LOCAL & STATE
GOP
Continued from A1
During that meeting, Re-
publican precinct committee
persons (PCP), in addition to
voting to suspend the execu-
tive committee for 60 days, ap-
pointed a temporary chair, Dan
Johnson, a PCP from Halfway,
and Doni Bruland, a PCP from
Baker City, as vice chair.
The dispute was discussed
during a meeting of the Ore-
gon Republican Party Central
Committee on Saturday, Sept.
24 in The Dalles during which
GOP members elected a state
vice chair and addressed other
business.
Johnson and Bruland at-
tended the meeting as guests
invited by the Coos County
Republican Party.
So did Joanna Dixon, Baker
County GOP treasurer, and
Kerry McQuisten, who served
as proxy for
Jones, who is
also McQuis-
ten’s mother.
Jones
voted as Re-
publican
chair for the
McQuisten
Second Con-
gressional
District, which includes Baker
County.
During the meeting at The
Dalles, Johnson questioned the
credentials of Dixon, McQuis-
ten and Jones as representing
Baker County Republicans.
The Oregon Republican
Party’s credentials committee
then convened in private to
discuss the issue. The com-
mittee voted 7-0 to uphold
Baker County’s bylaw requir-
ing a quorum, and recognized
Dixon, McQuisten and Jones
as valid representatives from
Baker County.
“They violated Baker Coun-
ty’s bylaws in July without a
second thought,” Dixon said in
a press release that Jones sent
out on Saturday afternoon.
“I’m happy law and order held
true today.”
Johnson, in an email to
Baker County PCPs, described
Dixon’s comment as “more in-
flammatory than constructive
to this entire situation.”
Johnson believes the situ-
ation highlights the need for
Baker County Republicans to
amend the bylaws to prevent,
as he puts it in his email, “ac-
tion by the few to refuse the
will of our Committee PCPs.”
“Now that we know the by-
laws need mending, let’s fix
those issues rather than con-
tinue to blame an individual or
individuals.”
Johnson said members of
the credentials committee also
raised questions about whether
the Baker County bylaw re-
quiring a quorum of the execu-
tive committee is appropriate.
Despite the invalidation of
the votes at the July 28 meet-
ing, Johnson and other Baker
County PCPs continue to
pursue changes to the county
bylaws and a change in leader-
ship in the county party.
During a Sept. 15 meeting
that 36 PCPs attended, a mo-
Aid
Continued from A1
The money will extend
high-speed internet service
to about 1,163 residents, 41
businesses, 70 farms and four
schools in the three counties,
according to the senators.
“I’ve been fighting for years
to bring broadband to rural
Oregon, and with the ways
the COVID-19 pandemic has
changed the world, access to
reliable, affordable broad-
band has become more cru-
cial than ever to the success of
our workforce, students, and
communities,” Merkley said.
“Improving and investing in
access to high-speed inter-
net — a fundamental need
in today’s connected world
— will improve the economy,
education, and quality of life
for folks in Baker, Grant, and
Malheur counties.”
The federal aid package will
help Oregon Telephone Cor-
poration speed its plan to ex-
pand its high-speed internet
coverage, said Dee Dee Kluser,
the company’s general man-
ager.
“We have had plans to build
tion to recall Jones passed with
28 yes votes and eight absten-
tions.
That meeting, like the July
28 meeting, was deemed in-
valid by the state GOP creden-
tials committee due to the lack
of a quorum of the executive
committee.
Johnson has also prepared
a petition calling for a meet-
ing of the Baker County GOP
Central Committee to “reit-
erate our will to recall Suzan
Ellis Jones and her Confeder-
ates whom we just recalled on
Thursday, September 15, 2022.”
If such a meeting happens
it probably wouldn’t be until
November, Johnson said on
Wednesday, Sept. 28.
In any case, Johnson said
the recall is not his top priority,
considering the Baker County
Republicans are slated to meet
to elect executive committee
members in November.
In the
meantime,
Johnson said
he is focusing
on two other
issues —
promoting
Republican
Dixon
candidates
in the Nov. 8
election, and trying to change
the county bylaws, and in par-
ticular the requirement that a
quorum of the executive com-
mittee be present before any
decisions are made.
Johnson doesn’t think it’s
proper for a few people to be
able to thwart the will of the
rest of the elected PCPs.
As for the election, Johnson
said he hopes all Baker County
GOPs will work together to
support Christine Drazan, the
Republican candidate for Ore-
gon governor, Cliff Bentz, who
is running for reelection in Or-
egon’s Second Congressional
District, and JoRae Perkins,
who is running against Dem-
ocratic incumbent Sen. Ron
Wyden.
