SATURDAY
STATE OFFICIAL SAYS SURGE IN COVID CASES HAS PEAKED: PAGE A2
In SPORTS, A6
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
September 18, 2021
Local • Outdoors
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Sports
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State plans
to kill most
wolves in
pack
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Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Erin
Hansen of Baker City.
Local, A3
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
The death toll in deer
in Baker Valley from a
disease spread by midges
has risen to 36 in less than
a month.
But a local wildlife bi-
ologist who’s tracking the
outbreak said the arrival
of colder weather will end
the threat, at least until
next year.
“One good freeze is all
we need,” said Brian Ratliff,
district wildlife biologist at
the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW)
Baker City offi ce.
Samantha O’Conner/Baker City Herald
BRIEFING
Natural Resource
Advisory
Committee
meeting Sept. 23
Baker County’s Natural
Resource Advisory Com-
mittee will meet Thursday,
Sept. 23 at 3 p.m. at the
Courthouse, 1995 Third St.
Members of the public will
have fi ve minutes each to
talk about natural resource
topics only. Agenda items
include an update on the
settlement of the county’s
lawsuit regarding the Con-
nor Creek Road, and the
River Democracy Act.
WEATHER
Today
67 / 39
Residents gathered at Geiser-Pollman Park on Thursday evening, Sept. 16, for a rally opposing COVID-19
vaccination mandates.
Speaker: ‘We will not comply’
About 100
people attend
rally opposing
vaccine mandate
against COVID-19 by
Oct. 18.
Dubbed the Eastern
Oregon Liberty Rally,
the event started with a
procession of vehicles, many
sporting American fl ags,
that traveled through town
By SAMANTHA O’CONNER
soconner@bakercityherald.com before ending at the park.
Dennis Bachman, who
More than a hundred
people gathered at Geiser- organized the rally, said
about 75 cars participated.
Pollman Park Thursday
Bachman, who works
evening, Sept. 16 for a
for the Baker City Public
rally opposing Gov. Kate
Works Department, said
Brown’s mandate that
health care workers, school he put on the rally because
he’s concerned about how
staff and many state
the vaccine mandate will
employees be vaccinated
affect fi refi ghters and other
emergency responders.
“While I was on vacation
traveling, that just kind of
gave me some time to think
on the situation and I just
don’t feel this is right at all,”
Bachman said. “So, when
I got back from vacation, I
decided that I was going to
try to help those guys out
and support them as well
as everybody else that is
under this mandate.”
Bachman said he was
pleased with the atten-
dance on a cool Thurs-
day evening.
“Of course I would have
liked to have seen a bigger
turnout, but for a fi rst time
rally of this sort in Baker,
with a weeks’ worth of plan-
ning, I thought it turned out
pretty good,” Bachman said.
Baker City Mayor Kerry
McQuisten, who is seeking
the Republican nomination
for Oregon governor in the
2022 election, was unable to
attend the rally.
Bachman read a state-
ment that McQuisten
provided.
See, Rally/Page A5
Schools have options for unvaccinated staff
Rain showers
Sunday
56 / 32
Rain showers
Monday
63 / 30
Mostly sunny
Full forecast on the
back of the B section.
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
Rings for
state
champs
“There’s not
on Friday, Sept. 17
going to be a mass
that he’s confi dent
exodus, I’m confi -
the protocols the
Baker School District
dent of that,” Witty
district has negoti-
employees who choose not
said. “I think we’ve
ated with its two
to be vaccinated against
come up with a rea-
COVID-19 before the state- unions, each of
sonable approach.
ordered Oct. 18 deadline and which represents
Witty
We’ve had multiple
instead opt for a medical or about 110 employ-
conversations with
religious exception will have ees, constituting the
bulk of the district staff, will both unions, and they were
to either wear an N95 face
very productive.”
mask while at work or take both protect the workforce
Toni Myers, president of
and students, and prevent
a weekly rapid test.
the Baker Education Asso-
any signifi cant loss of em-
Baker Schools Superin-
ployees due to the mandate. ciation, which represents the
tendent Mark Witty said
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
district’s 111 teachers, and
Rachelle Lemmon, president
of Baker Chapter 20 of the
Oregon School Employees
Association, the union that
represents the district’s 110
classifi ed employees, both
said recently that they don’t
expect the mandate will
result in a large number of
workers either resigning or
being fi red.
