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NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Records
Continued from Page A1
Health Statistics, Vital Records
and Certifi cates.
The processing time in Jan-
uary, however, averaged 12.7
days, Woodward said. The lon-
ger time could be related to delays
by funeral directors or physicians
fi lling out the appropriate forms,
a challenge she characterized as
statewide, not regional.
The state’s vital records offi ce
has certifi ed 6.5 million records
since it was established in 1903.
Last year, the offi ce certifi ed
35,000 deaths, about 3,100 per
month, Woodward said. Records
for deaths and marriages are
kept confi dential for 50 years,
while birth records remain con-
fi dential for 100 years, she
said.
An electronic system is used to
process death statistics, and about
90 percent of funeral directors and
physicians use the system, Wood-
ward said. But there are no penal-
ties for delays.
“The main message to physi-
cians is that this is the last import-
ant thing they can do for families,”
Woodward said.
Delays and hardships
Delays in obtaining a death
certifi cate can create a hardship
for survivors, especially those
already struggling on a fi xed
retirement income. Spouses often
have joint ownership or accounts
Senate
Continued from Page A1
By walking out, they
denied the 18 Democrats a
quorum, bringing the Senate
to a halt.
It lasted four days. When
Republicans again didn’t
show on Friday, both sides
said they were in it for the
long haul.
Then Gov. Kate Brown
began negotiating with Sen-
ate Republicans, and over
the weekend, everything
changed. On Monday at
3 p.m., the education pack-
age came up for a vote in the
Senate and eventually passed
on a party-line vote.
As part of the deal,
Republican senators agreed
to forego protests on future
votes for bills like cap and
trade and paid family leave.
Senate Minority Leader
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
Claude Baker at his home on Laycock Creek Road. Baker’s bank account was
frozen for 16 days while he waited to receive his wife’s death certifi cate.
for banking, trusts, pensions, life
insurance, homes, personal prop-
erty and utility bills.
Claude Baker, whose wife,
Bobetta, passed away Feb. 26,
said it took 16 days before he
received a death certifi cate. He
said he was told that much time
wasn’t uncommon and the delay
might have to do with getting the
attending doctor’s signature on
the death report so it could be sent
to the Oregon Health Authority.
In Baker’s case, his wife’s
Social Security checks were
automatically deposited at a
bank in California, and the
bank froze the joint account not
long after she passed away. The
Herman Baertschiger Jr.,
R-Grants Pass, declined to
comment on whether his cau-
cus would play nice. He said
of Republicans’ negotiations
with Democrats, “It had a
lot more to do than with just
guns and vaccines.”
He declined to elabo-
rate, but he said the Repub-
licans’ denial of a quorum
achieved what it set out to
do: It brought Democrats
and Republicans together to
negotiate a way forward.
“We’re here to do the
people’s work. If we fail,
the citizens are the losers,”
Baertschiger said. “If we
come together and fi nd solu-
tions, the citizens are the
winners.”
When asked if giving
in sets a political prece-
dent, Senate President Peter
Courtney, D-Salem, dou-
bled down on the school
vote being a historic win.
“I’m not surprised it took
bank sent him forms to fill out
so he could access the account,
but he lacked the death certifi-
cate needed to be sent with the
forms.
Baker said he and his wife had
established a living will and trust
and he had power of attorney, but
he said it took the assistance of
a senior nurse at Blue Mountain
Hospital to “break the logjam”
and expedite the process.
Local medical examiner
April Bieber resigned as Grant
County medical examiner on Feb.
22. As a result, Grant County cur-
rently does not have a medical
examiner to handle unattended
this kind of effort,” Court-
ney said. “In fact, I wasn’t
sure we could get there.”
Burdick said, while she’s
devastated to lose the gun
bill, this is the most historic
vote she’s taken in her 23
years as a lawmaker. Bur-
dick met with Baertschiger
on Saturday and agreed to
kill the bill.
That same day, Sen.
Elizabeth Steiner Hayward,
D-Beaverton, met with Sen.
Dallas Heard, R-Roseburg,
to concede on her vaccina-
tion bill, something Steiner
Hayward has worked on
for years. Steiner Hayward
declined to discuss the deal.
The vaccine bill became
one of the most controver-
sial of the session, as oppo-
nents daily came to the Cap-
itol to protest. Some wore
stickers and made signs.
Others duct-taped their
mouths shut as a symbol for
being silenced. By the thou-
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
deaths, “nor are there any imme-
diate or apparent prospects for
appointing one,” Grant County
District Attorney Jim Carpenter
told the Eagle.
According to state law, “the
local health offi cer shall tempo-
rarily act as medical examiner in
cooperation with the chief medi-
cal examiner until the vacancy is
fi lled.” The chief medical exam-
iner is a position within the Ore-
gon State Police, currently based
in Clackamas.
The Oregon Health Author-
ity lists Dr. David Hall, a provider
at Blue Mountain Hospital, as the
local health offi cer, Carpenter said.
Hall served as the Grant County
medical examiner in the past but
“has declined to fi ll the role of med-
ical examiner during this vacancy,”
Carpenter said.
State law provides that in cases
where the positions of local health
offi cer and district medical exam-
iner are both vacant, “the district
attorney shall temporarily act as
medical examiner in cooperation
with the chief medical examiner
until the vacancy is fi lled.”
On April 23, Carpenter told the
Grant County Court that the state
medical examiner’s offi ce had
taken on the role of local medi-
cal examiner but wasn’t gener-
ally available to travel to Grant
County. The offi ce asked the court
to appoint additional death investi-
gators to assist them.
At the time, Sheriff Glenn
Palmer was the only appointed
certifi ed death investigator in
sands, they submitted writ-
ten testimony. They regu-
larly confronted lawmakers
and staff in the building.