In an email to the Herald in
response to a question about
candidate endorsements, Jones
wrote: “County parties don’t
make a special motion to en-
dorse the candidate. It isn’t
necessary because the party
literally exists to support our
nominees and values, which
Baker County does.”
Jones wrote that Johnson
“seems focused on the poli-
tics of personal destruction,
of tearing down something
he didn’t build, rather than
getting our Republican candi-
dates over the finish line this
last month.”
Following the vote at the
July 28 meeting, forms were
filed with the Oregon Sec-
retary of State’s office listing
Johnson as chairman of the ex-
ecutive committee.
That prompted a complaint
to be filed with the state, said
Ben Morris, communications
director for the Secretary of
State. He said the department
has opened an investigation,
but he didn’t give any other
details, including the name of
the person who filed the com-
plaint.
BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 A3
Anderson
Continued from A1
He marveled at the vista,
which includes the Lincoln
Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“Talk about a view,” Ander-
son said.
He was impressed by the
Sentinels, whose members
have guarded the tomb every
minute since 1937.
These soldiers are members
of the 3rd Infantry Division,
known as the “Old Guard.”
The Sentinels wear military
issue shoes that have a shank
of steel on the heel that allows
the shoes to make a distinctive
click.
However, when Sentinels
walk past veterans they briefly
slide their heel on the ground,
a recognition afforded only
to veterans such as Anderson
and the other members of the
Honor Flight.
Cross said he noticed that
subtle tribute.
While the Honor Flight
group was at Arlington, they
witnessed an interment, with
the casket carried on a horse-
drawn carriage, a 21-gun salute
and a flyover by military jets.
“The timing was impecca-
ble,” Cross said. “It was special.
The highlight for me was when
(Anderson) laid the wreath.”
Other sites
Although Anderson was
comfortably ensconced in a
wheelchair during much of
their two busy days, he made
an exception at the Lincoln
Memorial.
There he climbed 58 steps.
“Believe it or not I made it
up there,” he said. “One of my
legs is not so good.”
Anderson said the Lincoln
Memorial is an “impressive
sight” — much larger than it
appears in photographs.
The Honor Flight group
also toured the U.S. Capitol,
where the veterans met with
Congressman Cliff Bentz,
the Ontario Republican
whose district includes Baker
County.
Bentz presented each vet-
eran with a certificate and a
folded American flag that had
previously flown over the Cap-
itol.
Cross chuckled as he notes
that Bentz, when it was his
turn to greet Anderson, said “I
know you.”
Anderson, who earned a
degree in mining engineering
and geology in 1950 and has
been a mine manager, con-
sultant and owner, said he has
met Bentz a few times — “and
I’ve written him many letters”
— to advocate for the rights
of miners to work on public
land.
The group also visited the
National Archives museum,
out to these remote, rural
communities, and with the
programs offered by USDA
through the Rural Utility Ser-
vice we are able to greatly
accelerate our buildout time-
lines,” Kluser said.
“We look forward to pro-
viding a reliable, robust fiber
service to customers in small
communities including Jun-
tura, Brogan, Dayville and
Unity as well as the outlying
area between Mount Ver-
non and Dayville. We know
that fiber connectivity greatly
improves the standard of liv-
ing, and opens up lots of new
doors and opportunities for
people living here.”
Although Oregon Tele-
phone Company has had fi-
ber optic service in Unity for
about a decade, there are cus-
tomers in remote areas still
served by copper wire, said
Marcus Bott, operations man-
ager for the company.
The federal aid will help fill
in gaps in the company’s high-
speed network, and “allow for
an improved level of service
in the Unity area,” Bott wrote
in an email to the Baker City
Herald.
McCarty
Continued from A1
The couples are each
seeking monetary damages
of at least $250,000.
The plaintiffs contend
in the lawsuit that the de-
fendants felled trees on
the Sanders property, and
removed padlocks the
Sanderses had installed on
their cabin and replaced
them with other locks,
and blocked vehicle access
to the couple’s cabin with
“one or more large obsta-
cles in the driveway.”
“They also installed
new boundary posts on
the Sanders Property and
around the Sanders Cabin
and ‘no trespassing’ signs
that claimed the Sanders
Property belonged to Mc-
Carty,” the lawsuit contends.
Baker County District
Attorney Greg Baxter said
on Tuesday morning, Sept.
27 that the aggravated theft
charge stems from the
Sanderses losing access to
their cabin, allegedly as a
result of McCarty’s actions.
The lawsuit also ac-
cuses the defendants of
financial abuse and elder
abuse, stating that due to
the Sanderses’ ages and to
Sharen Sanders’ disability,
they are both “vulnerable
people as defined in ORS
124.100(e).”
