4
i Record-Courier
THURSDAY, JUNE 11,2015
News of Record
Arrests
June 8 - Ryan Scott Kellogg for
Probation Violation on original
charge of Unlawful Delivery of
Methamphetamine.
Baker County Circuit Court
May 21 - Krischele Whitnah v.
Ricki L. Edzards regarding Civil
Transcriptive Jgm.
June 2 - Cypress Financial Group,
LLC v. Michael B. Cota
regarding Civil Money Action.
June 2 - Michael R. Dunn v.
Heather N. Gately regarding Pet
Custody.
June 2 - State of Ore. v. Steven
Alfred Sculthorpe regarding
Cut/Trans. Special Forest
Material, misdemeanor.
June 2 - State of Ore. v. Mathew
Eli Williams regarding
Cut/Trans. Special Forest
Material, misdemeanor.
June 3 - State of Ore. v. Caleb
Flint regarding Burglary I,
felony.
June 3 - Herminio Sanchez V.
Nicole Morris regarding Pet
Custody.
June 3 - State of Ore. v. Alex
Griffin regarding Domestic
Relations Fin. Resp.
June 3 - State of Ore. v. Robert
Nichols regarding Domestic
Relations Fin. Resp.
June 3 - State of Ore. v. Tiffany
Ann Steele regarding
Unauthorized Use of Vehicle,
felony.
June 3 - State of Ore. v. Melissa
Dawn Stevens regarding
Assault TV, misdemeanor.
June 3 - State of Ore. v. Alan
Michell Torres regarding
Offense Violation: Speed Limit
100.
June 4 - State of Ore. v. Mary
Lynn Roberts regarding
Interfering with
Peace/Parole/Probation,
misdemeanor.
June 8 - State of Ore. v. Racheal
E. Watkins regarding
Possession of
Methamphetamine, felony.
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Chastain Returns from
National Guard Duty
to City Police Department
Activate Lights on Campbell Crossing
According to City Manager, Mike Kee, The Baker City Police
Department handled over 180 incidents last week, opening 43
new cases to include 10 theft cases. In another incident, a Baker
City woman was arrested for Interfering with a Police Officer after
she hindered an officer who was trying to apprehend the woman’s
husband.
Officer Wayne Chastain Returns to Duty
After a 16 month absence serving our country as a National
Guard Soldier, Officer Wayne Chastain returned to duty as a
Baker City Police Officer. Thank you for your service!
Newman Replaces McCormick
BCPD swore in Sergeant Dustin Newman as the City’s new
Lieutenant. Lieutenant Newman replaced Kirk McCormick who
left Baker City to pursue a Police Chief role in South Dakota.
To the editor:
.
Please remind your readers, as pedestrians, when crossing Campbell
Street at the river bridge in Baker City, to activate the flashing light. Sat­
urday, June 6, at 1:30 p.m., I was driving west on Campbell Street, when
I noticed two adults on bicycles approaching the Leo Adler crossing, at
lhe Powder River. I stopped, of* course. Without engaging the “alert” but­
ton, they crossed through both lanes of traffic, This is a dangerous sit­
uation.
I shudder to think there could have been two fatalities, possibly a third,
as the male cyclist carried across his chest, a tiny baby in a sling. The
transportation department placed the blinking lights there as a safety
measure, but in order to be effective, they require pedestrians to press
the button!
Phyllis Badgley
Baker City
Sinkhole Forms on
Anthony Lakes Highway
On Sunday afternoon, June 7,
a sinkhole was reported in the
middle Anthony Lakes Highway
near Antone Creek. Deputy
Rilee responded and located
approximately a six foot by
eight foot hole in the roadway,
closing the downhill lane of
travel. Baker County Road De­
partment responded and filled
the hole until a permanent fix
can be made. There is now
gravel in the area of Antone
Creek on the roadway. This ap­
peared to have been caused by
water undermining a culvert.
The attached photo was taken
by Deputy Craig Rilee.
OTEC General Manager
Sets Retirement Date
During their regular monthly board meeting held on June 2, Oregon Trail
Electric’s Board of Directors nominated and elected a new slate of offi­
cers.
George Galloway (Union County) has been elected chair, George
“Austin” Bingaman (Union County) vice-chair with Charlene Chase
(Baker County) elected as secretary/treasurer.
The OTEC board also held their strategic planning session June 1. Items
on the agenda included financial goals of the cooperative, conservation,
distributed generation (DG), renewables, rate redesign and succession plan­
ning.
As part of the succession planning discussion, Werner Buehler, general
manager at OTEC, announced his plans for retirement in February 2017.
