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NORTH POWDER’S ANNUAL FESTIVAL CELEBRATES THE SWEET HUCKLEBERRY: PG. A5
In HOME, B1
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
August 3, 2021
IN THIS EDITION:
Home & Living • Local • Sports • TV
August’s
soggy
start
QUICK HITS
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Teresa
Young of Baker City.
State, A3
JOSEPH — Quincy El-
lenwood smiled as a pair of
young Nez Perce men rode
their horses across a hay
fi eld here Thursday, July 29.
Their pace — slow
and steady — quickened
without warning. Soon the
two men, one shirtless and
the other wearing a beaded
vest, raced across the
grassy slope.
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
BRIEFING
Family-friendly,
free movies at
Central Park
Every Thursday night
this summer, catch a free
movie in Baker City’s
Central Park. “The Croods”
begins at 8:45 p.m. on
Aug. 5, and 1984’s “The
Karate Kid” will be shown
Aug. 12.
Aug. 19 will feature
“Raya and the Last
Dragon” and Aug. 26 is
“The Goonies.”
These screenings are
made possible by the
Baker County Safe Com-
munities Coalition and
Baker School District.
Baker County Garden
Club’s annual auction,
meeting set for Aug. 4
The Baker County
Garden Club will meet on
Wednesday, Aug. 4 at 10:30
a.m. for the annual auction
and meeting at the Daugh-
erty home, 995 J St. Please
bring auction items from
your garden or extra items
from home, along with a
sack lunch and beverage.
WEATHER
Today
97 / 54
Sunny
Wednesday
96 / 56
Partly sunny
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
$1.50
Rainwater drips from a fl ower in Baker City on Sunday,
Aug. 1.
fl ux of monsoon moisture
August, by contrast,
needed but a single day to from the Southwest that
surpass not only July but brought humidity more
August arrived as the
typical of the Deep South
also June.
anti-July.
than of the arid West.
Rainfall at the airport
Everything July was, in
According to the Na-
terms of weather, the fi rst added up to 0.34 of an inch
tional Weather Service in
day of August was not in on Aug. 1. That tops the
combined total of .23 from Boise, the amount of mois-
Baker County.
This July not only was July and June. It was the ture in the atmosphere
wettest day at the airport — measured by a weather
the hottest on record at
balloon released from
the Baker City Airport — since May 25, when 0.38
the Boise Airport — set
it was the hottest month, of an inch fell, and the
records over the weekend.
second-wettest in more
period.
This moist invasion was
than a year.
July’s average high
refl ected in two related
August’s cool, soggy
temperature was 92.3
degrees, nipping the pre- start was caused by an in- measurements at the Bak-
vious record of 92.0 set in
July 1985.
But August started
cool, with a high of 79
degrees on the fi rst day
of the month. It was the
coolest day at the airport
since June 16, when the
high was 76. The high was
also eight degrees below
average for the fi rst day of
August.
The drought that has
plagued Baker County
and much of the rest of
Oregon deepened during
July.
A meager .02 of an inch
of rain fell at the airport
during the month, scarce-
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
ly enough to moisten the Rainwater drips from the needles of a ponderosa pine
dust.
tree near Phillips Reservoir on Sunday, Aug. 1.
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
A settlement confer-
ence is set for Friday, Aug.
6 in the civil suit Baker
County fi led more than two
years ago seeking to force a
landowner near the Idaho
border to open a locked
gate that has blocked pub-
lic access to a road since
2017.
The conference is sched-
uled for 9 a.m. in Baker
County Circuit Court in
the Courthouse, 1995 Third
St.
If the suit isn’t settled,
it’s tentatively set to go to
trial Oct. 11, 2021.
The Baker County
Board of Commissioners
decided in early 2019 to fi le
the suit. Larry Sullivan,
an attorney from Vale, fi led
the lawsuit on the county’s
behalf on Feb. 7, 2019.
The original defendants
were Todd Longgood and
the Dennis Omer Hansen
TODAY
Revocable Living Trust.
The county later added
Forsea River Ranch LLC
of Richland, which owns a
parcel adjacent to Long-
good’s property, as a
defendant.
Longgood’s attorney,
Charles F. Hudson of Port-
land, in June of this year
fi led a motion revising the
list of defendants.
In addition to Forsea
River Ranch LLC, the
defendants are Timber
Canyon Ranch LLC, of
which Longgood is the sole
member, Kennerly Ranches
LLC, which, according to
the motion, has acquired
all the ownership interest
in the property that Han-
sen previously had.
