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145th Year, No. 139
REGONIAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
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Redistricting could change representation in E. Oregon
One proposal would force
Sen. Hansell to move if he
wanted to stay in District 29
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
UMATILLA COUNTY — The lines, they
are a-changin’.
On Friday, Sept. 3, the House and Senate
Interim Committees on Redistricting released
its fi rst redistricting plans for the following
decade. Over the next several months, legis-
lators will be responsible for drawing lines
for the state’s congressional and legislative
districts.
With Oregon gaining a sixth congres-
sional district, Democrats and Republicans
already have begun drawing battle lines on
the geographic and partisan makeup of each
district, with each party producing a map that
favors their side.
While Umatilla and Morrow counties are
unlikely to see their political representation
change in Congress, the legislative lines could
change signifi cantly in Eastern Oregon. All
three redistricting plans for the Oregon House
would maintain the Pendleton-Hermiston
split that was introduced in 2011, but District
57 and 58 likely are to change in diff erent
ways.
All of Northeastern Oregon’s legislative
delegation — Greg Smith of House District
57, Bobby Levy of House District 58 and
Bill Hansell of Senate District 19 — were
concerned about gerrymandering in a state
where Democrats have supermajority control
in the statehouse.
Levy said the Portland area was overrep-
resented in the Legislature and encouraged
local residents to speak at the public hearings
with the redistricting committees in support
of fair representation in the Legislature and
Congress. The committees held their fi rst
virtual hearing for Congressional District 2,
which includes Eastern Oregon, on Wednes-
day, Sept. 8, but will hold another hearing
Friday, Sept. 10, at 8 a.m.
Hansell is the only local legislator on one
of the redistricting committees. He said the
challenge of redistricting is not only in making
the lines contiguous, accessible by transpor-
tation links and inclusive of communities of
common interest but keeping all of them the
same population size. In a region that’s been
slow to grow, that means making Eastern
Oregon districts larger in geographic size.
See Redistricting, Page A6
Sheriff ’s
role
is not
mask
patrol
Belief that sheriff ’s
offi ces enforce mask
mandates a ‘misnomer’
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
ADVOCATE
FOR THE SHOT
Rachelle Lasater of Athena leads vaccine eff orts in northeast Umatilla County
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
PE N DL ETON — T he
protester accosted the people in
Weston’s community hall as they
waited to get their COVID-19
vaccine on a recent afternoon in
late August.
Patients spoke up and pushed
back, eventually forcing him
outside to the street. A young
patient looked nervously toward
Rachelle Lasater, a registered nurse
from Athena who was helping
with immunizations that day. The
woman was not mandated to get
the shot, Lasater believes, but she
was reluctant and had only recently
changed her mind. Trepidatiously,
she went through with her decision.
That moment has stuck in
Lasater’s mind. She has mixed
feelings about it. On one hand,
she’s glad the young woman
decided to receive a poten-
tially life saving vaccine. On the
other hand, she feels bad that the
woman made her decision — a
personal decision, Lasater said
— under the shroud of political
division, and Lasater didn’t want
it to seem like she was forcing her.
“It was an uncomfortable situ-
ation,” said Lasater, 44. “I think
we handled it professionally.
Patients still received the vaccine.
It felt good to meet people’s needs,
but I also had my eyes opened
to the other side — that people
don’t want it, and they don’t want
people to get it.”
See Advocate, Page A6
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Registered nurse and fi refi ghter Rachelle Lasater administers a dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021, at the
East Umatilla County Ambulance Area Health District offi ce in Athena.
LA GRANDE — Eastern
Oregon sheriff’s offices reaf-
fi rmed they would not enforce the
mask mandates Gov. Kate Brown
set in place. As well, a number of
sheriff s across Eastern Oregon,
including in Baker and Union
counties, have addressed the
matter in letters to the governor
stating they will not be enforcing
any mask mandates.
But the governor never asked
them to do so.
The enforcement of mask
mandates falls under the super-
vision of the Oregon Occu-
pational Safety and Health
Administration, not local law
enforcement, according to the
governor’s offi ce.
“The mandates don’t provide
authority to me to do anything,”
Umatilla County
Sheriff Terry
Rowan said in a
previous inter-
view with the
East Oregonian.
There is one
exception —
Rowan
the sheriff s said
they would continue to handle
issues of trespassing wherein a
patron of a business refuses to
wear a mask after being asked to
by the business — but that is the
ultimate extent to which the law
enforcement agencies have said
they would intervene.
See Sheriff s, Page A6
Curtailing school activities could
speed drop in COVID-19 cases
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
Arden Barnes/Klamath Falls Herald And News, File
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown visits the Bly Fire Camp
on June 28, 2021, on the southern edge of the
Bootleg Fire in Klamath County.
SALEM — Schools should
cancel or curtail some extracur-
ricular activities to help Oregon
maintain what appears to be
the beginning of a decline from
record high numbers of COVID-
19 infections, Gov. Kate Brown
said Tuesday, Sept. 7.
Multiple forecasts over the
past week showed a peak in the
two-month surge of infections
driven by the highly contagious
delta variant.
Hospitals remain nearly full
and case reports are still twelve
times what they were in early
July.
The fragile ebb in the worst
of the crisis will be challenged
by the fl ood of schoolchildren
returning to class.
“It is with mixed emotions
that we are welcoming our kids
back to school at this time,” said
Brown during a Sept. 7 press
call.
Brown was joined by health
and education off icials to
announce additional, volun-
tary efforts to go along with
the mandatory vaccination of
school employees and mask
mandates for students and
staff.
The state will issue School
Health Advisories on a regular
basis. The fi rst one, announced
Sept. 7, asks schools to cancel or
curtail extracurricular activities
through a least Oct. 1.
Safety protocols
Back-to-school events should
be done online, if possible.
Schools should hold as much
activity outdoors as possible,
including school meals and phys-
ical education classes.
“The safety protocols put in
place by your school not only
make it safer for everyone,
but they also help ensure that
our kids actually get to stay in
school,” said Colt Gill, Oregon
Education Department direc-
tor.
See Activities, Page A6