THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2021
BAKER CITY HERALD — A3
LOCAL & STATE
Budget shortfall forces
John Day to close
police department
Police department
will close Oct. 31
forcement services in the city
limits. But the grant decision
has been delayed, Green said,
forcing the city to move up
the timetable for halting law
enforcement operations even
though it’s still in the running
for the federal funds.
“There’s a lot of uncer-
tainty around that,” he said.
“That’s the reason I’m using
the term ‘suspend’ instead of
‘dissolve’ or ‘disband.’”
The department was
already down to about half
strength, with just two full-
time offi cers and no chief
after Chief Mike Durr retired
earlier this year.
The department’s two re-
maining full-time employees,
Sgt. Scott Moore and Offi cer
Travis Piercy, will transition
into new jobs with the Public
Works Department.
Moore, who attended the
meeting, said he and Piercey
had been working long hours
to patrol the city but couldn’t
keep up that pace indefi nitely.
“It’s just reality right now,”
he said. “With just the two of
us, it’s just not feasible. It’s
just not safe.”
Several councilors
expressed dismay that the
city could no longer keep the
department running.
Heather Rookstool said
she didn’t want to suspend
the police department but
didn’t see any alternative.
With such a small force,
she said, offi cer safety is
compromised.
“I hate this, but with only
two (offi cers), I don’t see this
as something we can do,” she
said. “I don’t want to be the
reason for something bad
happening to one of them.”
Grant County Sheriff Todd
McKinley also was in the
audience at the meeting. He
said suspending the police
department now would place
a heavy burden on his depu-
ties, who would have to take
on added patrol duties.
“I understand the spot
you’re in, but you’re also
putting us in a spot because
you’re going to put us down
four offi cers as soon as you
do this,” he told the council.
“I look at my people and it’s
going to saddle them with a
nightmare.”
Mayor Ron Lundbom said
city offi cials had done every-
thing they could to persuade
voters to support the levy and
predicted many residents who
voted against it or didn’t vote
at all would be appalled at
the sudden reduction of law
enforcement services.
“I think they’ve got no one
to blame but themselves,”
he said.
Councilors Shannon Adair
and Paul Smith said the city
and county would now have
to work together to fi nd a
way to provide adequate law
enforcement resources for all
of Grant County, including
John Day.
Green said “conversations
are progressing” toward a
law enforcement services
agreement with the county,
but no deal has yet been
reached. He said the city
had offered to turn over its
entire share of property tax
revenues, around $300,000 a
year, to the county.
“That’s more than enough
to cover three of four offi cers,”
Green said.
But County Commis-
sioner Sam Palmer, sitting in
the audience, responded that
the county would have to
shoulder other costs besides
salary and benefi ts, such as
training, vehicles, fi rearms
and other equipment.
“It’s going to cost a lot
more than $300,000 to take it
over,” he said.
Asked by Lundbom for
his solution to the problem,
Palmer said the question
has given him some sleep-
less nights.
“As elected offi cials, we’re
all going to have to do our
best to keep our offi cers safe
and our people safe,” he said.
“I agree with Shannon and
Paul: We’re going to have to
work together.”
challenge for Bi-Mart phar-
macies.
Those include rising costs
Continued from A1
for prescription drugs, lim-
ited reimbursements from
Bi-Mart announced in
insurance companies, and
late September that it was
Oregon’s corporate activity
selling its pharmacy opera-
tions to Walgreens, and clos- tax which took effect in 2020,
ing the pharmacies in most she said.
Although Bi-Mart closed
Bi-Mart stores.
its pharmacies at 13 stores
Loennig said she and
in the Portland area in 2019,
other employees learned
about the closures during an Loennig said the Baker City
emergency meeting a couple pharmacy was “doing OK”
hours before Bi-Mart issued recently.
The corporate activity tax,
a press release.
she said, “pushed everything
Although the release
over the edge” for Bi-Mart’s
didn’t list the 10 Bi-Mart
pharmacy business.
stores that will continue to
Loennig said the Baker
have a pharmacy, operating
under the Walgreens name, City pharmacy had em-
Loennig said employees were ployed seven people, but two
had left recently due to the
told that the Baker City
state’s COVID-19 vaccina-
store wasn’t among those.
tion mandate.
“It was kind of a shock,”
She said Bi-Mart offered
Loennig said.
all fi ve remaining pharmacy
The nearest Bi-Mart
that will continue to have a employees jobs elsewhere in
pharmacy is in Weiser, Idaho, the Baker City store.
Loennig urges local resi-
she said.
dents who have used the Bi-
The pharmacy at the
Baker City store is slated to Mart pharmacy to be patient
during what she expects will
close Nov. 9.
be a “really rough couple of
Loennig, who said she
months ahead” as the store’s
plans to stay in Baker City
and potentially work in one prescriptions are transferred
of the other local pharmacies, to other pharmacies.
“It will get better,” she
in the Safeway, Albertsons
said.
and Rite Aid stores, said
Bi-Mart’s pharmacy has
a combination of factors
processed about 1,500 pre-
contributed to a fi nancial
scriptions per week, Loennig
said, and distributing those
among other local pharma-
cies will present a temporary
challenge.
She said pharmacists at
the other Baker City stores
are “doing their best.”
Loennig said that in ad-
dition to working at another
local pharmacy, she is inter-
ested in potentially teaching
classes at Blue Mountain
Community College, which
she has done in the past.
