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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 12, 2015)
Wallowa County Chieftain News wallowa.com August 12, 2015 A7 REVIEW: Document praises current oI¿cers critici]es preYious OeaGersKip which is compounded by the haphazard way the weapons have been managed.” Former Chief Wes Kilgore, reached by phone late Tuesday afternoon, indicated he had not seen the agency review or been contacted by anyone at the city. “They can put me under a microscope,” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong.” The ¿ndings in the report are CEMETERY: *roup nears JoaO Continued from Page A1 “There’s never been a week when we haven’t had quite a few donations,” Hays said. Added to $5,400 the En- terprise Cemetery District al- ready has earmarked for a new irrigation system, funds avail- able to the cause currently total $46,417. The district’s earmark was originally set at $5,000, Hays notes, but three donations to- taling $400 were made direct- ly to the district, raising that ¿gure. Because Friends is not a non-pro¿t organization, the group advises donors who want tax write-offs from their contributions to donate to the district, not to Friends. Thus far, however, the distinction about write-offs has hardly slowed the Àow of monetary contributions to Friends. With donated labor from the City of Enterprise, the cemetery district restored above-ground irrigation this spring after leaving the ceme- tery dry through the four pre- vious summers. Although the dry years have left the lawn in need of reseeding, the existing growth is at least looking bet- ter. “We have a green ceme- tery this summer, which has brought a lot of compliments from people,” Hays said. Using the above-ground system entails extensive labor for moving pipe. An under- ground system should not only reduce labor, but also conserve water, a growing concern. This summer the cemetery is being co-managed by Perry Davis, who won election in May to the cemetery district board, and Friends member Jim Butner. Both men are vol- unteering their time. In years past, the district paid a ceme- tery manager. Hays said one important project on the 13-plus acre site was completed this summer by Mof¿t Brothers Construc- tion, which repaired chainlink fencing where squirrels had undermined the fence’s con- crete piers. Hays said past res- idents donated money to the district to cover that project’s cost. For more information about Friends of the Enter- prise Cemetery or to donate, contact Sondra Lozier, 104 W. Main St., Enterprise, OR 97828; 541-426-3229. followed by detailed instructions as to how Enterprise City Coun- cil can address the de¿ciencies. The key to moving forward is “the department embrace trans- parency and accountability mea- sures for all operations.” Other recommendations in- clude the immediate hire of a Tuali¿ed police chief and devel- opment of a new policy manual. Other tasks include an inde- Pending approval of ADC’s application to Or- egon’s Water Resources Board to allow ADC to send 4,200 acre/feet of water downstream each year for flow augmentation purpos- es, ADC can presumably strike deals for that water’s purchase or lease, although those specific transfers would themselves be subject to state board approval. Wilson, however, is alarmed that one prospec- tive transaction partner — Salt Lake City-based Wallowa Water Corpora- tion — once proposed on its website to create a “filling station in Portland, Oregon, in order to deliver water to States that lack water, such as Nevada, California, Ar- izona and New Mexico. Water will be delivered by railway or even for export to other countries.” Until recently, those ideas were presented at wallowawater.com, where today the visitor lands upon a screen simply declar- ing, “UNITED GLOBAL WATER INC. COMING SOON,” and providing an e-mail address for infor- mation. Previously the site offered a different e-mail contact. A message the Chieftain sent to that ad- dress several weeks ago went unanswered. One of the screens on the site was dated 2013. The Wallowa Lake Dam, built in 1919, is currently approved to store only 72 percent of its capacity, due to its aged condi- tion. ADC s p e n t years try- ing to gain fed- eral fund- ing for the struc- Wilson ture’s rehabili- tation, to no avail. In an in- terview, ADC Project Man- ager David Hockett said the dam owners put in “a lot of time and wasted a lot of money trying to get this pushed through Congress and so forth.” He said the group “knocked on doors” in the nation’s capital to be- gin conversations with peo- ple who might have been able to help, but “once they got to the fact that we were a privately owned dam, the conversation cooled.” Wilson wants ADC to continue trying for gov- ernment funding, but from Wallowa County the State of Oregon rather than the feds. He thinks the money could be available through SB 1069, the Agri- culture and Community Wa- ter Act, which the Oregon Legislature passed in 2008. At the county commission- ers’ regular meeting on Aug. 3, Wilson told the county board that he was available for hire to further research the potential funding oppor- tunities through SB 1069, and the commissioners could in turn present those findings to ADC. Wilson, a retired news- paper reporter and former employee of the Chieftain, also told commissioners he would refrain from discuss- ing his research project with the press unless the com- missioners authorized such contact. His proposal did not include a price or project time-line, however, and Commissioner Hayward said the board would need STILL RUNNING OUT TO FETCH THE PAPER? 