LOCAL A2
SPORTS A5
Baker High students
collect scholarships
at awards night
Baker baseball,
softball seasons end
with playoff losses
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Tom
Bunch of Enterprise.
BRIEFING
—————
Volunteers sought
to set out fl ags on
Memorial Day
Volunteers will gather at
6 a.m. on Memorial Day,
Monday, May 30, at Mount
Hope Cemetery to place
about 550 American fl ags,
each featuring the name of a
military veteran. A Memorial
Day ceremony will start at 11
a.m. that day in the veterans
section at the south end of
the cemetery, and volunteers
are needed to help remove
the fl ags after the ceremony.
Baker City Police
determined threat
was not credible
BY JAYSON JACOBY AND
SAMANTHA O’CONNER
Baker City Herald
Baker High School
freshman Sofie Kaaen was
having a normal lunch at
a nearby restaurant, until
a classmate got a phone
call from a parent with
the news that someone
had made a threat about a
shooting at the school.
Nobody was thinking
much about their meal at
Paizano’s Pizza, just a cou-
ple blocks west of the BHS
campus, after that call just
after noon on Thursday,
May 26.
“Everybody started
calling their parents and
leaving,” Kaaen said. “It
was really chaotic.”
She didn’t think then
about the shooting two
days earlier at Robb
Elementary School
in Uvalde, Texas, in
which 19 students and
two teachers died, and
17 other people were
wounded.
But Kaaen thought a lot
of about that tragedy later,
after the initial shock had
receded.
“Afterwards I realized
that was a weird coinci-
dence,” she said. “I feel like
what happened (Thurs-
day) really put the Texas
shooting into perspec-
tive, and having that fear
for the people still at our
school made me reflect on
how serious school shoot-
ings really are.”
Although there
was no shooter at the
high school, the threat
prompted Baker City Po-
lice to respond and the
Baker School District to
institute “a lockout” at all
schools in the district as
a precaution.
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
See, Threat/Page A3
A Baker City Police officer stands outside South Baker Intermediate School early
Thursday afternoon, May 26, 2022.
Delectable
dandelions
Unconventional snacking
was just one new
experience for sixth graders
during outdoor school
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Kelton Broadie, left, Joseph Anders-Lerma and Shayd Simmons inspect a water sample collected from
the creek at Camp Elkanah during outdoor school on May 24, 2022. The three are sixth graders at South
Baker Intermediate School.
BY LISA BRITTON
lbritton@bakercityherald.com
CAMP ELKANAH — Jean Ann Mitchell ended the botany lesson with a snack.
WEATHER
—————
Today
60/42
Rain showers
Sunday
47/38
Rain showers
Monday
53/37
Morning showers
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
SATURDAY, MAY 28, 2022 • $1.50
Threat prompts lockout at Baker schools
Open house set June 2
for curb ramp project
Residents can learn about
a major project starting soon
to replace or install new
wheelchair-accessible curb
ramps in Baker City during
an open house June 2 from
4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Baker
City Hall, 1655 First St.
Employees from the Oregon
Department of Transporta-
tion’s project team, including
staff from the construction
contractor and designers, will
answer questions.
ODOT will be upgrading
more than 300 ramps along
sections of several streets,
including Campbell, Main,
Broadway, Dewey and Elm.
The work is slated to contin-
ue through October.
Fresh appreciation for
an Oregon icon
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • OUTDOORS & REC • SPORTS
QUICK HITS
—————
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
OUTDOORS B1
Phil Richerson, a hydrogeologist with the DEQ
office in Pendleton, taught students about how
surface water can be contaminated — and how
humans can minimize their mess.
But not just any snack — this
one was bright yellow, full of
petals, and in abundant supply
across the meadow.
“Those are each flowers,” she
said, picking apart the dande-
lion head as the students leaned
it for a look.
Each of those petals is edible
— and nearly every sixth grader
tried at least a taste of the com-
mon flower.
Then the bell rang and the
kids made their way to a dif-
ferent type of meal — home-
made macaroni and cheese
prepared to feed kids after a
morning of outdoor school ac-
tivities.
Sixth graders from South
Baker Intermediate School and
Haines Elementary arrived at
Camp Elkanah, near Ukiah
about 70 miles northwest of
Baker City, on May 23 for this
year’s outdoor school.
They stayed two nights, and
returned home Wednesday,
May 25.
This year Camp Elkanah staff
organized the schedule, pro-
grams, volunteers and handouts.
In Oregon, outdoor school
opportunities have been funded
by lottery dollars since the pas-
sage of Measure 99 in 2016.
The purpose of that measure
was to establish a permanent
fund so every Oregon school stu-
dent had the opportunity for a
week of science-based education.
The Oregon State University
Extension Service is responsible
for distributing the funds.
“Suddenly, everyone needed
outdoor school, and there’s not
enough outdoor school provid-
ers,” said Kaitlin Gustafson, pro-
gram director at Camp Elkanah.
