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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2015)
h t l a e h d o g o TH G UI DE FA M ILY HE AL WA C O UN TY 20 15 WAL LO FAMILY HEALTH GUIDE inside today’s paper. www.wallowa.com Enterprise, Oregon April 29, 2015 $1 Rancher-supported wolf bill derailed in House By Steve Tool Wallowa County Chieftain One of two bills in the Or- egon House that Dist. 58 Rep. Greg Barreto introduced to aid ranchers in their battle with wolves is apparently dead while the other lives on. House Bill 3514 pertains to increasing reparations to Water project goes out for bids By Kathleen Ellyn Wallowa County Chieftain The City of Enterprise has advertised for bids on the $5.75-million water sys- tem improvement project WKDW WKUHDWHQHG WR XQVHDW ¿YH councilors and the mayor when introduced in late 2013. The water system up- grade, which was undertaken to bring the city’s system up to minimum water-pressure UHTXLUHPHQWV IRU ¿UH¿JKWLQJ EHQH¿WV IURP D PLOOLRQ loan with $750,000 in loan forgiveness from Safe Drink- ing Water Revolving Loan Fund (SDWRLF). With the loan forgiveness grant sub- tracted, the loan amount comes to $4.8 million. The 30-year note carries an inter- est rate of 1 percent. The City of Enterprise is also pitching in $200,000 to complete the project. Improvements include: modernization of the water distribution system; upgrades on the well pump station; and erection of a new welded steel reservoir and possible reha- bilitation of the concrete res- ervoir. The base bid work in- FOXGHVUHSODFHPHQWRI¿UH hydrants and installation of 44 more, and a new 425,000-gal- lon welded steel reservoir. The City of Enterprise was one of 50 cities and water dis- tricts to notify SDWRLF of their intent to apply for funds and was one of only eight en- tities to secure funding. ranchers and tax credits for losses sustained from wolf attacks on livestock while HB 3515 would, in effect, permanently remove wolves from Oregon’s endangered species list. HB 3514, submitted by Barreto to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Com- mittee (ANRC), virtually sailed through in two work sessions with a unanimous vote and was passed on to the Revenue Nash Committee for its con- sideration. It currently awaits that committee’s discussion and vote. Northeast Oregon ranchers held out high hopes for the ill-fated HB 3515, hoping it would legislatively put an end to the controversial question of removing the wolf from the state’s endangered species list. Courtesy photo/ODFW See BILL, Page A7 This undated photo from the Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife is of a male wolf in the Wenaha Pack. REMAKING HISTORY The gear works for the mechanical elevator that once served the EM&M building. It is no longer in service. EM&M’S RESTORATION PROCEEDS By Steve Tool Wallowa County Chieftain ENTERPRISE — Enterprise Mercantile & Milling building, the massive Bowlby stone structure located across Main Street from the courthouse, is coming up on its 100th year, and despite its countless incarnations, is still a viable part of the Enterprise business community. Now called the EM&M Building, owners Ralph Swinehart and Janet Pulsifer along with co-owners Rick Michaelson and Sid and Mary Tate, continue to work repairing past damage and keeping the 50,000-square-foot building economically, as well as historically viable. The building was placed on the National Reg- istry of Historic Places in March of 2012. The building itself saw construction from 1916 to 1922. The owners went bankrupt during a subsequent mini-depression, and Wallowa County took possession of the build- ing in 1925, eventually passing it to other owners. Swinehart, a Boise native, has resided in the area for 42 years while Pulsifer relocated here from Seattle nine years ago. Swine- hart, along with two partners, have owned the building since 2008, buying it from The Bowlby Group, who planned to turn the building into condominiums and a performing arts center before the recession hit. Swinehart and his group are in the midst of refurbishing the entire building. “We’re doing this bit by bit, not as some major project, but as funds become available,” Swinehart said. See PRESERVATION, Page A7 See WATER, Page A7 C HIEFTAIN WA L L O WA C O U N T Y Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884 Volume 133 Issue No. 2 © 2015 EO Media Group Rob Ruth/Chieftain Steve Tool/Chieftain Enterprise Mercantile & Milling building still standing strong after 99 years. Wade Phillips, of Portland firm Restoration Enterprises, performs preservation work on the exterior frames of the EM&M Building in September 2014. Phillips replaced as little window material as possible in order to maintain historical integrity. 9HWHUDQV6HUYLFH2I¿FHDGGVPXUDO sessions for the project typically ran approximately six hours, added it was “really an honor for me” to meet ENTERPRISE — Area veterans veterans who came in while she was and others who have occasion to vis- working. 7KH RI¿FH LV ORFDWHG LQVLGH (Q it the local Veterans Service Office are in for a pleasant visual surprise terprise’s old hospital building and if they haven’t been inside the office accessed via the old emergency en- trance. It was formerly an x-ray room. recently. Maria Anderson, an Air Force vet- One wall of the office now has a mural of an eagle painted by En- eran who is retired from a career in terprise artist Crystal Newton, who Houston, Texas, with the Department completed the work just before of Veterans Affairs, moved to Enter- prise in June 2014 and now assists at April. “I was never able to serve in the the Wallowa County Veterans Service military and I’ve appreciated what 2I¿FH$QGHUVRQSUDLVHVWKHQHZPX (veterans have) done for us, to say the ral, which she said achieves a “subtle” least,” says Newton, who worked on look that’s exactly what she had hoped the mural one day a week over a pe- for. “We didn’t want anything too dis- ULRG RI ¿YH ZHHNV 9HWHUDQV 6HUYLFH tinct because some of the people who 2I¿FHU &KDUOH\ 1HYHDX FRPPLV come in here have been in horrible sit- sioned Newton to create the mural, uations,” she said. Newton said she used acrylic paints work the artist performed at a reduced for the mural mainly because “oils rate because it was a labor of love. Newton, who said her painting smell too bad.” By Rob Ruth Wallowa County Chieftain Rob Ruth/Wallowa County Chieftain Artist Crystal Newton created the patriotic mural inside the Veterans Service Office in Enterprise.