6 months $26.00 1year * $40.00 1year, online $40.00 Subscribe Today! 541-426-4567 • wallowa.com * $40.00 is the in county price, $57.00 for out of county subscribers. The Wallowa County Chieftain HEALTH LINE 519 W. North Street, Enterprise 541.426.3413 Mon-Thurs 9 to Noon/1-5pm; Fri. 9-1 Specializing in Anti-Aging Skin Therapy Customized Facials Waxing Services, Brow Sculpting Body Polish-Back Facials High-Perfomance Products 541-398-0759 | Located @ beecrowbee 01 Main Joseph rectify the vast majority of the identi¿ed problems . . . this doc- ument should serve as a call for action.” At the Aug. 11 meeting, En- terprise City Council responded to the call for action by voting unanimously to move to the in- terview stage of the hiring pro- cess. Eight applications for the chief of police position remain from the 11 received. EVANS: 1eZ memEer YoteG into YacateG position Continued from Page A1 He later attended the Uni- versity of Oregon. He returned to the Portland area for some time before moving to the Wal- lowa Valley four years ago. In a show of the changing national employment climate, Evans works remotely from the Wallowa Valley for a company called Netapp in San Jose, Ca- lif. “I’m an operations manager for them, and I work on ma- jor projects for the company. I travel down to Sunnyvale (Calif) where the company is headquartered a few times a year, and sometimes business travel takes me other places, but I mainly work from home,” DAM: 5esiGent sa\s state IunGinJ possiEOe Continued from Page A1 pendent inventory of property room contents. Several redacted portions of the report under the subheading of Property Room/ Evidence Vault Audit are ex- plained with a footnote advising the redacted portion is “investi- gatory information compiled for criminal law purposes.” The task force had no hes- itation or reservation in saying “a competent police chief can those items before consider- ing any action. ADC was not represent- ed at the Aug. 3 commis- sioners meeting. ADC’s Hockett, inter- viewed a week before the meeting, acknowledged that discussions had occurred between ADC and the group that was behind wallowawa- ter.com, but he said there was currently no agreement in place, and that group wasn’t the only potential funder. “They could be the group that gets it done, but there are several others that have come to the table,” Hockett said. Dam owners are also awaiting state approval of the application for down- stream flow augmentation. That could come as soon as Aug. 20 if no one files a challenge. Evans said. Getting his foot into door of city politics entailed three years with the city’s budget commit- tee, where he learned budgets from the ground up. The ex- perience led him to seek the council post. When the open- ing came up, several council members urged Evans to throw his hat in the ring. “I can ful¿ll the remainder of this term, and decide if it’s really something for me to pursue when the term ends,” Evans said. The new council member has ideas for what he’d like to accomplish during his tenure. “I’d like to see the city start moving toward having some N S T R E E T S ’ R L P E u A b & G r i l l A redacted portion of the document, under the heading of Firearm and Ammunition Secu- rity, is explained by a footnote advising the “information re- dacted above constitutes inves- tigatory information compiled for criminal law purposes which has been referred to an investi- gation and is exempt from dis- closure.” What was not exempted from disclosure was the observation that “no inventory of weapons or ammunition was discov- ered,” immediately followed by the statement, “Speculation ex- ists that weapons obtained from the federal government through a military surplus program can- not all be accounted for due to de¿ciencies in documentation, M A I Continued from Page A1 ‘I think it might be good to have goals toward Main Street beaXtiÀFation· Tyler Evans visions and goals. I think it would help the budget com- mittee when trying to prioritize funds. I think it might be good to have goals toward Main Street beauti¿cation. We need to decide where we want to go, prioritize it and make it hap- pen,” Evans said. Catering a wide variety of events 10 years strong! Quality Catering ANY and ALL occasions! Family Pub opened 7 days a week specializing in down home cooking. Open 7am to 2pm, 5pm to Closing | 111 Main Street, Enterprise 541-426-3300 | www.learspubandgrill.com
