FROM PAGE ONE
TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2022
DISTRICTS
Union County can see whether a
house is covered by the district, and
whether they pay into the essential
ﬁ re service. In Umatilla County, it’s
not as clear-cut, according to Umatilla
Fire District 1 Chief Scott Stanton.
That leads to issues when ﬁ reﬁ ghters
scramble to ﬁ ght a ﬁ re, leaving little
time to discern whether that ﬁ re is
from a home that is covered.
“Imagine going to a ﬁ re scene,”
Stanton said, “whether it’s here or
Douglas County or wherever, and
you go up to a subdivision and you
know that there’s two homes maybe
in there that have chosen not to pay
the ﬁ re district. You may not know
in an emergency situation which
one is paying and which one isn’t,
so you’re just going to do your work
and then all of the sudden they ﬁ nd
out they’re not paying.”
Stanton also said the discrep-
ancy between who does and
doesn’t pay for ﬁ re services can
create inequities.
“Under current Oregon laws
and statutes a property can choose
not to be in a rural ﬁ re protection
district, but they can’t choose to not
pay city or county taxes, and they
can’t choose not to pay school, edu-
cation district taxes,” he said. “Yet,
they can choose not to be in a ﬁ re
district for that really vital, essen-
tial public safety service. They can
choose not to pay.”
The option to not be in a ﬁ re dis-
trict remains, but for rural home-
owners who choose not to pay for
ﬁ re services, hefty bills can accu-
mulate in the event ﬁ re departments
respond to a ﬁ re on a their property.
Enterprise Fire Department
runs on a subscription-type service,
according to Chief Paul Karvoski.
That means property owners can
elect to buy in to the ﬁ re protection
services even if they’re not in the
district. Karvoski said the new law
could simplify things if it passes.
“We do subscription contracts
outside the city limits, so it would
beneﬁ t us if we could just draw
a circle and have a taxing area,
like a district,” he said. “It would
make it much simpler to respond
and everything. It’d probably end
up being cheaper for the public
that’s out there in the rural part of
the county that surrounds the city.
Under these subscription deals we
got, they pay $145, and it says we’re
gonna show up and then they get
allow for the loosening of restric-
tions for 70% of the country’s pop-
ulation where coronavirus is posing
a low or medium threat to hospi-
tals. However, the map released by
the CDC showed much of Eastern,
Central and Southwestern Oregon
remained in the 30% of population
areas that remain at high risk.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom
and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee
issued similar statements Monday
morning with the same date and
time for dropping indoor mask
mandates.
This is the second time in
two weeks health oﬃ cials have
moved up the date for lifting mask
mandates.
Brown had originally said the
mask mandate would end March
31, about when Oregon Health &
Science University projected the
state would drop below 400 daily
patients in hospitals who were posi-
tive for COVID-19.
The decline in omicron-related
severe cases accelerated and the
date was moved last week to March
19. But on Thursday, OHSU issued
a forecast showing Oregon would
dip below the 400 mark by March
12. The next OHSU forecast is due
March 3.
OHA said the lifting of the mask
mandate would not include changes
to federal and state rules on masks
in health care settings, airline ﬂ ights,
public transit and other specialized
settings. Updates will be provided in
coming days and weeks.
Brown’s statement on Feb. 28
did not change her plan to lift the
state of emergency earlier than
April 1, the date she announced
last week. The emergency rules
gave Brown wide powers to set
public policy during the crisis,
including the closing and reopening
of in-person classroom instruction,
business hours, mask usage and
limits on event sizes.
The three West Coast states
have sought to coordinate on
COVID-19 response throughout the
pandemic, though they have gone
their own way at times, such as the
vaccine priority list in early 2021.
Brown said the governors believed
the mask mandate change was
best done at the same time for the
stretch from the Mexican border to
the Canadian border.
“Our communities and econo-
mies are linked,” Brown said.
Brown underlined that the move
did not mean the pandemic was
burning out or nearly over.
“We will build resiliency and
prepare for the next variant and
the next pandemic,” she said. “As
we learn to live with this virus,
we must remain vigilant to pro-
tect each other and prevent dis-
ruption to our schools, businesses,
and communities — with a focus
on protecting our most vulnerable
and the people and communities
that have been disproportionately
impacted by COVID-19.”
Oregon oﬃ cials say they are
conﬁ dent that the move will not rep-
licate the premature lifting of safe-
guards in July 2021, which came
almost simultaneously with the
arrival of the virulent delta variant
that cause a record 918 deaths in
September. Critics said at that time
that lifting the ban statewide did
not take into eﬀ ect the wide diﬀ er-
ences in vaccination rates and prior
COVID-19 exposure.
continue in those six eastern coun-
ties to need homes,” she said.
The need is especially great for
older children, children who identify
as LGBTQIA+ and families for sib-
ling groups.
islation, which has the focus on
keeping children with families and
providing support.
If foster care is necessary,
Blessing said the ﬁ rst step is to look
for relatives or close friends who can
foster the child.
