SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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EDITORIAL
Warming
shelter is
needed
Outside, the sun was shining and the temperature
was reaching a record-setting 54 degrees on Wednes-
day, Dec. 1, but inside the Baker County Courthouse,
the three county commissioners were talking about
the frigid nights that are certain to come as fall gives
way to winter.
It was an important discussion.
And the commissioners’ conclusion, that Baker
City needs a temporary shelter where homeless
residents can stay warm during those nights, is the
correct one.
“We need to do something,” Commissioner Bruce
Nichols said.
Commission Chairman Bill Harvey took the ini-
tiative on the issue, including talking with offi cials at
the warming center in La Grande.
Harvey proposed a two-pronged strategy — fi rst,
fi nd a temporary site for a shelter for this winter,
then look into a longer term facility.
Commissioners will, of course, need to coordi-
nate with, among others, the Baker City Council
and Police Department, New Directions Northwest
and organizations such as the Northeast Oregon
Compassion Center, The Salvation Army, and local
churches.
Baker City Police Chief Ty Duby said last month
that the city’s homeless population has grown over
the past few years. He cited his own observations,
as well as reports from police offi cers and from the
public.
The homeless issue is complicated, to be sure.
Duby plans to ask the Baker City Council to ap-
prove an ordinance limiting where, and when, people
can camp on public property. That’s a reasonable
thing to do.
But in Baker City, where temperatures plummet
below zero almost every winter — and not infre-
quently dip to 10 below or lower — offering homeless
residents a warm place to sleep is, ultimately, a mat-
ter of humanity. The community can’t force people to
come in out of the cold, of course, but we should try to
make sure there is an option.
Baker City and Baker County have limited fi nan-
cial resources. As commissioners discussed Wednes-
day, local offi cials need to seek state or federal help
for this worthwhile endeavor.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
It’s time we really understood
gun violence
In my younger days I spent a lot
of time hunting, everything from elk
and deer to game birds. Now thanks to
COVID and age I have to watch hunting
shows like “Meat Eater.” What a life.
This guy travels all over the United
states hunting. One week he might be in
Colorado hunting elk and the next few
weeks he might chase giant mule deer
bucks in Montana or maybe pheasants
in South Dakota. I have a nephew who
went to Wyoming hunting antelope.
Others have gone to the Dakotas to hunt
pheasants. My son is a horn hunter
and has gone to Nevada to hunt mule
deer. One time on a cast and blast in the
Snake River while fi shing and watching
for chukars he spotted a nice Idaho buck
and traded the shotgun for a rifl e and
headed up after him.
One common theme from the
ballistics-impaired on CNN and other
left wing “media” after the Rittenhouse
verdict was “he crossed state lines with
a gun.” All those I mentioned above
cross state lines with a gun. Got an
out-of-state tag? Load up the gear and
the guns and get going. No checkpoints
at the border, because there are no laws
about transporting fi rearms across state
lines in the United States. The only
borders you have to worry about are
ones to the north called Canada and to
the south called Mexico. Canadians, be-
ing descendants of British loyalists, don’t
like handguns but if you want to spend
some big bucks hunting moose you can
go in with a rifl e. Mexico doesn’t allow
private citizens to own fi rearms unless
you belong to a cartel.
There is one exception that hinders
transporting a fi rearm. If I go to the VA
hospital I can’t have a fi rearm, even in
my car. Guess they are afraid of those
who preserved their freedom with a
gun. A class action lawsuit is overdue,
especially in light of a Supreme Court
decision that said a homeless man could
have a gun in his tent.
The left is having a meltdown after
Rittenhouse. You have a right to defend
your life! What’s next? The right to
defend your home or property?
Space limits a lot more of what I
have to say. I could cover the 1934 Feder-
al Firearms Act that unconstitutionally
banned fully automatics. Since then the
rate of fi re on any gun is one projectile
per trigger pull. Full autos only exist in
Hollywood. An exception to this is the
smooth bore shotgun which can hold
anywhere from nine to a dozen or so
peewee marble sized shot to more than
a hundred BB sized shot to many more
smaller shot. No rifl ing in the barrel,
untraceable. So Democrats better get
some checkpoints in place and ban the
shotgun. Move on. Send some men with
guns to confront men with guns. It’s
time to really understand gun violence.
Steve Culley
La Grande
Impressed by Keating, and Baker
Early Learning Center
As a retired teacher, I loved the
story, “Kids Are The Cooks,” describing
the creative ways Keating Elemen-
tary staff reimagined a new way to
continue their annual Thanksgiving
Day feast. My favorite quote was
from a kindergartner who said: “I’ve
never gotten to open a can before.” It
reminded me of why I loved working
with children. Their joy in any new
experience is so magical!
