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