By BENNETT HALL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — The John
Day Police Department will
cease to exist by the end of
the month — even though
the city has yet to work out
an agreement with Grant
County to provide law en-
forcement services through
the sheriff’s offi ce.
The city council voted on
Tuesday, Oct. 12, to suspend
the department’s activities at
midnight Oct. 31 in the face
of an insurmountable budget
shortfall. The vote was unani-
mous, with Councilor Gregg
Haberly absent.
The decision came in the
wake of a failed ballot mea-
sure this summer that would
have raised enough money to
fund the department for the
next fi ve years. The proposed
local option levy actually at-
tracted more yes votes (284)
than no votes (169). But
the Aug. 17 special election
required a double majority for
the levy to pass — a majority
of votes cast plus a majority
of registered voters casting
ballots — and a low turnout
doomed the measure.
The council referred the
measure to the voters after
determining that the city
did not have enough money
to continue funding police
services and still balance its
budget.
“This is a sad day,” City
Manager Nick Green told the
council at the Oct. 12 meeting.
“We fought and fought and
fought and we tried and tried
and tried, but with the budget
the way it is, we just can’t
sustain operations.”
City offi cials had hoped to
keep the department going
at least until the end of the
year while they pursued a
three-year grant from the
Department of Homeland
Security that would provide
partial funding for law en-
PHARMACY
The most recent map from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows most of Baker County
in extreme drought, one step below the worst category.
RAIN
Dousing The
Drought
Continued from A1
But he said the impend-
ing series of potentially
damp days should help ease
the severity of the drought.
“I’d really like this pat-
tern if I were a rancher or
farmer,” Breidenbach said.
“This is a pretty signifi cant
storm coming in.”
Mark Ward is a farmer,
and he hopes Breidenbach’s
prediction proves out.
“I hope it comes and
keeps coming,” said Ward,
whose family grows pota-
toes, peppermint, alfalfa,
fi eld corn and other crops
in Baker Valley.
If the forecast comes
close to or surpasses the
one-inch prediction, rainfall
at the Baker City Airport
would exceed the monthly
average — in just fi ve days.
Although Baker City,
with an average annual
rainfall of about 10 inches
at the airport, is much
closer to desert than to
rainforest most of the time,
October is among the more
desiccated months.
October’s average rain-
fall of 0.64 of an inch ranks
it as the fi fth-driest. But
two of the drier months
— February and August —
both average 0.63.
The driest month is
July, with an average of
0.51, and the runner-up is
September, at 0.57.
Although recent storms
have brought much more
wind than rain to Baker
County, Breidenbach said
the situation for the coming
days is quite different.
Those storms originated
in the North Pacifi c and
had limited moisture,
he said.
But the pattern that’s
predicted to commence
today and continue into
early next week involves
what meteorologists call an
“atmospheric river.”
Forecast for Baker City:
• Thursday night, Oct.
21 — 20% chance of rain
• Friday, Oct. 22 —
80% chance of rain
• Saturday, Oct. 23 —
70% chance of rain
• Sunday, Oct. 24 —
70% chance of rain
• Monday, Oct. 25 —
70% chance of rain
• Tuesday, Oct. 26 —
50% chance of rain
— Jay Breidenbach,
National Weather Service
The river in this case
is a plume of moisture
high in the atmosphere,
Breidenbach said. And this
moisture, with a source in
the tropical South Pacifi c,
is much more copious than
what previous storms could
muster.
“This is going to feel
like a real rain, I think,”
Breidenbach said.
Another difference is
duration.
The cold fronts that
swept through earlier in the
month had narrow swathes
of limited moisture, with
skies rapidly clearing once
the front had passed.
But atmospheric rivers
tend to persist for days,
Breidenbach said.
Although there will be
dry stretches during the
event, he said the forecast
calls for multiple periods of
prolonged rainfall.
Most of the moisture,
even at higher elevations,
should be liquid, as the
snow level is forecast to stay
above 7,000 feet for much of
the period.
But Breidenbach said
snow levels should drop
below 5,000 feet late in the
weekend, and signifi cant
amounts of snow could
accumulate on the higher
peaks of the Elkhorns and
Wallowas.
A bountiful snow-
pack can help replenish
drought-depleted reser-
voirs, but Ward said that
although he also hopes for
a snowy winter, his more
pressing concern is for this
fall.
The drought has left the
soil so dry, he said, that his
family’s farming operation
has made a major change
to its fall schedule.
Normally fall is a time
for tilling the remnants
of this year’s crops into
the soil, enriching it with
organic matter.
But not in 2021.
“It’s just too dry,” Ward
said.
His concern is that by
tilling the parched soil now,
the top layer would blow
away in the gusty wind
that has been so persistent.
Ward said he is waiting
for rain to moisten the soil
before commencing the fall
tilling.
He has another, possibly
even more critical, reason
to pine for a drenched
autumn.
Ward said that if the
ground in the mountains is
still dusty when it freezes
and is covered by snow,
much of the snow when
it melts next spring will
soak into the soil rather
than fl ow into streams and
reservoirs.
Which means even a
deep snowpack, which
farmers and ranchers
rely on to supply irriga-
tion water, might bring
only meager relief to the
drought if autumn is as
arid as the rest of 2021.
“A good snowpack on
top of dust doesn’t do us
much good,” Ward said.
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