PRAIRIE CITY BOYS WIN NINE STRAIGHT | Page A10
The
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
152nd Year • No. 3 • 16 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
Grant County discharges Deputy Tyler Smith
Sheriff’s office administrative leave costs county more than $75,000
By Sean Hart
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant County has discharged
the sheriff’s office deputy awaiting
trial on attempted rape and other
charges.
Tyler Smith was discharged by
Grant County Sheriff’s Office Dec.
17, and he is no longer an active
law enforcement officer, accord-
ing to the Oregon Criminal Jus-
tice Information
Records Inquiry
System maintained
by the state’s
police
licensing
agency.
Grant County
Tyler Smith
Human Resources
Manager Laurie
Wright confirmed Smith no longer
works for the county but said the
reason he is not employed is condi-
tionally exempt from public disclo-
sure under an Oregon law shield-
ing personnel discipline actions.
Because it is a conditional exemp-
tion, the records are not exempt if
the public interest requires their
disclosure.
A Sept. 27 grand jury indictment
filed in Grant County Circuit Court
accuses Smith, 33, of John Day of
first-degree attempted rape, a class
B felony, and attempted first-de-
gree sex abuse and fourth-de-
gree assault, class C felonies —
all constituting domestic violence.
The indictment accuses Smith
of attempting to engage in sex-
ual intercourse with his spouse on
Aug. 31, 2018, “by forcible com-
pulsion” and while knowing she
was pregnant.
He also faces four class A mis-
demeanor charges of second-de-
gree child neglect, accused of leav-
ing two children under the age of
10 unattended at a John Day resi-
dence “for such a period of time as
was likely to endanger the health
or welfare” of the children on Sept.
4 and Sept. 5, according to infor-
mation filed in court Sept. 10 by
Grant County Special Deputy Dis-
trict Attorney Gretchen M. Ladd
Dobler.
Smith filed a motion in court
Dec. 11 to modify the conditions
of his pretrial release “to allow
him to possess firearms solely for
See Smith, Page A16
GRANT UNION
ECLIPSE DATA
GETS PUBLISHED
Contributed photo
From right to left standing, Anthony Allen, Tom Schad from the National Solar Observatory and Gage Brandon on the day of the eclipse with
Donavan Smith, left, and Declan Jensen, right, seated with the computers.
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
W
hile the eclipse in 2017 brought a
spectacle for people in the path of
totality, three Grant Union High
School students and a teacher went
beyond spectating and got pub-
lished in a peer-reviewed science publication.
Grant Union seniors Donavan Smith and Gage
Brandon were shocked that the experiment they
conducted more than two years ago has come up
again, and now they are published.
“Gage and I only found out that the work was
published a week and a half ago, and it feels
pretty good,” Donavan said.
The data and research were cited in the arti-
The Eagle/Rudy Diaz
cle, “Acceleration of Coronal Mass Ejection Grant Union High School seniors Dona-
Plasma in the Low Corona as Measured by the van Smith, left, and Gage Brandon
Citizen CATE Experiment” and published in the
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the
Pacific.
Smith and Brandon were freshmen when they
participated in the Citizen Continental-Amer-
ica Telescopic Eclipse experiment along with
GUHS graduate Declan Jensen and her friend
Anthony Allen, Rocklin, California, and science
teacher Sonna Smith. The Citizen CATE exper-
iment had 93 sites across the U.S. record the
eclipse in its entirety.
“At 6:30 in the morning, we started setting up
a tent at Donavon’s house to keep the computer
in, and then we set up the telescope, which was
See Eclipse, Page A16
Timber Unity gears up for cap and trade, other issues
By Sierra Dawn McClain
EO Media Group
The Oregon state legislature’s
short session begins Feb. 3, with
lawmakers planning to resurrect cli-
mate legislation after last session’s
controversial “cap-and-trade” pro-
posal failed.
And Timber Unity, the group
heading protests last year, will be
back.
On Feb. 6, Timber Unity will
organize a convoy of logging trucks
to Salem and a rally on the Capitol
steps.
On the group’s Facebook event
page, as of Jan. 7, 936 people have
said they will go to the protest, more
than 3,100 have marked themselves
as interested and 97 have pledged to
EO Media Group file photo
Representatives of the Timber Unity movement organized massive pro-
tests at the Oregon Capitol in Salem last year against climate legislation.
The organization is planning to protest a new climate change proposal that
will be considered during the upcoming legislative session.
drive semi-trucks.
“We want to stop cap and trade,”
said Adam Lardy, a Timber Unity
spokesman. “Politicians may want
to run with a watered-down ver-
sion this year. But once they get a
foothold, why wouldn’t they run
with it? So we can’t let them get a
foothold.”
Last year Timber Unity formed
to protest House Bill 2020, last
year’s cap-and-trade bill, which
passed the Oregon House. The leg-
islation was designed to cut carbon
emissions, but it roused opposition
from farmers, loggers and others
who argued the bill would raise fuel
and natural gas prices.
The protests culminated with the
walk-out of Senate Republicans,
inflaming party tensions. The bill
stalled in the Senate at the end of the
session when it failed to gain ade-
quate support. According to Harry
Esteve, communications manager
for the Oregon Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality, it’s too early to
know the specifics of a renewed
cap-and-trade proposal.
See Unity, Page A16