OUTDOORS B1
LOCAL A2
SPORTS A6
It’s almost time for
turkey hunting
Keeping crabgrass
out of your lawn
Bulldogs hold off
Homedale, 8-6
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • OUTDOORS & REC • SPORTS
QUICK HITS
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Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
What’s Up at the
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Delton
Towell of Unity.
Boys Jungle?
BRIEFING
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Ladies golf and bridge
season starts April 13
Opening day for the Ladies
Golf and Bridge Association
at Quail Ridge Golf Course,
2801 Indiana Ave. in Baker
City, is set for Wednesday,
April 13. The event features
golf in the morning, a noon
luncheon cooked by Terrie
Boettcher, and bridge in
the afternoon. Ladies can
participate in any or all of
the activities. The one-time
membership fee is $10,
and lunch is $9 per week.
If planning to eat lunch,
please make a reservation
the day before the event by
calling Dianne Ellingson at
541-519-4703 or Jennifer
Godwin at 541-519-2060.
The course’s phone number
is 541-523-2358.
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
ust Tsiatsos steps off the Leo
Adler Memorial Parkway
and enters the Boys Jungle.
Which no longer much resembles a jungle.
Tsiatsos, a contractor and developer from La
Grande, bought this property, along with four other
nearby parcels totaling about 13 acres, last year.
This winter, his workers cut and trimmed trees
and removed much of the undergrowth that gave the
Boys Jungle the name it has had for many decades.
Although this approximately two-acre piece of
ground, just north of D Street and with the Powder
River forming its western border, has always been
private property, for generations of Baker youth
it was a chunk of wildland within the city with its
towering cottonwoods and willows.
Baker County Fair
Board to meet April 5
The Baker County Fair
Board will have a special
meeting on Tuesday, April 5
to approve a bid for a fl oor
project at the Baker County
Events Center, and to dis-
cuss future projects at the
fairgrounds. The meeting will
start at 6 p.m. in the small
meeting room at the Events
Center, 2600 East St.
See, Jungle/Page A3
Trial delayed in
construction
fraud case
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Gust Tsiatsos, owner of GCT Land Management
Inc. of La Grande, stands in the Boys Jungle,
part of the property he bought last year.
Today
53/26
Mostly sunny
Sunday
58/36
Mostly cloudy
Monday
54/30
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
The space below is for a postage label
for issues that are mailed.
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
See, COVID/Page A3
WEATHER
—————
Rain showers
County now
2 weeks
without
COVID case
The zeroes continue to accumulate in
Baker County’s column for COVID-19
tracking.
The county didn’t report a single case
for the final 14 days of March.
That’s the longest such streak since
June 2020.
Baker County reported its first
COVID-19 case on May 6, 2020. The
county didn’t have another until the last
week of June 2020.
Case rates have fluctuated since, with
significant drops during the winter and
spring of 2021 and again in the fall of
that year, with major increases due to the
delta variant in late summer 2021 and in
January 2022 due to the omicron variant.
La Grande developer, who
plans to build housing for
veterans on a nearby
parcel, would like to
transfer the Boys Jungle to
the city for use as a park
G
SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2022 • $1.50
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
The Boys Jungle is just north of D Street and east
of the Powder River in Baker City.
The trial of a Baker City man accused
of taking money from customers for
construction work he failed to start, or in
some cases to finish, has been postponed
after two attorneys appointed to repre-
sent him withdrew.
Kenneth Edward Hackett, 51, was
slated to go to trial April 25 in Baker
County Circuit Court.
Hackett was arrested on June 19, 2021,
following an investigation by the Baker
City Police and Baker County Sheriff’s
Office into construction fraud com-
plaints.
Two incidents involved a combined
loss of $78,000, according to a June 2021
press release from Baker City Police.
A grand jury indictment in June 2021
included three counts:
• Aggravated first-degree theft,
$10,000 or more, from Barbara Duran
• Aggravated first-degree theft,
$10,000 or more, from Jerry Martin
• First-degree theft, $1,000 or more,
from Robert Anders
A new indictment on Aug. 26, 2021,
added four additional counts:
• First-degree theft, $1,000 or more,
from Therese Holthausen
• First-degree theft, $1,000 or more,
from Kurt Gronbach
See, Trial/Page A3
Snowpack melting faster than expected
BY ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
Eastern Oregon’s snowpack is melt-
ing faster than expected, worsening
an ongoing drought and pointing to a
very dry year if conditions continue.
Scott Oviatt, a hydrologist and snow
survey supervisor for the Natural Re-
sources Conservation Service Oregon,
a member of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, said snow started melting
almost two weeks earlier than usual,
and many sites across the state hadn’t
even reached their peak available
snowpack levels before melt off began
in the lower elevations.
“Once the snowpack starts melting
out, it’s hard to stop,” he said.
The information comes weeks after
many Eastern Oregon snowpack levels
were reported to be in good shape. The
dramatic decline in snowpack levels
coupled with the ongoing drought has
caused concern among experts who
are watching the snow water equiva-
lent levels closely.
“The fact that we didn’t reach a peak
value and the fact that we’re melting
out early is a concern because we are
TODAY
Issue 136
14 pages
Classified ....................B2-B4
Comics ..............................B5
Community News.............A2
Those who rely on water irrigation
channels should be especially con-
cerned about the rapidly melting snow.
While snowmelt is generally expected
to hit its zero point sometime in mid
to late spring, having the water run-
off begin and end earlier means that
resources will become scarce as sum-
mer drags on — and a heat wave event
can further impact water supplies and
leave farmers and agricultural indus-
tries dry.
Last year’s heat wave depleted wa-
ter supplies and caused some farms in
Oregon to run out of water entirely by
late June 2021, weeks ahead of sched-
ule. In one instance, Plantworks, a
nursery in Cove, had to purchase new
water storage containers and fill them
with city water in order to keep their
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald crops alive.
Phillips Reservoir still had a thin ice cover on March 25, 2022, but the steep shorelines
“Essentially, folks that rely on irriga-
tion water will have less available, and
show how depleted it is. The reservoir, on the Powder River about 17 miles southwest
there will probably be some restrictions
of Baker City, is holding about 10% of its capacity.
applied depending upon where they
losing the available water content in
about two or three weeks early, and we get their water and their water rights,”
the snow pack (earlier) than we nor-
didn’t achieve our peak, and now we’re Oviatt said.
mally plan on,” Oviatt said. “Depend- at 70% for the Grande Ronde/Powder
ing on location and elevation, we’re
area and we’re dropping rapidly.”
See, Snowpack/Page A3
Crossword ...............B2 & B4
Dear Abby .........................B7
Horoscope ..............B2 & B4
Jayson Jacoby ..................A4
Lottery Results .................A2
News of Record ................A2
Opinion .............................A4
Outdoors .................B1 & B2
Senior Menus ...................A2
Sports ...............................A6
Turning Backs ..................A2
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