LOCAL
A2 — THE OBSERVER
TODAY
In 1775, the Continental Con-
gress established a Post Offi ce and
appointed Benjamin Franklin its
Postmaster-General.
In 1847, the western African
country of Liberia, founded by
freed American slaves, declared its
independence.
In 1863, Sam Houston, former
president of the Republic of Texas,
died in Huntsville at age 70.
In 1945, the Potsdam Decla-
ration warned Imperial Japan to
unconditionally surrender, or face
“prompt and utter destruction.”
Winston Churchill resigned as Brit-
ain’s prime minister after his Con-
servatives were soundly defeated
by the Labour Party; Clement
Attlee succeeded him.
In 1947, President Harry S.
Truman signed the National Secu-
rity Act, which reorganized Amer-
ica’s armed forces as the National
Military Establishment and created
the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 1953, Fidel Castro began his
revolt against Fulgencio Batista
with an unsuccessful attack on an
army barracks in eastern Cuba.
(Castro ousted Batista in 1959.)
In 1956, the Italian liner Andrea
Doria sank off New England, some
11 hours after colliding with the
Swedish liner Stockholm; at least
51 people died, from both vessels.
In 1971, Apollo 15 was launched
from Cape Kennedy on America’s
fourth successful manned mission
to the moon.
In 1990, President George H.W.
Bush signed the Americans with
Disabilities Act.
In 2002, the Republican-led
House voted, 295-132, to create
an enormous Homeland Security
Department in the biggest govern-
ment reorganization in decades.
In 2013, Ariel Castro, the man
who’d imprisoned three women
in his Cleveland home, subjecting
them to a decade of rapes and
beatings, pleaded guilty to 937
counts in a deal to avoid the death
penalty. (Castro later committed
suicide in prison.)
In 2016, Hillary Clinton became
the fi rst woman to be nominated
for president by a major political
party at the Democratic National
Convention in Philadelphia.
In 2020, a processional with the
casket of the late U.S. Rep. John
Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus
Bridge in Alabama, where Lewis
and other civil rights marchers
were beaten 55 years earlier.
Authorities declared a riot in Port-
land, Oregon, after protesters
breached a fence surrounding the
city’s federal courthouse; thou-
sands had gathered for another
night of protests over the killing of
George Floyd and the presence of
federal agents.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Robert
Colbert is 91. Actor-singer Darlene
Love is 81. Rock star Mick Jagger is
79. Actor Helen Mirren is 77. Rock
musician Roger Taylor (Queen)
is 73. Olympic gold medal fi gure
skater Dorothy Hamill is 66. Actor
Nana Visitor is 65. Actor Sandra
Bullock is 58. Actor Jeremy Piven is
57. Actor Jason Statham is 55. Actor
Kate Beckinsale is 49.
CORRECTIONS
The Observer works hard to be
accurate and sincerely regrets
any errors. If you notice a
mistake in the paper, please call
541-963-3161.
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TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022
North Powder building gets new life
City’s former fire
station being
converted into
new city hall
By DICK MASON
The Observer
NORTH POWDER —
North Powder’s old fi re sta-
tion, dormant for almost
two years, is coming back
to life.
The former fi re sta-
tion is being transformed
into North Powder’s new
city hall, off ering a wealth
of additional space and
a building in far better
condition.
The move from the
former old city hall, about
a block away, began ear-
lier this month and should
be completed by the end of
this week.
Rick Lawyer, the city
of North Powder’s public
works director, said
moving city hall into the
new building has involved
a lot of work but it has
been worth it.
“Anytime you can get
a newer building with a
lot more room it is a good
thing,” he said.
The move started after
extensive renovations were
Dick Mason/The Observer
David “Shorty’’ Schwehr, left, Beth Wendt, center, and Rick Lawyer
move a fi ling cabinet out of North Powder’s former city hall building
on Friday, July 22, 2022. Schwehr, a volunteer and former North
Powder city council member, is helping Wendt, the city’s recorder,
and Lawyer, the public works director, move into the new city hall
about a block away.
completed at the fi re hall,
allowing its north section
to be transformed into a
reception and offi ce work
area. Its features include
a mayor’s offi ce. The pre-
vious city hall building did
not have enough space for
one.
“It will be so nice to
have a mayor’s offi ce,”
Beth Wendt, the city
recorder, said.
Wendt said the new
mayor’s offi ce will be a
welcome addition because
it will allow the mayor to
speak privately with people
in person and on the phone.
“This was impossible
to do in the old city hall
building,” she said.