. Buehler, 61, has been involved with the electric utility business for over
44 years and has been general manager of OTEC for the past eight years.
“I want to give the board enough time so they can adequately search and
go through die long vetting process. I’m honored to help them with that,”
he sai<L promising the transition would be^as seamless as^possible.
«'.Buehler.’s final day/withOTEGwill be February 28,2017.
Blast From
the Past
Creating Controversy From Thin Air
To the Editor:
I would like to put to rest the silly accusations stated about the Baker
County Republicans in the last two issues of The Record-Courier. They
are bom of ignorance. That paper’s editor raises questions about the local
Republicans holding “closed” rather than “open” meetings. She ex­
presses anger that only the 46 existing Republican PCPs are allowed to
attend when the meetings are closed. “That’s a whole lot of Baker County
citizens ... who aren’t allowed to attend,” she complains.
Well, yes! Because these are meetings for Republican PCPs - the same
PCPs who donate money as well as hundreds of hours of volunteer time
in this community. If you’re on the Board of Directors for Pepsi, are you
offended when you’re not allowed to sit in on a Board meeting for Coke?
If you’re a Boy Scout are you angry when you’re not notified about Girl
Scout meetings?
In the past three years, only a handful of monthly meetings have been
closed. The remainder, including the one last week, were open to the
public. The Democrats and Republicans in most counties across most
states hold closed meetings. By comparison, we’re extremely open. Our
closed meetings were specifically to hold the nominating convention for
the replacement County Commissioner, which required ballot security,
as most would imagine. Other closed meetings have been to handle in­
ternal business such as the welcoming of new PCPs, election of new of­
ficers, resolution debate, etc. Holding a closed meeting to deal with
internal business is just good common sense. Apparently to some it is
suddenly fodder for a conspiracy theory.
That paper’s editor, who signs off only as “GDP,” also questions
whether our group may be violating public meeting law.
The answer is no! A little legal research would have shown that fact
prior to print Political central committees aren’t governed under public
meeting law the way City Council members or County Commissioners
are. ORS 248.015 Sec. 3 (7) states we shall not be considered a public
officer. We’re treated, by law, more as a private political action commit­
tee. We realize the complaints about the legality of closed meetings are
coming primarily from a handful of people who signed on to support
non-partisan initiative 1-63, along with GDP and her family. We saw this
complaint pop up online in various venues, in some odd effort to detract
from the local party we suppose - to detract and distract from the actual
issue at hand. Now that 1-63 has failed, it seems the proponents’ axe still
needs grinding.
GDP refers to our monthly meetings as “secret.” The meeting schedule
is announced at the beginning of the calendar year, and then again two
weeks in ¿dV&tedtohilAtfiifehibetSj'aiSi
'tftby’rbb^bn-'atinoilfi&d
in press releases to most local newspapers in advance. I guess we need
to look up the definition of “secret.” Somebody has it wrong.
This same editorial then skips on to accuse the County Commissioners
of having a hidden agenda regarding a Public Lands Resolution presented
to them by our group. She accuses them of suppressing information from
the agenda, when this just isn’t so. The editorial also reads: ’’One of the
important items which was absent from the May 20th agenda was a rep­
resentative from the Baker County Republican Central Committee ...#
Chuck Chase, who presented our draft of the resolution is a duly
elected precinct committeeman and Chair of the committee’s Natural
Resource Committee, which drafted this resolution. Who better to pres­
ent this resolution? He chose to attend the Commissioners’ session and
present the resolution during the Citizens Participation section of the
meeting. This section of the meeting is open to all, and items within it
are never specified in advance in an agenda. When Mr. Chase tried to
respond with a Letter to the Editor to The Record-Courier, GDP refused
to print it, and sent a letter to him calling him rude, accused him of “spew­
ing hate” and said that his opinion was “nonsense.”
GDP goes on to question why Montana Rep. Kerry White attended the
same meeting as Chase, and why his visit also wasn’t .on the agenda.
Well, because it was a public meeting and people can show up without
notice - which is exactly what White did while here on vacation with
family. It’s ironic that in one breath, the editorial complains about local
Republicans not being open enough with meetings, and in the next, has
a problem with us legally attending them. It’s enough to make your head
spin.
Sincerely,
Suzan Ellis Jones, Chair
Baker County Republicans
Editor's note: Words in my quote referenced in the first paragraph of
the author's letter above -were omitted and it was taken out of context. It
Should read: "That's a whole lot of Baker County citizens, including}
fellow Republicans who elected them, who aren't allowed to attend."
Cliff Welter Genera
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