BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2022 A3
LOCAL & STATE
Oregon Guard bars unvaccinated members from unit drills
BY GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
The Oregon National Guard
is barring members who have
not followed orders to be vac-
cinated against COVID-19
from taking part in military
duties, officials confirmed
Thursday, July 7.
The action could lead to ter-
mination or delays in pay and
some benefits, according to a
U.S. Department of Defense
announcement. Continued re-
fusal could lead to separation
from the military altogether.
“This is a lawful order and
is in line with other required
vaccinations for readiness of
the force,” said Lt. Col. Ste-
phen Bomar, spokesman for
the Oregon National Guard.
“As with other mandatory vac-
cinations, legitimate medical
and religious exemptions will
be acknowledged with respect,
compassion and dignity.”
The Department of Defense
issued an order in August 2021
that all military personnel be
vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Army said the announce-
ment this week would affect
about 62,000 service members
out of a total force of over 1
million soldiers.
About 97% of the 8,000
members of the Oregon Na-
tional Guard have complied
with the order by getting vacci-
nated, starting the vaccination
process, or going through the
administrative approvals to get
exemptions or accommoda-
tions, Bomar said.
The Oregon National Guard
declined to provide an exact
number of members not in
compliance or seeking waiv-
ers, citing privacy and appeals
processes.
If 97% of the Oregon Na-
tional Guard is in compliance,
that would leave 3%, or about
240 members.
Bomar said decisions on ex-
emptions are scheduled to be
completed by Oct. 1.
“No adverse actions will
take place against Guard
members with pending or ap-
proved exemption requests,”
Bomar said.
If a service member’s per-
manent medical exemption or
religious accommodation re-
quest is denied they have the
right to appeal that decision
within 30 days.
If the appeal is unsuccess-
Mushrooms
The measure legalizes the use of
psilocybin, in designated “service cen-
ters,” for purposes such as treating
people 21 and older who are suffering
from psychological trauma, addiction
and other ailments.
The measure does not allow the re-
tail sale of psilocybin, which makes it
different from marijuana.
Councilor Joanna Dixon asked if
there was any fiscal benefit to the city
in allowing psilocybin.
City Manager Jonathan Cannon
said the Oregon Health Authority,
which is overseeing the new voter-ap-
proved law, will have four types of
licenses, each of which will yield tax
revenue. The four types of licenses are
manufacturer, laboratory, facilitator,
and service center.
According to an OHA slide show,
service centers where people would
take psilocybin will collect a 15% tax,
payable to Oregon Department of
Revenue.
“We are not eligible to implement
any local taxes or fees on this so that
we could collect anything,” Cannon
said. “I would say I’m not clear on
whether or not we would get any sort
of kick back, or whatever you want to
Continued from A1
And in the heat that has
finally arrived, pushing tem-
peratures to triple digits at
lower elevations, and humid-
ity levels below 20%.
“It’s definitely drying out,”
Goodrich, fire staff officer for
the Wallowa-Whitman Na-
tional Forest, said on Tuesday,
July 12, the hottest day of the
year in Baker City, with a high
of 98 at the Baker City Air-
port.
“Things have changed quite
a bit in the last two weeks.”
Crouch, the fire mitigation
specialist for the Bureau of
Land Management’s Vale Dis-
trict, concurred with his fellow
federal fire manager.
“The drying is happening
fast,” Crouch said on Tuesday.
That’s especially so in Baker
County and points south, he
said.
The lush crop of grass, in-
cluding invasive cheatgrass,
that grew this spring has al-
ready dried in much of Mal-
heur County, and the trend is
moving north, Crouch said.
Conditions are still com-
paratively damp, and the fire
danger somewhat lower, to the
north, he said.
After the soggy spring, the
Baker City Airport has been
relatively parched, measur-
ing just 0.05 of an inch of rain
since June 6.
Thunderstorms that doused
other parts of the region
mostly missed Baker City.
Meacham, by contrast, has
had 3.12 inches of rain during
that span, most of it coming
from a couple of June cloud-
bursts.
ful, the service member has
the option of being vaccinated
or being considered to have
refused the order to be vacci-
nated.
“The specific number of
days from receiving a final
denial to being considered
to have refused the vaccine is
scheduled to come out in a fu-
ture order,” Bomar said.
Summer is the time when
many National Guard units go
through their mandatory two-
week training, often working
with active-duty personnel.
Ahead of those assignments,
the U.S. Army announced
plans to enforce vaccination
deadlines that had been previ-
ously announced.
