A6 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 2022
SPORTS
Lions
Continued from A1
Another parkway project
was to help local resident
Tom Clement clean brush
along the pathway in Octo-
ber 2021.
A major focus of all Lion
Clubs is to provide support
for sight and hearing.
On the same day they put
up lights in the park — Dec.
2, 2021 — local Lions were
also in every Baker City
school to help with vision
screening.
This service — to check
students’ eyesight — dates
back nearly to the start of
the Lions Club. In 1925,
Helen Keller appealed to the
Lions Club to be “Knights of
the Blind” during a national
meeting.
Keller and her teacher,
Anne Sullivan, were made
honorary Lions — the first
women to receive the honor.
A story of the club’s work
with sight can be found on-
line at www.lionsclubs.org/
Shelter
Continued from A1
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Baker’s Isaiah Jones goes to the basket against Fruitland on Thurs-
day, Jan. 6, 2022, in the Baker gym.
Bulldogs
fast pace throughout the game.
That’s possible in part because
Continued from A5
he’s able to substitute fre-
quently. Nine Bulldogs played
The lead changed hands
significant minutes against
twice early in the fourth
Fruitland, and eight scored.
quarter. Grant Gambleton
“We have a lot of guys who
had a 3-pointer to give Baker can run,” Jones said.
a 60-59 lead, and Quintela’s
Long and Isaiah Jones each
3-pointer tied the score at 63 had 14 points, and Spike and
with 5:05 left.
Logsdon added eight each.
Jebron Jones said he was
Baker was slated to travel to
pleased to see that neither
Central Oregon this weekend,
Gambleton nor Quintela hes- playing at Madras on Friday,
itated to take a shot at a cru- Jan. 7, and at Crook County in
cial time.
Prineville the next day.
“I want them to feel confi-
The Bulldogs open Greater
dent to take good shots,” he
Oregon League play on Tues-
said.
day, Jan. 11, by playing host to
Jones said he was happy
La Grande at 7:30 p.m. The Ti-
with Baker’s ability to play at a gers are 6-1 and ranked sixth.
She said emergency pre-
paredness is a wise pursuit
for the county but “this is not
an emergency at this point.”
Smith said she has con-
cerns about opening a shel-
ter at the fairgrounds, noting
that multiple groups, such as
4-H archery club, has events
there.
“They also have monthly
meetings by one or more
groups in the event center
and those are a lot of kids
that run around inside and
out and it could be danger-
ous having homeless people
there. We don’t know who we
are serving,” Smith said.
Mark Johnson, a mem-
ber of the Baker County Fair
Board, told commissioners
that the Cockram Arena is
not a suitable location for a
shelter, but the open air beef
shed could be.
“There’s still a lot of oppo-
sition to it,” Johnson said.
Nichols asked county at-
torney Kim Mosier about
the legal issues involved with
people camping on public
property.
Mosier said the county
en/discover-our-clubs/inter-
active-timeline.
In addition to the vision
screenings, Lions Clubs col-
lect eyeglasses and hearing
aids that can be repurposed
for those in need, and also
accept applications for those
who can use extra help with
sight or hearing expenses.
The club also supports a di-
abetes camp in Idaho, which
provides a camp experience
for youth who have type 1 di-
abetes.
Another local project is
“Shoes for Kids” — in De-
cember, the club provided
$4,500 worth of coupons to
local schools for shoes.
“We serve. That’s our
motto,” Nelson said.
The club also donates to
other organizations in town
and awards a college scholar-
ship every year.
To support these commu-
nity and national projects,
the local club raises funds
through the Jubilee breakfast,
Radio Days campaign, a cal-
endar featuring birthdays and
anniversaries (this has been
does not have an ordinance
about removing people from
public property.
“We have to be really care-
ful and do it in a very specific
way,” Mosier said.
She said they can go
through a process to ask
people to move on, needing
to give specific notice and
working with individuals.
In November 2021 Duby
said he plans to ask the
Baker City Council to ap-
prove an ordinance limiting
where, and when, people
can camp on public property
within the city limits.
Duby said he was
prompted to act by a bill
that the Oregon Legisla-
ture passed earlier this year
and that Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown signed into law on
June 23.
The law — introduced as
House Bill 3115 and passed
by the Democratic majori-
ties in both the state House
and Senate — is based on
a 2019 federal court ruling
in a Boise case that in effect
prohibited cities and coun-
ties from making it illegal
for people to sleep outdoors
in public spaces if the juris-
diction doesn’t provide in-
door alternatives.
Gregg Hinrichsen/Contributed Photo
Members of the Baker City Lions Club helped local resident Tom
Clement clean brush along the Leo Adler Memorial Parkway in
October 2021.
paused during the pandemic),
and working the beer garden
during the bull and bronc rid-
ing at Miners Jubilee.
The club has also received
several grants from the Leo
Adler Foundation to help
fund larger projects, such as
the pathway and park im-
provements.
Although the club paused
meetings for awhile, members
are again meeting in-person
at noon on Thursdays at The
Little Pig, 3685 10th St.
Updates are also posted on
the club’s Facebook page.
Those interested in learn-
ing more about the Lions Club
can call Nelson, 541-403-2003.
Housing options
Nichols, who is a member
of the board for both New
Directions Northwest and
Community Connection,
said he has had conversations
with officials from both agen-
cies about the homeless issue.
He said they had a rent pro-
gram that was only allowed
to put people up in motel
rooms for three days. The
program ended Dec. 31.
“Community Connection
also has a program called
Stable Housing. They can
put somebody up someplace
for up to 30 days and no lon-
ger as long as the person is
willing to get signed up for
services and move forward,”
Nichols said.
He said what they are find-
ing at New Directions and
Community Connection is
most people who are thought
to be homeless do not want
any services, they do not want
to be told what to do, they do
not want their lives infringed
upon by law enforcement.
“Mental health issues are
becoming worse and worse
all the time because of drug
activity and what is going on
in the whole country right
now,” Nichols said. “And it’s
not just Oregon, it’s the whole
doggone country. So, there’s
been a lot of discussions on
this and nobody, and I mean
nobody, has any answers on
this.”
He noted that the warm-
ing shelter in La Grande has
moved since it first opened
in 2017. He said he doesn’t
believe it’s feasible to trans-
port people from Baker City
to La Grande, even if people
wanted to go.
“It’s difficult for us to get
anywhere with this other than
just a temporary solution
and throwing a whole bunch
of money at this problem
without a permanent solu-
tion, I think, is a bad road to
go down,” Nichols said. “It
makes no sense to throw a
whole bunch of money at a
problem and two years later
the problem still exists and
there’s no funding to continue
that program.”
He said he doesn’t like the
idea of setting up a shelter at
the fairgrounds, or buying or
renting a building elsewhere
for that purpose.
“Mark’s idea, I think, by
having people have to go to
law enforcement and actually
apply for these things, I think
it’s the right way to go,” Nich-
ols said.
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