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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 26, 2020)
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020 Local arts, cultural groups receive $126,000 in federal COVID-19 aid Crossroads Carnegie Art Center, said a small group More than $126,000 is on began emailing and call- its way to Baker County to ing eligible organizations in support arts and cultural Baker County. organizations. “We had to spread the The money is from the word. Crossroads was asked Coronavirus Relief Fund Cul- to do that,” she said. “It was tural Support grant awards. really up to the individual In total, $25.7 million will be organization to apply. We distributed to 621 cultural wanted to get as much to organizations across Oregon. Baker County as we could.” The money, allocated to the Eight organizations sub- Oregon Cultural Trust for mitted applications. organizations facing losses “Anything that had a due to COVID-19, is part of a signifi cant impact on arts $50 million relief package for and culture, plus community Oregon culture approved by events,” Savage said. the Emergency Board of the They had to detail losses Oregon Legislature in July. due to COVID, technology The money is from the costs, PPE (masks, hand sani- federal CARES Act, passed by tizer, cleaning supplies), and Congress in March. durable goods and services The applications went live (such as plexiglass shields). on Aug. 12 and organizations Savage said organizations had two weeks to apply. had to deduct any previ- Ginger Savage, chair of ous CARES money already the Baker County Cultural received. Coalition and director of A total of $126,485 is head- By Lisa Britton For the Baker City Herald ing to Baker County. The receiving organizations are: • Baker City Downtown Inc.: $6,630 • Baker County Communi- ty Literacy Coalition: $1,696 • Baker County: $5,681 • Churchill Baker: $2,077 • Crossroads Creative and Performing Art Center Inc.: $80,188 • Eastern Oregon Regional Theatre Inc.: $9,984 • Huntington Historical Preservation Society: $981 • Sumpter Valley Railroad Restoration Inc.: $19,248 According to the Oregon Cultural Trust, they received just under $90 million in requests from 751 organiza- tions. The largest award was $1.4 million to the Oregon Museum of Science and In- dustry (OMSI). The average grant amount was $41,458. “Due to the incredible need, we were able to fund a percentage of organizations’ eligible expenses,” Brian Rog- ers, Cultural Trust executive director, said in a press re- lease. “Smaller organizations received a higher percentage of their eligible expenses.” According to the Cul- tural Trust, “funding was determined based on eligible request amounts, an award allocation formula that estab- lished a base amount of funds per county or Tribe and the organization’s fi scal size.” “We are so very excited,” Savage said of the total award amount. “This is a god- send of support. It shows how vibrant the cultural scene in Baker is.” The total money for Baker County will go to the Oregon Trail Preservation Trust, which will then distribute funds to the eight organiza- tions. Savage said the CARES money must be spent by the end of the year. FIREWISE Continued from Page 1A “It really will be easy to get their fl u shot.” — Tonya Roth, Saint Alphonsus Medical Center FLU SHOTS Continued from Page 1A The fl u clinic is open to everyone; you don’t need to be a patient of the Saint Alphonsus physi- cian clinic. Those seeking a fl u shot need to wear a mask. The process also includes gathering insur- ance information and signing a consent form. All from inside your car. “It really will be easy to get their fl u shot,” Roth said. Flu shots are available for ages 5 and older at this location, said Kelly Nork, practice manager. This fl u season is unique because CO- VID-19 is circulating at the same time. For this reason, Roth said, it is important to get a fl u shot. “The mortality rate increases with having the fl u and COVID at the same time,” she said. The hospital has ample supply of the fl u vaccine, she said, including the high-dose version recom- mended for ages 65 and older. According to the Cen- ters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people 65 and older are at high risk for complica- tions from infl uenza. In recent years, the CDC estimates that between 70% and 85% of fl u-relat- ed deaths have occurred in this age category. The fl u clinic will run through October and November. Typically, the fl u season runs from late November through the spring, sometimes as late as April. It takes about two weeks for the fl u vaccine to take