SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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news@bakercityherald.com
OUR VIEW
Stop the
secrecy
Oregon state Sen. Mike Dembrow, D-Portland, has
been noisy about the need for the Oregon Health
Authority to be transparent about the COVID-19 data
it releases.
His bill, Senate Bill 719, would ensure that transpar-
ency. And though the bill should have long since passed
the Legislature, it would seem to be in good hands.
It’s in the committee Dembrow chairs, joint ways and
means.
The central premise of Oregon’s public records law
is that the public has a right to know what its govern-
ment is doing. Meetings are open to the public. Govern-
ment documents and the data behind them should be
open to the public if requested.
As good as Oregon’s law is, it teems with excep-
tions. One is for public health investigations, Oregon
Revised Statutes 433.008. It reads in part: “informa-
tion obtained by the Oregon Health Authority or a
local public health administrator in the course of an
investigation of a reportable disease or disease out-
break is confi dential and is exempt from disclosure.” So
when journalists and others have requested informa-
tion about testing rates by ZIP code for instance, the
request was denied.
ORS 433.008 doesn’t mean that the information
must be denied to the public. It means it can be denied.
And when government can deny the public informa-
tion, it often does.
Dembrow’s bill simply requires the Oregon Health
Authority or local public health administrator to
release aggregate information about reportable disease
investigations that does not identify individual cases or
sources of information after receiving a public records
request. This would not only apply to COVID-19. It
would also apply to salmonella and E. coli outbreaks.
State offi cials are trying to encourage Oregonians
to get vaccinated and continue to obey COVID restric-
tions and guidelines. It would send the wrong signal
for the Legislature to now tell Oregonians: “Let’s keep
the secrecy” and not pass this bill.
Your views
More to worry about than
some power line towers
There still seems to be quite a contro-
versy over Idaho Power’s B2H trans-
mission line and how unsightly the
power line towers will be. This reminds
me of a Bible verse (Matthew 23:24)
that refers to straining at a gnat but
swallowing a camel. In this case Idaho
Power’s B2H is the gnat. Unless the
people react, the camel will be what is
talked about, as follows.
The present administration wants to
totally eliminate the use of fossil fuels
including for generating electricity, and
there is talk of breaching our power-
generating dams. This would do away
with the two main sources of electricity
for this area. They propose replacing
these power sources with wind tur-
bines and fi elds of solar panels.
Just to meet the present demand for
electricity would require wind turbines
on every hilltop and along every ridge,
and solar panels covering a good por-
tion of the fl atter land. What a sight
that would be.
If that isn’t bad enough, just think
Letters to the editor
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald.
Columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of
the authors and not necessarily that of the Baker City Herald.
• We welcome letters on any issue of
public interest.
• The Baker City Herald will not
of all the extra electricity that will be
needed if the remainder of their plans
are enacted. Their plan includes, over a
relatively short period, making all cars
electric and all homes totally electric.
Since their plan appears to be
completely eliminate the use of fossil
fuels, it can be assumed that cars,
trucks, farm machinery, heavy equip-
ment, trains, planes, ships, etc. would
be included. In addition to homes there
would be restaurants, stores, factories,
steel mills, aluminum plants, hospitals,
etc.
The next point deals with the fact
that not only will you have a vast
number of wind turbines and solar
panel fi elds to deal with, but just think
of all the new power lines they will
create. Just think of all the substations
it will require to gather the electricity
and send it to where it is needed. Just
think of all the electrical points along
the highways that will be required to
recharge vehicle batteries.
What I have said here may not be
100% accurate but it is enough to indi-
cate that the people of this area have a
lot more to be concerned about visually
than a few transmission towers on
Idaho Power’s B2H proposal.
I have an anonymous email from a
few years back where someone wrote
the obituary for common sense. Based
on the direction the present adminis-
tration is going I would say the email
was correct, and common sense is dead.
Dick Culley
Baker City
knowingly print false or misleading
claims. However, we cannot verify the
accuracy of all statements in letters to
the editor.
Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald,
P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
Some people too selfi sh to
help city return to normal
Bravo to Gary Dielman and Cindy
Birko for sharing their views regarding
the attitudes of the local stupidheads
who are the biggest problems facing
us in Baker in getting our lives back to
normal. I am so disgusted with the lack
of intelligence many in the community
apparently possess and the fl agrant
city council members lack of leadership.
Shame on you all. I wear a mask for
you but you are too selfi sh to help our
city get back to normal.
Robin Raskin
Baker City
Email: news@bakercityherald.com
Flames transform a formerly familiar landscape
I didn’t believe a patch of black-
ened tree stumps could shock me.
I suppose I ought to have known
better.
I should have understood that
no number of conversations or
photographs or social media videos
could affect me as viscerally as see-
ing those stumps myself, and being
nearly close enough to smell the
acrid stench of charred fi r bark.
This epiphany happened on a
recent evening as I drove west on
Highway 22 in the canyon of the
North Santiam River in Marion
County.
The spot was about fi ve miles
upcanyon from Mill City, where my
parents live.
