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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 23, 2015)
INSIDE TODAY: Oregon’s Alpenfest schedule Enterprise, Oregon Protest delays OK of water releases Issue No. 23 www.wallowa.com September 23, 2015 $1 SOUTH FORK GRANGE GETS NEW DIGS By Rob Ruth Wallowa County Chieftain Never mind about that re- port earlier this summer that Wallowa Lake Dam owners may soon ¿ nalize funding ar- rangements for the dam’s re- habilitation. The central component of dam owners’ funding strate- gy — sale or long-term lease of stored water to a third party, an entity which would ¿ rst pay to rehabilitate the dam — has been placed on hold while state regulators digest an 11-page protest ¿ led by Wallowa’s Future Foundation (WFF), a group based in Joseph. WFF ¿ led its protest with- in the allotted 45-day window following the Oregon Water Resources Department’s July 7 publication of its notice con- cerning a proposed ¿ nal order and draft permit. See DAM, Page A8 Salzburger Echo to headline Alpenfest WALLOWA LAKE — Salzburger Echo, a lively, internationally known band from Utah with the unusual specialty of Swiss alphorn playing, will be the headline act at the 2015 edition of Ore- gon’s Alpenfest. The annual Swiss-Bavari- an festival takes place Thurs- day through Sunday, Sept. 24- 27, with four performances at Wallowa Lake and additional activities in Joseph and En- terprise. In addition to live music, Oregon’s Alpenfest will feature Swiss yodeling, Alpine folk dancing, solo Al- phorn music, accordionists, the Alpine Art, Antique and Craft Fair and traditional bratwurst and beer. For the second year in a row, there will be free polka lessons. Details and ticket informa- tion are available at oregonal- penfest.com. See EVENT, Page A8 Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain Left to right: June Colony, grange secretary; Vicki Crane, head of the grange building committee, and Rhee Lathrop, the grange member with the longest continuous membership. The women are inside the framing that will come down to create a hall space in the new South Fork Grange location. By Kathleen Ellyn Wallowa County Chieftain Chieftain file photo The old grange burned to the ground in February 2014. LOSTINE — The South Fork Grange is rising from the ashes and planning a Founders Day to beat all. When their grange hall burned to the ground in February 2014, the 22 grangers of South Fork Grange vowed to be back — and now they’ll be hosting the “The Sheepherder’s Ball” on Found- ers Day, Oct. 10, in the new digs. The new hall is on Rosewell Street in Lostine and is a house expansion gone wrong for the original builders, but just right for the grangers. “We did a lot of looking at other places and then working on this one to see if it was usable,” said grange secretary June Colony. The “house” began life in the ’50s as a tiny dwelling with nothing much to recommend it. It was expanded upon in the ’80s and at that time an excellent foundation was put in and the inside of the large expansion was framed, but not ¿ nished. Then, it sat for 30 years. The property was a good bargain for the grange. It started as eight lots (1.5 acres) and a number of buildings, but after a very long negotiation, the seller agreed to split off the house/expansion and two lots for the grang- ers. Two usable outbuildings came in the deal. See GRANGE, Page A8 State’s pot-ential for pro¿ t unclear OLCC estimates $18.4 million in pot tax revenue for 2015-2017 By Kathleen Ellyn Wallowa County Chieftain How much money might Wallowa County expect to re- ceive in tax revenue from the sale of pot statewide and coun- ty-wide? Well, that’s the $64,000 question. As Wallowa County Com- missioner Mike Hayward said last week, it may be thousands or it may be six bucks. Nobody knows. The reason the number can- not be nailed down is because Oregon’s marijuana tax plan and Oregon’s relationship to illegal marijuana is very different from the tax structures and marijua- na relationships of Colorado or Washington. Colorado raked in $11,608,684 in taxes for the month of July 2015 alone. Washington reported tax earn- ings of $11,484,814 the same month. Neither number includes licensing fees. Back in July 2014, ECONor- thwest released an independent study that projected Oregon would collect a (relatively) modest $78.7 million in mar- ijuana tax in the ¿ rst biennium — an average of $3,279,000 per month. The study was com- missioned by New Approach Oregon, the organization that helped write Measure 91. The ECONorthwest study did not consider the impact on courts, police, and jail operating costs that might accrue. By April of 2015 the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which will oversee implementa- tion of Measure 91, had scaled that estimate back considerably. In a press released dated April 11, OLCC reported it had requested that the Legislature establish a 2015-2017 budget of $10.5 million to handle the rec- reational marijuana program. 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