full effect. “We’re encouraging people to get your fl u shot and protect yourself,” Roth said. In addition to the fl u vaccine, people are en- couraged to wash hands often, cover coughs and sneezes and stay home if feeling sick — all very familiar advice through- out the coronavirus pandemic. COUNTY Continued from Page 1A Gayle Combs / Contributed Photo Residents in the Pine Creek area gathered for a barbecue on Sept. 12 at the home of Gayle and Bret Combs to celebrate the designation of Baker County’s fi rst Firewise Community. The area along the base of the Elkhorns includes about 125 properties. Gayle Combs / Contributed Photo The National Fire Prevention Association sponsors the Firewise Community program. homeowners to ensure that their driveways are main- tained so that fi re trucks can get to the homes if fl ames threaten. Neither of these strategies is new, said Gary Timm, dep- uty director of Baker County Emergency Management. Over the past couple of de- cades, individual homeowners in wildland-urban interface areas across the county have created defensible spaces and consulted with rural fi re districts to make sure they have access. But the Spring Creek neighborhood is the fi rst to “take the next step and work together” to achieve Firewise Community status, Timm said. He doesn’t think it will be the last neighborhood to do so, however. Timm said he has talked with residents in other wild- land-urban interface zones in the county, and he’s optimistic that residents elsewhere will follow the Spring Creek group’s lead. “I plant the seeds and will work with anyone,” Timm said. “But it’s really got to be neighborhood driven.” He said the devastation that fi res wrought in places such as the North Santiam and McKenzie River canyons, and in the towns of Phoenix and Talent near Medford, elevated the issue to a promi- nence it has never had. “This summer opened some eyes,” Timm said. “We hate to see tragedy be the motivator.” Sean Lee, chief of the Baker Rural Fire District, which includes the Spring Creek neighborhood, is also excited about the work that the Combses and their neighbors have done to pro- tect their properties. ‘For the rural fi re district that’s going to be a huge benefi t, having the residents working together and at- tempting to put a defensive space around their homes,” Lee said. He said the Spring Creek area, with its combination of dozens of homes built among the pines, is “our biggest hot spot” of neighborhoods vulnerable to wildfi re. Timm said the areas near the base of the Elkhorns, with their dense forests that haven’t had a major fi re in more than a century, are “classic examples of a high-risk wildland-urban interface.” Neighbors helping neighbors Combs emphasizes that the Firewise Community program is completely vol- untary. Residents in the area don’t have to participate. But Combs said it’s been gratifying to see how many of her neighbors not only have taken action to help protect their properties, but have also offered to help oth- ers with tasks they can’t do by themselves. “We have a lot of older residents and it’s not easy to climb up on your roof and clean your gutters,” Combs said. She said residents have helped neighbors cut limbs, and in one case a resident who owns a horse offered to let the animal graze on a neighbor’s property to keep the grass cropped. “Simple little things like that,” she said. Combs said the program focuses on education — showing residents how they can take relatively simple precautions to help protect their homes. She said some residents in the neighborhood moved from cities where they didn’t have to worry about whether the species of shrubs they planted were unusu- ally fl ammable, or consider stacking fi rewood at a safe distance from their home. Combs said people have been receptive once they re- alize that the fi rewise tactics aren’t especially diffi cult or expensive, and moreover that they needn’t sacrifi ce the attributes that lured them to the area to protect their properties. Creating a defensible space doesn’t require cutting every tree, for instance. Qualifying as a fi rewise community makes the Spring Creek neighborhood eligible for grants that can help continue and expand the project, Combs said. That can include spreading the word to residents about ways to create a defensible space, as well as putting on barbecues and other events that raise awareness, espe- cially among newcomers. Combs said the designa- tion can also potentially reduce some residents’ homeowners insurance premiums. Citizens can also join the meeting by phone by call- ing 1-877-820-7831 and using the passcode 8204693. Oregon’s