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TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2022 • $1.50
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Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
City tears down ‘chronic nuisance’ home
A special good day to Herald
subscriber Glen Vandenbos of
Baker City.
City deemed it
unsafe to occupy
“At some point that structure would
have failed. It was in terrible shape.”
BY JAYSON JACOBY
and SAMANTHA O’CONNER
Baker City Herald
– Dawn Kitzmiller,
Baker City building official
BRIEFING
—————
Passenger train
advocates meeting
A group that wants to
return passenger train ser-
vice to Eastern Oregon has
scheduled public meetings
this week in La Grande and
Pendleton.
All Aboard Northwest’s
Charlie Hamilton and Dan
Bilka will talk about how com-
munities can try to tap state
and federal funding to restore
passenger rail service, which
ended in the region when
Amtrak’s Pioneer route was
canceled in 1997.
The Pendleton meeting is
set for Friday, Aug. 12 at 1
p.m. at Hamley’s Steakhouse.
The La Grande meeting will be
Saturday, Aug. 13 at 10 a.m.
at Cook Memorial Library at
Eastern Oregon University.
Baker City hired a contractor
this week to tear down an eastside
home that the city’s building official
deemed a dangerous structure that
could have collapsed at any point.
The dismantling, which started
Monday morning, Aug. 8, ends a
years-long issue with the house at
1975 Birch St., at the corner of Birch
Street and Washington Avenue.
The home, owned by Lucas Buddy
Lee Gwin, 37, was the first to be
deemed a “chronic neighborhood
nuisance” under a 2019 revision to
the city’s property maintenance ordi-
nance.
Samantha O’Conner/Baker City Herald
Work began Monday morning, Aug. 8, 2022, to tear down a home in east Baker City
that the city declared unsafe due to structural problems.
Brent Kerns, Baker County Justice
of the Peace, made the chronic nui-
sance judgment on Jan. 11, 2022.
Gwin appealed that decision, but
the appeal was dismissed July 19.
Although the city paid to remove
trash and other debris from outside
Gwin’s home four times from 2017-
21, the recurring violations of the
city’s property maintenance ordi-
WELCOME WATER
Baker City watershed
project open house
The Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest will have a
public open house on Aug. 17
to present information about
a proposed project to reduce
the wildfi re risk in the Baker
City watershed. The Wal-
lowa-Whitman manages the
10,000 acres of public, forest-
ed land within the watershed.
The proposal calls for thinning
trees and lighting prescribed
fi res to reduce the amount
of fuel in the area. The open
house will run from 6 p.m. to
8 p.m. at the Baker County
Events Center, 2600 East St.
Today
95/60
Storms possible
Baker City Public Works/Contributed Photo
90/53
Storms possible
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
The space below is for a postage label
for issues that are mailed.
See House / A3
F orest
Service
restarts
forest plan
revisions
Baker City Herald
WEATHER
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Wednesday
nance, culminating with the chronic
nuisance designation, are not the rea-
son Gwin’s home was torn down, said
Dawn Kitzmiller, the city’s building
official.
The structure was taken down be-
cause she deemed that it had multiple
structural problems that clearly made
it a dangerous building, Kitzmiller
said.
The 950-square-foot home, built
in 1900, has a market value of $3,740,
according to the Baker County Asses-
sor’s Office, which last appraised the
property in 2019.
Goodrich Reservoir, in the Elkhorn Mountains west of Baker City, is one of the city’s two supplementary water sources.
Baker City’s water supply situation
much better than a year ago
BY SAMANTHA O’CONNER • soconner@bakercityherald.com
B
aker City’s cool June might have disappointed residents who relish summer
weather, but Michelle Owen certainly enjoyed the hottest season’s late
arrival.
Owen is the city’s public works
director.
She said summer’s tardiness has
helped the city avoid a repeat of
2021’s water supply challenge.
The city went through about 84
million gallons during this June,
compared with 130 million gallons
in June 2021, which ended with a re-
cord-setting heat wave.
The higher-than-usual consump-
tion during June 2021 prompted
city officials to enact stage two of the
city’s water curtailment ordinance
on July 2.
Stage 2, also known as “warning
status,” restricts residents to using
city water (it doesn’t affect private
wells) to irrigate lawns or gardens
only between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.,
when evaporation declines.
But this year, with the much lower
water use during June, the city has
not moved to stage 2.
And that’s despite residents using
slightly more water this July than
last, Owen said.
The city went through about 9
million gallons more this July, she
said.
But with the much-lower use
during June, the city hasn’t needed to
impose restrictions, Owen said.
“I think the bigger difference
came from June of last year to June
of this year. That’s a greater differ-
ence. We were using water like crazy
last June,” she said. “July’s numbers
are up from last July’s but we’re not
under curtailment so that would ex-
plain that.”
As is typical, water use began to
rise along with the temperatures in
the middle of July.
At the end of the month, when the
temperature exceeded 90 on seven
See Water / A3
“We haven’t had to tap into Goodrich, which is really incredible, again
because of the wet spring we had, it kept the creeks flowing.”
– Michelle Owen, Baker City public works director
TODAY
Issue 38
14 pages
Classified ....................B3-B6
Comics ..............................B7
Community News.............A2
Crossword ...............B2 & B4
Dear Abby .........................B8
Home & Living ............B1-B3
Horoscope ..............B3 & B4
Lottery Results .................A2
News of Record ................A2
The U.S. Forest Service is reviv-
ing its oft-delayed effort to update
the long-term management plans
for the three national forests in the
Blue Mountains.
The current plans for the Wal-
lowa-Whitman, Umatilla and Mal-
heur national forests, which cover
almost 5 million acres in North-
eastern Oregon, date to the early
1990s.
Forest plans typically are up-
dated every 10 to 15 years.
A draft version of the revised
plans for the three forests was fin-
ished in 2014 after about 15 years
of work.
But after hearing complaints,
from people who believe the pro-
posed plans allow too much log-
ging, livestock grazing and other
uses, and from people who think
the plans were overly restrictive,
Forest Service officials decided to
come up with new proposals.
The agency released a final en-
vironmental impact statement in
2018, but that, too, prompted wide-
spread complaints.
The Forest Service withdrew the
proposed updates on March 14,
2019.
That prompted the creation of
the Blues Intergovernmental Coun-
cil, which includes representatives
from counties, federal and Tribal
agencies. Over the past two years
the Forest Service has been work-
ing with the council to address
some of the major concerns resi-
dents and groups have expressed
about previous forest plan revision
proposals.
The Forest Service announced
on Friday, Aug. 5 that the agency is
putting together a team of agency
employees to write draft separate
management plans for each of the
three national forests.
“The Forest Service is eager to be-
gin the official planning process and
hear input on Tribal, individual, and
community values,” according to a
press release. “Public involvement
will help the Forest Service gain lo-
cal knowledge about existing forest
conditions and understand con-
cerns about community or resource
impacts from proposed changes in
the revised Forest Plans.
“Multiple uses provided by the
national forests (including live-
stock grazing, timber harvest, for-
est recreation, tourism, and subsis-
tence activities) are all important
to economic and social life in the
Blue Mountains area,” the press re-
lease states.
Opinion .............................A4
Senior Menus ...................A2
Sports ...............................A6
Sudoku..............................B7
Turning Backs ..................A2
Weather ............................B8