Drive another 16 miles beyond
Mill City and you’d be in Stayton,
where I grew up.
Almost eight months after the
Labor Day weekend fi res devastat-
ed several parts of Western Oregon,
including the North Santiam
Canyon, I visited the place where I
spent my fi rst 18 years.
It would be hyperbole to say I no
longer recognized what once was
familiar.
But I needn’t indulge in even a
whit of exaggeration to say both
that this canyon is a much differ-
ent place than when I last saw it,
in August 2019, and that not in my
lifetime will I ever see it as I once
did.
For the better part of a year I had
been anticipating the sights.
My parents, whose riverside
JAYSON
JACOBY
house was not damaged, have nar-
rated on multiple phone calls over
the months what they’ve seen while
driving around. Both have lived in
the area their entire lives, giving
them a perspective, and a sense of
things forever lost, that make my
own seem paltry.
Their descriptions, I now know
having seen some of the places for
myself, were certainly accurate.
I was dismayed by the detritus.
We drove through only a small
portion of the damaged area but it
was a depressing experience. The
sadness was cumulative as we
rolled past yet another heap of ash-
es and fl ame-sculpted metal that
wouldn’t be recognizable as the site
of a building if not for the concrete
foundation that alone survived.
It strikes me as indescribably
cruel that fi re, in what must have
been a matter of minutes, could
turn a family’s most valuable
possession into something so ugly,
fi t only to be dumped into a pit, so
much worthless trash.
And yet nothing I saw affected
me so powerfully, though it wasn’t
so depressing, as that one patch of
stumps. It’s on the south side of the
highway. What struck me was not
just the stumps — I had seen thou-
sands of burned trees during the
previous 15 miles or so — but what
the absence of the former stand of
tall Douglas-fi rs had revealed.
This is the east end of a loop road
that runs through a residential
area. I have driven past the spot
probably 100 times. I don’t recall
ever even noticing the street sign,
which is much less conspicuous
than the one at the west terminus
of the loop.
At least it was much less con-
spicuous.
Not now, with its coniferous cloak
stripped away.
In those few seconds as I steered
my car through the highway curve
I might have believed, before reality
reasserted itself, that I was not
where I knew myself to be.
It was disconcerting.
I sensed the mindless, primeval
force that is fi re, its terrible power
to not only rob people of what they
cherish, but even to steal, in effect,
their memories of what was not
merely familiar but perhaps, or so
we innocently believed, was even
perpetual.
✐
✐
✐
The Elkhorn Mountains are lying
to me.
Again.
This repeated prevarication is
particularly troubling because I
consider the Elkhorns my friend, to
the extent that an inanimate object
can play such a role, and no lie cuts
quite so deeply as the one commit-
ted by someone we care for.
The Elkhorns are misleading
me — and I presume many others
who, as people are wont to do,
look frequently at the mountains
— about the amount of snow still
packed into its forested nooks and
crannies.
I get a fi ne view of the Elkhorns
each day, except ones heavy of
cloud, while driving home from
work, westward along Auburn
Avenue.
The vantage point, however,
contributes to the illusion.
I see, and quite prominently,
slopes that tend to shed their snow
relatively early in spring. These
are places so rocky and steep that
snow never accumulates to any
great depth, or that, owing to their
southerly exposure, absorb a lot of
snow-melting sunlight.
These two factors, and in some
places the combination of the two,
erase the white from swathes of the
Elkhorns, particularly on the south
side of Hunt Mountain and above
the North Fork of Pine Creek.
The other day, as I crossed
the railroad tracks on a sunny
afternoon, I noticed bare patches
near the top of Hunt Mountain’s
shoulder, an elevation of nearly
8,000 feet.
But just a few days earlier I
hiked up the Rock Creek road, just
north of Hunt Mountain.
And although much of the route
was below 5,500 feet elevation, the
snow still lay in drifts three or four
feet deep.
But those drifts along the road
can’t be seen from the valley.
Over the years I’ve come to rec-
ognize the fallacy of what I see from
town. More than once I’ve driven to
the Elkhorns, anticipating an early
hike based on a misreading of the
scene, only to fi nd my intended route
buried by the fi rm and grainy snow
of April or May (or, some years, June).
My homeward view sometimes
still leads me astray, albeit briefl y.
But I have a bellwether of sorts
that has proved to be far more reli-
able than a cursory glance at the
Elkhorns’ east slopes. I look at the
point where Hunt Mountain juts
farthest to the east, and in particular
its north side. In a year with a snow-
pack that’s near to average, there
will still be snow in that spot on May
18 — I use that date because, being
the anniversary of the 1980 eruption
of Mt. St. Helens, I seem to be able to
remember it.
On the day I was taken aback a
bit by the snowless areas, after I was
home I stepped into my yard and
made a more thorough examination.
What I saw is that on the sheltered
north slopes, snow still speckles
the dark background of the forests
well down Hunt Mountain. Those
lingering drifts tell a much truer tale
than the bare sedimentary brows
elsewhere on the peak.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.