Kennerly Ranches is
registered to Guy Kennerly
of Roseburg.
The lawsuit is based
on a contested road that
connects two county roads
— Daly Creek Road, north-
Classified ............. B4-B6
Comics ....................... B7
Community News ....A3
east of Lookout Mountain,
and the Snake River Road
just above Brownlee Res-
ervoir.
The road is commonly
called Connor Creek Road,
as it follows that stream
for a few miles from its
eastern terminus at the
Snake River Road. The
gate, however, is at the op-
posite, western end of the
road. Longgood, who along
with Hansen bought a
parcel of land in that area
in early 2017, had the gate
locked in August 2017.
In its lawsuit the county
contends that the road is a
historic public route that
can’t be blocked.
Longgood’s attorneys
disagree, citing historic
maps, property deeds and
other records as evidence
that the gated road was
built after the land was
converted from public to
private.
The lawsuit, which
Crossword ........B4 & B6
Dear Abby ................. B8
Home & Living ....B1-B4
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
er City Airport — relative
humidity and dewpoint.
Relative humidity
measures the amount of
water vapor in the air as
a percentage of the total
amount of vapor the air
could hold, at a given tem-
perature, before some of
the vapor condenses into
clouds.
Dewpoint is the tem-
perature at which relative
humidity would reach
100%.
The higher the humid-
ity, the smaller the gap
between the dewpoint and
the actual air tempera-
ture. At 100% humidity,
for instance, the tempera-
ture and the dewpoint are
equal, and typically fog or
low clouds will form.
On a typical summer
day in Baker County,
however, that gap is quite
wide, because the relative
humidity, which tends
to reach its lowest point
during the afternoon, often
drops below 20%.
That was the situation
on Friday afternoon, July
30. At 4 p.m. the relative
humidity at the Baker
See, Rain/Page A5
See, Wolves/Page A3
Sett lement conference set Friday
in Baker County’s road lawsuit
By Jayson Jacoby
ODFW
kills 2
wolves
Employees from the
Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife, fi ring
rifl es from a helicopter,
shot and killed two wolf
pups from the Lookout
Mountain pack on Sun-
day, Aug. 1.
On Thursday, July
29, the agency’s direc-
tor authorized either
ODFW employees, or a
Baker County ranching
couple or their desig-
nated agents, to kill
up to four sub-adult
wolves from that pack,
which has attacked
their cattle at least four
times since mid-July.
The Lookout Moun-
tain wolves have
killed two animals and
injured two others,
according to ODFW
investigations.
The two wolves
killed Sunday are 3
1/2-month-old pups,
according to Michelle
Dennehy, an ODFW
spokesperson.
The agency con-
fi rmed earlier this year
that the pack’s breeding
female and male —
neither of which can be
killed under the permit
issued Thursday — pro-
duced a litter of seven
pups this year.
During the helicopter
fl ight on Sunday, ODFW
employees saw at least
fi ve pups and the two
adults, Dennehy said.
They didn’t see either
of the two yearlings
wolves, which were born
in the spring of 2020.
Dampest day in more than
two months temporarily
curbs fi re danger, trims
Baker City water use
By Jayson Jacoby
Summer’s
time for
tomatoes
seeks an injunction requir-
ing the defendants to cease
restricting public access on
the Connor Creek Road,
contends that a resolu-
tion county commissioners
passed in 2002 affi rms the
road as public and pre-
cludedes landowners from
blocking access on that
road.
Commissioners passed
that resolution after a
different property owner,
on the eastern end of the
road at the Connor Creek
Mine, also put in a locked
gate. The resolution, citing
a one-sentence federal stat-
ute from 1866 that assures
public access to routes not
otherwise reserved, states
that the entire Connor
Creek Road, including the
section crossing the prop-
erty Longgood now owns, is
a public right-of-way that
can’t be blocked.
Horoscope ........B5 & B6
News of Record ........A2
Obituaries ..................A2
See, Lawsuit/Page A5
Senior Menus ...........A2
Sports ........................A6
Sudoku ...................... B7
TUESDAY — GO! MAGAZINE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE
West
Nile virus
found in
mosquitoes
east of
Baker City
First time virus
detected in
Baker County
since 2019
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
After a one-year hia-
tus in 2020, West Nile
virus has returned to
Baker County.
But so far the virus
has been detected in
mosquitoes only.
The biting bugs can
transmit the virus to
people, and to horses.
The virus was found
in mosquitoes trapped on
July 19 about 15 miles
east of Baker City, said
See, Virus/Page A3
Turning Backs ...........A2
Weather ..................... B8