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 $1.50 Northeast Oregon Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com Local • Business & AgLife • Go! magazine 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