“Members of the Army Na-
tional Guard and U.S. Army
Reserve who have refused the
lawful Department of Defense
COVID-19 vaccination order
without an approved or pend-
ing exemption may not partic-
Baker County also considering ban on psilocybin
Continued from A1
Fire
File photo
The Oregon National Guard is barring members who have not followed
orders to be vaccinated against COVID-19 from taking part in military
duties, officials confirmed Thursday, July 7, 2022.
Baker County commissioners have scheduled two public hearings regarding a
proposed ordinance banning psilocybin production and therapeutic use in unincor-
porated parts of the county as well as within the Unity city limits.
The hearings are scheduled for 9 a.m. on July 20, and 9 a.m. on Aug. 3, both in the
Courthouse, 1995 Third St.
(Commissioners are acting city councilors for Unity, which has not had an elected
city council for several years.)
call it from the state.”
Cannon said if the city didn’t get tax
revenue, there is a possibility of creat-
ing some jobs and perhaps a facility
that will generate some property tax
revenue.
“But it would depend on which li-
cense type comes in and what that cre-
ates for the city,” Cannon said.
Finance Director Jennifer Spencer
said that when Oregon voters legalized
recreational use of marijuana, cities
and counties initially received tax rev-
enue, but that the state government is
keeping the majority of the revenue.
“So, while there may be a promise of
tax revenue, I believe from the history
of the marijuana side, that it will be
short lived,” Spencer told councilors.
Retail marijuana sales are not al-
lowed in Baker City.
According to OHA, psilocybin “will
only be administered to persons 21
Lightning starts
small fires
Lightning from a series of
storms that started Tues-
day afternoon, July 12, and
continued into Wednesday
morning ignited several
small fires in Northeastern
Oregon.
As of Wednesday afternoon,
the Blue Mountain Inter-
agency Dispatch Center —
bmidc.org — in La Grande
was reporting these blazes:
• Spool Cart campground
area, 15 miles southwest of
La Grande, 0.1 acre
• Thief Valley Area east of
North Powder, 0.25 acre
• Twin Lakes area, west side
of Elkhorns, 0.1 acre
• Ladd Canyon, 0.25 acre
• Sheep Creek, 18 miles south-
west of Baker City, 0.2 acre
• Sawmill Gulch near
Sumpter, 0.1 acre
• West Eagle Creek, 0.2 acre
• Lawrence Creek, 17 miles
west of Baker City, 0.1 acre
The Eastern Oregon Re-
gional Airport in Pendleton
has recorded 1.33 inches since
June 6.
The Willowcreek fire, which
started on private property
north of Vale on June 28, rap-
idly spread to about 40,000
acres, propelled by gusty
winds on a day when tempera-
tures reached 100 degrees in
north Malheur County.
That fire shows the poten-
tial for fast-moving fires given
a combustible combination of
weather conditions, Crouch
said.
Yet that blaze, which is still
years or older in licensed service cen-
ter settings under the supervision of
trained and licensed facilitators.”
Such centers can’t be within 1,000
feet of a school.
The Oregon Psilocybin Services
section will start taking applications
for psilocybin licenses on Jan. 2, 2023.
The measure does allow cities and
counties to pursue either permanent
bans or a two-year moratorium on
psilocybin — either of which would
have to be approved by voters in the
jurisdiction — or to regulate the time,
place and manner in which the drug
is produced or used for therapeutic
purposes.
Councilor Shane Alderson noted
that another drug-related measure
that Oregon voters passed in 2020
— Measure 110, which decriminal-
izes the possession of small amounts
of many drugs, including heroin and
under investigation, is also a
conspicuous anomaly.
The Blue Mountain Inter-
agency Dispatch Center at the
Union County Airport, which
oversees much of Northeast-
ern Oregon — although not
Malheur County — has re-
corded just 17 fires this year,
which burned a scant 2.7
acres.
Although the fire danger
rating is high on BLM ground,
Crouch noted that the agency
has yet to impose restrictions
on campfires.
Nor has the Forest Service.
That’s in sharp contrast to
2021, when a dry spring re-
sulted in an abnormally early
start to fire season and to its
associated regulations on pub-
lic lands in Northeastern Or-
egon.
This year, Crouch said,
“those late spring rains put a
lot of moisture in the ground
and greened things up.”
Both Crouch and Goodrich
agree that the 2022 fire season
is more typical for the region,
in that the fire danger, rather
than rising to extreme levels
even before the summer sol-
stice, is beginning to rise only
as July nears its middle.
“It feels more like a typical
season from the 1990s or early
2000s,” Goodrich said.
Between 1999 and 2010,
about 80% of the wildfires on
the Wallowa-Whitman started
between July 15 and Aug. 15,
he said.
