GRANT UNION WRESTLERS WIN HOME INVITATIONAL
The
PAGE A8
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
151st Year • No. 5 • 16 Pages • $1.00
BlueMountainEagle.com
Coordinating ‘coordination’
Grant County Court seeks ‘equal footing’ with Forest Service
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
The Grant County Court
agreed Jan. 23 to look into
“invoking coordination” with
federal and state agencies as
a way to protect community
interests during planning for
projects on public land.
Commissioner
Sam
Palmer brought the matter
to the court after earlier pro-
viding research material and
sample documents to Judge
Scott Myers and Commis-
sioner Jim Hamsher.
Palmer said invoking
coordination would give
the county “equal foot-
ing” during planning by
government agencies and
would allow the county
to be involved from the
very beginning of the
Federal interpretation only requires
addressing plan discrepancies
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
Grant County Commissioner Sam Palmer discusses his
recommendation that the court invoke coordination for
planning purposes during the court’s Jan. 23 meeting.
planning process.
Palmer said he spoke
with offi cials in Harney and
Crook counties about how
they dealt with coordination.
He recommended creating a
six-member committee rep-
resenting various local inter-
ests to advise the court on
invoking coordination.
Despite calls for the county to have
“equal footing” with federal agencies
through a legal provision known as coor-
dination, the federal interpretation of the
law does not appear to provide it.
Supporters of invoking coordination
to improve a local government’s position
in public land planning cite the word’s
inclusion in the National Environmental
Policy Act, National Forest Management
Act, Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act and
other acts, rules, policies and executive
orders.
Some supporters distinguish between
collaboration, cooperation and coordina-
tion, words that are found in many offi cial
documents that govern public land plan-
ning. Coordination is more than just joint
planning, they say — it also means that the
parties are equal in rank.
Many supporters often cite the work
of Fred Kelly Grant, a Boise, Idaho, attor-
ney who spoke publicly about coordina-
tion in John Day in November 2015. Grant
formed a group to promote coordination
called the Stand and Fight Club and wrote
a guidebook on the subject titled “Coordi-
nation, Government to Government.”
In his guidebook, Grant claims that
See Federal, Page A16
See County, Page A16
Prairie City cemetery to see improvements
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Recent
and
future
improvements at the Prairie
City Cemetery are the result
of hard work and kind dona-
tions by locals and family
members.
The tall red Marciel Well
Drilling rig is installing a
new irrigation well, Prairie
City Cemetery District sec-
retary-treasurer Carla Wright
said. The irrigation ditch the
cemetery has relied on ran
dry by the end of last sum-
mer, she said.
Several diseased black
olive trees along County
Road 62 have been removed,
a new wrought-iron arch-
way has been installed at the
east entrance and prepara-
tion work has begun for new
fencing at the cemetery.
The district receives
some tax revenue, but
it’s just enough to pay for
groundskeeping,
district
president Marlene Woodley
said. The district asked Jen-
nie Messmer to write a grant
application to pay for a new
water source, but she passed
away in March 2018.
Messmer had worked for
the League of Oregon Cities
and the Mid-Willamette Val-
ley Council of Governments
and served as interim city
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
Carla Wright, left, and Marlene Woodley stand near the Marciel Drilling rig that will install an irrigation well for the Prairie
City Cemetery.
manager for several Oregon
cities. She received awards
for her service to Oregon.
Sharon Fritsch, Mess-
mer’s sister and a teacher at
Humbolt Elementary School,
stepped up to fi nish the grant
writing in honor of her sister.
The cemetery district was
awarded a $20,000 grant
from the Oregon Commu-
nity Foundation, a $4,500
grant from the Oregon Parks
and Recreation Department’s
Historic Cemeteries Program
and a $1,000 grant from the
Shelk Foundation.
That money was ear-
marked for the well drilling
and fencing projects, but the
new well will cost $55,000,
Wright said. A fund sup-
ported by donors over the
years will be wiped out cov-
ering the difference, she said,
and the district will need
additional donations to cover
the costs of plumbing and
electrical connections for the
new well.
Raymond Field donated
part of his costs for removing
the black olive trees in mem-
ory of his brother Ronald,
who passed away in 2018,
and the Grant County Road
Department helped with
removing the debris.
Donations from Wright,
cemetery district board mem-
ber Jim Sullens and Fran
Bunch covered the remain-
ing cost for the tree removal.
City personnel assisted in
removing old fence posts and
cement in preparation for the
new fence.
The cost of construct-
ing the wrought-iron arch-
way, one of Boyd Britton’s
last metal projects in Grant
County, was covered with
several thousand dollars in
donations from Messmer’s
family and friends.
The Winegar family, with
some of the oldest head-
stones in the cemetery, paid
for constructing the cobble-
stone directory building in
honor of Virginia Winegar,
who died in 1996.
Members of the Prairie
City School FFA program
constructed a split-rail fence
near the directory building
with wood donated by the
McKinley family.
Wright said 17 burials
took place at the Prairie City
Cemetery in 2016 and 12 in
2017 — both unusually high
numbers. Eight burials took
place last year.
According to Wright and
Woodley, the oldest known
grave at the Prairie City Cem-
etery is about 175 years old.
An ancestor of Burt Rutan,
the prize-winning retired
aerospace engineer, is buried
at that site. Wright also noted
that unmarked plots exist for
three unknown soldiers.
Six Confederate sol-
diers are buried in the older
section of the cemetery.
See Cemetery, Page A16
Legislators back plan to spend $3 billion more on schools
By Paris Achen, Aubrey
Wieber and Claire
Withycombe
Oregon Capital Bureau
A small group of legisla-
tors spent a year compiling
their wish list of improve-
ments to Oregon’s failing
education system. Now they
have fi ve months to whittle
it down to something realis-
tic, fi nd a way to fund it and
sell the rest of their colleagues
on spending up to $3 billion
more on K-12 education. The
state currently spends about
$8.2 billion.
“We only get one chance
to educate our children,”
said state Rep. Greg Smith,
R-Heppner. “They’re only
Pamplin fi le photo
Sen. Lew Frederick talks with Portland students in September
2018 during a tour of the state by the Joint Committee on
School Success.
in fi rst grade once, they’re
only in 10th grade once. We
need to take advantage of that
opportunity.”
A report released Thurs-
day details the wish list a leg-
islative committee compiled
after a summer of hearings
and tours around Oregon. The
report echoes much of what
the committee already has
said publicly is needed to
improve schooling for Ore-
gon’s children. That includes
a longer school year, more
state-paid preschool, diversity
among teachers and smaller
class sizes.
It also shows lawmak-
ers have learned from past
mistakes.
“Historically, the school
state fund has not come with
strings attached,” said state
Rep. Barbara Smith Warner,
D-Portland, co-chair of the
Joint Committee on School
Success. “What we are trying
to do is to ... tie this funding
to outcomes. It’s not just, let’s
put more money in the state
school fund.”
That means school dis-
tricts around Oregon might
have to agree to measurable
improvements to get and keep
extra state money.
The state would work with
districts to come up with tai-
lored plans. What works in a
large, urban school might not
be right for a school of just a
couple hundred students, leg-
islators said. If the districts
follow through on the plan
and see improvement, the
state would continue paying
for their initiatives.
The proposals would
transform Oregon’s school
system in every way, from
how the state intervenes with
See Schools, Page A16