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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (June 17, 2015)
Rough stock coming to Mountain High Broncs and Bulls PAGE 11 www.wallowa.com Enterprise, Oregon June 17, 2015 $1 New plan for Joseph streets offered By Steve Tool Wallowa County Chieftain JOSEPH — You could al- most hear a sigh of relief as Joseph Mayor Dennis Sands presented a possible solu- tion for Joseph’s street fund- ing woes to the Joseph City Council and the few attend- ees of the June 4 city council meeting. On May 19, Joseph voters crushed both ends of a $1.3 million street repair bond levy. Measure 32-38 called for the implementation of an $11-per-month transportation utility tax on sewer and wa- WHUKRRNXSVWR¿QDQFHD million bond. Measure 32- 39 allowed for a temporary property tax increase in the event of a revenue shortfall from the transportation utili- ty tax. Sands lightened the mood for the June 4 discussion. “Trying to get the silver lin- ing from the gray clouds, I determined that, one, I don’t have to worry about the streets anymore, two, that my pay will remain the same,” Sands said, bringing a laugh from attendees, who appar- ently all realized that mayor in Joseph is an unpaid post. See STREETS, Page A8 OFFER FROM COM- MUNITY BANK: A 20-year loan for the $1.3 million REPAYMENT: $13-per-month trans- portation utility tax Steve Tool/Chieftain CABIN FEVER Robin Sands’ skies are looking a little brighter these days, and a trip to Portland for non-medical reasons can only help. Make a Wish grants shopping excursion By Steve Tool Wallowa County Chieftain Steve Tool/Chieftain The Maxville cabin in its current state, surrounded by teachers and students over the Memorial Day weekend. Funds sought to save last Maxville building LOG CABIN WAS COWBOY LINE SHACK FOR YEARS By Steve Tool H Wallowa County Chieftain igh up in the mountains to the north of Wallowa, 14 miles up the Promise cutoff road, is the last remaining building of the once-thriving logging town of Maxville. If you don’t know the exact road to turn off to, you’ll drive right by it. It is unmarked. Maxville was once a company town for the Bowman-Hicks Lumber Company, back in the C HIEFTAIN WA L L O WA C O U N T Y Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884 Volume 133 Issue No. 9 © 2015 EO Media Group days of two-man “misery whip” saws, “don- keys” (steam yarders) and railroad logging — and segregation. Maxville was established in the early 1920s and once boasted in the neighborhood of 400 UHVLGHQWV$VEH¿WWLQJD6RXWKHUQOXPEHUFRPSD ny, and to a large extent, Oregon citizenry social mores, the town was segregated down to the homes, schools and baseball teams. Today’s remaining building, the only log FDELQWKHWRZQKDGVHUYHGDVWKHPDLQRI¿FHV of Bowman-Hicks until a lack of logs, changing harvesting practices, and the Great Depression hit. The company pulled up stakes in 1933, only 10 years after the company built the cabin. Of course, most of the citizenry left as well al- though a few remained until the ’40s for the little logging that remained. Eighty years later, the log cabin looks less OLNHFRPSDQ\RI¿FHVDQGPRUHOLNHDFRZER\¶V line shack, which it was until a few years ago. The old town site of Maxville is now owned by Hancock Timber, who has determined that WKHFDELQLVQRORQJHU¿WIRUKXPDQKDELWDWLRQ and must be moved or destroyed. This is where Gwendolyn Trice comes in. See CABIN, Page A9 $UHDVHHVHDUO\VWDUWWR¿UHVHDVRQ By Steve Tool Wallowa County Chieftain Fire season made an early appearance with the Little Ba- sin Fire, burning around Lit- tle Basin Creek, near the Dug Bar Road in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. 7KH¿UHZDVUHSRUWHGDW a.m. on the morning of Mon- GD\-XQH7KH¿UHJUHZWR 100 acres in size by Monday afternoon and increased to 500 acres by Tuesday morn- ing, June 16. Both the U.S. Forest Ser- vice and the Oregon Depart- PHQW RI )RUHVWU\ DUH ¿JKWLQJ the blaze, which is burning in VWHHSWHUUDLQZLWKOLJKWÀDVK\ fuels with a few small string- ers of trees along some of the ridge tops. On Monday afternoon, the Wallowa-Whitman National )RUHVW UHSRUWHG WKDW ¿YH ¿UH engines, two helicopters, a hand crew and a Single En- gine Air Tanker (SEAT) along with both the Union and La Grande Hot Shot crews were ¿JKWLQJ WKH ¿UH ZLWK DQ DG ” WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE PREPARED WITH THE PREVENTION MEASURES THAT HELP US TO MINIMIZE HUMAN-CAUSED FIRE STARTS. STEVE MEYER Unit forester for La Grande and Baker Courtesy photo/Michael Maslach Photographer Michael Maslach, an Imnaha resident, shot this sunset image around 8 p.m. Monday looking north toward Fence Creek. He was located on the Imnaha River, upriver from the Little Basin Fire. ditional Hot Shot crew and air tanker support en route as well. According to Matthew Burks, USFS public affairs specialist, resources are lim- ited across the region at the PRPHQWDV¿UHVHDVRQLVJHW ting underway and not all ¿UH¿JKWLQJ UHVRXUFHV DUH LQ active duty status. Burks also said that although the cause of ¿UHLVXQNQRZQDWWKLVWLPHD ¿UHLQYHVWLJDWRULVRQVLWH Because of warm, dry and windy weather as of late, the Oregon Department of For- estry declared the opening of ¿UH VHDVRQ DV RI DP June 16 for forest and range lands protected by the ODF Northeast Oregon District, according to an ODF press re- lease. “We want to make sure that we are prepared with the prevention measures that help us to minimize human-caused ¿UHVWDUWV´VWDWHV6WHYH0H\ er, unit forester for La Grande and Baker. Thanks to the Make a Wish Foundation, Robin Sands of Joseph will vis- it Portland to fulfill her wish of a shopping trip. Sands, 15, is the daughter of Maria Parks and Dennis Sands (son of the Joseph mayor). Robin Sands, a Joseph Charter School student, was born with a heart con- dition called pulmonary atresia. Her heart valves have defects. The valve that pumps blood into her heart was calcified so pushed much of her blood out rather than in. Some of the blood that came in soaked into Sands’ heart and caused enlargement. See WISH, Page A9 City, county sued for civil rights violation. racketeering By Kathleen Ellyn Wallowa County Chieftain Lorien and Dustin James of Enterprise are suing the city of Enterprise, Wallowa County, Wallowa Coun- ty Building Inspector John Lindstrom, City Administra- tor Michele Young, Public Works Director Ronnie Neal, three unnamed John Does and another three unnamed Jane Does for a violation of their civil rights. Suits involving violations of civil rights must be tried in federal court. The suit stems from a months-long negotia- tion that took place in spring of 2014 about how and where to run a residential electrical line to the Jameses’ Eggleson Lane property outside of En- terprise. The Jameses allege that WKH\ VDWLV¿HG DOO DSSOLFDEOH requirements of building codes, laws, and ordinances and having received a “ser- YLFH¿QDO´LQVSHFWLRQRIWKHLU electrical service. Despite that, they allege, the city and county colluded to deny them permission to continue their work and placed ever-in- creasing demands upon them. A “stop-work” order was placed on the property de- velopment in April of 2014 when the city cited concerns over the placement of the un- derground electrical line next to the city’s water main. See SUIT, Page A9