The larger building
will also allow the North
Powder City Council to
conduct all of its meet-
ings there. Previously,
most city council meetings
were conducted at North
Powder’s Wolf Creek
Grange Hall. Wendt said
the grange hall is an excel-
lent meeting site but that
conducting meetings there
was diffi cult because of
setup and takedown work
that needed to be com-
pleted before and after
every meeting.
The former fi re hall,
built in the mid-1970s, is in
much better condition than
North Powder’s previous
city hall building, which is
much older.
The fi re hall building
has so much additional
space that plans call for
part of it to be converted
in North Powder’s new
library, Wendt said. Pres-
ently, North Powder’s
library is next to its old
city hall in a building that
also is old and in poor
condition.
Another plus of the
more spacious building is
that it will make it easier to
practice social distancing
protocols to be followed if
there is ever a need for it
because of COVID-19 or
another contagious disease.
“Social distancing was
hard to practice in the old
building,” Wendt said.
The old fi re station
building became available
after a new fi re station for
North Powder was com-
pleted in 2020. The North
Powder Rural Fire Depart-
ment is not run by the city
but is contracted by it to
provide fi re protection.
Grant to help with building upgrades
La Grande High auditorium roof will be
replaced with funds from seismic grant
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — La
Grande High School’s audi-
torium is set to receive a
major upgrade.
The school district
was awarded a $2.49 mil-
lion grant from Busi-
ness Oregon, the state’s
economic development
agency, for seismic work
on the high school’s per-
forming arts auditorium.
The grant will cover the
replacement of the audi-
torium’s aging roof and
boosting the strength of
its walls. The upgrade will
make the auditorium more
stable in the event of an
earthquake.
“I’m always pleased
when we can improve
facilities in the school dis-
trict,” La Grande School
District Superintendent
George Mendoza said.
“When you can improve
facilities it is a great thing
for the students, staff and
the community.”
A bid to a contractor
for the seismic upgrade
work will be awarded later,
and work on the upgrade
project will start with site
preparation in late May or
early June 2023, Mendoza
said. He hopes the project
can be completed by early
September 2023, a timeline
that would have no impact
on student use of the audi-
torium at the start of the
2023-24 school year.
This will be the second
boost the auditorium has
received since 2016 when
major upgrades were
made with funding from a
$31.85 million bond voters
approved in 2014. Work
done in 2016 included a
major expansion of its
stage, the installation of
new lighting and seating
and improvements to the
sound system and handicap
accessibility.
Mendoza said the work
to be fi nanced with the
$2.49 million seismic grant
will go a long way toward
preserving the upgrades
made in 2016.
“It will help us protect
our investment,” he said.
This is at least the
third seismic grant the La
Grande School District has
received from the state over
the past decade. Earlier
state grants paid for seismic
upgrades at Greenwood
Elementary School and its
gym and the La Grande
High School’s gym.
This year, Business
Oregon has provided $59.4
million in seismic upgrade
funding to 17 school dis-
tricts through its Seismic
Rehabilitation Grant Pro-
gram. Eastern Oregon
school districts that
received grants include
the Joseph School Dis-
trict, which was awarded a
$2.4 million grant, a por-
tion of which is being used
to build a new roof for a
school building.
NEWS BRIEFS
Three small wildfi res in
Union County cause no
injuries or property damage
UNION — Nobody was injured
and no structures were damaged
in three small wildfi res over the
weekend in Union County.
The largest was a 1-acre fi re near
Interstate 84 about 8 miles northwest
of North Powder on Sunday, July 24.
The fi re was reported at 12:35 p.m.
and was extinguished less than two
hours later. Firefi ghters from the
Oregon Department of Forestry and
the North Powder Rural Fire Depart-
ment responded to the blaze. The fi re
was human caused and burned only
grass, according to the Blue Moun-
tain Interagency Dispatch Center’s
WildCAD website.
The other two fi res broke out on
Saturday, July 23. The largest was
the one-fourth of an acre Floodwater
Fire in the Grande Ronde Lake area
15 miles southwest of North Powder.
The fi re was reported at 9:56 a.m. It
was controlled by 2:22 p.m. and con-
tained by 6:40 p.m. on July 24. The
fi re was caused by lightning and
burned timber. Firefi ghters were sent
to it by the Blue Mountain Inter-
agency Dispatch Center.
A second wildfi re broke out in
Union County on July 23 in the Gal-
loway Spring area 2 miles north
of Elgin. The one-tenth of an acre
fi re, which was human caused, was
reported at 2:38 p.m. and contained
by 5:23 p.m. on July 23. Firefi ghters
from the Oregon Department of For-
estry responded to the blaze which
burned grass and brush, according to
Blue Mountain Interagency Dispatch
Center’s WildCAD website.
