Business
AgLife
B
Thursday, September 30, 2021
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Judge stays
lawsuit
against USDA
Mounting
disasters
reveal gaps in
USDA relief
programs
Baker City couple
challenged USDA loan
forgiveness program
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Capital Press
PORTLAND — A federal
judge has stayed a lawsuit brought
by an Oregon couple who’ve chal-
lenged a USDA loan forgiveness
program for allegedly discrimi-
nating against white farmers.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia
Sullivan has put the litigation on
hold to “avoid unnecessary, dupli-
cative government action” because
the plaintiffs, Kathryn
and James Dunlap, are
already represented in
a class action lawsuit
against the $4 billion
debt relief program.
The judge said
J. Dunlap
the “interests of judi-
cial efficiency weigh
in favor of a stay”
because it would “not
unduly prejudice
plaintiffs, nor would it
present tactical disad-
K. Dunlap
vantages to plaintiffs.”
The Dunlaps, who farm near
Baker City, are among several
growers across the U.S. who
have claimed white farmers were
unlawfully excluded from the
loan assistance program, which
was passed by Congress as part of
COVID-19 relief legislation earlier
this year.
Under the program, farmers
who are Black, Native American,
Asian, Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
are eligible for payments of up to
120% of their USDA loans, which
critics argue violates equal protec-
tion under the law.
“Farmers and ranchers who are
white are ineligible for loan assis-
tance, regardless of their individual
circumstances,” according to the
complaint filed by the Dunlaps,
who have otherwise qualifying
USDA loans for cattle and farm
equipment.
The USDA argued their lawsuit
and similar ones must be stayed
because a class action case has
been certified in Texas that already
represents their interests while also
enjoining the debt relief program.
The Dunlaps objected to the
stay, arguing the class action may
not adequately represent their
interests, but the judge said she
would follow the example of fed-
eral courts in other states that have
put similar cases on hold.
The Texas class action lawsuit
“involves the same defendants,
See, Loans/Page B2
Lisa Arnold also had a pos-
itive first take.
“The prices are low and
the cashier was over-the-top
friendly,” she said of her initial
impression of Dollar General.
The store, open from
8 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days
a week, is on the eastern edge
of Elgin adjacent to Highway
82. Carl Vinson, who was
among the first day day cus-
tomers, believes more tour-
ists will now be stopping in
Elgin because the new store
is so easy to pull into off the
highway.
“It will help our economy,”
said Vinson, an Elgin resident.
Dollar General will
employ as many as 10 people,
SALEM — A series of natural
disasters has opened the eyes of
Oregon farmers to the ways fed-
eral relief programs often aren’t
well-suited to the state’s specialty
crops.
Agriculture has suffered from
wildfires, ice storms, extreme
heat and severe drought over the
past year, exposing “gaps” in
USDA assistance that’s generally
designed for major commodity
crops, experts say.
“When you have a federal
program that’s supposed to serve
everyone, we kind of get left
out,” said Tiffany Monroe, grass-
roots coordinator for the Ore-
gonians for Food and Shelter
agribusiness group. “We need
programs to support that type of
farming, but right now they’re
not.”
Farmers can be disqualified
from receiving disaster assistance
from USDA if they haven’t bought
federal crop insurance, but many
growers don’t see enough benefit
to sign up, she said.
Crop insurance may cost
more than they’d expect to poten-
tially gain from the coverage, and
many are also dissuaded by the
complexity of the requirements,
Monroe said.
For example, calculating ice
damage to tree limbs a hazelnut
orchard is more difficult than
estimating damage to a soybean
field, she said. Sun-burned foliage
on Christmas trees is also chal-
lenging to describe, particularly
if it’s unknown whether they’ll
survive.
“They are discouraged from
getting insurance because these
programs aren’t designed for their
commodities,” Monroe said.
The USDA’s tree assistance
program, which also covers
bushes and vines, requires 15%
mortality to kick in. However,
Oregon farmers have experi-
enced damage that hasn’t actu-
ally killed their plants, said Mary
Anne Cooper, vice president of
public policy for the Oregon Farm
Bureau.
Crop loss manifests itself in
other ways, such as heat damage
or smoke taint that destroys the
fruit, she said.
“In most cases, you didn’t
see the actual tree, bush or vine
die,” Cooper said. “The program
See, Elgin/Page B6
See, Relief/Page B2
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Laura Parsons browses the shelves at the newly opened Dollar General in Elgin along Highway 82 on Monday,
Sept. 27, 2021.
On the money
Dollar General customers provide encouraging reviews
By DICK MASON
The Observer
ELGIN — Elgin has a new
shopping option, one that has
residents excited.