“We’re trying to maintain rela-
tional connections with kids —
trying to keep kids connected to
people they already know,” she said.
In the case that a relative can’t
be found, the child is cared for by a
general applicant foster family —
but Blessing said work continues to
ﬁ nd a relative.
The current recruitment eﬀ orts
across the state are for general appli-
cant families.
“So we have enough families,
and they’re diverse enough, that we
can match children to a family,”
she said.
Continued from Page A1
Kretschmer said his department
is not keen on making property
owners pony up for the service.
“Essentially, it would give ﬁ re
protection districts the right to
annex folks 7 miles from their sta-
tion into your district,” he said. “It’s
not something we really want to
do, to force people, right?”
Instead, Kretschmer said his
department would focus on using
the legislation as a tool to educate
residents not covered by the district
about their options, and give them the
ability to join if they choose to do so.
According to Kretschmer, more
than 40,000 acres in Union County
is not covered by the ﬁ re district.
“We’ve been looking at ways to
let people know, because not every-
body in the valley knows they don’t
have ﬁ re protection,” he said. “This
would be just another tool that could
be used. Now, you never want to
force anybody to do anything, so
our goal is to let people know that,
hey, your house is not protected so
there’s a good chance you won’t
have a ﬁ re department response.”
Kretschmer said dispatch in
MASKS
Continued from Page A1
and Washington was crucial to
having a uniﬁ ed time line for the
change in mask policy, Brown said.
“As has been made clear time
and again over the last two years,
COVID-19 does not stop at state
borders or county lines,” Brown
said in a statement. “On the West
Coast, our communities and econ-
omies are linked. Together, as we
continue to recover from the omi-
cron surge, we will build resiliency
and prepare for the next variant and
the next pandemic.”
The move by the three states
comes after the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention late
last week called for new guide-
lines to determine risk that would
FOSTER
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group, File
Fireﬁ ghters respond to a house ﬁ re at 25 N. Fifth St., Elgin, on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022.
Nobody was injured, but only a handful of personal belongings were recovered.
MORE INFORMATION
Continued from Page A1
recruitment tool.”
This “Learn About Foster Care”
event is sponsored by Every Child,
Oregon Department of Human Ser-
vices, and Greater Oregon Behav-
ioral Health Inc.
Those three organizations,
Blessing said, represent diﬀ erent
parts of the foster system.
GOBHI focuses on “treatment
foster care,” while Every Child pro-
vides volunteer opportunities to sup-
port children in the foster system and
families that provide care.
“We’re trying to oﬀ er the whole
spectrum of what’s available to
THE OBSERVER — A7
The session, titled “Virtual Explore
Fostering — Every Child NE Oregon,”
will be Wednesday, March 16, from
6-7:30 p.m.
To register, go to https://everychildneo-
regon.org/. Click on “Upcoming Events”
and search by county to ﬁ nd the event.
To learn more about Every Child, visit
everychildneoregon.org/ or follow the
page on Facebook.
people interested in fostering,”
Blessing said.
She hopes to spur interest in resi-
dents from Eastern Oregon counties,
where foster families are urgently
needed.
“Statewide there’s a need, but we
The numbers
Blessing said District 13 —
Baker, Union and Wallowa counties
— had a total of 54 children in foster
care and 36 resource homes at the
end of January.
As of Jan. 1, 2022, there were
5,393 children in foster care in
Oregon — the fewest in 16 years,
according to the Oregon Child Wel-
fare Division.
The reason for the low number,
Blessing said, is “family ﬁ rst” leg-
billed by the hour, per truck, and
it gets very expensive for them. So
introducing legislation like this bill
is gonna save more money.”
How much money? According
to Karvoski, the cost of ﬁ re
responses to structure ﬁ res can
accrue rapidly due to billable
working hours spent ﬁ ghting the
ﬁ re and cleanup work.
“You get these house ﬁ res that
we’re out there for six, seven hours
— you’re pushing a $5,000 bill
pretty quickly,” he said.
The changes in how districts
are laid out would bring rural areas
more in line with municipalities,
making ﬁ re services mandatory in
the same way that taxes that sup-
port schools and county services
are rolled into property taxes. Jerry
Hampton, ﬁ re chief of Haines
Fire Protection District, said it’s a
matter of fairness.
“It is not fair for the taxpayers
in the district to have to pay for
the people that are not within the
district boundaries that some-
times may need or require some
type of ﬁ re suppression,” he said.
“I have mixed emotions,” he said
of the proposed legislation. “In all
due respect, it’s probably the right
thing.”
Every Child
Those who aren’t ready to pro-
vide full-time care can learn more
about foster care by volunteering
with Every Child NE Oregon, which
works to expand the support system
around foster care.
“There are ways to support fos-
tering without taking a child into your
home,” Blessing said. “It’s a way to dip
your toe in and learn what it’s about.”
She said that a general applica-
tion family, on average, thinks about
becoming a foster family for two to
three years before deciding to foster
children.
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