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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Fire station: ‘We’re not trying to make the Taj
Mahal, we just want to make it plain and simple’
Continued from Page A1
land to build it, a “shovel
ready” parcel by the intersec-
tion of Bannister Road and
Mill Street.
They also have a design,
which they modified slightly
from Heppner’s fire station. It
includes a handful of offices,
a kitchen, storage space, a
few dorms for firefighters
visiting from the Oregon
Department of Forestry and
other partners, and parking
for about eight rigs.
“We’re not trying to make
the Taj Mahal,” Baty said.
“We just want to make it
plain and simple.”
The district’s current
station is a hodgepodge
building, the oldest section of
which is now a century old.
In one part, old jail cells hold
storage items.
Baty says it feels embar-
rassing to show people
around the station, given
some of the accommoda-
tions. Firefighters don’t
have real lockers to store
their gear in, for example.
Instead, they line them up in
their designated section of a
wall alcove directly behind
a truck parking area. Baty
has tried to protect the gear
from the diesel fumes as
much as possible by hanging
clear plastic sheets in front of
them.
One of the biggest prob-
lems with the current build-
ing is its location on a steep
hill. One of the bays is
extremely difficult to back
into, Baty said, showing
where a fire truck has to line
up just right in order to twist
around a sharp, banked turn.
A bent railing in one spot
and some scraped-up areas
on the pole between garage
doors bear testament to how
difficult getting rigs into the
station can be — particularly
when it’s icy. It’s also bad for
the trucks.
“It twists the chassis,” he
said.
One thing Baty is proud
of is the people serving the
district. Baty is the district’s
only paid firefighter (the
district also pays someone
to do maintenance) and after
a decades-long career work-
ing with paid firefighters, he
said it has been extremely
humbling to come to Weston
and work alongside a crew of
volunteers.
Hansell said it was
Umatilla County Commis-
sioner John Shafer who first
introduced him to Baty about
a year ago. He toured the
fire station in Weston later,
as did Levy. At the time,
Hansell planned to back
the fire station as a project
in the capital construction
bill, but then the American
Rescue Plan allocation came
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
COVID-19 testing clinic staff instruct drivers on testing
procedures during a drive-thru COVID-19 testing event
at the Pendleton Convention Center on Feb. 8, 2021.
COVID:
Continued from Page A1
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
East Umatilla Fire & Rescue Fire Chief David Baty indicates a parcel of land owned by the fire
district while explaining the district’s intent to build a new station on Wednesday, May 5,
2021.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Plastic sheeting hangs over turnouts and other fire gear in an effort to protect it from diesel
exhaust a the current East Umatilla Fire & Rescue station in Weston on Wednesday, May 5,
2021.
up suddenly.
Hansell decided to dedi-
cate all but $100,000 of his $4
million to the fire district, and
Levy said she would dedicate
half of her $2 million. The
county volunteered to have
its public works department
do the labor for free for some
needed road improvements,
pushing the project to its $5.6
million estimated cost.
“I was thinking this
money is like a bird in the
hand, that I get to give out,
and why not give it to a proj-
ect I’m already committed
to?” Hansell said.
He said he was impressed
by the need for the proj-
ect, but of course, there are
many great projects in need
of funding in his district.
But one of the draws of the
fire station was that Hansell
wanted to give the money
to a capital project that was
shovel ready and could be
completed with the just the
ARP funds, instead of need-
ing to spend time raising
more money through other
means.
It would also serve a very
large area of his district,
given the fire district’s size,
including Hansell’s own
hometown of Athena. And
it fits in with the priorities of
leadership in the Senate right
now to bolster fire suppres-
sion and prevention, after
Senate Republican Leader
Fred Girod lost his own home
to the wildfires in Southern
Oregon last summer.
“This was the complete
package,” Hansell said.
The money from the ARP
will also come to the fire
district in October, while the
district would have to wait
two years to receive funds if
it were included in the capital
construction bill.
Hansell plans to give the
other $100,000 from the ARP
funds to a wheat lab project
at the Oregon State Univer-
sity experiment station in
Adams. He is still lobbying
for other other local proj-
ects to be included in this
session’s capital construction
bill, including the Umatilla
County Jail renovation,
Blue Mountain Community
College’s Farm II project and
the Wallowa Lake dam.
BMCC: Classes to start with masks and distancing
Continued from Page A1
in Southeast Washington,
colleges and universities are
making decisions of their
own.
T h e Wa l l a Wa l l a
Union-Bulletin reported
Whitman College is requir-
ing vaccinations, while Walla
Walla Community College
and Walla Walla University
are not. Washington State
University’s recent deci-
sion to require vaccines for
in-person classes means its
Tri-Cities campus will have
the same policy.
Green said the decision by
Oregon’s various four-year
schools could inform how
their surrounding commu-
nity colleges make their
own policies. But for now,
BMCC is making plans to
start classes with masks and
social distancing as the main
safeguards.
The COVID-19 pandemic
made a huge dent in enroll-
ment after BMCC mostly
shut down campus activi-
ties last spring, exacerbating
a downward trend that the
college had been struggling
with for several years.
Green said the potential
effect of the college’s vacci-
nation policy is unknown:
while it could allow BMCC
to be more inclusive in
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton on Monday, May 10, 2021. While its decision
isn’t final, BMCC is planning to reopen in the fall without requiring students to get their vac-
cinations.
welcoming back students to
campus, she added that some
students might be uncomfort-
able returning to classrooms
where they could be exposed
to unvaccinated peers.
