BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2022 A3
LOCAL
Firefighters
the fire department — and “doesn’t
expect police to write enough traf-
fic tickets to pay for itself.”
Johnson also notes that the city,
despite the difference between
the amount it bills for ambulance
service and the amount it collects
over many years, has not had to cut
other departments within the city’s
general fund, including police and
fire, which make up about 62% of
general fund costs, to keep the fire
department afloat.
Johnson does agree that if ambu-
lance call volume trends continue,
the city would need to hire more
staff eventually.
He said the union’s goal is to
keep the city’s ambulance service
operating for at least the next fiscal
year, which starts July 1, 2022. That
would give city and county officials
time to look for a new, stable reve-
nue source. They have recently dis-
cussed asking voters to approve a
property tax levy or to form a new
taxing district for public safety.
Continued from Page A1
Taking the message directly to
residents
Johnson joined Ron Morgan, a
district vice president for the Fire-
fighters Council, to talk to residents
in northeast Baker City, along H
and Birch streets, on a sunny but
blustery Tuesday morning.
Johnson said it is “real humbling
to see the support and have like-
minded firefighters from through-
out the state who see the crisis that’s
been created and want to help get
the message out.”
Johnson said he believes it’s cru-
cial that Baker City residents hear
directly from firefighters.
He and Morgan encouraged resi-
dents to support the firefighters and
to express their concerns to the City
Council.
“People need to actually take ac-
tion and not just be mad about it,”
Johnson said.
The firefighters’ effort was
prompted by the Baker City Coun-
cil’s decision on March 22 to notify
Baker County, which by Oregon
law is responsible for providing
ambulance service, that the city
intended to stop operating ambu-
lances Sept. 30, 2022.
If that happened, the county
would have to find a different pro-
vider, likely a private ambulance
company, to replace the city fire
department.
Baker City Manager Jonathan
Cannon, who recommended the
City Council send the notice to
the county on March 22, contends
that the city can’t afford to con-
tinue operating ambulances be-
yond Sept. 30.
Cannon cited the shortfall be-
tween what the city spends to oper-
ate ambulances and the amount it
collects from patients.
The city, for at least a couple
decades, hasn’t collected the full
amount it bills, largely because a
majority of the patients it transports
— about 80% — don’t have private
insurance but are covered by either
of two federal programs, Medicare
and Medicaid.
The city, for at least a couple
decades, hasn’t collected the full
amount it bills, largely because a
majority of the patients it transports
— about 80% — don’t have private
insurance but are covered by either
of two federal programs, Medicare
and Medicaid.
Trial
Continued from Page A1
“I have reviewed Mr. Yervasi’s
motion. I believe that he has
satisfied the Court’s parame-
ters to get a continuance.”
In his April 27 motion, Yer-
vasi wrote that Gonyer was
not able to participate in a trial
starting May 9.
“Mr. Gonyer’s chemother-
apy has affected his cognitive
abilities through the well-doc-
umented condition known as
‘chemobrain’ or ‘chemo fog,’ ”
Yervasi wrote. “Mr. Gonyer’s
chemotherapy and other
health conditions prevent him
from actively participating
in his defense by potentially
analyzing the facts or pre-
paring to testify. He is unable
because he is often too sick,
tired, or confused.”
Yervasi also cited another
factor that has left the defense
unprepared to go to trial this
month.
He wrote that an investiga-
tor the defense hired to review
electronic devices and data
that police seized from Gonyer
estimated it would take up to
100 hours to analyze the docu-
ments and devices.
As of the end of March, the
defense investigator had spent
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Baker City firefighter/paramedic Casey Johnson, left, president of the local
union chapter that represents Baker City firefighters, and Ron Morgan, a dis-
trict vice president for the Oregon State Firefighters Council, went door to door
in Baker City on Tuesday morning, May 3, 2022, to urge residents to oppose a
city proposal to end ambulance service Sept. 30, 2022, forcing Baker County to
find a different provider.
“If the city does not put in a proposal (by the June 3
deadline), then it’s pretty much a done deal, we’re a
sinking ship.”
