Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (April 5, 2022)
INSIDE UNION STANDOUT BASKETBALL PLAYER NAMED 2A SECOND-TEAM ALL-STATE | SPORTS, A7 $1.50 TUESDAY EDITION April 5, 2022 Merkley touts rural Oregon’s support DIGGING DEEPER Senator calls to improve forests, irrigation, internet and housing By ALEX WITTWER EO Media Group LA GRANDE — Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley is setting his sights on fi re protection and forest resilience in Eastern Oregon. The Oregon Democrat previ- ously promoted The Valley West Joint Chiefs project in September 2021 as a way to “ensure the safety of our communities, the resilience of our forests, and the conserva- tion of our natural resources,” according to a press release from Merkley’s offi ce. The project is a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Agriculture Nat- Merkley ural Resources Con- servation Service and the U.S. Forest Service. “I am very happy to be able to announce that I was able to secure $1.8 million for the La Grande Valley West Joint Chiefs project,” he said during a one-on-one inter- view Wednesday, March 30. “We’re talking about precommercial thin- ning, fuels reduction, prescribed burning (and) mowing, and all of it produces jobs in the woods, saw logs for the mill, and a more fi re resilient forest, which I think is a triple-win.” OSP will examine Finley Creek site where remains were found in 1978 An off -road trail, at left, leads to the site where the remains of a young woman — shown above in a reconstructed sketch — were found outside Elgin in 1978 near Finley Creek. The Oregon State Police plan to reexamine the site in 2022 in an attempt to determine her identity. Background: Suzanne Timms/Inset sketch: Melinda Jederberg/Contributed Photos By DICK MASON The Observer U Forest resilience and response to drought Last year’s fi re season was one of the most explosive ones yet in Oregon, though Eastern Oregon was largely spared from confl a- grations and widespread damage like that seen in the southern parts of the state that were hit hard by the Bootleg Fire. Still, it’s a matter of when, not if, a fi re breaks out and threatens Eastern Oregon’s landscape. “It is essential to recognize that with the drought, the warmer tem- peratures and the longer season that we’re going to see a lot of prob- lems, and we need to prepare wher- ever we can,” Merkley said. “Par- ticularly we need to focus on areas close to towns because if that forest is treated, maybe we can stop the fi re before it gets to a town or city.” Of those options, Merkley said he Suzanne Timms/Contributed Photo Cadaver dog Brynn and a team of volunteers including Suzanne Timms, seated, in August 2021 investigate the area where the Finley Creek Jane Doe was discovered near Elgin in 1978. Timms believes the unidentifi ed woman is her mother. With Timms are her relatives Jennifer Harringten, center, and Wenda Parr, left, plus Karin Anderson of Dallas, Texas, who is a member of a Reporter’s Notebook group that is producing podcasts about the search for the identity of Jane Doe. NION COUNTY — The Oregon State Police are turning up the heat on a local cold case. OSP offi cers and OSP crime lab personnel will soon reexamine a site near Finley Creek, 18 miles north of La Grande, where the remains of an unidentifi ed woman were found in August of 1978. The OSP team, which will have human remains detection dogs, will be searching for anything connected to the unidentifi ed woman who was found there in a shallow grave more than 40 years ago. The OSP will go to the site after all the snow there has melted. Detective-ser- geant Sean Belding of the OSP said his agency will be facing a big challenge. “It will be a little like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Belding said. Melinda Jederberg, of La Grande, a member of the Finley Creek Jane Doe Task Force, is more hopeful. “We are very optimistic,” said Jederberg, who founded the task force in 2019. See, Crime/Page A6 See, Senator/Page A6 BAKER CITY La Grande developer tackles ‘att ractive nuisance’ property By JAYSON JACOBY Baker City Herald BAKER CITY — Gust Tsiatsos steps off the Leo Adler Memorial Parkway and enters the Boys Jungle. Which no longer much resembles a jungle. Tsiatsos, a contractor and devel- oper from La Grande, bought this property, along with four other nearby parcels totaling about 13 acres, last year. This winter, his workers cut and trimmed trees and removed much of the undergrowth that gave the Boys Jungle the name it has had for many decades. Although this approximately 2-acre piece of ground, just north of D Street and with the Powder River forming its western border, has always been private property, for generations of Baker youth it was a chunk of wildland within the city with its towering cottonwoods and willows. More recently, though, city offi - cials have described the Boys Jungle as an “attractive nuisance,” a place WEATHER INDEX Classified ......B2 Comics ...........B5 Crossword ....B2 Dear Abby ....B6 Home .............B1 Horoscope ....B4 Local...............A2 Lottery ...........A2 THURSDAY Obituaries .....A5 Opinion .........A4 Sports ............A7 Sudoku ..........B5 where juveniles went to drink alcohol or smoke, screened from view by the dense foliage. In 2011 the city asked the former owner, Ben Dean, to clean up the property and install private property and no trespassing signs. The signs went up and some of the brush came down. Property cleanup But Tsiatsos, whose company, GCT Land Management Inc., bought the property and the other parcels from Dean, did a much more Full forecast on the back of B section Tonight Wednesday 26 LOW 56/30 Cold Sunshine; milder LA GRANDE BUSINESS CLOSING AFTER 30 YEARS thorough job. Most of the mature trees remain, but in between the ground is largely bare, and visibility is much improved. Tsiatsos said that after he bought the Boys Jungle he found evidence that it had been used as a homeless camp. Joyce Bornstedt, the city’s tech- nical administrative supervisor and also its parks coordinator, said Tsiatsos’ eff orts have greatly See, Developer/Page A6 CONTACT US 541-963-3161 Issue 41 2 sections, 14 pages La Grande, Oregon Email story ideas to news@lagrande observer.com. More contact info on Page A4. Online at lagrandeobserver.com