THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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news@bakercityherald.com
EDITORIAL
Welcome
back to the
Bulldogs
It might be the fi rst time the Baker Bulldog foot-
ball team used sledding as a workout.
But if nothing else during the pandemic, we’ve
learned to adjust, to accept the unusual.
Watching the players prepare for the rigors of a
football season by sliding down the snow-covered
slope at the north end of Baker Bulldog Memorial
Stadium, and then sprinting back to the top for
another run, is just the latest in the series of strange-
ness that defi nes 2020 and the fi rst part of 2021.
It will also be a trifl e weird to watch the Bulldogs
play football and soccer and volleyball, and compete
in cross-country meets, when the trees are beginning
to bud out at the cusp of spring rather than dropping
their colorful leaves at summer’s end.
Weird, but also welcome.
After a long, frustrating and at times agonizing
wait, Baker High School and Baker Middle School
students are ready to return to athletics, starting
with the traditional fall sports.
Those students have missed a lot during the pan-
demic, including the benefi t of learning from their
teachers in a classroom each school day.
And although academics are more important for
the students’ futures than athletics, the latter is not
unimportant.
Students who participate in sports benefi t from
teamwork and camaraderie. They recognize the
connection between effort and achievement. And of
course they have fun. So do the parents and grand-
parents and friends and community members who
watch these young athletes compete.
Gov. Kate Brown was right to allow sports to start
this month, including contact sports such as football.
Games could begin March 1. The traditional fall
sports season, which will continue through early
April, is slated to be followed by spring sports (base-
ball, softball, track and fi eld, tennis and golf) during
April and early May, and concluding with traditional
winter sports (basketball, wrestling and swimming)
in May and June.
Baker schools have shown over the past few
months that they can have in-person classes and
keep COVID-19 at bay. Evidence from many other
states that have already allowed prep sports shows
that competition, when done with appropriate pre-
cautions, is also safe.
How these sports seasons will proceed is uncertain.
We know they’ll be shorter than usual, lasting
about six weeks rather than a couple months.
Scheduling could be a challenge, considering
that the COVID-19 situation varies among coun-
ties, sometimes widely. Baker might not be able to
compete against its traditional rivals. It’s not clear
whether the Baker girls basketball team will be able
to defend their Class 4A state championship — a vic-
tory now almost two years in the past — or whether
that will wait until the return of traditional state
playoffs and tournaments in 2022.
Yet the prospect of seeing the Bulldogs return to
the fi eld, the court, the track, the course and the pool
is exciting regardless of the details.
Sure, it will feel a bit strange to watch a football
game and smell new grass rather than woodsmoke,
to walk into the BHS gym to take in a basketball
game or wrestling meet on a warm, sunlit spring
evening rather than a dark and chilly winter night.
But the peculiarity will be as nothing compared
to the joy of seeing young people wearing the purple
and gold again, to watch them compete on fi elds
and courts that were silent and empty for so many
months.
In the meantime, we can all help by taking the
precautions, such as wearing a mask where required
and following social distancing, that have helped
Baker County’s virus cases plummet over the past
month.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
City shouldn’t spend money
on train quiet zone
Thank you for your article covering
the Baker City Council meeting held
last Tuesday evening. The railroad
quiet zone and golf board appointment
process caught my attention.
It was pointed out that Baker City
residents already voted 82% to reject
the idea. A recent petition signed
by 230 residents only refl ects ap-
proximately 2% of Baker City’s current
population. I used to own a business
within spitting distance of the railroad
tracks and my daughter owned a house
with nothing but fi eld between she and
the tracks for years. We got used to
dealing around the whistles; they not
only warn humans, but wildlife of all
sorts including our beloved pets out for
a potty break. The railroad is a part of
the history of this community and the
whistle is a way for them to protect our
citizens. As far as South Baker School
is concerned, it is truly unfortunate
that site was chosen so close to the
tracks, but it is there and they work
around it. To ask the school board
again about their thoughts is a waste
of time as they already addressed it
a year and a half ago. Better to be
irritated by the whistle than to have a
child hit by the train. As a long-term
resident of Baker, I do not want to see
the city spend more resources around
this issue. Our very precious civil
servants’ time and our ever higher tax
monies all need to be used wisely and
frugally at this time.
Finally, I found the comments of
Councilor Jason Spriet questioning
the mayor as to why she did not ap-
point his preferred candidate after she
already logically explained why. As
quoted in the article he stated hers was
“an emotional response.” That com-
ment, most would consider sexist and
rude, and has no place on the Council.
Betty Milliman
Baker City
Thankful for the well-run
COVID-19 vaccine clinic
A very sincere “Thank You” to the
Baker County Health Department,
Letters to the editor
We welcome letters on any issue
of public interest. Letters are
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only). Email letters to news@
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local pharmacists, and all the volun-
teers for the COVID-19 vaccine clinic
held Friday, Feb. 12, at the Baker High
School gym, for the well-organized,
friendly and effi cient manner for re-
ceiving our fi rst dose of the COVID-19
vaccine.
