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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 28, 2018)
News Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, February 28, 2018 A3 Options presented for aging Forest Service buildings Allowing structures to ‘melt in place’ is a viable option By Richard Hanners Blue Mountain Eagle Sharon Livingston Rancher calls for filling natural resource adviser position County court will bring matter back March 14 By Richard Hanners Blue Mountain Eagle In a personal and “from the heart” talk to the Grant County Court on Feb. 21, Long Creek rancher Sharon Livingston emphasized the need for protecting natural resources — water, timber and grazing land — and called for the court to fill the position for a natural resource adviser. Livingston described the efforts she’s taken to maintain her ranch in a pro- ductive state and the various groups she has represented in Salem lobbying on behalf of agriculture. She expressed her frus- tration over how government agencies manage natural re- sources in Grant County. She said the Forest Service has not properly managed the land adjacent to her ranch in 40 years, noting that she has to repair the fence between the properties to keep out cattle grazing on leased for- est lands. A natural resource ad- viser for the county needs to be capable of writing documents and representing Grant County in the legis- lature, Livingston said. She praised past Eastern Oregon legislators but noted that they often were outvoted in the state House and Senate. County residents Jim Sproul and Sam Palmer thanked Livingston for her talk and supported her call for the court to fill the nat- ural resource adviser posi- tion. Sproul said the person chosen by the court should be a local who makes deci- sions based on “good solid science.” Commissioner Jim Ham- sher asked that the matter be put on the court’s next agen- da, and the court agreed. Judge Scott Myers noted that the county had received three responses to requests for proposals that it issued last year, and all three were locals. • The court approved a request from Julie Ellison, county treasurer, to present the fiscal year 2019 cost- of-living adjustment wage increase to the county bud- get committee. The COLA is determined by the federal consumer price index, in accordance with a contract with the union represent- ing the sheriff’s office, and then applied to the rest of the county’s wage earners, she said. The COLA for the next fiscal year will be 2.13 percent. • The court approved a re- quest from Josh Wolf, cor- rections manager for Grant County Jail, for two ex- ternal hard drives to store body camera video files, several night-vision cam- eras for outside the jail and several rugged heavy-du- ty radio microphones with an estimated total cost of $5,224. The court also ap- proved a request to lease a dishwasher from Ecolab at $94 per month for one year. Myers said he had signed a $15,105 contract with North River Electric to update the lights inside the jail with LED fixtures. With a $10,574 rebate from Ore- gon Trail Electric Coopera- tive, the cost will be $4,532 to be paid from the jail ex- pansion fund. • Citing an unusual amount of juvenile delin- quency cases, the court ap- proved moving $5,370 from the county’s all-department contingency fund to the Community Corrections fund. • The court approved creating a half-time county position for about 20 hours to assist Veanne Weddle, senior programs manager, clear a backlog on a list of inactive seniors and other office matters. • A request by Mindy Winegar, fair manager, to change the job descrip- tions for a secretary and a groundskeeper that would save the county about $6,000 was approved by the court. • The court approved a funding request by Katee Hoffman, veteran services officer, so she could attend a women’s veterans confer- ence in April. • The Grant County Court will meet again March 14. Selling aging Forest Ser- vice buildings, finding new uses for them or even letting some “melt in place” — any- thing but tearing them down. That was the message a handful of residents told Malheur National Forest of- ficials during a meeting on the forest’s recently com- pleted draft Facilities Master Plan held at Grant County Regional Airport Feb. 20. When told the plan was drafted by retired engineers Jerry Carlson, Dick Sawaya and Bob VinderLinden for Northstar Technology Corp. of Irvine, California, sever- al residents said the survey work should have been per- formed by locals. The Forest Service also needs to “look outside the box” to find solu- tions, they said. If the Forest Service is having trouble housing sea- sonal firefighters, then why not fix up these old build- ings, Billy Jo George asked. Noting that she believed the agency didn’t try hard enough to find the money needed to address a mount- ing maintenance backlog for its facilities, George blamed the situation on “nothing but sheer neglect” and called the proposal to tear buildings down a “quick fix.” Citing the case of a build- ing ruined by a tree growing out of a foundation, Howard Gieger noted how easy it would have been for a main- tenance worker to kill the tree when it was young. He also described how he and others long ago volunteered to maintain the Crane Prairie Work Center if they could use it during winter. They ended up being told no, he said. “Overhead is eating you up,” Gieger said. Jim Sproul suggested that people should be allowed to “adopt” a site and agree to fix it up if they were allowed to use the site for 10 years. He also suggested the Forest Service operate more along “capitalist” policies, in par- ticular selling the land that forest buildings sit on. Sproul also likened some restoration efforts made with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act under the Obama admin- istration to “putting lipstick on a pig.” He said he grew con- cerned when he initially heard the Forest Service might decommission build- ings built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. He suggested the agency “at least let them melt down.” Frances Preston said she opposed decommissioning any buildings on the Malheur National Forest and asked why there was an effort to step up decommissioning. She suggested the agency should first offer buildings it didn’t want to the county. Teresa Dixon, the for- The Eagle/Richard Hanners Grant County resident Jim Sproul speaks to Malheur National Forest staff following a meeting on the recently completed draft Facilities Master Plan at Grant County Regional Airport on Feb. 20. From left, roads engineer Zeke Langum; Sproul; forest facilities manager Keith Nickerson; recreation, lands and minerals program manager Teresa Dixon; and recreation, engineering, lands and minerals staff officer Mike Montgomery. The Eagle/Richard Hanners Teresa Dixon talks about the recently completed draft Facilities Master Plan at Grant County Regional Airport on Feb. 20. Attendees said allowing old buildings to ‘melt in place’ would be better than tearing them down. est’s recreation, lands and minerals project manager, explained that the Forest Ser- vice is not allowed to set up long-term recreation leases or to sell the land where a build- ing sits. Congress sets those rules, and the Forest Service can’t lobby for itself in Wash- ington, D.C., she said. Zeke Langum, a forest roads engineer, defended the contractors who drafted the facilities plan. He also noted that the plan was advisory, and any proposal for decom- missioning would undergo further review. Mike Montgomery, a rec- reation, engineering, lands and minerals staff officer for the Malheur National Forest, agreed that forest staff would take a second look before de- commissioning a building. Montgomery explained that a national study of the Contributed photo Contributed photo The Raddue Guard Station on the Malheur National Forest was abandoned about 15 years ago. Photo by U.S. Forest Service. Forest Service’s multimil- lion-dollar maintenance backlog was based on a na- tional database, but the Mal- heur’s draft Facilities Master Plan used information gath- ered from on-site reviews. The plan will enable the forest to make good deci- The Flagtail Lookout on the Malheur National Forest. Photo by Rex Kamstra. sions on what to do with its aging buildings, he said. In some cases, letting a build- ing “melt in place” is a via- ble option, he said. The draft plan and com- ment form are available at the Malheur National Forest website, fs.usda.gov/mal- heur. 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