political wreck. Any fi x isn’t
expected earlier than autumn.
Like so many things over
the past year, COVID-19 is the
problem.
In normal times, the U.S.
Census counts people every 10
years, in years that end in zero.
The Legislature would get
detailed Oregon data by April 1.
Legislators would have until the
end of their current session on
July 1 to get maps of 30 Senate, 60
House and either fi ve or six con-
gressional districts to the governor.
If they couldn’t agree on a
redistricting plan, the secre-
tary of state would take a shot
at mapmaking and turn in the
WEATHER Full forecast on the back of B section
INDEX
Home & Living ............1B
Classifieds ....................4B
Comics ..........................7B
Crosswords ..................4B
Horoscope ....................4B
said Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake
Oswego, chair of the House
Redistricting Committee. “We
don’t have any numbers from the
census.”
Salinas and her Senate counter-
part, Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Mil-
waukie, said they were making a
good faith eff ort to hold the legally
required 10 public hearings on
new political maps, which do not
exist yet.
The hearings are collateral
damage from the constitutional
car crash headed to the Oregon
Supreme Court. The once-a-de-
cade process of rebalancing popu-
lations in legislative and congres-
sional districts is a smolderingly
Lottery ..........................2A
Obituaries .....................3A
Opinion .........................4A
Sudoku .........................7B
Weather ........................6B
THURSDAY
Tonight
27 Low
Cold
SHERIFF’S RESERVES
Wednesday
60/40 Low
Cloudy
maps by Aug. 15.
But these are not normal times.
COVID-19 crippled the census
count. The Legislature received no
data. No maps are being drawn for
the governor. There’s no dispute
for the secretary of state to resolve.
The census folks in Wash-
ington, D.C. have been saying
sorry for months. But given all the
upheaval in their work, the num-
bers needed to draw districts won’t
get to Oregon until Sept. 30, six
months late and well beyond con-
stitutional and statutory deadlines.
To employ an overused term
during the current pandemic, the
See, Redistricting/Page 5A
CONTACT US
541-963-3161
Issue 32
2 sections, 14 pages
La Grande, Oregon
Email story ideas
to news@lagrande
observer.com.
More contact info
on Page 4A.
Online at lagrandeobserver.com