The
Th
Grant Union/Prairie City
Prospector Tristan Morris
pitches against Heppner/Ione.
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
The Eagle/Angel Carpenter
STATE
PLAYOFFS
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
GRANT UNION/
PRAIRIE CITY
BASEBALL TEAM
ADVANCES TO
FIRST ROUND
PAGE B1
CONGRATULATIONS TO DAYVILLE, LONG CREEK, PRAIRIE CITY AND MONUMENT GRADUATES! Pages A6-7
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
151st Year • No. 20 • 20 Pages • $1.00
BlueMountainEagle.com
Cleared for takeoff
Big grant will fi x airport runways
Airport Improvement
Program provides
$6.25 million
Student Success Act will
raise $1 billion per year
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
By Aubrey Wieber, Claire Withycombe
and Mark Miller
Oregon Capital Bureau
A
large federal grant
with no match
required will enable
Grant County to
“decouple” its two
runways and make takeoffs and
landings safer.
The $6.25 million grant was
secured through the federal
Department of Transportation’s
Airport Improvement Program.
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden,
R-Oregon, voted to increase
funding for the program and
direct more grants to rural air-
ports in the Federal Aviation
Administration’s Reauthoriza-
tion Act in 2018.
“We all know the import-
ant role this airport plays for the
local economy, especially during
fi re season as a hub for our air
attack teams to rapidly fi ght fi res
in the forests and around our
communities,” Walden said in a
statement. “This is tremendous
news ... With more than $6 mil-
lion to improve runway safety at
the airport, this grant will help
support job growth.”
Grant County Regional Air-
port Manager Haley Walker said
she worked with T-O Engineers
of Boise, Idaho, to submit the
grant application. The grant pro-
gram targeted smaller airports,
which increased their chances,
she said.
Runway 9/27, which runs
roughly east-west, and Run-
way 17/35, which runs roughly
north-south, crisscross near the
south end of the airfi eld. This
Dems agree
to drop gun,
vaccine bills to
get Republicans
to return
Eagle fi le photos
A single-engine aircraft fl ies over the Grant County Regional Airport. A recently awarded federal grant
will improve airport safety by decoupling two intersecting runways.
The terminal at Grant County
Regional Airport.
potential hazard had been iden-
tifi ed by the FAA and was cited
in the airport’s 20-year master
plan.
A proposed fi x is to shorten
Runway 9/27. Aircraft could
taxi back to the hangar and ter-
minal airway on an existing taxi-
way that crosses Runway 17/35
about midway near the terminal,
Airport Manager Haley Walker
addresses the Grant County
Court in November 2018.
Walker helped secure a recently
awarded $6.25 million grant to
improve airport safety.
Walker said.
The grant money is avail-
able right away, Walker said.
Final design and planning for
the decoupling will take place
this year, and construction could
take place in 2020, she said.
In the meantime, repairs to
the deteriorating aprons around
the hangars could take place this
year. Prop wash from powerful
planes, such as the Forest Ser-
vice’s single-engine air tankers,
often kicks up the gravel from
the crumbling aprons that can
damage other aircraft.
Design and engineering for
the apron project cost about
$522,000, with the FAA paying
about 90 percent, a state Criti-
cal Oregon Airport Relief grant
covering about 9 percent and
the county picking up about 1
percent.
Construction for the apron
project is estimated to cost about
$3.47 million, Walker said. The
hope is that the FAA would pay
90 percent, COAR would pay
about $150,000 and the county
would pay about 1 percent.
Walker said the county is
still awaiting the fi nal design
and engineering for the apron
project and hope to put it out to
bid by June or July.
Four Oregon senators leading the charge
to inject new lifeblood into the state’s trou-
bled education system said in their combined
88 years in the Legislature, the passage of the
Student Success Act was the pinnacle of their
career.
But passing the bill took some backroom
horse trading with Republicans, and two
deeply controversial bills were the casual-
ties. One would have tightened the state’s gun
laws and the other would remove non-medical
exemptions for vaccines for school children.
Bits and pieces of how the deal came
together emerged in interviews Monday,
though Senate leadership remains tight-lipped
on the details.
Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, was a
sponsor of the gun bill.
On Saturday, she went to work to kill it.
“It was terribly hard,” Burdick said. “I
won’t deny that. People are counting on me.
My district is counting on me. But today was
a historic day. If that’s what it took to make
that happen — killing that particular bill —
then I accept that.”
The genesis of Burdick’s tough choice
was May 7, when the 12 Republican sena-
tors staged a walkout to protest the impend-
ing passage of the Student Success Act,
which would bolster education funding, pro-
vide money for early learning, help feed hun-
gry kids and address the mental health crisis
in many of Oregon’s schools.
Republicans said the state’s public pen-
sion debt should be addressed fi rst, to make
sure the new money being raised doesn’t get
diverted to pay retirement costs instead of
teachers.
See Senate, Page A10
Death and government records
Death certifi cate delays can
cause signifi cant problems
for those unprepared
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
From birth to death, the government
tracks everyone in the U.S. While the
government needs this information for
taxing, budgeting and other purposes,
citizens depend on vital records for all
manner of fi nancial transactions.
That includes survivors of spouses or
other family members who have passed
on. Missing records are bad enough, but
the impact can be much worse for elderly
people whose fi nancial resources are
already strained.
Processing for a death certifi cate typi-
cally begins with a funeral director, who
collects family information and enters
it in Oregon’s electronic reporting sys-
tem. The report must be signed by an
attending physician or the local medical
examiner for unattended deaths before
it is ready to be recorded by the Oregon
Health Authority.
After a death is registered, the infor-
mation is transmitted to the county health
department for printing to create an offi -
cial death certifi cate. Spouses or fam-
ily members must present this document
at banks and other fi nancial offi ces to
access accounts.
Vital records offi ce
Current Oregon law states that pro-
cessing of a registered certifi cate
“should” be completed within fi ve days
of the time of death, according to Jenni-
fer Woodward, a section manager at the
Oregon Health Authority’s Center for
See Records, Page A10
Contributed photo/Claude Baker
Bobette Baker, bottom left, and Claude Baker, bottom right,
celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in June 2009 at the
Outpost Pizza, Pub & Grill in John Day with their son James, his wife
Kelley and granddaughters Lauren, top, and Emily.