Requirements or not,
Green said BMCC contin-
ues to encourage all students
and staff to get their vaccines,
pointing to the college’s work
in promoting a recent vacci-
nation drive sponsored by the
Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation.
The COVID-19 vaccine
is available to all adults in
Oregon.
needed to keep cases from
rebounding sharply.
The official announce-
ment on any changes in
risk levels — and restric-
tions in each county — will
not be announced by Gov.
Kate Brown until May 11.
But some of the numbers
showed clear indicators of
what to expect.
Overall, they show a
slight decline in COVID-
19 cases over the past two
weeks, compared to last
week’s report.
The state repor ted
10,755 new cases over the
two-week period, which
equals 252 cases per
100,000 residents. Both
are slight declines over the
previous period.
The rate of positive
cases remains at 6.4% —
state officials say anything
above 5% has the poten-
tial to lead to a rebound of
cases.
Several counties had
case rates that would in
the past have pushed them
into the extreme risk cate-
gory. For large counties, an
infection rate of more than
200 per 100,000 people
would place them in the
most restrictive of the
state’s four risk level tiers.
But Brown introduced a
new metric last month that
keeps counties from the
harshest limits, including
a ban on indoor dining.
Counties will not be
put in the extreme risk
level regardless of their
own COVID-19 numbers
if the state overall has
under 300 hospitalizations
for COVID-19. After that
Leader:
Continued from Page A1
gave them a loan when they
were struggling financially.
“There was so much I
learned about my dad after
he passed away, that I had
no idea because I went off
to college and left,” she
said.
According to Wyant
and the resolution, Fenton
was born in 1931 in Harper
and graduated from high
school in Ontario. He lost
both his parents by the age
of 14 and worked hard from
a young age, doing every-
thing from shining shoes to
digging graves.
He attended one term
at University of Oregon
before being drafted into
the Korean War, serv-
ing in the Army, mostly
in France, for about two
years. Afterward, he used
his GI Bill benefits to go
to what is now Eastern
Oregon University. He met
his wife, Joyce Kroenlien,
who was also majoring in
education at the college.
They both taught school
in Halfway until moving
to Umatilla in 1978 after
Fenton was hired as prin-
cipal of the high school and
junior high. He eventually
became superintendent,
from 1978 to 1996, and
after retirement Fenton
served on the Umatilla City
Council from 1997 to 2015.
Wyant said before
and after his retirement,
her father was heavily
involved in the surround-
ing communities, through
the VFW, First United
Methodist Church, Elks
Club, Lions Club, Kiwanis
Club and other organiza-
tions. He was also known
threshold is crossed, an
increase of 15% has to be
met to hit the extreme risk
level.
As of May 10, the
Oregon Health Authority
reported 324 confirmed
COVID-19 hospitaliza-
tions in the state, a slight
reduction over the last
period.
Under the rules, those
numbers mean no counties
will be put in extreme risk
level when the new limits
are announced May 11 and
go into effect Friday, May
14.
The new numbers show
Central Oregon has among
the highest levels of infec-
tion and rates. Deschutes,
Crook and Jefferson coun-
ties are well above the 200
infections per 100,000
mark. But because of the
statewide metric require-
ment, they will almost
certainly stay in the high
risk limit level, the second
more restrictive of the
state’s four tiers.
Deschutes Cou nt y
reported 1,069 COVID-
19 cases over the past two
weeks, with the cases per
10,000 rising to 542.6.
Also up is the positive
test rate, which at 9% is
seen by health officials as
a figure that could lead to
future exponential growth
of cases.
Crook County reported
546 cases per 100,000, a
slight increase. But its test
positivity rate fell to 8.6%
from 9%. While still high,
the rate is trending in the
right direction.
Jefferson County also
saw its rate per 100,000
rise to 315.3 cases per
100,000, but its positive
test rate fell to 8.5% from
8.9%.
as a snappy dresser, she
said, who used to have
contests with other men
at church about who could
dress the best.
“You didn’t see him
without a suit and tie very
often,” she said.
Wyant, who still lives in
Umatilla today, ended up
going into education and
was hired by her father
to teach in Umatilla six
years before his retire-
ment. Her sister also even-
tually became a teacher,
although neither had orig-
inally planned to follow in
their parents’ footsteps.
“Mom would come
home and tell stories and I
would say, ‘I never want to
do that!’” Wyant said.
Her family set up a
scholarship at Eastern
Oregon University in
memory of Fenton.
Wyant’s son, Jacob
Vandever, works for
Rep. Christine Drazen,
R-Canby, who introduced
the resolution.
“Strong communities
are the backbone of our
society and strong lead-
ers are built by leaders
like George Fenton Jr.,”
Dranzen told representa-
tives before the vote.
Reps. Greg Smith,
R-Heppner, and Bobby
Levy, R-Echo, both testi-
fied in favor of the resolu-
tion as well, sharing their
memories of Fenton. Smith
said Fenton will go down
in history as a “statesman,
a visionary and a leader of
Umatilla.” Levy said she
went to church with Fenton
for a time, and she appreci-
ated the advice and encour-
agement he gave her before
she got married and his
kind note of condolence he
sent her when her ex-hus-
band died.