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NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
EOC
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The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Isopropyl alcohol on the shelves at Grant County’s Emergency Operations Center at the Grant County Regional Airport.
Spike
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The hospital has a 14-day
supply of PPE on hand,
which includes roughly 1,000
N95 masks, 10,000 proce-
dure masks, 100 face shields
and an “adequate” supply of
gloves, isolation gowns and
hand sanitizer, she said.
Lindsay said the health
department has one full-
time contact tracer and an
employee who is training
that will work full time as
a contact tracer or, should
the county not see an influx
of cases, work on other
COVID-19-related tasks.
There are contact tracers
from the state, she said, and
counties have volunteered to
contact trace for other coun-
ties seeing more cases.
“Between what we cur-
rently have, what we’re add-
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Grant County Health Department workers prepare COVID-19 test kits during the county’s curb-
side testing last month. County health officials confirmed last week that Grant County has the
capacity to test 500 people.
ing and what is available from
the state and other counties,”
she said, “I feel like we’re in
a very good spot compared
to other counties.”
While the county han-
dles contact tracing, the hos-
pital staff are ready to step
in as contact tracers for the
Health Department, Rand
said.
Lindsay said, without a
cure or a vaccine, it is essen-
tial to be thoughtful about
social distancing as the state
opens back up.
“We’ve opened up, and
in Grant County, we haven’t
seen an increase in cases,
and that’s great,” she said.
“And I hope that that con-
tinues, but we are seeing an
increase in cases, and Grant
County isn’t immune.”
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Orchard said Oregon pub-
lic meetings law anticipates
conducting public business in
actual emergencies.
According to the approved
meeting minutes from March
13, 2019, the court approved a
motion to give the county judge
discretion to approve the pur-
chase of previously budgeted
items.
Grant County Judge Scott
Myers said the March 2019
motion does not apply to the
EOC’s out-of-court purchases.
“(The expenditure) has to be
pre-approved,” he said. “Their
budget has to be pre-approved
for the purchase before they
could even bring that to me.”
The EOC was budgeted
$23,564 for materials and ser-
vices, according to Grant
County Court Treasurer Julie
Ellison. The EOC spent $91,791
in supply procurements, accord-
ing to a document Dobler sub-
mitted in court May 27.
Hamsher told the Eagle
about $5,000 of the procure-
ments was for personal protec-
tive equipment for the court-
house and that Dobler emailed
invoices to a commissioner who
would print them and circulate
them for signature among the
court members.
Preston said it appeared
Hamsher and Palmer were get-
ting compensated from both the
county and through state reim-
bursement the county will be
receiving in the next few weeks.
Hamsher said he and Palmer
both have been paid for only
13.3 hours per week from the
county, and the hours they have
been putting in at the EOC have
been volunteer hours.
The reason the hours were
tracked and reported to the state
of Oregon’s Coronavirus Relief
Fund was so the county could
get reimbursed for wages that
went toward the county’s coro-
navirus response.
“The wages for those weeks
will all be reimbursed to the
county,” he said. “That will
help on the budget for any other
shortfalls we have this year.”
Hamsher said, between he
and Palmer, the county will be
reimbursed for 166 hours.
“That’s substantial,” he said.
Hamsher said the CARES
Act reimbursements are for
actual costs incurred while
responding to COVID-19 —
which includes wages for the
health department and the eco-
nomic development office.
Another citizen, Austin resi-
dent Billie Jo George, said the
EOC is worried about “petty
stuff” while the county faces
a potential surge in COVID-
19 cases on the level of what
Union County is experiencing
after a recent outbreak sent their
numbers from single digits to
over 200.
“There is a large group of
Hispanics from Washington in
ks
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here picking mushrooms com-
mercially,” she said. “And
they’re going in your gro-
cery store, and they’re going
in your gas stations and restau-
rants. Everyone of those license
plates is from Washington, so
get prepared, because it’s com-
ing to you, and the boys down
at the Forest Service choose to
do absolutely nothing about it.”
She said worrying about
radios, laptops and other high-
ticket items is “minor” com-
pared to the threat of a poten-
tial outbreak mushroom pickers
pose.
While health officials have
noted minority and migrant
communities have dispropor-
tionately been impacted by the
virus, state and county health
authorities tied the 240 con-
firmed cases of COVID-19 in
Union County to the Light-
house Pentecostal Church in
Island City.
The church held services in
April and May, despite Brown’s
executive orders limiting gath-
erings of over 25 people, and
recently held a wedding and a
graduation ceremony with more
than 100 people at each event.
Palmer said the county can-
not keep out-of-state travelers
out of the county and that all the
county can do is prepare for an
influx of cases.
“We cannot tell people that
they cannot come through our
county, and we certainly can-
not restrict them because they
are Hispanic or anything else,”
he said. “That would be very
discriminatory.”
Palmer said he understands
that migrant mushroom pickers
are “high risk.”
Myers
said
Hamsher
brought up the risk of the spread
of the virus that commercial
mushroom pickers can bring to
the county during a court ses-
sion last month. Hamsher said
the county court does not issue
mushroom permits or enforce
laws on federal land.
However, he did say the
county purchased radios that
could help if the county saw an
increase in cases because some
positive cases could be in areas
where there is no cellphone
service. He said first respond-
ers and fire departments across
Grant County now have radios,
and they purchased items for
the next emergency, so the
county is prepared.
“We ended up buying more
stuff for emergency manage-
ment that’ll be able to be used
— God forbid — for the next
emergency down the road,”
Hamsher said.
Preston said she supports
Search and Rescue, but her con-
cern was people involved with
SAR used the pandemic to pur-
chase equipment that the county
did not need.
“The emergency res-
cue people took advantage of
the COVID-19 situation and
bought a bunch of stuff that they
didn’t really need at this time,”
she said. “Don’t misunderstand
me, I realize they’ll probably
use it in the future, but I don’t
like the methods that they used
to get what they wanted.”
Seth Klingbeil, EOC staffer
and SAR volunteer, who
attended the meeting via tele-
conference, said SAR had not
received any equipment during
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Palmer said emergency
management needed equipment
and will be reimbursed 100%,
not at local taxpayer expense,
and the county can use the sup-
plies in future emergencies.
“It was 100% the wisest way
to purchase and spend money
and to be prepared for this emer-
gency and any future emergen-
cies,” he said.
Preston told the court she has
heard both of the commission-
ers say in the past that they have
moved forward to build SAR,
and Palmer’s comment that the
EOC took advantage of CARES
Act reimbursements to purchase
emergency equipment confirmed
what she always believed.
Hamsher said the county
now has software for federal
reimbursements, and he pointed
to the Canyon Creek Complex
fire and the floods last year and
how the county missed out on
thousands of dollars in refunds.
Palmer gave an analogy to
justify the purchases to Raines
and Preston.
“When your house catches
on fire, it’s a little late to buy
a fire truck, purchase all the
equipment to go on your
firetruck, and then train your
firefighters and then ask them
to come out to your house when
it’s on fire,” he said. “And it’s
the same thing with an ambu-
lance, a little too late.”