— Casey Johnson, president of local union chapter representing Baker City
Fire Department firefighter/paramedics
Those programs reimburse
the city for only about 20% of
the amount it bills, according to
the city.
The shortfall averaged about
$730,000 for the past five fis-
cal years, and the city projects a
$581,000 gap for the current fiscal
year, which ends June 30, 2022.
Cannon said that with ambu-
lance call volumes increasing, he
expects the city would need to hire
three more firefighter/paramedics
later this year, which would widen
that financial gap.
Baker City’s firefighter/para-
medics are cross-trained, meaning
they respond to both fires and to
ambulance calls and other emer-
gencies. Ambulance runs account
for 80% to 85% of the depart-
ment’s calls.
Johnson, the local union presi-
dent, disputes both Cannon’s con-
40 hours reviewing the materi-
als, Yervasi wrote.
The process takes consider-
able time because the defense
investigator is allowed to exam-
ine the data only at an Oregon
Department of Justice office,
Yervasi wrote. The next visit
was scheduled for May 3-4.
“Forcing the defense to go to
trial without finalizing this ex-
amination creates an extreme
prejudice against the Defen-
dant,” Yervasi wrote.
He also wrote in the April 27
motion that a different defense
investigator has been unable
to work on the case recently
while caring for a severely ill
family member.
Baxter said Gonyer has been
living in the Boise area.
Gonyer no longer is required
to wear an ankle monitor,
which allows police to monitor
his movements, because a doc-
tor determined that the moni-
tor was restricting blood flow,
Baxter said.
Gonyer, who lived on Stices
Gulch Road about 12 miles
south of Baker City, was ini-
tially arrested on Dec. 28,
2019, in Ada County, Idaho,
where he was receiving med-
ical care. He was extradited
to Baker County in early Jan-
uary 2020 and was held at
the Baker County Jail until
tention that the city would need to
hire three new employees later this
year, and that the city can’t afford to
maintain ambulance service for at
least the fiscal year that starts July 1.
“The city manager is railroad-
ing this idea that the city is going
to be bankrupt, and many of the
city councilors are buying into it
hook, line and sinker,” Johnson
said. “I don’t think that’s the real-
ity of the situation.”
He said the city is not a business,
and due to the lower reimburse-
ment rates for Medicare and Med-
icaid, and the predominance of
ambulance patients who have that
coverage, the city is never going to
break even.
But Johnson points out that the
city spends even more for its police
department — about $2.56 million
budgeted for the current fiscal year,
compared with $2.32 million for
December 2020, when Judge
Thomas B. Powers granted a
motion from Yervasi to grant
Gonyer a conditional release
so he could get medical treat-
ment at the Boise VA Hospital
and other facilities.
Gonyer lived in a motel in
Baker City during 2021, but he
was required to wear the ankle
monitor at that time.
Gonyer originally was in-
dicted on several crimes re-
lated to the sexual assault of a
girl younger than 14 who was
known to him, the crimes al-
legedly happening between
May 1, 2019, and Dec. 20,
2019.
• Five counts of first-degree
sexual abuse, a Class B felony.
• Two counts of second-de-
gree sexual abuse, a Class C
felony.
• Six counts of third-degree
sexual abuse, a Class A misde-
meanor.
• Two counts of second-de-
gree unlawful sexual penetra-
tion, a Class B felony.
• Two counts of contributing
to the sexual abuse of a minor,
a Class A misdemeanor.
• One count of first-degree
rape, a Class A felony.
• One count of second-de-
gree rape, a Class B felony.
• One count of third-degree
rape, a Class C felony.
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State union president calls city
plan ‘irresponsible’
Koenig, president of the Oregon
State Firefighters Council, called
Baker City’s proposal to cease am-
bulance service and cut the fire-
fighting staff by six “irresponsible
and political suicide.”
“We’ve got a problem here, it’s
going the wrong way,” Koenig said.
He said the Firefighters Council,
which represents about 3,700 ca-
reer firefighter/paramedics in Or-
egon, responds to situations where
both public safety and the safety of
firefighters is threatened.
Baker City is such a case, Koe-
nig contends.
