The Blue Mountain eagle., June 17, 2020, Page 16, Image 16

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Blue Mountain Eagle
land, would be contact-traced.
According to Albertson, a
health official on the call said
that the protesters’ cause was
just and the state would not
infringe upon their rights to
peacefully protest.
The demonstrations in
response to the death of George
Floyd — an African American
man who died May 25 after
police officer Derek Chauvin
kneeled on his neck for nearly
nine minutes — have occurred
in rural and urban communi-
ties across the state. However,
the commissioners focused pri-
marily on large demonstrations
in Portland where large crowds
violated the governor’s guide-
lines for social distancing.
Wallowa County Commis-
sioner Susan Roberts said an
official, whom she did not iden-
tify, told her the state would
“deal with it” if they saw an
uptick in positive COVID-19
cases as a result of the protests.
“In other words, you can
protest, but we can’t go to
Continued from Page A1
“I guess the main point
is we’re being culturally
oppressed, because, I mean in
rural counties, not one county
in a rural area has received any
money and very little help,”
Albertson said at Thursday’s
meeting. “And none of us have
had direct contact with the
governor.”
The meeting came to be
after months of conference
calls with state health officials
and growing frustrations with
the governor’s guidelines to
combat the coronavirus out-
break that have wreaked havoc
on local economies.
The tipping point, said Alb-
ertson, came after a recent con-
ference call with the Oregon
Association of Counties and
the Oregon Health Authority.
On the call, he said, a repre-
sentative from a county asked
if protesters, primarily in Port-
Recall
Continued from Page A1
organizations that are part of
the sphere surrounding this
recall,” Lathrop said.
Two other recall petitions
were approved by the Ore-
gon Secretary of State in late
April and early May. One of
those was withdrawn in late
May.
Currier’s petition is the
one currently being circu-
lated by Lathrop and other
volunteers in Wallowa
County. It lists 11 griev-
ances. They include charges
that Brown used COVID-19
to unlawfully restrict free-
doms, caused needless eco-
nomic ruin, denied citizens
protection from the growing
domestic threat known as
Antifa, attempted to deprive
Oregon’s working families
of jobs using faulty envi-
ronmental policy and failed
to protect Oregon’s foster
children.
In the past week, Lathrop
and other volunteers have set
up booths or tables in Enter-
prise, Joseph and Lostine to
gather signatures.
“It’s an all-volunteer
organization,” Lathrop said.
“So where we set up depends
upon who has time to do it.”
To be sure that petitions
are error free, there will soon
be a mobile app that will
allow petition circulators to
instantly verify whether a
potential signer is a regis-
tered voter, what their regis-
tered address is and whether
they have already signed the
petition.
“We’ll be validating as
we go,” Lathrop said. “That
means, if used faithfully,
nearly all of the signatures
should be valid.”
There’s also mandatory
training for signature gather-
ers, also known as signature
circulators.
“You can’t just pick up
a bunch of blank signa-
ture pages and take them
somewhere to have all your
friends and family sign,”
Lathrop said. “There’s
requirements that signature
circulators have to meet or
the whole sheet of signatures
can be thrown out.”
Friday, June 12, Pam
Diggins and Tammie Quinby
set up an unambiguous flag-
draped booth on Lostine’s
Main Street to gather sig-
natures. They also included
the Greater Idaho petition as
well and invited visitors to
sign either or both. Includ-
ing the Greater Idaho peti-
tion, which asks that East-
ern Oregon counties become
part of Idaho, was their own
idea. The two petition drives
are not related, Lathrop said.
Former Wallowa Mayor
Vikki Knifong stopped by
to sign both, as did Karen
and David Wurdinger of
Enterprise.
“I don’t know what
Kate Brown’s done for us
that’s good, and whatever
she’s doing isn’t working.
She doesn’t even know we
exist.” Knifong said.
“Don’t much care for
what Kate Brown’s been
doing to Oregon,” Karen
Wurdinger said. “Taxes,
immigration,
driver’s
licenses for illegals. We
voted the license thing down
several times, and (Brown)
just came along and over-
rode our votes after we’d
voted it down overwhelm-
ingly. That was the straw on
the camel’s back to me.”
By around 2 p.m., Dig-
gins and Quinby had accu-
mulated nearly 100 signa-
tures, and called Lathrop
to ask her to deliver more
forms.
“They were too busy at
the booth to even drive 2
miles to get more forms,”
Lathrop said.