Although he said statistics
haven’t been updated for the
past five years, he suspects that
there have been more fires in
the first half of July than in the
past, and that the fire season
has extended a bit later into
ipate in federally funded drills
and training and will not re-
ceive pay or retirement credit,”
according to the Army state-
ment on Thursday.
The order has the biggest
impact on the Army, which ac-
counts for just under half of all
uniformed personnel and 75%
of all National Guard mem-
bers.
The overwhelming majority
of servicemembers have com-
plied with the order. The Army
has just over 1 million soldiers
in service, with 480,000 on ac-
tive duty. There are 336,000
National Guard members and
189,500 U.S. Army reservists.
“Maintaining readiness con-
tinues to be among the U.S.
Army’s highest priorities.”
said a statement from the U.S.
Army command at the Pen-
tagon near Washington, D.C.
“We are fully committed to
ensuring all soldiers are vacci-
nated against COVID-19.”
The Pentagon said 40,000
National Guard members and
22,000 reservists were not yet
in compliance with the order.
Since the pandemic spread
to the United States in early
2020, the U.S. Defense Depart-
methamphetamine — is supposed to
allocate much marijuana tax revenue
to drug addiction treatment and pre-
vention.
But he pointed out that the state has
yet to allocate all of that money.
“There’s still $240 million sitting in
Salem that hasn’t been distributed,” Al-
derson said.
In a staff report to councilors for
Tuesday’s meeting, Cannon listed four
possible options.
• A permanent ban on psilocybin
services. To do so, the city council
would need to pass an ordinance that
takes the matter to city voters, who
would decide whether to approve the
permanent ban.
To qualify such a measure for the
Nov. 8, 2022, election, the city would
need to submit the measure to the
Baker County Clerk’s office by Sept. 8.
• A two-year moratorium on psi-
locybin services. This would follow
the same process as a permanent ban,
with a city ordinance and ballot mea-
sure.
• An ordinance regulating the time,
place and manner of psilocybin ser-
vices, which could, for example, re-
strict such services to commercial or
other zones.
• Take no action and allow psilocy-
bin to be regulated by the state.
late summer and early fall.
Fire danger remains mod-
erate in most of Northeastern
Oregon.
The energy release compo-
nent, an estimate of how fast
a fire would spread based on
moisture levels in fuels, is be-
low average in each of the six
geographic zones that the Blue
Mountain Interagency Dis-
patch Center monitors.
The numbers, which briefly
went above average in late
June before dropping again
due to widespread rain in
541-975-1364
Continued from A1
The juvenile is charged with sec-
ond-degree murder and unlawful
use of a weapon, McClay wrote.
Police didn’t say whether the fe-
male juvenile who was in the park-
ing lot reported the shooting, or
whether someone else called police.
Baker Technical Institute is at the
northwest corner of the BHS cam-
pus, north of the gymnasium.
The Major Crime Team, which
includes representatives from the
Baker City Police, Baker County
Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State
Police, is investigating.
Employees from the Oregon
State Police crime lab worked
throughout the early morning to
collect evidence and process the
scene.
The Baker School District sent
out a notice, stating that “Activities
scheduled on the main High School
campus will continue. Please use
the main entry of the building. Any
activity scheduled in the BTI wing
is cancelled until further notice.”
According to the press release,
anyone with information about the
incident should call Baker County
Dispatch at 541-523-6415.
storms to the region.
That’s a crucial factor, since
lightning in most years ig-
nites about 80% of the fires on
public land. (The percentage
is generally lower on private
land, where human-caused
fires are more common.)
In the meantime, Crouch
said the grasses that and sage-
brush that fed the Willow-
creek fire will continue to be a
source of easily burned fuel.
“Our fuel loading in the
grasses is much higher than it
was last year,” he said.
End of life Celebration for
Ritha M. Wilcox
Long-time Baker City resident and Baker High School Alumni
To be held
July 23, 2022
Balm Creek Reservoir
2:00 p.m.
All are welcome
For more information, call:
Theresa Johnson, 541-519-7429
Or Liz Estabrooks, 541-350-6525
excellent service
LOCALLY!
10106 N N. ‘C’ • Island City
Shooting
early July, have been rising
again for the past several days.
Goodrich said the few light-
ning-sparked fires reported
earlier in July burned slug-
gishly, generally not spreading
beyond the drip line of the
tree that was struck by light-
ning.
He expects fires through
the rest of the summer will be
more energetic.
In addition to the increas-
ing fire danger, Goodrich and
Crouch are tracking weather
patterns that bring thunder-
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