Tests show young
La Grande mother’s brain
is unresponsive
LA GRANDE — The family of a
La Grande woman said Friday, July
22, that tests have shown the sudden
cardiac arrest she suff ered has left
her brain dead.
Vanessa Durfee, 26, experi-
enced cardiac arrest July 17 at her
residence.
“She will be fl own to Portland on
(July 23) for organ donation,” Sandra
Roda, Durfee’s aunt, said. “The
GoFundMe account will now be
used for her funeral arrangements.”
Durfee’s oldest daughter found
her unresponsive and alerted Vanes-
sa’s partner, Troy Jones, who imme-
diately called 911 for emergency
medical assistance. According to
Roda, Durfee was intubated and
admitted July 17 to the intensive
care unit at Grande Ronde Hospital,
where she underwent tests to deter-
mine the cause of her condition.
Durfee is survived by her partner
of six years, Troy Jones, and two
daughters, ages 6 and 1. She was a
graduate of Elgin High School and
was the daughter of Sharee Hen-
derson and Ed Durfee, of Elgin.
The family has established a
GoFundMe page to help the young
family with the costs related to her
medical emergency and her absence
from home.
State reports two cases
of wolf depredations on
Union County ranches
LA GRANDE — Three cases of
wolves killing livestock in Eastern
Oregon were reported last week by the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wild-
life in the ODFW’s Livestock Depreda-
tion Investigation Report.
Two of the three were in Union
County. Ranchers reported depreda-
tions on Friday, July 15, in the Palmer
Junction area and on July 17 in the
Five Points Creek area. Both were con-
fi rmed as wolf kills.
The July 15 incident was attributed
to the Balloon Tree Pack, while the July
17 incident was attributed to the Five
Points Pack.
The third incident occurred in the
Grouse Flats area of Wallowa County,
according to the report. On July 6,
agents of a rancher discovered the car-
casses of three yearling cows on a 160-
acre private pasture. Two of the car-
casses consisted of scattered bones and
were estimated to have died approxi-
mately a week prior to the investigation.
The third carcass was mostly intact and
estimated to have died about 36 hours
prior to the ODFW investigation.
The third carcass was confi rmed
as a wolf kill, while the other two
were considered possible wolf kills or
unknown.
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Upper
Imnaha
Road work
needed
Wallowa County
officials face
roadblocks by
federal agencies
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — The
Upper Imnaha Road has
some treacherous areas that
Wallowa County is being
asked to fi x.
Wallowa County Board
of Commissioners Chair
Susan Roberts said during
last week’s county commis-
sion meeting she’d received
an email from Elizabeth
Kelley, of Diamondhead
Ranch on Upper Imnaha
Road, who asked the com-
missioners to consider
repairs to the road. Rob-
erts had forwarded a copy
of Kelly’s email to the other
commissioners.
At least two of the com-
missioners said they had
visited the site and agreed
it needs work, particularly
to accommodate today’s
larger vehicles, and it
should be either rerouted
or the problem area blasted
through.
“That road was built in
the 1920s when vehicles
were not very big,” Roberts
said.
Roberts said the county
had engineers look at the
road in 2011, and at that
time, they estimated it
would cost $30-$40 million.
She estimated the cost will
have gone up considerably
since then.
“It isn’t anything we can
do immediately,” Com-
missioner Todd Nash said.
“Those agencies move
extremely slow and to
blast that stuff — it’s really
normal for rocks to roll
off those hills into those
waters. It’s been happening
for millennia. But for a
human to do that, oh my
gosh.”
Roberts said she’d been
told by a woman that the
rumor was no one wanted
to take on the road project
because it would entail
blasting out rocks that
might fall into the river and
possibly hurt fi sh.
“She said, ‘I have no idea
if this is true, but if it is, I
would like to believe that
the safety of the community
— kids on buses and vis-
iting tourists — would be a
priority,’” Roberts quoted
the woman.
Roberts said the Nez
Perce Tribal Fisheries
wouldn’t object because fi sh
could adapt to any changes
in the river.
Nash agreed, saying
tumbling boulders down
into the streambed would
provide more areas where
the Chinook can spawn.
Roberts told the woman
the county would be willing,
but they come up against a
federal agency “that abso-
lutely prohibits that.”
Commissioner John
Hillock brought up the
question of how to fund
such a project.
Nash has been in touch
with the National Marine
Fisheries Service, which
objected to any potential
blasting that would disrupt
the Imnaha River and the
fi sh there. He said he had
a county employee look at
it and blasting an area was
considered, but that would
mean debris going into the
river.
He suggested all the
agencies involved should
visit the site to see what
could be done.
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