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NORTHEAST OREGON
WEDNESDAY
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LOCAL, 3A
JANUARY 1, 2020
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GO! Magazine
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
January 1, 2020
IN THIS EDITION:
QUICK HITS
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to Her-
ald subscriber Jim Schmidt
of Baker City.
Oregon, 3A
PENDLETON — The next
step in the controversial
Boardman to Hemingway
Transmission Line project
and its pursuit of state ap-
proval will have to wait at
least another month.
Local • Business & AgLife • Go! magazine $1.50
Baker County Woman Part Of Stanford University Team That Designed
And Built A Solar-Powered Car To Compete In Competition In Australia
Across the Outback,
Powered by the Sun
BRIEFING
Applicants sought for
City Council
Baker City residents
interested in serving on the
City Council have until 4
p.m. on Jan. 6 to submit an
application. To be eligible,
applicants must be regis-
tered to vote in Oregon and
have lived within the Baker
City limits for at least 12
months prior to being ap-
pointed. The vacancy on the
seven-member City Council
results from Councilor Ken
Gross resigning at the end
of this month due to his job
being moved. The remain-
ing six councilors plan to
meet with applicants during
a work session on Jan. 8,
and then to appoint Gross’
replacement on Jan. 14. To
apply, go to www.bakercity.
com and download the
City Councilor application.
Submit the application and
a letter of interest to Katie
LaFavor at City Hall, 1655
First St. The person ap-
pointed will serve through
December 2020, and would
be eligible to run for a four-
year term in November
2020.
WEATHER
Today
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Thursday
40 / 27
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Your weekly guide
to arts and
entertainment
happening around
Northeast Oregon
Cell
tower
appeal
claims
city
erred
■ Baker City
Council will meet
Tuesday to hear
Verizon’s appeal
seeking
permission to
build 70-foot tower
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Submitted photo
Sarah Spaugh of Baker County helped design and build Stanford University’s solar-powered car that com-
peted in an international competition last fall in Australia.
By Lisa Britton
“A full car is a two-year project.”
For the Baker City Herald
Sarah Spaugh’s story seems to end
almost before it starts.
Her story about racing a solar-pow-
ered car across the Australian Outback,
anyway.
“Our car did not, unfortunately, finish
the race,” Spaugh said. “Our battery
caught on fire — it burned up on the
side of the road in the middle of the
Outback.”
Spaugh, 23, grew up in McEwen,
near Sumpter. She has earned her
bachelor’s degree in mechanical engi-
neering from Stanford University, and
this month begins studying for her mas-
ter’s degree in electrical engineering.
Every two years a team from Stan-
ford enters a solar car in the Bridges-
tone World Solar Challenge in Austra-
lia. The event, according to its website,
“is primarily a design competition
to discover the world’s most efficient
electric car.”
Spaugh joined her first solar car team
in 2016 during her junior year at Palo
Alto — halfway through the two-year
cycle.
“A full car is a two-year project,” she
said. “You spend six months just on
aerodynamics.”
That car raced in October 2017. She
— Sarah Spaugh, Stanford
University graduate who helped
design and build a solar-powered
car for the university’s entry in an
international electric car contest
Sarah Spaugh
was part of the tech crew.
Spaugh’s more recent solar car
project ran from 2017 to the race in
October 2019. This time she was on the
leadership team.
The competition has been a Stanford
tradition since the late 1980s.
“It’s an established student club —
one of the more life-consuming clubs,”
she said.
One year ago Spaugh’s team of 22
students created a timeline for finishing
the car’s subsystems.
“We’re notorious as a team for falling
behind schedule,” she said.
They should have had the vehicle
finished and tested by the beginning of
June 2019. But that month found the
team members working from 9 a.m. to
midnight in a rush to complete the car.
The team designs every part of the
car. Some pieces they make on campus,
while others are created by professional
machinists.
“It’s very much ground up,” Spaugh
said.
Her team didn’t have much chance to
test their design before shipping the car
to Australia in August.
And testing is crucial to any inven-
tion.
See Solar/Page 2A
Submitted photo
One of Sarah Spaugh’s teammates from Stanford University drives the solar-powered electric car the team
designed and built to compete in an international race in Australia.
TODAY
Issue 110, 22 pages
Business ...........1B & 2B
Calendar ....................2A
Classified ............. 3B-6B
Comics ....................... 7B
Community News ....3A
Crossword ........5B & 6B
Dear Abby ................. 8B
Horoscope ........5B & 6B
Lottery Results ..........2A
News of Record ........2A
Obituaries ..................2A
Opinion ......................4A
An attorney representing
Verizon Wireless argues
that the Baker City Plan-
ning Commission violated a
federal law on Dec. 4 when
it denied the company’s
application for a conditional
use permit to build a 70-foot
cell tower in north Baker
City.
Verizon has appealed
the Planning Commission’s
5-2 vote to the Baker City
Council.
The City Council will con-
sider the appeal during a
public hearing Tuesday, Jan.
7, at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
Verizon’s appeal was fi led
by E. Michael Connors, an
attorney with the Portland
fi rm Hathaway Larson.
He claims, among other
things, that the Planning
Commission’s denial “vio-
lates the Federal Telecom-
munications Act because it
prohibits or would have the
effect of prohibiting the pro-
vision of wireless services in
the City.”
Connors also writes that
if the city denies Verizon’s
application, “it would be vir-
tually impossible for Verizon
to site a tower to resolve the
signifi cant gap in coverage
and capacity in the City.
That would be a clear-cut
violation of the Federal Tele-
communications Act.”
The majority of the Plan-
ning Commission concluded
that concerns about how
the proposed 70-foot tower
would affect views — a
complaint several residents
expressed to the Commis-
sion — could not be miti-
gated except by requiring
Verizon to limit the tower’s
height to 50 feet. That’s the
maximum the city’s zoning
ordinance allows without a
conditional-use permit.
Alan Blair, whose two-
decade-plus tenure on the
Planning Commission
ended Tuesday, said he
believes commissioners
were “fair” and followed the
city’s zoning rules in reach-
ing their decision to deny
Verizon’s application.
See Appeal/Page 2A
Senior Menus ...........2A
Sports .............. 5A & 6A
Weather ..................... 8B
FRIDAY — SCARCE SNOW DOESN’T KEEP ELK FROM FEEDING SITES