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church,” Albertson said in an
email to the commissioners
after the OHA call. “You can
protest but can’t go to a ball
game, you can protest, but you
can’t have a fair or rodeo.”
Harney County Commis-
sioner Kristen Shelman said
the “top-down” approach of
the governor’s executive order
does not sit well with rural res-
idents. She said she was specif-
ically concerned about the gov-
ernor’s guidelines requiring a
COVID-19 vaccine or treat-
ment before the final stage of
opening, and possible require-
ments for vaccination.
“Within that executive
order, we should all be rounded
up and given the vaccine with-
out our permission,” she said.
“And it goes right back to the
cultural oppression,” Albertson
said. “That is definitely culture.
Us on this side of the mountain
are not treated the same.”
Albertson said it is no dif-
ferent than racism and reli-
gious discrimination.
“We’re oppressed by our
state,” he said.
The commissioners said
having to cancel their county
fairs because of the guide-
lines has a big impact on rural
communities.
“The fair is the one thing
that brings all of our counties
together,” Palmer said.
Roberts said the closure of
parks statewide impacts the
culture in her county.
“They closed parks in the
city of Portland. Why do they
need to close the park in Enter-
prise?” she said. “We have
2,000 people in the whole
town. Less than a third of them
were kids. They couldn’t go to
the park.”
Other
commissioners
pointed to canceled gradua-
tions, closed schools and rules
about reopening businesses,
which, they said, face unique
challenges in rural areas.
Roberts said she wrote a
letter asking Brown’s office to
lift all restrictions in Wallowa
County by June 30. The county
leaders went back and forth on
a date and said each should be
able to determine their own
reopening guidelines.
Hamsher said the counties
should wait a couple of weeks
to see if the wave of protests
would lead to a surge in cases.
He said he hoped the state did
not see an uptick.
“If we don’t, then we might
have more of a justification to
open back up,” he said.
According to Oregon’s
phased reopening plans, many
activities can resume with lim-
ited social gatherings under
Phase 2, which most coun-
ties in Eastern Oregon are in.
The third and final phase of
reopening would bring the
state back to normal, but it is
not an option for any county
until vaccination or treatment
is available under the gover-
nor’s guidelines.
Albertson said he ques-
tions the reporting data coming
from the state’s health author-
ity. He said he did the math
and the chances of dying from
COVID-19 are very low.
Roberts said the counties
took the pandemic seriously
and did everything the state
asked them to do.
“We are prepared to meet
the challenge in our commu-
nity,” she said. “Our medi-
cal people say they’re ready,
they’re prepared.”
The county representatives
said they want their respective
health departments to be the
authority, rather than relying
on one-size-fits-all guidance
from the governor.
Hours after the meeting, the
governor’s office announced
that it was putting a hold on
reopening the state after 178
new cases were reported,
according to the OHA’s web-
site. Half of those cases were
in Multnomah and Clackamas
counties. Only eight of those
cases were in the seven coun-
ties represented at Thursday’s
meeting.
Budget
Otherwise you’re bending the
rules to suit your situation, and
that’s what gets elected offi-
cials in trouble.”
Palmer said, with two mem-
bers of the court at the EOC,
they tried to “play it safe.” He
said the staff at the EOC knew
that if he was in a room with
Hamsher one of them would
not talk so it would not be
misconstrued as deliberating
on county business because it
would have been a quorum of
the county court.
In retrospect, Palmer said
he did not ever think about
calling a county court session
to amend the previous motion
requiring purchases of $200 to
be approved by the court.
As far as going over the
approved budget, Palmer said
the meeting minutes reflect
that he pushed for the full
$250,000 initially requested
by the incident commander.
He said, had they voted to
fund the full amount, they
would not have had to go back
to the court and end up in the
situation they are in now.
“I guess, if we were to just
keep the whole budget, we
wouldn’t have had to return
to court to do it, and if it got
spent, we get reimbursed, if it
doesn’t get spent, we don’t put
in for the reimbursement, and
we are good to go,” he said.
Hamsher, however, main-
tained that the EOC was
within its proposed budget and
said it is inaccurate to say the
EOC was over-budget.
“I think that it was under-
stood that this was going to
cost more money,” he said.
“Our incident commander
did send out budget updates.”
If there were concerns
about the budget, he said,
Myers or county Treasurer
Julie Ellison — who told
the court May 27 the EOC
needed a budget transfer
to make it through the end
of the fiscal year — should
have put a budget resolution
on the court’s agenda.