public meetings law allows elected offi cials to discuss certain topics during executive sessions. The one county offi cials are citing for Wednesday’s meet- ing is “to consult with legal counsel regarding current litigation or litigation likely to be fi led.” Heidi Martin, the commission’s executive assistant, said the subject of the executive session is the Pine Creek Road situation. The road, which is extremely rough for its fi nal 4 miles or so, is used mainly by four-wheel drive and all- terrain vehicles. A resident sent a photograph this week to the Baker City Herald showing a gate across the road, closed by a padlocked length of chain, and with a sign reading: “For Access Contact David McCarty” and a phone number. McCarty declined to comment on the gate Monday morning. McCarty recently bought 1,560 acres in the Pine Creek area, including the land through which the road passes, from B&S Logging of Prineville, according to the Baker County Assessor’s Offi ce. Cindy Birko, who lives near Pine Creek and often hikes on the road, said she has talked with McCarty about the gate. Birko said McCarty told her that he doesn’t object to people hiking on the road as it runs through his property. Birko said McCarty told her he installed and locked the gate to block motor vehicles. She said McCarty told her that during the fi rst 3 weeks he owned the property, he or an employee who patrols the area found eight campfi res set illegally on his land. New At The Library Patrons can reserve materials in advance online or by calling 541-523-6419. Drive-in hours at 2400 Resort St. are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. FICTION • “The Return,” Nicholas Sparks • “The Brightest Star,” Fern Michaels • “The Coast to Coast Murders” James Patterson • “Next to Last Stand,” Craig Johnson • “Paradise Peak,” Janet Dailey NONFICTION • “The Plus,” Greg Gutfeld • “Caste,” Isabel Wilkerson • “Living Trusts for Everyone,” Ronald Sharp • “The Dynasty,” Jeff Benedict • “Pandemic 1918,” Catharine Arnold DVDS • “Adventures of Rufus” (Family) • “Bad Education” (Comedy) • “New Wave: Dare To Be Different” (Documentary) • “The Terror of Hallow’s Eve” (Horror) • “Sorry We Missed You” (Drama) Steel on the inside where it matters most. Shops Garages Commercial Industrial www.WSBNW.com 855 • 668 • 7211 Sandy, OR S199248-1 The pines and cottonwoods that shade the streams could fuel a wildfi re that pushes down from the Elkhorns, propelled by the breezes that refresh so many summer evenings. Fire experts call this kind of rural residential neighbor- hood the “wildland-urban interface.” Another way to think of it is that the homes the Combses and their neighbors inhabit stand in the natural path of wildfi res that periodi- cally swept through for many millennia. The risk, at least in Oregon, has never been demonstrated so terribly as it was earlier this month when wildfi res ravaged several forested can- yons on the west side of the Cascades, destroying more than 1,100 homes and killing at least nine people. But Gayle Combs said she was aware that her property was vulnerable to fi re even without the recent tragic reminder. “It’s always been a concern, for everybody out here,” she said on Thursday. But neither Combs nor her neighbors was content to accept that risk with compla- cency. Over the past year or so they have worked together, with assistance from mul- tiple agencies and offi cials, to create Baker County’s fi rst Firewise Community. The Spring Creek Firewise Community’s application was approved by the National Fire Protection Association. The Combses, along with about 40 of their neighbors, celebrated the designa- tion with a barbecue at the couple’s home on Sept. 12. Considering the twin chal- lenges of COVID-19 and the cloying smoke from those aforementioned fi res, Gayle, who is neighborhood coordi- nator for the Spring Creek project, said she was “very pleased” with the turnout. But she’s even more excited about how residents in the area, which includes 125 properties ranging from Goodrich Creek north to Ben- Dier Lane, and from Pocahon- tas Road west to the Elk- horns, have worked together to improve the chances that their homes could survive a blaze. They’ve used multiple tactics to accomplish that goal, but the basic concept is to create a “defensible space” around homes. That involves such things as trimming trees so that limbs don’t hang over roofs, keeping grass and shrubs trimmed and watered, and regularly removing combusti- ble pine needles from gutters. The other key part of the process, Gayle said, is for BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A COMMUNITY
