Enterprise, Oregon
134th Year, No. 33
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
New curb ramps in the future for Enterprise this summer.
Will eff ect traffi c and
pedestrians in the town.
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
For the past two weeks you may have
noticed a nice man wearing a bright yel-
low safety outfi t strolling around Enter-
prise, carrying what looks like a bulky
saucer on a folding metal tripod. Periodi-
cally he strides purposefully into the mid-
dle of the street, and after fi ddling with
something in the pavement sets up his tri-
pod and the bulky saucer for about a min-
ute, then folds it up and goes back to the
sidewalk where he sets the contraption up
again, usually on the curb, usually on a
corner. Eventually, if you follow his prog-
ress around the town, he returns to a white,
ODOT truck where he makes some notes,
downloads some data, and continues with
his work.
The man is ODOT employee Grant
Sharp. He’s not checking for aliens or col-
lecting your cell phone conversation. He’s
the advance guard for curb designers,
and then, eventually the ODOT construc-
tion crews who will descend on Enter-
prise next summer and install or modify
handicapped-accessible ramps on virtu-
ally every corner in the town along River
Street and North Street.
At a Nov. 19 presentation at Enterprise
City Hall, a team of ODOT engineers and
planners presented the details of their plan
to work here. ODOT chose the towns of
Enterprise and Union as places for a trial
of the handicapped access ramps that they
must, according to a settlement in a lawsuit
brought by Association of Oregon Centers
for Independent Living, and eight indi-
viduals with mobility and visual impair-
ments throughout the State of Oregon,
WINTER ARRIVES
install around the state to make all of Ore-
gon’s sidewalks Americans with Disabil-
ities Act (ADA)compliant. The 2017 set-
tlement committed ODOT to installing or
revamping more than 10,000 ADA-com-
pliant sidewalk curb ramps and about
1500 pedestrian crossing signs around
Oregon. The statewide cost is estimated at
$23 million.
The towns of Enterprise and Union
were chosen as places for trials of design
and installation to start the project, partly
because they were small, partly because
See Curb Project, Page A7
Hospital continues
to build
New addition to open
after Thanksgiving, facility
in Joseph planned
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
Ellen Morris Bishop
Winter arrives on Eggleson Road. A late November snow on Monday night left about three inches of the white fl uff y stuff in
Enterprise and four inches or more in Joseph and beyond. Aneroid Lake’s Snotel site reports 11 inches of snow as of Nov. 26.
See updated winter forecast on page 6.
Ellen Morris Bishop
Winter arrives at Hurricane Creek. Ruby Peak in the background wears a newly refurbished coat of snow, and Hurricane Creek
carries more water as two days of precipitation draped the Wallowa County landscape in its winter fi nery.
As always, Wallowa Memorial Hospi-
tal keeps marching along the road to prog-
ress. Hospital Chief Executive Offi cer, Larry
Davy and the WMH staff are making sure
of that.
Projects are always uppermost on the
hospital’s agenda and one of the latest com-
pletions is the breezeway between the hos-
pital and the clinic building next door. The
breezeway is completely enclosed, but has
large amounts of window space so users can
enjoy the view.
“It keeps our patients and staff out of the
weather,” Davy said. “It can be pretty brutal
when the wind is blowing and the snow fl y-
ing and 0 degrees and people are having to
walk back and forth.”
Behind the breezeway is a new generator
that will soon be hooked up to the electricity
feed and run the clinic. The hospital received
funding to cover most of the costs.
“The risk we have is if the power goes
out at 3:30 p.m. and it’s dark — we’re done.
You have to cancel the rest of the day,” Davy
said. He added that if a community disas-
ter somehow overwhelmed the hospital, the
generator could be used to house some vic-
tims in the clinic and keep them warm.
The hospital and its staff are big believ-
ers in taking preventive health measures
such as exercise and eating meals. On the
exercise end, the hospital recently installed
a half-mile, asphalt, walking path around
the hospital perimeter. Davy said that dona-
tions funded 90-95 percent of the path’s con-
struction. Hospital employees donated about
$20,000 of the costs. The city of Enterprise
and Winding Waters Clinic helped, as did
individual donations.
The path is available to everyone in the
community. But it will be especially wel-
come to residents of the Wallowa Valley
Senior Living, which is owned by the hos-
pital. The path allows the care facility res-
idents to stroll on a fl at, even pathway that
can accommodate walkers, wheelchairs as
well as fl eeter pedestrians. In the spring,
there will be benches for walkers to rest on.
As if that weren’t enough, the new med-
ical offi ce/clinic expansion in the hospital
owned building just west of the hospital is
also complete. Offi ces and care facilities,
including Winding Waters Clinic’s den-
tal care facilities, will open right after
Thanksgiving.
See Hospital, Page A7
Santa coming to town for Winterfest
Enterprise to celebrate
downtown Dec. 7
By Bill Bradshaw
Wallowa County Chieftain
Santa Claus is coming to Enter-
prise – again – and this time it’ll be
Saturday, Dec. 7, for the Enterprise
Winterfest.
The festivities will include tra-
ditional holiday favorites and some
unique to Wallowa County. One
such unique item is that every half
hour, beginning at noon, there will
be a drawing at a participating busi-
ness for Buckskin Bucks. Winners
do not have to be present to win.
An expected 10 to 15 busi-
nesses are expected to participate.
Winners will receive an $80 Buck-
skin Bucks gift certifi cate to spend
locally. The goal is to help local
businesses, according to a state-
ment issued by City Administrator
Lacey McQuead.
Entries in the Winterfest
parade, which reaches downtown
by 5:30 p.m., will be judged prior
to the parade and announced as
the parade makes its way through
downtown. Parade entries must be
received by Dec. 3 at City Hall.
There will be fi rst, second and
third-place winners who will be
awarded with Buckskin Bucks.
Shops downtown will open for
business at 9 a.m. Burn barrels
to keep Winterfest-goers warm
downtown will be lighted and
West Main Street will be closed
from River Street to SW 2nd Street
at noon.
At 2 p.m., Santa Central opens
at the OK Theatre, where kids can
meet Santa, tell him what they
want and how they’ve been good
enough to deserve it. They also can
get their photographs taken with
Santa.
Also at 2 p.m., barrel train rides
start and hot cocoa and cookies
will be served at Santa Central.
At 3 p.m. will be another hol-
iday favorite – chestnut roasting,
and at 4 p.m. is a chili feed put on
by the Enterprise Fire Department.
At 5 p.m., Santa leaves for the
Cloverleaf Hall where parade par-
ticipants will be gathering. The
parade leaves the Cloverleaf at
5:20 p.m. and is expected to reach
downtown by 5:30 p.m. When
See Winterfest, Page A7
Chieftain fi le photo
A giant infl atable Santa Claus towers over
a pickup truck during the 2017 Enterprise
Winterfest parade.