Myers said, however,
reaching out to the court
for additional funding is the
responsibility of the depart-
ment head.
“Nowhere do we call some-
body or remind somebody,
‘Remember, you’re supposed
to come and ask us for more
money,’” Myers said. “That is
the department head (respon-
sibility), and at this particu-
lar time, the department head
and liaison were Hamsher and
Dobler. They should have put
together a plan. I don’t know
how much staff they need, so
why would I be the one that
decides?”
During county court, Ham-
sher said other departments,
including the Planning Depart-
ment and Veterans Depart-
ment, also required budget
transfers to make it through
the fiscal year when neither is
not considered over-budget.
For the 12-month fiscal
year, the Veterans Department
needed to transfer $2,000
from its own Materials & Ser-
vices account to its Personnel
Services account.
The planning director
position was changed from
three-quarters time to full time
during the year so the Plan-
ning Department required a
boost from the General Fund
of $4,500 for Personnel Ser-
vices and $6,000 for Materials
& Services.
In less than four months, the
EOC overspent its $125,000
budget by almost $75,000,
according to meeting minutes.
Myers said the budget
transfers included a cash infu-
sion to the EOC from the Gen-
eral Fund of $37,152 for Mate-
rials & Services.
“I was a little more gener-
ous with purchases,” Palmer
said. “I’ll admit it. But only
because the county needed the
items. If not for this emergency
for the next.”
Every first responder in
the county, from fire chiefs
to ambulances, now has a
high-powered radio in case
communications should go
down because of the EOC pro-
curements, he said..
Palmer said he poured his
“heart and soul” into the EOC
because it was what he was
elected to do, and he and the
EOC staff tried to put out as
much information to the com-
munity as they could through
the website, grantcountycovid.
com.
“I apologize to the people in
the community if there wasn’t
as much transparency as they
wanted, but I felt we stayed
engaged as best we could,” he
said.
Hamsher, who previously
said up to 100% reimburse-
ment was possible through
Coronavirus Aid, Relief and
Economic Security Act, said
Monday that he received con-
firmation from the executive
director of the Association of
Oregon Counties that Grant
County will receive $335,000
toward
COVID-19-related
costs. He said he expects to
see the funds deposited into
the county’s account within the
week.
Wallowa County County
Commissioner Susan Roberts
said they spent about $3,000
for a large-screen monitor
for the county’s COVID-19
response and did not apply for
CARES Act money. Harney
County Commissioner Kristen
Shelman said Harney County’s
CARES Act reimbursement
came to about $90,000.
“That is for everything
we tagged as a COVID-19
expense,” she said.
Shelman said Monday that
the state has given counties
more guidance to ensure the
money is spent correctly.
The state, said Shelman, is
developing a 21-page docu-
ment that the county will then
sign and return, and as soon as
it is received the money will be
issued.
Compared to other coun-
ties, Palmer said Grant County
is somewhere in the middle.
Palmer said Baker County
spent over $600,000 and
Deschutes County spent nearly
$1 million.
The EOC’s future will be
discussed in a special session
of county court June 17, Ham-
sher said.
Continued from Page A1
state and local governments
to take necessary measures to
ensure continued operations
and public participation in
decision-making during the
COVID-19 pandemic.”
“The governing body of a
public body shall hold pub-
lic meetings and hearings by
telephone, video or through
some other electronic or vir-
tual means whenever possi-
ble,” the order states.
Brown’s order allows for
public comment to be taken
by phone, email, text message
and by mail.
Hamsher said the court
members, instead, approved
the purchases outside of court,
mostly through email without
public deliberation.
Palmer said the purchase
agreements were signed by all
three members of the court.
“All three of the purchase
agreements were signed by the
court,” he said. “It just didn’t
happen at a county court
meeting.”
Palmer said, during the
COVID-19 crisis, the gover-
nor’s office has been unclear
about public meeting rules.
Myers said, while COVID-
19 is still a declared emer-
gency statewide, the county
court is mandated to follow
public meeting laws through-
out the pandemic.
Myers said Hamsher and
Palmer are mistaken. He
said, if there is an immediate
emergency, the court can get
together and make a decision.
“Right now, if the creek is
flooding, we can get together
and make a decision without
an announcement,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean, three
months later, they can get back
together and talk about what to
do next about the creek bed and
what happened in the flooding.
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