THURSDAY
BAKER VOLLEYBALL RUNS ITS WINNING STREAK TO 8 MATCHES: PAGE A6
SEPTEMBER 29–OCTOBER 6, 2021
Learn
SAGE
Harvest
Festival
Listen
Jonathan
Foster at
Terminal Gravity
Explore
Pendleton
Underground
comes to life
PAGE 3
PAGE 12
PAGE 17
WWW.GOEASTERNOREGON.COM
African animal
parade in
Baker
City
PAGE 8
Lisa Britton/Go! Magazine
A giraff e sculpture guards Main Street in Baker City.
“The food is fresh, locally sourced and unbelievably delicious.
Their IPAs are distinct and clearly not copy-cats of each other or
anyone else making NW IPAs.” - Yelp Review, Bend. Oregon
1219 Washington Ave • La Grande, OR 97850
www.sideabeer.com
GO! Magazine
September 30, 2021
IN THIS EDITION:
Your weekly guide
to arts and
entertainment
events around
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COVID
cases drop
QUICK HITS
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
But fewer people
are being tested
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Mike
Murray of Baker City.
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
BRIEFING
Baker City ends
burning restriction
Due to recent rain and
cooler temperatures,
outdoor burning, includ-
ing debris piles and burn
barrels, is allowed again
in Baker City after being
prohibited for most of the
summer due to high fi re
danger.
Free permits that allow
outdoor burning of un-
treated wood, paper and
yard debris are available
at the front offi ce of the
Baker City FIre Depart-
ment, 1616 Second St.
Permits are valid through
Dec. 31, 2021.
Oregon FFA’s
annual Drive Away
Hunger event runs
all of October
Oregon FFA chapters
are collecting nonperish-
able food during October
for the annual Drive Away
Hunger project.
People can drop off do-
nations at any Oregon Les
Schwab Tire Center during
October. The food drive is
set for October to help lo-
cal food banks stock up for
the holiday season.
FFA, formerly known as
Future Farmers of Amer-
ica, is a national youth
organization with more
than 760,113 members,
including in Baker County.
Lew Brothers Les
Schwab Tires in Baker City
is at 210 Bridge St.
WEATHER
Today
71 / 36
Sunny
Friday
68 / 31
Mostly sunny
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
Deon Strommer/Contributed Photo
Deon Strommer stands next to a portable morgue set up in New York City during the spring of 2020.
Inside the COVID crisis
Deon Strommer of Baker City was helping in New York
City during the height of the pandemic in the spring of 2020
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
While Baker County had yet to
report its fi rst COVID-19 case in the
spring of 2020, Deon Strommer was
seeing the bodies of virus victims
stacked atop one another in New
York City.
It was an experience Strommer, who
lives near Baker City, will never forget.
And it was an experience that
continues, more than a year and a half
later, to infl uence his attitude about the
pandemic.
Having seen fi rsthand some of the
worst effects of COVID-19 anywhere in
America, Strommer is a staunch advo-
cate of vaccination and of face masks.
“I try to understand both sides,
but I think if people could see what I
have seen ...” Strommer, 63, said in an
interview on Tuesday, Sept. 28. “I have
a high sensitivity about COVID. I saw a
whole different facet of it.”
Strommer’s work in New York City,
and in other places in the early stages
of the pandemic in 2020, stem from his
profession as a funeral director.
He moved to Baker City in 1987 and
has been in the mortuary business for
nearly 40 years. He and his wife, Amy,
moved to Portland about 12 years ago,
where he owned a mortuary service
that included conducting cremations
and helping funeral homes.
But the couple kept their home near
Baker City and visited frequently.
“We always intended to retire in
Baker City,” Strommer said. “It’s great
to be back in the community and to
reconnect with people I haven’t seen in
a long time.”
— Deon Strommer, talking
about the number of COVID-19
deaths in New York City during
the spring of 2020
Although most funeral directors
devote most of their time to helping
grieving families, some also fulfi ll a
different role — helping to process, care
for and in some cases identify the bod-
ies of victims of natural disasters and
other events involving large numbers
of deaths.
Strommer said he was contacted by
an offi cial from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency after the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Although he
was on a list of mortuary professionals,
he was never called to New York City
to assist in that disaster.
But the next spring, while attending
a conference of the Oregon Funerals
Directors, Strommer learned about
the Disaster Mortuary Operational
Response Teams.
These are groups of experts, includ-
ing morticians, who travel across the
nation, and sometimes abroad, when
a large number of deaths in a short
period overwhelms the capacity of
local mortuaries.
Strommer joined one of these
teams in 2002 and he’s been a mem-
ber since.
He likened the teams to the
National Guard, as members are
temporary federal employees who
are dispatched as needed.
In the past 19 years Strommer
has deployed to places devastated by
hurricanes, including New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
and in Puerto Rico and Haiti.
Helping with COVID
On Jan. 31, 2020, while he and
Amy were in Portland, preparing
for their retirement and return to
Baker City, Strommer got a call to
fl y to Travis Air Force Base north of
San Francisco.