“The people opposing
that bill just behaved repre-
hensibly around the build-
ing,” Burdick said. “I’m
afraid that some of them
are going to feel those tac-
tics worked. Those tactics
had nothing to do with what
happened today.”
Republicans also secured
a promise that Sen. Cliff
Bentz, R-Ontario, will have
more of a say on the expan-
sive carbon pricing pro-
posal inching toward the
House, although Courtney
declined to elaborate.
Courtney has been Sen-
ate president since 2003.
He has the power to ask
the governor to call out
the Oregon State Police
to bring wayward sena-
tors back to the Capitol for
a vote, and he exercised it
Hello Grant County,
Isn’t Grant County beautiful in the
springtime? I think so, and that is
what I am hearing from many of the
visitors that are stopping by the
Chamber office.
First Friday was a hit again this
month! Several people came out to
enjoy the scavenger hunt.
Congratulations to Karen Johnston
for winning the gift basket. Next
month, First Friday will be a poker
walk. Mark your calendars for Friday,
June 7.
Our tourist season officially opened
May 1. Kam Wah Chung is already
seeing more visitors than they saw
this time last year, and the Sheep
Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil
Beds is expecting a big year as well.
Make sure to let visitors know about
our wonderful local museums. The
folks at the Grant County Historical
Museum, the Ranch and Rodeo
Museum and DeWitt Museum and
Depot Park work very hard to
preserve our history for future
generations. If you haven’t visited
our local treasures, you should!
The Seneca Oyster Feed and 62 Days
are right around the corner. For other
events, check the calendar on our
website: gcoregonlive.com. We try to
list everything that is going on. If you
know of something that is not on the
calendar, let us know so we can get it
on there.
The June Chamber Board meeting
will be held Thursday, May 16. The
board meets at the Chamber office at
10:30 a.m. and the no-host luncheon
is held at the Outpost at 12 p.m.;
everyone is welcome to attend. Our
guest speaker will be Genevieve
Perdue, conservation specialist from
the Blue Mountain Land Trust. We
hope to see you there!
Grant County. On May 8, the
court agreed to appoint Gretchen
Ladd, who is the district attorney
in Wheeler County with a home in
Canyon City, and former John Day
Police Chief Richard Tirico.
Ladd was already certifi ed, but
Tirico would need training that
could cost the county $1,157. A
death investigator typically looks
into factors relating to deaths other
than medical causes.
Preventive measures
There’s not much a person can
do to expedite death certifi cates,
but people can plan ahead for
the time when a spouse or family
member falls ill and when they die.
Estate planning, drawing up a
will and drawing up papers giving
another person power of attorney
needs to be done ahead of time.
Choosing an executor to handle
fi nancial affairs after a person has
died also needs to be done ahead
of time. People should contact an
attorney for proper detailed advice
on these matters.
Baker said his biggest prob-
lem was that immediately after
his wife passed away, the Social
Security Administration contacted
the credit union in San Jose, Cali-
fornia, and froze her account. The
agency even requested that her last
check be returned, he said.
But once he sent the proper
documents, the bank account was
unlocked right away.
“It was an inconvenience for
us,” he said. “But for others, it
could be a catastrophe.”
in 2007 when Republicans
attempted to boycott a tax
vote.
This time, Courtney
chose not to send state
troopers after the miss-
ing Republicans, saying
that would have been “a
nightmare.”
“I don’t have to conquer
or win,” Courtney said. “I
like it when the institution
works.”
Sen. Brian Boquist,
R-Dallas, said on the Sen-
ate fl oor that the walkout
needed a resolution.
“At some point, we have
to come back together,”
Boquist said.
“Being in charge means
you have to govern, and
you have to fi gure out how
to get people back into the
building to govern,” said
Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos
Bay, who was co-speaker in
a House at the time evenly
divided between Dem-
ocrats and Republicans.
“When you have a major-
ity, you have an expecta-
tion, and you have people
that have expectations for
you. You still have to run
government.”
While the walkout origi-
nally focused on the state’s
troubled pension system,
any fi x was notably absent
from the fi nal deal. Both
sides refused to say how
the gun control and vac-
cine bills were picked out
of Republicans’ expansive
list of Democratic propos-
als they wanted dead.
When asked about how
the deal was sorted out,
Baertschiger just wanted
to talk about the pension
woes, though he declined
to offer details on a solution
and said the state should
stop “adding to” the sys-
tem’s debt.
Late last week, a bipar-
tisan group of lawmakers
introduced an amendment
to Senate Bill 1049 that
would cut employee bene-
fi ts and make other changes
to PERS in an attempt to
lessen annual payments to
retirement benefi ts. That
bill could move to the
House fl oor as soon as this
week.
“I do believe that if we
don’t get a handle on this
PERS,” Baertschiger said,
“that we are going to be
back in two years, and the
educators are going to be
asking for more money
again.”
Monday - Thursday
7am- 6pm
Friday 8am - 5pm
Mendy Sharpe FNP
Apppointments
available
SAUNDERS/FAMILY & FRIENDS REUNION
Dates: June 21, 22 and 23
Place(s): Holliday Park and Mt. Vernon Community Hall
Friday June21: Holliday Park
12:00 to Evening
Meals …Potluck
Saturday June 22: Mt Vernon Community Hall
Meals
Breakfast 8-10 am: Pancakes by Family
Noon:
Potluck
Evening:
Potluck
Sunday June 23: Mt Vernon Community Hall
Meal:
Breakfast 8-10 am: continental Potluck
Who: All related
Family’s: Johns/ Osbornes/Springers/Gibbs/Others
Silent Auction: All Participants Welcome
Contact #: (541) 620-2392
Tammy Bremner
Manager, Grant County Chamber of
Commerce
120572
120040