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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 2022)
WEEKEND EDITION Umatilla police send lieutenant to help in deadly shooting, A3 FEBRUARY 12 – 13, 2022 146th Year, No. 48 HERMISTON Multiple elections with no candidates By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian HERMISTON — The field running for Hermiston city offi ce is starting to come together but still has some gaps. With less than a month before the fi ling deadline, the races for the Ward 4 city council seat and munic- ipal judge position are contested, but one race has only one candidate while another has none. Hermiston city recorder Lilly Alarcon-Strong said the city recently advertised the seats up for election in May with the hopes of attracting more candidates to the races. This year, voters will consider candidates for Hermiston’s four ward seats. The candidate’s ward is determined by where they live, but all voters will still get a chance to weigh in on all four races. Below is a summary of the fi eld for each race so far. The fi ling deadline is March 8. Ward 1 (northwest Hermiston) Four years after falling just short, Jackie Linton is running for Ward 1 again. Linton, a substitute teacher and retired postal worker, came in third in a three-way race for the Ward 1 seat in 2018, but she was only 33 votes shy of making the runoff elec- tion. The incumbent, Lori Davis, came in second during the primary but would go on to win the Novem- ber general election. Davis, an employee at Two Rivers Correctional Institution, Umatilla, was appointed to the council in 2010 and then won her fi rst term a few months later. She ran unopposed in her fi rst election, but secured second and third terms by winning contested elections. Although the city website didn’t list her as a candidate as of Wednes- day, Feb. 9, Davis wrote in an email that she plans to fi le for reelection. $1.50 WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021 Framework for the forests Committee completes desired conditions for Blue Mountain forest plan eight main objections, including economics; access; management area designation; pace and scale of restoration; grazing; fi re and salvage logging; coordination between agencies; and wildlife. The counties argued the agen- cy’s plan would close roads and limit livestock grazing while fail- ing to thin enough of the woods to boost timber jobs or lower the risk of large wildfi res. The BIC subcommittee revised the list of conditions pertaining to a number of key issues, including access, elk security, wilderness and other set-asides. By STEVEN MITCHELL Blue Mountain Eagle J OHN DAY — Groups long at odds on forest m a n age me nt h ave reached a consensus on goals and desired condi- tions that will frame how the U.S. Forest Service drafts land management plans on three national forests in Northeastern Oregon and South- eastern Washington. At a meeting Jan. 25, the access subcommittee of the Blue Mountains Intergovern- mental Council — or BIC for short — submitted its fi nal rule and desired conditions to the full council. The Forest Service formed the BIC, made up of county offi cials, tribal members and other stake- holders from the Blue Moun- tain region, after the agency’s proposed 2018 management plan revision fi zzled in the face of intense public scrutiny. The three national forests covered by the management plan — the Umatilla, Wallowa-Whit- man and Malheur — are collectively known as the Blue Mountain Forest and make up a third of Oregon’s national forest land. Each forest has its individual resource and management plans, with desired conditions and goals spelled out. While the plans do not dictate project-level deci- sions, the desired conditions will form a foundation for the broader guide- lines surround- ing key issues such as forest access, elk secu- Forest access Blue Mountain Eagle, File A mountain goat moves up a ridge in the Strawberry Mountain Wil- derness. rity, forest health and graz- ing when the Forest Service begins the process of revising its management plan for the Blue Mountain Forest. Craig Trulock, Malheur National Forest supervisor, said he is not sure when the revision process would begin. However, he said a proposal has been forwarded to U.S. Forest Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., to put a team together to begin drafting the revision. From the beginning, Trulock said, the idea was to seek compromise and solutions on as many issues as possible. “I think we made huge prog- ress with the BIC on understand- ing each other,” Trulock said. The Forest Service’s 2018 management plan revision, which was drafted before Trulock was named Malheur’s supervisor, received intense backlash. The plan called for an increase in thinning dry upland forests to improve wildfi re resil- ience while doubling the current timber harvest and designating 70,500 acres of new wilderness. The Eastern Oregon Coun- ties Association, to which Grant belongs, listed In its final draft document of desired conditions, the BIC’s access subcommittee wrote forest access was the most contentious topic during the 2018 forest plan revision process. Committee member Bill Harvey said the forest roads have been used by people in rural areas for 75 to 80 years. Harvey, a Baker County commissioner, said people have lived, worked and played in the Blue Mountains their whole lives. “Why, in God’s name,” Harvey said, “would we want to take that right away?” Public use The group writes that the public desires to be well informed on forest access. It wants the agency to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive inventory of all forest roads and the status of those roads. This was an important desired condition for subcommittee member Mark Owens, a state representative from Crane, who told the Blue Mountain Eagle See Forest, Page A8 Ward 2 (southwest Hermiston) Incumbent Roy Barron said he took some time to consider his options, but he ultimately decided to submit his paperwork Feb. 9 for a second term. “I was a little late to the party,” he said, adding he wanted to try for a second term because he wants to continue the work the council has already started. Barron, a teacher at Armand Larive Middle School, was a last-minute entrant for the Ward 2 A view of Strawberry Mountain in the Malheur National Forest. See Elections, Page A8 Blue Mountain Eagle, File COVID-19 Units in Eastern Oregon prisons still quarantined By ALEX WITTWER EO Media Group Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution and Two Rivers Correc- tional Institution in Umatilla County still have housing units in quaran- tine due to the spread of the COVID- 19 virus throughout their facilities, according to prison offi cials. Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker County is in a heightened state of alert and testing according to the Oregon Department of Corrections COVID-19 tracker, as cases rose amongst the staff and pris- oner population at the end of Janu- ary. Seven out of the 15 prisons in Oregon as of Tuesday, Feb. 8, had units under quarantine. Overall, case numbers had increased dramatically through January, peaking at 286 active cases for Two Rivers on Jan. 20. In December, those numbers were in the single digits. Those case numbers fell through- out the weeks. As of Feb. 8, Two Rivers had just one active case of COVID-19. As a percentage of total cases during the entire pandemic against the number of beds at each facility, Two Rivers ranked the highest by a wide margin. The case-to-bed rate was at 68%, while the average across all prisons in Oregon was 33.3%. Critic blames prison staff for virus spread Corrections offi cials wouldn’t say whether or not the COVID-19 cases that spurred a large spike at Two Rivers was due to a staff member, but case numbers and dates shared with EO Media Group show staff at Two Rivers had tested positive on Dec. 29, just 10 days before members of the prison population showed a spike in positive tests. “There is no way of knowing exactly how each positive case orig- inates or is spread,” said Betty Bernt, communications manager for DOC. “When an individual comes into our intake unit, our current process is to test all adults in custody.” Juan Chavez, project director and attorney with the Oregon Justice Resource Center, disagrees. “There’s only one way for the virus to get in, and that’s through the staff ,” he said. “It’s abundantly clear that mask wearing has been scant in particular with correctional offi - cers. They haven’t been enforcing the mask wearing policy, they just let it slide. They’re more afraid of losing staff than they are of killing people, in my mind.” Chavez noted because intake goes through Coff ee Creek Correc- tional Facility — DOC’s intake facility in Wilsonville where adults in custody are tested, isolated and quarantined before being trans- ferred to other parts of the state — the possibility of an inmate bringing the virus into a diff erent prison is remote. The Oregon Justice Resource Center is involved in a class action lawsuit against the Department of Corrections due to conditions at the prisons regarding COVID-19 safety. That lawsuit is expected to go before See Prisons, Page A8