EIZER times
A
s an event-fi lled weekend
approaches in Marion County,
Gov. Kate Brown announced that
starting Friday, Aug. 27, masks will be
required at all outdoor events —
whether you’re vaccinated or not.
The mandate will require that
masks be worn in outdoor settings
where individuals from diff erent
households are not consistently
maintaining a safe distance apart.
Tuesday,
after
Brown’s
announcement, the Oregon Health
Authority announced there were
1,000 Oregon patients hospitalized
with COVID, a pandemic record. It
was also reported at press time that
of the 657 total adult ICU beds in
Oregon, only 45 remain available.
Brown’s
announcement
Tuesday gives event organizers in
Marion County only a couple of
days to prepare for the new mandate and
fi nd ways to enforce it.
The Oregon State Fair, which is set
to begin Friday, Aug. 27 and run through
Monday, Sept. 6, plans to use education
to enforce the mandate, with signage and
information to be posted throughout the
fair.
“We will also ask anyone who is not
wearing a mask to kindly, put one on.
Bottom line, we are committed to making
this a fun and safe fair — for everyone,” Fair
CEO Kim Grewe-Powell said in an email.
The fair, which brings hundreds of
thousands of visitors to the Salem fair-
grounds each year, said in an initial press
release in June that the fair would oper-
ate at full capacity and “no mask, physical
distancing, or proof of vaccination will be
required.”
NEWSTAND PRICE: $1.00/ ISSUE
In Keizer specifi cally, the Monster
Cookie Ride is expected to bring more
than 500 cyclists to Keizer Rapids Park on
Sunday, Aug. 29.
$1.00/ ISSUE
Volume 42 • No. 45
AUGUST 27, 2021
Local school
offi cials speak on
mask, vaccine
requirements
and social distancing at the event.
“We kind of planned it from the very
beginning to be this way because that's
how it was
Outdoor
mask mandate
returns
last spring
when
we
started planning.
We were hoping to
let up but that didn't happen,”
Sangster said.
By JOEY CAPPELLETTI
Of the Keizertimes
All Oregon K-12 teachers, vol-
unteers and school employees
will be required to be fully vacci-
nated by Oct. 18, Gov. Kate Brown
announced last week.
"Our kids need to be in the
classroom full-time, fi ve days a
week, and we have to do every-
thing we can to make that hap-
pen," said Brown on Aug. 19.
"While we are still learning about the
Delta variant, we know from previous
experience that when schools open
with safety measures in place, the risk
of transmission is low.”
The announcement also included
mandatory vaccinations for health-
care workers, who had previously
been allowed to take weekly tests if
they weren't vaccinated.
The new vaccination mandate
comes as school offi cials in Marion
County are already dealing with
See MANDATE, page A9
See OFFICIALS, page A11
with a busy weekend in Marion
County approaching
JOEY CAPPELLETTI
Of the Keizertimes
The
event, which
includes three
rides ranging from 61
miles to 6.2 miles, leaves from
Keizer Rapids Park at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Event organizer Hersch Sangster said
they’ve planned all along to require masks
Questions still surround city manager search following
‘DYSFUNCTIONAL’
special session meeting
By JOEY CAPPELLETTI | Of the Keizertimes
SUBSCRIBER ADDRESS :
Something
better change.
I’m looking at
everybody
in the room.
— ROSS DAY
Keizer City
Councilor
COUNCILOR LAURA REID
“I can’t imagine who would want to
come work as the city manager for a city
that is this, frankly, dysfunctional,” Keizer
City Councilor Laura Reid said at Monday’s
special session. “I think we’ve done better
than this in the past. I think that we have
done better at respecting our staff and their
professionalism in the past.”
Reid’s blunt remarks punctuated more
than an hour of contentious debate regard-
ing a hiring process that some on the coun-
cil felt lacked transparency.
The special session Monday was sched-
uled following a council meeting on Aug.
16 where councilors couldn’t come to an
agreement on signing a contract with The
File/ KEIZERTIMES
Greg Prothman Company. Prothman is an
executive recruiting fi rm that was set to
help the city recruit their next city manager
— Keizer has been without a permanent
city manager since April.
The main objector to the contract was
See DYSFUNCTION, page A8