And speaking of magical! I was
recently given a tour of the new Baker
Early Learning Center and what
Angela Lattin and her team have ac-
complished there blew my mind! I was
the director of Head Start in Baker
and Union counties in the mid-80s, so
I have some understanding of what it
would take to bring all those agencies
serving young children together under
one roof. The sharing of knowledge,
staff, materials and other resources is
so amazing and I was very impressed.
It seemed like every need that a young
child, or their family, might have could
be addressed in one location. What a
wonderful resource for our community.
Good job to all the staff at Keating
Elementary and Baker Early Learn-
ing Center. I know how hard your
job is and you are all doing it so well.
Bless you!
Pat Brougham
Baker City
Poachers steal from hunters — and everyone else
They’re called poachers but it
seems to me that they’re just com-
mon thieves.
No different from the cretins
who wrestle purses away from
elderly women, or slink off porches
clutching boxes that contain Christ-
mas presents for toddlers.
Although I suppose it’s reason-
able to have a specifi c term for crim-
inals whose thefts involve killing an
animal, which, unlike a purse or a
gift box, can’t be replaced.
Oregon State Police, whose du-
ties include catching poachers as
well as nabbing highway speeders,
occasionally send press releases
regarding recent poaching cases.
I fi nd these interesting to read.
And depressing.
These press releases often
are accompanied by photographs
which, though generally not terribly
bloody or otherwise graphic, strike
me as inexpressibly sad.
A picture of a discarded deer or
elk carcass conveys the concept of
waste with a cruel effi ciency.
Although I’m loathe to suggest
that there ought to be a spectrum of
poachers, the cases that bother me
most are those in which the animal
was killed either for no apparent
reason or for its antlers or horns.
I certainly don’t condone poach-
ing for any reason. But a poacher
who at least takes the meat, and
presumably eats it, seems to me
slightly (very slightly) less obnox-
ious than one who simply wants a
trophy to hang on his wall.
Which is to say, sustenance
trumps vanity.
(Not that I believe anyone, given
the availability of food stamps and
other programs, both public and pri-
vate, truly needs to poach animals
to keep their bellies full.)
The most recent OSP press
release described two cases of the
latter sort. Both happened in Grant
County and the two crimes appar-
ently happened within less than 24
hours spanning Nov. 9 and 10.
One case involved the headless
carcass of a mule deer buck that a
resident found at 4:30 p.m. on Nov.
9 along Highway 26 near Mount
Vernon. According to OSP, the
person had seen a buck with dis-
tinctive, massive antlers near the
site about 9:30 a.m. that day. The
person gave police a photograph of
the buck taken that morning.
JAYSON
JACOBY
The press release stated that the
carcass showed no signs of having
been hit by a car. Its head had been
cut off near the shoulder.
Later on Nov. 10, OSP fi sh and
wildlife offi cers got another report
of a dead, trophy mule deer buck,
this one near Crazy Creek and
Dark Canyon in the Murderers
Creek unit.
The person who found the
carcass — the head, with its fi ne set
of antlers, still intact — told police
the buck was still warm and fl exible
when found at 11 a.m. that day.
The press release cited witnesses
who had seen a “dark-colored Dodge
pickup” in the area several times.
The press release about the two
Grant County cases arrived in my
inbox a couple weeks after another,
also from OSP, that described three
poaching cases west of the Cas-
cades, one involving a deer, the two
others elk.
The release noted that the
Oregon Hunters Association (OHA)
was offering a reward of $500 for
information leading to an arrest in
the deer poaching, and $1,500 in
each of the elk cases.
The OHA handed out more
than $20,000 in rewards from its
TIP — Turn In Poachers — fund in
2020, and the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife awarded 135
hunter preference points, which
are offered as an alternative to
cash rewards.
(Preference points increase the
chances that a hunter will receive
a hunting tag through the state’s
lottery system.)
It is of course understandable
that ethical, responsible hunters
— and the OHA is made up of just
that sort — would be keen to catch
poachers and to discourage others
from following their larcenous lead.
But it’s not only hunters who
lose due to poachers’ misdeeds.
Wildlife in Oregon belongs to all
of us — those who have a hanker-
ing for a hunk of backstrap, and
those who don’t care for venison,
or even for hunting, but who like
to photograph animals or merely
appreciate the chance to watch
a buck amble across a mountain
meadow.
I used to think of poachers as
not so much different from people
who litter compulsively.
And indeed there is a com-
monality — both are, at their core,
selfi sh, their actions so senseless
that thoughtful people struggle to
understand what could possibly
motivate them.
But as much as littering incens-
es me — it requires, if anything,
more effort to toss a can or paper
sack out of a car window than to
leave it on the fl oor — poaching,
it seems to me on refl ection, is a
decidedly more noxious act.
Littering is ugly.
But killing an animal is stealing
from all of us, those who carry rifl es
and those who wield only cameras.
Besides which, poachers are
themselves guilty of littering.
Except their detritus, rotting in
a barrow pit or fi eld or forest glen,
is not as easy to clean up as a fast
food bag.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.