At first, a school would rent
the facility and then organize its
own programming.
“What (OSU) heard from
school districts is that this is a lot
of work,” she said.
So now Camp Elkanah pro-
vides the experience.
Gustafson and her husband,
Josh, live full-time at Camp El-
kanah with their family. In addi-
tion to outdoor school, they pro-
vide summer camps and retreats.
The facility is busy from April
to November. This was the fifth
week they welcomed a school.
“It’s a really cool opportunity
to get involved in the commu-
nity,” she said.
Plus, she said it’s nice for kids
to be in nature.
See, Outdoors/Page A3
The space below is for a postage label
for issues that are mailed.
County hires one private ambulance to back up city
Baker City Herald
Baker County has con-
tracted with a private com-
pany, American Medical Re-
sponse, to have an ambulance
temporarily available for calls
in Baker City and much of the
rest of the county starting Fri-
day, May 27, the beginning of
Memorial Day weekend.
The agreement runs through
June 6, 2022. The AMR ambu-
lance will be the first called am-
bulance in the Baker and Hun-
tington ambulance service areas,
according to the agreement with
the county. The county will pay
the company $3,700 per day.
The county has also been in
contact with other ambulance
providers and quick response
units in Baker, Union, Grant
and Malheur counties that can
help with Baker County calls
if needed, according to a press
release from Jason Yencopal,
Baker County’s emergency
management director.
TODAY
Issue 8
12 pages
The county declared a local
emergency on May 24, a week
after the Baker City Fire Depart-
ment notified the county that
due to staffing shortages, the de-
partment, which operates two
advanced life support ambu-
lances, might not be able to han-
dle two simultaneous calls.
“When we receive fire call
and medical call simultaneously,
we will have to triage the calls
as they come and determine
the greatest threat to life and
property,” Baker City Fire Chief
Sean Lee wrote in an email to
the county. “My hope is that this
will give you an opportunity to
find a provider for the interim
that will be able to maintain the
existing level of service.”
Under Oregon law, Baker
County is responsible for en-
suring ambulance service.
The Baker City Fire Depart-
ment is the ambulance provider
for a service area that includes
Baker City and about two-thirds
Classified ....................B2-B4
Comics ..............................B5
Community News.............A2
of the rest of the county.
The county has three other
ambulance service areas, cover-
ing the Richland, Halfway/Ox-
bow and Huntington areas.
In his press release, Yenco-
pal wrote that the Eagle Valley
and Halfway/Oxbow ambu-
lance services will be available
to help if needed.
In addition, “law enforcement
officers have offered to drive the
ambulance if needed in an effort
to free up medical responders
so that they can provide care to
a patient during an ambulance
transport,” Yencopal wrote.
The Baker City Fire Depart-
ment, which is budgeted for
16.25 full-time equivalents,
has three vacant firefighter/
paramedic positions. One of
those has been unfilled for
several months. A second em-
ployee left in early April, and a
third earlier this month.
The issues Lee raised in his
email to the county arrived
Crossword ...............B2 & B4
Dear Abby .........................B5
Horoscope ..............B3 & B4
while it’s uncertain whether
Baker City will continue to
operate ambulances, as it has
done for many decades, be-
yond Sept. 30, 2022.
That’s the date the city set
for ending its ambulance ser-
vice in a notice the City Coun-
cil voted to send to the county
on March 22.
City Manager Jonathan Can-
non has said the city isn’t collect-
ing enough in ambulance bills to
continue operating the service.
If the city drops ambulance
service, it would need to cut
the fire department staffing to
10.5 full-time equivalents.
Brian Johnson, a firefighter/
paramedic, cited that possibility,
which would likely lead to him
being laid off, as the reason he
took a job in Washington state.
Casey Johnson, president of
the local union chapter that rep-
resents city firefighters, blames
the current staffing shortage
in part on the city’s decision in
Jayson Jacoby ..................A4
Lottery Results .................A2
News of Record ................A2
Opinion .............................A4
Outdoors .................B1 & B2
Senior Menus ...................A2
July 2021 to change the working
schedule for the department’s
three division chiefs. Two of
them no longer work the usual
24-hour shifts that firefighter/
paramedics work.
Since that change, the de-
partment’s overtime costs
have nearly doubled over the
previous year, as the city has
needed to call in off-duty fire-
fighters much more often.
Yencopal said American
Medical Response, the pri-
vate company that is sup-
plying an ambulance, also
had an ambulance staffed in
Baker County during the solar
eclipse in August 2017.
“Many partners are coming
together to support Baker City
during this staffing shortage,
and Baker County is grateful
to all of our emergency re-
sponders for their commit-
ment to being there for our
community during medical
emergencies,” Yencopal said.
Sports ..................... A5 & A6
Turning Backs ..................A2
Weather ............................B6