His team’s task was to help U.S.
citizens who were returning from
Wuhan, China, and thus potentially
infected with a virus few people
outside the research community had
then heard of.
Strommer said the team was
dispatched not because offi cials ex-
pected a large number of deaths, but
because team members were trained
both in wearing personal protective
equipment and in helping people in
emotionally diffi cult situations.
During his two weeks or so at
Travis, Strommer said his chief
job was to help people get off the
planes that brought them from
China, and to assist them while they
quarantined in housing on the Air
Force base.
See, Crisis/Page A5
Chamber, Anthony Lakes again vie for visitor center contract
That contract, which Baker
County Commissioners extended
several times in 2020 and earlier
Baker County’s often-delayed
this year, expired Aug. 31.
plan to pick a contractor to oper-
The Chamber has continued to
ate a visitors center in Baker City
operate the visitors center since the
has yielded two proposals, and the
contract expired, executive director
applicants are the same two that
Shelly Cutler said.
sought the contract almost two
County commissioners are tenta-
years ago.
The deadline to submit proposals tively set to meet Oct. 14 and choose
for the visitor services contract was between the two proposals. The new
contract would run through Jan. 1,
Sept. 24, and the county received
2024. Money for the contract comes
proposals from the Baker County
from the tax that guests pay at
Chamber of Commerce (under the
motels, bed and breakfasts, vaca-
umbrella of Baker County Unlim-
tion rental homes and other lodging
ited) and Anthony Lakes Outdoor
businesses.
Recreation Association (previous
Baker County offi cials declined
Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort).
The Chamber of Commerce had to give copies of the two proposals to
the Baker City Herald.
the previous contract, for about
In an email, county counsel Kim
$77,000 per year. The Chamber
runs a visitors center at 490 Camp- Mosier wrote that the county, in the
Request for Proposals (RFP) that
bell St., near Interstate 84.
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
TODAY
Issue 61, 32 pages
Business ...........B1 & B2
Calendar ....................A2
Classified ............. B2-B4
Comics ....................... B5
Community News ....A3
Crossword ........B3 & B4
county commissioners approved
Sept. 8, “made assurances to poten-
tial proposers that their responses
would be kept confi dential until they
are discussed in a public meeting by
the (Transient Lodging Tax) Com-
mittee and a recommendation is
sent to the Board of Commissioners.”
“The intent of this provision is
to allow the TLT Committee to ask
questions, seek clarifi cation and
potentially negotiate with each
proposer, without disclosing the con-
tents of the proposal to the compet-
ing proposers,” Mosier wrote.
The lodging tax committee is
scheduled to meet Oct. 7 to review
the two proposals. The committee will
then make a recommendation to the
county commissioners, who have the
fi nal say in awarding the contract.
Oregon health offi cials said
Tuesday, Sept. 28 that the
summer surge in COVID-19
cases appears to have peaked
in the state, and Baker
County’s numbers show a
similar trend.
But the drop in the coun-
ty’s new cases might refl ect, in
part, a decrease in the number
of residents being tested.
After reporting a weekly
record of 139 new cases from
Sept. 12-18, the county’s total
dipped to 86 cases from Sept.
19-25, a 38.2% decline.
The number of COVID-19
tests in the county went down
by 34.1% for the same period,
from 580 tests the week of
Sept. 12-18, to 382 tests from
Sept. 19-25.
The county’s test positivity
rate had a much smaller drop,
from 23.8% from Sept. 12-18,
to 22.2% the following week.
The latter fi gure was the
third-highest positivity rate
among Oregon’s 36 counties
for that week, behind Lake
County (25.9%) and Harney
County (25.0%).
The statewide test positiv-
ity rate for Sept. 19-25 was
8.9%.
Five county residents have
died during September after
testing positive, the most
in any month. The county’s
death toll during the pan-
demic is 24.
September has also set a
record for total cases.
Through Sept. 28, the
monthly total was 443. The
previous record was set in
August of this year, with
300 cases. September’s total
exceeded that fi gure after
17 days.
See, COVID/Page A3
City Council
wants
resolution
opposing
vaccine
mandate
By SAMANTHA O’CONNER
soconner@bakercityherald.com
The Baker City Council
will seek to express opposi-
tion to Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown’s vaccine and mask
mandates through a resolu-
tion rather than a lawsuit, at
least for now.
The Council voted unani-
mously on Tuesday, Sept. 28
to instruct City Manager Jon
Cannon to draft a resolu-
tion similar to what some
other cities and counties
have approved regarding the
mandates.
Councilors have recently
heard, through conference
calls, from two attorneys,
Kevin Mannix and Tyler
Smith, about the legal situ-
ation.
Mayor Kerry McQuisten
said she took away from
those sessions that there
are 50 to 100 other lawsuits
already in the works that would
See, Contract/Page A5
Dear Abby ................. B6
Horoscope ........B3 & B4
Letters ........................A4
Lottery Results ..........A2
News of Record ........A2
Obituaries ..................A2
SATURDAY — NEW CHILD CARE CENTER SET TO OPEN IN BAKER CITY
See, Council/Page A3
Opinion ......................A4
Sports ........................A6
Weather ..................... B6