A Dollar General store
opened in Elgin on Monday,
Sept. 27, at 450 Baltimore St.
“I think it is a great addi-
tion to Elgin. It gives us a new
opportunity to shop locally,”
said Elgin Mayor Risa
Hallgarth.
The store may become a
one-stop-shopping destina-
tion for some. Dollar General
offers a wide variety of items,
including food, cleaning sup-
plies, paper products, over-
the-counter medicines,
hygiene products, DVDs, toys
and baby items.
In the future the store also
will be carrying a variety of
fresh fruits and vegetables,
according to a press release
from Dollar General. The pro-
duce section will offer the
top-20 items typically sold in
traditional grocery stores and
cover approximately 80% of
produce categories most gro-
cery stores carry.
Laura Parsons was among
Dollar General’s opening-day
customers and believes
the store will be a popular
addition.
“I think it is wonderful. All
of Elgin is going to appreciate
it. It is a mini Walmart,” she
said.
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
The Dollar General opened its doors on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, after a
short development time brought the first big chain business to Elgin.
Parsons believes that fewer
people will be traveling from
Elgin to shop at the Walmart
in Island City because of the
new Dollar General.
David and Teri Fuhrman,
owners of Cowboy and
Angel’s Place in Elgin, also
were impressed with the
new store. Teri Fuhrman
said they intend to purchase
many items, including canned
food, for their restaurant from
Dollar General because of its
low prices.
Phyllis Bechtel also
expressed enthusiasm for the
new store.
“It looks like it is going to
come in handy. It will be a
fun place to shop,” she said.
“We won’t have to travel to La
Grande as much to get things.”
The Brick opens, offering unique fare in Wallowa
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA —A local couple
has taken over the former Main
Street Grill and revamped and
reopened the place dubbing it The
Brick Restaurant.
Cody and Tish Green opened
The Brick in April. The name
of the new establishment comes
more from its structure than any-
thing, Tish said.
“It actually wasn’t anything
spectacular,” she said. “We were
having a hard time landing on a
name and we looked around one
day and because the building’s all
brick, it became The Brick.”
In fact, she relishes the local
and family history of the building.
On one of the walls she keeps
photographs of the building from
the 1880s and 1902 of the Hotel
McCrae, owned and operated by
her stepgrandmother’s family. She
said the building was sold in 1902,
thus the latter photo.
“And now we have it,” she said.
The Greens are green
Neither Cody nor Tish has run a
restaurant or bar before and they’re
learning as they go, they said.
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Tish and Cody Green prepare to open The Brick Restaurant in Wallowa, their new
venture on Main Street, on Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021.
“We’re green at it,” Tish said.
“I worked as a property manager
for Chrisman (Development) for
the past five years while I lived
here. When Wiley (Frye) decided
to sell this place … we just got
a wild hair and thought we’d
try and do it. I’ve always loved
cooking at home and now we’re
serving other people.”
Cody, on the other hand, has
more experience with cattle. He
operates his grandfather’s 1,000-
acre ranch where he raises about
100 head of Hereford-Angus
cross.
“I don’t know anything about
restaurants,” he said. “I’m mainly
doing it to help Tish.”
He’s the main bartender, but
also handles the front end of the
restaurant while Tish cooks.
“He was saying (a few days
previously) how his life has
changed opening this place
because he used to work solely
with cows and didn’t have to
work with many people,” Tish
said. “Now he’s in this profession
where he’s (working with people)
all day, every day, so it’s been a
huge change for him.”
Does he prefer people or
cattle?
“A little bit of both,” Cody said
with a laugh.
He grew up in the Wallowa
area, while Tish is from Pend-
leton and has lived here only
about six years. But she’s no
stranger to the area.
“I spent a lot of summers here
because my grandparents were
here,” she said. “We spent all our
lives coming to Wallowa, but as
far as actually moving here, that
was in 2015.”
Working out ‘kinks’
Being that the restaurant busi-
ness is new to thems, they’re still
working out bumps in the road.
“We’re still trying to figure
out ‘kinks’ before we settle into
a menu and what works for us,
especially as we move toward
a fall and winter menu,” Tish
said. “The hours, we’ve had to
change a little bit — we even had
to close the past couple of weeks
because we had to stay in quar-
antine because we were exposed
to COVID, and we absolutely had
no income the past two weeks, so
that was another kink we had to
work out.”
Other delays were caused by a
wait to get liability insurance to
cover the hard liquor in the bar.
“It was previously just beer and
wine,” Tish said. “But figuring
our hours and what works for us
— we open at 3 p.m. and it usu-
ally picks up about 5 p.m.”
Finding their niche
Adding one more eatery to a
small town may seem like too
much, but the Greens have found
See, Brick/Page B6