So very pleased with your service
and organized manner! Thanks to each
and every one of you!
Cheryl and Richard Gushman
Baker City
Senators need local input on
wild, scenic rivers bill
Senators Wyden and Merkley’s River
Democracy Act of 2021 is actually a
3-million-acre land grab. This proposal
is to blanket designate as either wild,
scenic or recreational, “nearly 4,700
miles of rivers in all corners of Oregon.”
It would change the land use designa-
tion of more than 3 million acres in
Oregon, by enforcing a buffer of ½ mile
on each side of the waterway’s high-
water mark. This means that at least
an entire section of ground, 640 acres,
per river mile, will be eliminated from
activities which are not allowed under
the Wild and Scenic River Act. This
“interim” land withdrawal will last for
at least six years until a comprehensive
management plan is completed. The
economic effect of this bill will be dev-
astating to an economy that is already
suffering. Many streams listed in this
bill are not found to be in “near natural
condition, with all, or almost all, of
their natural values intact.” Mile-wide
unmanaged stream corridors will be
vulnerable to wildfi res, which will im-
pact water quality for decades. Detailed
studies of each of these river segments
should have been completed before any
of the waterways were proposed. The
local citizens should have had input
into these designations. This bill needs
to be either dropped, or a whole lot of
work and consultation must take place
in order to avoid serious consequences
to areas affected by this more than
3-million-acre land lockup. Contact
Senators Wyden and Merkley and ask
them to drop this bill, and hold local
hearings on any streams before they
change their designations.
Ken Alexander
Unity
City should fi gure out a way
to quiet train whistles
I don’t do this very often, but couldn’t
pass up the chance to rebut the mayor’s
comment about the “Quiet Zone.” In
2002 I was in my early 50s and a lot
of things have changed since then,
especially my age. In 2002 there were
8 or 10 trains a day and they went
through Baker at about 10 mph, now
there are, according to your count, 24
and they go through Baker City at a
speed of around 40 mph and they start
blowing their horns at Pocahontas
Road and don’t stop until they cross the
underpass. At that speed, they never
stop blowing their horn. If we as a city
can’t fi gure out how to make the money
needed, use part of one of Leo’s grants
and raise my water and sewer bill
some more, again. There is a reason La
Grande spent the money.
The only other solution I can see is to
put the horn on the inside of the cab of
the engine.
On another subject, the mayor said
she didn’t put Fred Warner Jr. on the
golf board because he didn’t stop and
say “hi” in the hallway. I was a member
of the golf board for nine years and
don’t think I ever talked to anybody on
the council in the hallway. That sounds
to me like something you hear in junior
high or high school. Fred would have
made a great addition to the golf board.
Larry Smith
Baker City
OTHER VIEWS
Gov. Cuomo’s COVID-19 cover-up
Editorial from The New York Daily
News:
We don’t hold New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo and his administration person-
ally liable for the deaths of more than
40,000 New Yorkers from COVID-19, or
for the more than 15,000 nursing home
and adult care facility residents among
that tally. Anyone who currently claims,
with what information is available, that
they can lay blame for all those deaths
at Cuomo’s feet is being disingenuous.
What’s diffi cult to excuse, though, is
the fact Cuomo and his team took so
long to release the full count of nurs-
ing home and other adult care facility
deaths, and misled New Yorkers about
the reason for the delay.
A new recording of a meeting
between Cuomo’s top aide Melissa
DeRosa and some Democratic state
lawmakers undermines the rationale
the state Health Department offered for
months as an excuse for why it was tak-
ing them so long to give New Yorkers
real answers about how many nurs-
ing home residents had succumbed to
COVID. In August, State Health Com-
missioner Dr. Howard Zucker blamed
the delay on tedious, ongoing efforts to
ensure its accuracy before releasing it
publicly.
DeRosa’s explanation was differ-
ent: The state stonewalled legislators’
requests for data because they feared
President Donald Trump’s unscrupu-
lous Justice Department would “use”
the data “against us.” At the time,
DOJ had launched investigations into
nursing home deaths in states led by
Democratic governors, despite the fact
nearly all states across the country,
both Democrat- and Republican-led, ex-
perienced severe nursing home COVID
outbreaks and deaths.
Though convenient, the Trump
bogeyman was no excuse to keep
the public in the dark on a matter of
intense, life-and-death interest. Nor did
it match up with reality: Even when
Joe Biden became president, Cuomo
kept fi ghting freedom of information
requests — until a court order forced
his hand.
The cover-up is always worse than
the crime. For this one, executed via
repeated misleading statements to the
public, there must be consequences,
starting with a better explanation and
some true contrition from Cuomo.