James Sanders is 69 and
Sharen Sanders is 81 and
Photos by Dave Cross/Contributed Photo
Kenneth Anderson reads a note from a local student while flying home to Oregon from an Honor Flight
tour of Washington, D.C.
Red carpet treatment
Throughout the trip,
whether on an airplane, a
bus or in the Sheraton Hotel
where the veterans stayed, An-
derson said the treatment was
first class.
“I felt thoroughly honored,”
he said.
He said he and the other
World War II veteran — who
is just a month or so older
than Anderson — were always
at the front of the group.
Which meant, Anderson
said with a laugh, that he was
in a large percentage of the
photographs that an Honor
Flight representative took.
Anderson said the meals
were top notch — includ-
ing the sack lunches that the
veterans had to ensure they
didn’t miss any prime loca-
tions.
“Those sandwiches — you
never ate any like that before,”
he said.
To cite just one example
of how well Honor Flight of
Central Oregon coordinated
the trip, Anderson said he ac-
cidentally forgot some med-
ications, leaving them on his
kitchen table the morning he
and Cross left Baker City.
When they arrived in Red-
mond, a doctor who traveled
with the group immediately
phoned Anderson’s physi-
cian in Baker City and then
rushed to a pharmacy to
make sure he had the medi-
cine he needed.
Cross said the doctor even
took an Uber to the pharmacy.
And Honor Flight paid for
it all.
“It was a lovely thing,” An-
derson said.
“The whole thing with
Honor Flight is that it’s zero
cost to the veteran,” Cross said.
“Not a nickel.”
On the flight back to Or-
egon, Cross said there was a
military-style “mail call,” with
thank you notes handed out.
Although all the veterans
received a pile of letters, none
was nearly as thick as Ander-
son’s.
“He was inundated,” Cross
said.
Many of those letters were
from employees at the Baker
County Sheriff’s Office or stu-
dents at Baker schools.
Anderson said he has
thanked Sheriff’s Office work-
ers, and he plans to visit local
schools to tell students about
his trip.
When the group landed
in Redmond, they were not
only welcomed, but each was
also presented with a hand-
stitched “quilt of valor.”
Anderson said he appreci-
ated every gesture, and every
aspect of a trip that honored
his service to his country
more than three quarters of a
century ago.
“Altogether it was very, very
nice and we appreciated it.”
which begins near the western
edge of Baker Valley and ex-
tends up Pine Creek toward
Pine Creek Reservoir, does
not show a public road or any
other right-of-way across the
property.
In an earlier interview, Lin-
strom contended that the
county’s resolution, which is
based on Oregon Revised Stat-
utes 368-201 through 368-221
— “legalization of roads” — is
not valid.
The reason, she said, is that
the current road, which a
surveyor hired by the county
catalogued last fall, is not the
same route as what’s shown
in an 1891 map that commis-
sioners had earlier proffered
as evidence that the road long
predates McCarty’s purchase
of the property in September
2020.
The resolution commission-
ers approved Aug. 17 deals
with the section of road that
starts at the eastern edge of
McCarty’s property and ends
at the junction with another
road, which leads north to the
middle and upper Baisley Elk-
horn mines.
Cody Rheault/Honor Flight of Central Oregon
Kenneth Anderson, right examines the original copy of the Decla-
ration of Independence at the National Archives museum in Wash-
ington, D.C.
Kenneth Anderson visits the
U.S. Marine Corps War Memo-
rial in Washington, D.C.
where Anderson looked at the
original Declaration of Inde-
pendence, Constitution and
Bill of Rights.
Anderson said the Martin
Luther King Jr. memorial was
“very spectacular.”
The only disappointment
on the trip, he said, is that it
had to end.
“There’s so much to see,”
Anderson said. “We could
have spent days at each (site).”
legally blind, according to the
lawsuit.
McCarty is the plaintiff in
another lawsuit, which he filed
against Baker County in April
2021.
McCarty is asking for either
a declaration that the disputed
section of the Pine Creek
Road crossing his 1,560-acre
property is not a public right-
of-way, or, if a jury concludes
there is legal public access,
that the limits of that access be
defined and that the county
pay him $730,000 to compen-
sate for the lost value of the
land based on the legal public
access and for other costs he
has incurred as a result of the
county’s actions.
McCarty bought the prop-
erty in September 2020 and
installed the locked gate soon
after.
Linstrom said McCarty
doesn’t object to people walk-
ing along the road if they call
the phone number posted on
the gate, but that he is con-
cerned about people in ve-
hicles posing a potential fire
danger.
On Aug. 17 Baker County
commissioners unanimously
approve a resolution desig-
nating a section of Pine Creek
Road as a county road open to
the public.
Linstrom said McCarty in-
tends to legally challenge the
county’s action.
She noted that the title re-
port McCarty received be-
fore he bought the property,
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