See, Schools/Page A5
Barley’s brew wins gold medal
Hops are especially
important ingredients in
IPAs — India Pale Ale — a
Tyler Brown had just
gotten back to Baker City style known for its hop-
heavy fl avor.
with a load of fresh hops
Brown said he makes
from Moxee when he was
asked about his brewery’s multiple trips in late sum-
mer to bring home hops
award-winning beer that
just harvested from fi elds
has that funny fi ve-letter
in the Moxee area.
word in its name.
After the travails of the
Brown was happy to
past 19 months of pandem-
chat about Moxee Water.
This session-style IPA, ic, with breweries forced to
brewed at Barley Brown’s cut back production and, in
in Baker City, won the gold some cases, to close, Brown
said it was especially grati-
medal in that category
fying to win a medal at the
at the Great American
world’s largest professional
Beer Festival on Friday,
beer competition.
Sept. 10.
The gold medal for
The Moxee in this case
is the town in Washington’s Moxee Water was Barley
Brown’s 26th medal at the
Yakima Valley, one of the
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald, File
competition since the brew- Barley Brown’s Brewery owner Tyler Brown, front,
Northwest’s prime hop-
ery entered its fi rst beer
growing regions.
prepares to sample a just-fi lled can of Pallet Jack
in 2006.
The fl owers from that
IPA at the Baker City brewery in April 2020. Brewers
plant give beer its distinc-
Eli Dickison, right, and his brother, Kyle Dickison, far
tive bitter bite.
See, Brew/Page A5 left, also worked on the packaging line.
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
TODAY
Issue 56, 12 pages
Classified ............. B2-B4
Comics ....................... B5
Community News ....A3
Crossword ........B2 & B4
Dear Abby ................. B6
Horoscope ........B3 & B4
Jayson Jacoby ..........A4
News of Record ........A2
Obituaries ..................A2
Opinion ......................A4
Outdoors ..........B1 & B2
Senior Menus ...........A2
TUESDAY — LOOKING BACK AT THE WEEKEND IN SPORTS
The Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife has au-
thorized killing most wolves
from the Lookout Mountain
pack, including its breeding
male.
But the agency does not
plan to target the breeding
female from the pack in east-
ern Baker County, which has
killed six head of cattle since
mid July and injured two oth-
ers, including a six-month-old
calf killed late last week.
The permit allows ranch-
ers to kill up to two wolves,
not including the breeding
pair, before Oct. 31. The
permit applies to four ranch-
ers who have lost cattle to
wolves, and allows any of
them to kill wolves on land
they either own or legally use
for grazing.
In addition, ODFW of-
fi cials intend to kill four other
wolves from the pack, includ-
ing the pack’s breeding male,
according to a press release
from the agency Thursday
evening, Sept. 16.
The pack numbers up
to nine wolves, according to
ODFW. Both the breeding
pair and fi ve juveniles, born
this spring and now weighing
about 50 pounds, have been
seen by ODFW employees as
recently as Sept. 8.
One or two yearling
wolves, born in the spring
of 2020, are likely still in
the area, although ODFW
workers haven’t seen either
yearling since Sept. 1, accord-
ing to the press release.
The breeding female had
a litter of at least seven pups
this spring. ODFW workers,
fi ring rifl es from a helicopter,
killed two of those pups on
Aug. 1, the day after ODFW
Director Curt Melcher issued
a lethal take permit for up
to four subadult wolves from
the pack.
Baker County Commis-
sioner Mark Bennett had
sent a letter to Melcher
earlier that week asking the
director to authorize the kill-
ing of some wolves.
No wolves have been
killed since Aug. 1.
There were no confi rmed
wolf attacks on cattle for
more than two weeks after
the two pups were killed.
But since Aug. 19, Lookout
Mountain wolves have killed
four more calves, according to
ODFW reports.
In response to the re-
peated attacks, Baker County
Sheriff Travis Ash sent a
letter to Melcher on Sept. 13
asking the state to kill the en-
tire Lookout Mountain pack.
In a press release Thurs-
day, Roblyn Brown, ODFW’s
state wolf coordinator, said
the agency’s initial strategy
of killing subadult wolves,
in an attempt to reduce the
amount of food the pack
needs, didn’t alter the pack’s
behavior and preference
for livestock as prey rather
than deer and elk, which
are common in the Lookout
Mountain area.
See, Wolves/Page A5
Sports ........................A6
Turning Backs ...........A2
Weather ..................... B6