Replacing Baker City Fire De-
partment ambulance crews with a
private company is not acceptable,
he said.
Koenig believes Baker City resi-
dents will respond to the firefight-
ers’ plea to tell city councilors they
oppose the proposal to cease am-
bulance service Sept. 30.
When residents call 911, Koenig
said, they “expect to hear the siren
before they hang up the phone.”
He urges city and county officials
to work together to find “creative
ways” to increase revenue for am-
bulance service, and to “solve this
problem way before Sept. 30” —
the deadline the city has set to dis-
continue ambulance service.
“These firefighter/paramedics
have never quit on the city,” Koe-
nig said.
Budget
Continued from Page A1
The average shortfall has averaged about
$730,000 per year over the past five fis-
cal years, and the city projects a $581,000
gap for the current fiscal year, which ends
June 30, 2022.
“This issue about fund-
ing kept coming up over
and over and over again
until around 2016 where
the city said, ‘look, the
money’s not there, we
can’t do this, we need a
funding source’ and the
county said we’ll release
Cannon
an RFP,” Cannon said —
meaning a request for proposals to provide
ambulance service.
The county did so in 2018 and ultimately
received three bids, one from Baker City
and two from private firms. The county ta-
bled the matter, however, and the city has
continued to serve as ambulance provider
without a contract.
Cannon said city and county officials
have discussed a potential long-term, new
revenue source such as a property tax levy
that covers the entire ambulance service
area, not just Baker City, or an ambulance
service district, which would have a similar
revenue source.
But either option would require voter ap-
proval, and it’s not likely that such a proposal
could get on the ballot before May 2023.
As of now, Cannon said, “we just don’t
have the money for it.”
The city has not had to make significant
cuts in its general fund, however, despite the
shortfalls in ambulance revenue, compared
to its cost, over the past five years.
During that period the police depart-
ment’s annual budget — the biggest in the
general fund — has increased from a bit less
than $2 million to $2.56 million in the cur-
rent fiscal year.
The city’s beginning fund balance — in
effect, its cash on hand at the start of the fis-
cal year — has risen from about $1.2 million
in the 2018-19 fiscal year to $1.63 million in
the current fiscal year.
City Councilor Dean Guyer said the
Council didn’t decide to suddenly pull the
rug out from beneath the county with the
March 22 notice setting the Sept. 30 dead-
line for stopping ambulance service.
“The city is just the contractor now and
we don’t even have a contract that’s signed
and we haven’t been receiving the proceeds
from the county,” Guyer said.
City Councilor Shane Alderson said what
he had come up with if the city continued
for another fiscal year with ambulance ser-
vice and the current staffing in the fire de-
partment, the city would realize a loss of
about $425,000 more in the general fund.
• One count of luring a mi-
in prison after pleading guilty younger than 14, court docu-
nor, a Class C felony.
to one count of first-degree
ments state. That crime took
• One count of using a child sexual abuse involving a girl
place in February 1998.
in a display of sexually explicit
conduct, a Class A felony.
• Six counts of felon in
possession of a firearm, a
Class C felony.
In February 2021 several
other charges were added, in-
cluding four counts of first-de-
gree encouraging child sexual
abuse and four counts of sec-
ond-degree encouraging child
2036 Main St.
sexual abuse. Those charges are
Baker City
related to child pornography
541-523-6284
discovered on Gonyer’s com-
CCB#219615
puter during the course of the
investigation, Baxter said.
The pornography doesn’t in-
volve the child who is Gonyer’s
alleged victim in the other in-
cidents, which police said hap-
pened between May 1, 2019,
Linda Koplein
and Dec. 20, 2019.
Jan. 20, 1949 - Sept. 14, 2021
Gonyer is a registered sex
offender. He was convicted
May 21st, 2022 • 1 PM - 4 PM
of the felony crime of sexual
Baker City Elk’s Lodge
abuse in Clackamas County
Please
bring
memories, smiles and laughter.
in 1999. Gonyer, who was liv-
ing at Gladstone at the time,
Luncheon will follow
was sentenced to 75 months
Celebration of Life
Recommended candidates by the Baker
County Republican Executive Committee
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