BMEVG2019
Explore Grant County visitor guide
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3/28/19
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INSIDE
Blue Mountain
The
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
151st Year • No. 16 • 20 Pages • $1.00
BlueMountainEagle.com
Shining
the light
on child
abuse
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Recent child abuse statis-
tics in Grant County may show
a slight improvement over the
previous year, but the county
still ranks near the bottom in
Oregon.
April is National Child
Abuse Prevention Month and
was recognized by the Grant
County Court
in an April 10
proclamation.
The county has
seen a shrink-
ing population
and declining
economy, and
Tracey Blood
those condi-
tions could be
related to child abuse or other
social conditions.
According to fi gures from
the Children First for Oregon
nonprofi t, Grant County saw
21.9 abuse and neglect victims
ages 0-17 per 1,000 in 2018,
which was down from 32.1
in 2017. But the county still
ranked 25th out of 36 counties.
The percentage of children
in foster care increased slightly
from 2.5 in 2017 to 2.7 in 2018,
and Grant County ranked 30th
in the state. The percentage of
children in poverty fell slightly
from 26.4 to 24.6, leaving the
county ranked 28th in the state.
Tracey Blood, a prevention
advocate and Grant-Harney
County CASA volunteer, attri-
butes the unfavorable fi gures to
social determinants of health,
which include economic fac-
tors such as local job opportu-
nities and pay scales.
Child abuse is defi ned by the
state through statute and a 2016
senate bill. By statute, child
abuse includes negligent treat-
ment or maltreatment, phys-
ical abuse other than reason-
able discipline, sexual abuse
or exploitation, mental injury
caused by cruelty, threat of
harm, exposure to controlled
substances, buying or sell-
ing of children and permitting
a child to enter or remain in a
place where methamphetamine
is being manufactured.
Senate Bill 1515 expands
on this defi nition for children
residing in or receiving services
from a child-caring agency
by adding involuntary seclu-
sion, verbal abuse, wrongful
use of a physical or chemical
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
Alea King and Casey Myers
paddle a canoe on the pond that
formed at the former Oregon
Pine mill site on April 11.
AFTER THE FLOOD
State highway crews
anticipate fl ood repair work
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
R
ivers and creeks running
over onto state highways
were obvious to travelers
in Grant County on April 8-10,
but the real damage was taking
place sight-unseen beneath the
surface.
Oregon Department of Trans-
portation crews will be busy
inspecting and repairing stream
banks, bridge abutments and
highway shoulders scoured or
undercut by fast-moving streams
during the recent fl ood, Assistant
District Manager Jeff Berry told
the Eagle.
Crews were aware of shoulder
rock missing along Highway 26
in Picture Gorge, which remained
closed until Thursday afternoon.
The highway reopened to one
lane with a pilot car and then later
to two-lane travel.
ODOT was concerned water
from the John Day River got
See Repair, Page A12
Canyon City, Grant Union
deal with fl ood impacts
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
round zero for fl ood-
ing concerns in Grant
County April 8-9 was
Canyon City and Grant Union
Junior-Senior High School.
Canyon Creek, confi ned
within a man-made chan-
nel left by gold miners and fed
with runoff from lands burned
during the 2015 Canyon Creek
Complex fi re, roared like a fi re
hose through Canyon City and
G
right along the boundary of the
school complex.
The fl ow was so intense that
the gauge at Adam Road was
removed to prevent it from
being damaged, Grant County
Emergency Management Coor-
dinator Ted Williams told the
Eagle. The Canyon Creek chan-
nel is expected to safely handle
850 cubic feet per second, but a
manual measurement upstream
from Adam Road determined
See Impacts, Page A12
Contributed photo/Dennis Reasoner
Flood waters from the John Day River
surround farm buildings and a residence at a
ranch east of Dayville on April 8-9.
See Abuse, Page A12
Vogt sentenced to jail, probation after kidnapping charge dropped
Judge: Case not
‘horror story’ police
originally believed
By Tommy Simmons
Idaho Press
A judge last week sentenced Andy
Vogt of Mt. Vernon to 15 years of
probation — with prison time possi-
ble — after he admitted to meeting a
15-year-old Eagle, Idaho, girl online
and taking her back to his home last
fall.
Idaho’s Fourth District Court
Judge Jonathan Medema acknowl-
edged the case against Vogt, 48, was
not the “horror story of charges”
police and prosecutors once believed
it was. Initially, police believed Vogt
in October contacted the girl online,
drove to her house
a week later, forced
her into his truck at
gunpoint and drove
her back to his home
in Mt. Vernon. Vogt
initially faced two
Andy Vogt felony charges, includ-
ing kidnapping, which
carries a possibility of up to life in
prison.
Yet as Tanner Stellmon, the case’s
prosecutor, said in court April 10,
police were unable to corroborate
that story. Instead, as Vogt’s attor-
ney Charles Peterson pointed out,
they learned the girl, who lives
with schizophrenia and has a pre-
scription for antipsychotic medi-
cation, claimed to be 19 years old
online when she messaged Vogt.
She sneaked away from her parents’
home at about 8 p.m. that night, met
up with Vogt and went to Oregon vol-
untarily, Peterson explained.
The kidnapping charge has since
been dismissed, and he instead
pleaded guilty to lewd conduct with
a child younger than 16.
“She portrayed herself as a young
woman from Eagle, Idaho, who lived
here but was looking for dates and
was, in fact, 19 years old,” Peterson
said.
Nevertheless, Peterson acknowl-
edged Vogt should have known the
girl was not 19 years old. As the adult,
he said, Vogt still bore the respon-
sibility in the situation; Stellmon
agreed.
“The defendant was more con-
cerned in this case with the victim’s
willingness to engage with him sex-
ually than he was with her age,”
Stellmon said. “She was willing and
that was enough for him.”
Despite that, neither Vogt nor
the girl claimed they engaged sexu-
ally during the days they spent at his
home. They said they watched old
movies and played video games.
Deputies from the Ada County
Sheriff’s Offi ce worked to fi nd the
girl once her father reported her miss-
ing, and they worked with the Grant
County Sheriff’s Offi ce, the Oregon
State Police and the FBI to trace her
to his home.
“It turns out she comes to the door
and suddenly she’s not 19. ... It turns
out she’s 15 and she wants to go
home and he tells detectives, ‘I didn’t
know that,’” Peterson said.
Medema, too, said the charge Vogt
See Vogt, Page A12