FROM PAGE ONE
THURSDAY, JULY 7, 2022
THE OBSERVER — A7
“This would give parents a
choice and put them back in the
driver’s seat,” she said.
BEARS
INITIATIVES
Continued from Page A1
Continued from Page A1
about 150 pounds.
Jeff Smith, who owns J2K Excavating and lives
on Foothill Drive, off ered the use of his bucket lift
to retrieve the bear.
Ratliff said the bear awoke in the cage about
11:30 a.m. on July 3, a little more than an hour after
he fi red the tranquilizer dart.
“By noon it was mobile,” Ratliff said of the bear.
He released the bear in the Eagle Creek area
northeast of Baker City.
“It ran straight down a hill,” he said. “It did not
want to stick around, which is exactly what we like
to see.”
That behavior is typical of a truly wild animal
that is not accustomed to being around people, Rat-
liff said.
He suspects the bear had separated from its
mother, as bears tend to do after their fi rst birthday.
“I think it just wandered into town and got
caught after daylight where it didn’t want to be,”
Ratliff said.
He said there were no reports of the bear nosing
into garbage cans or other behavior that could sug-
gest the bear was comfortable around people.
In those cases, ODFW offi cials are likely to kill
the bear rather than trap it and release it in the wild.
Ratliff said the foothill above the city’s south-
west corner probably is a travel corridor for wild-
life, including the occasional bear.
The episode started when the bear was seen at
Quail Ridge Golf Course, on the hill directly west
of Foothill Drive.
Julie Bouchard, who lives at 235 Foothill, on
the west side of the street, said she had just let out
three dogs, one of her own and two belonging to
her daughter-in-law, Megan Cloyd, when she heard
someone yelling, from the golf course, about a
bear.
Bouchard quickly brought the dogs inside —
Louie, her boxer-bulldog mix, and Cloyd’s black
Labradors, Lola and Lola’s daughter, Sammy.
Cloyd, who grew up in Baker City and moved
to Moses Lake, Washington, about four years
ago, was visiting for the Fourth of July weekend
with her children, Nicholas Cloyd Jr., 10, and
Scarlett, 11.
Bouchard said she watched the bear rumble
through a fi eld near her home, cross Foothill Drive
and climb the birch tree between two apartment
buildings directly across the street.
“It was so cute while it was running,” Bouchard
said.
Bouchard, who has lived on Foothill Drive for
about a decade, said she’s never seen a bear in the
neighborhood.
Two Baker City Police Department offi cers
responded, along with a Baker County Sheriff ’s
Offi ce truck and two Oregon State Police troopers.
Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash also drove to
the scene.
Baker City Police offi cer Lance Woodward
directed traffi c along Foothill Drive. A car rolled
through every few minutes, most driven by curious
residents wanting to get a look at the bear.
Oregon which has room for addi-
tional students.
For example, if a public school
has room for fi ve additional
second graders and there are
fi ve applicants from outside the
school’s district, the school would
have to accept all fi ve of the stu-
dents, said Donna Kreitzberg, one
of three chief petitioners for the
initiative petitions and a member
of the executive committee of
Education Freedom for Oregon.
Under the proposed Open
Enrollment amendment, should
there be more applicants than
there are openings, the school
district would be required to con-
duct a lottery to give each of the
applicants an equal opportunity
to be selected and enrolled.
School districts would not
be required to accept stu-
dents for openings if they had
been expelled from their pre-
vious school. Kreitzberg said the
leaders of the Open Enrollment
amendment drive don’t want
problem students to be handed to
other schools.
The rules of the proposed ini-
tiative petition would give pri-
ority to students of families living
in each school district. This
means that if there are 25 spaces
available for third graders in a
school district and there are 25
third graders living within the
school district whose families
want them to enroll there, these
children would fi ll all the slots
and the outside students might
have to be put on a waiting list.
Kreitzberg said the Open
Enrollment amendment would
empower parents.
School choice
FIRE
they’re intended,” he said.
Common sense goes a long
way in preventing fi re.
“Make sure they have a safe
campfi re, be wary of driving in
tall, dry grass, be fi re conscious
and be aware,” Howard said.
He also said people should
report a fi re when they see it that
way the authorities can learn about
it as quickly as possible in order to
minimize resources and cost.
“Don’t assume the next person
has reported it,” Howard said.
“We want to get there quickly
and knock that fi re down.”
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
A Baker City police offi cer stands beneath a birch tree on the east
side of Foothill Drive in case the bear in the tree came down or
fell, on Sunday, July 3, 2022.
The School Choice constitu-
tional amendment would make
it easier for parents to aff ord to
enroll their children in any pri-
vate school in the state if there is
space available.
The amendment would call
for a School Choice Account to
be created for students attending
or planning to attend private
schools. A portion of the state
money that that public school dis-
tricts receive whenever a student
attends a public school would go
into this account. Parents would
never receive the money but
it would go directly to private
schools, Kreitzberg said.
Kreitzberg said the drive to
get the School Choice and Open
Enrollment amendments on
the 2024 ballot, are in its very
early stages. Sponsorship sig-
natures are now being collected
throughout the state, including
La Grande. Once the required
number is gathered, the drive’s
petitioners will be closer to get-
ting ballot titles from the state
and the necessary permission to
begin collecting the signatures
needed to get the initiative peti-
tions on the 2024 ballot.
A belief in the importance
fairness in education is part of
what is motivating Kreitzberg to
take on this project.
“We believe that all Oregon
K-12 students deserve the oppor-
tunity to receive a great educa-
tion,” she said. “Oregon’s educa-
tion dollars are meant to educate
all Oregon K-12 students, and our
amendments will make sure that
happens in a fair manner.”
Continued from Page A1
prohibited, and all lodging must
meet requirements for fi re pre-
vention. Something else that
can be dangerous, especially
around Independence Day, are
fi reworks. This is why Howard
wants people in his district to be
mindful because every year fi res
happen when fi reworks go off in
unsafe places.
“The fi reworks that shoot up
in the air don’t always go where
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Brian Ratliff , center, with white hat, wildlife biologist for the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, loads a black bear into
a cage on Sunday morning, July 3, 2022.
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