SATURDAY
Baker’s
Sarah
Plummer
qualifi es for
state tennis
tournament
ANDREW ZELLARS THROWS SHUTOUT FOR BULLDOGS: PAGE 8A
A
PG. 7A
May 15, 2021
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County Clerk Certifi es New System For Tallying Ballots
Counting Ballots
PORTLAND (AP) — A
judge has ruled that one
of two Oregon brothers
accused in the insurrec-
tion at the U.S. Capitol will
be released from custody
Friday to a third-party
guardian, where he will
be on home detention and
GPS monitoring pending
his trial.
U.S. District Judge
Randolph D. Moss, of
the District of Columbia,
on Thursday granted
Matthew Klein’s pretrial
release to a Baker County
couple after refusing to
allow him to stay with his
parents.
■ County commissioners
might extend current
contract beyond August
By Samantha O’Conner
soconner@bakercityherald.com
Baker County’s often-delayed plan to
award a new contract for operating a visi-
tors center in Baker City could be extended
again, this time to March 2022.
That would be more than two years
after county commissioners were originally
slated to award the contract.
The current contract, for about $77,000
per year, is with the Baker County Cham-
ber of Commerce, which operates the visitor
center at 490 Campbell St., near Interstate
84. The money comes from the local tax that
guests pay at motels, bed and breakfasts,
vacation rental homes and other types of
lodging.
In December 2019, the county received
two proposals for visitor services, from the
Chamber and from the nonprofi t that owns
Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort.
In February 2020 commissioners post-
poned awarding the contract. In November
2020 commissioners decided to restart the
process, after the county’s attorney deter-
mined there were potential confl icts of
interest.
BRIEFING
Baker County
Garden Club to
meet May 19
The Baker County
Garden Club will meet on
Wednesday, May 19 at
10:30 a.m. at Eagle Cap
Nursery near Keating.
Please bring a sack lunch
and a chair.
Friends of Baker
Heritage Museum
meeting May 21
Friends of Baker Heritage
Museum will meet Friday,
May 21 at 4 p.m. at the
Museum, 2480 Grove St.
WEATHER
By Samantha O’Conner
77 / 39
The Baker County Clerk’s
offi ce has conducted the public
certifi cation on its new ballot
tallying system in time for the
May 18 election.
County Clerk Stefanie Kirby
explained how the machine
works, and how she and the
county’s election board count
votes, on Tuesday afternoon,
May 12.
During Tuesday’s demonstra-
tion at the Courthouse, Kirby
used test ballots for each of Bak-
er County’s 17 precincts to show
how the machine separates the
ballots onto three shelves:
• ballots that have no write-in
votes.
Sunday
82 / 42
Mostly sunny
Monday
83 / 44
Mostly sunny
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
See Contract/Page 5A
Samantha O’Conner/Baker City Herald
Baker County Clerk Stefanie Kirby conducted a public certifi cation of the county’s new ballot
tallying system on Tuesday, May 12 at the Courthouse.
Today
Mostly sunny
Visitor
center
debate
resumes
soconner@bakercityherald.com
• ballots that include write-in
votes.
• ballots that the machine
didn’t process and that need
to be examined for possible
mistakes, if any, before they’re
tallied.
Once all the ballots were pro-
cessed, Kirby printed a report
that showed the total number
of votes for each candidate and
measure in the test.
The participants in the certi-
fi cation election board checked
for ballots that had been
overvoted — the voter picked
more than one candidate, and
for undervotes, when the voter
doesn’t choose any candidate in
a race.
Election board members
separate tallied ballots by
precinct, and use the precinct
results report to double-check
the machine’s tallies.
The new machine — Elections
Systems and Software’s DS450
— tallies ballots faster than the
county’s previous machine, also
made by that company.
“Part of the reason why I
chose the DS450 is because
it’s the same company that
provided the ES&S 650,” Kirby
said. “So it’s continuity, it’s the
same company, it’s pretty much
the same tallying concept.
It’s updated technology and
software, basically, from what
we had.”
Baker schools
will require
masks rest of
school year
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Although both federal and state offi cials
have said fully vaccinated people needn’t
wear masks or socially distance in most
situations, Oregon schools will continue to
require students, staff and visitors to follow
those guidelines for the few remaining
weeks in the school year.
See Ballots/Page 2A
See Schools/Page 8A
Tackling the
trail troubles
■ The Trailhead in Baker City hires
seasonal employee to work on trails
in the Elkhorns, southern Wallowas
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Peter Johnson had something of an epiphany about
hiking trails when the trail his boots had recently been
treading on seemed to up and disappear.
He certainly couldn’t fi nd it, in any case.
That frustrating day a few years ago on the Cunning-
ham Cove trail — and off it — helped to inspire what
today is the Trailhead Stewardship Project.
See Trails/Page 3A
TODAY
Issue 2, 14 pages
Classified ............. 2B-4B
Comics ....................... 5B
Community News ....3A
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald, File, 2020
Dead trees, killed in the 1996 Sloans Ridge fi re, litter the Peavy trail in the Elkhorn
Mountains. A new partnership is designed to improve trail conditions in the range.
Crossword ........2B & 4B
Dear Abby ................. 6B
Horoscope ........2B & 4B
Jayson Jacoby ..........4A
News of Record ........2A
Obituaries ..................2A
Opinion ......................4A
Outdoors ..........1B & 6B
Sports .............. 7A & 8A
Senior Menus ...........2A
Turning Backs ...........2A
Weather ..................... 6B
TUESDAY — BIOLOGY STUDENTS PLANT TREES, HUNT FOR MORELS