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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (July 8, 2020)
NEWS MyEagleNews.com Wednesday, July 8, 2020 A3 County posts new COVID-19 department guidelines By Steven Mitchell Blue Mountain Eagle After a contentious Grant County Court session last month that saw department heads criticizing the court members for lack of leader- ship and communication regarding operations of its departments amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Grant County Judge Scott Myers and Com- missioner Jim Hamsher established guidelines for the departments last week in light of Gov. Kate Brown’s executive order requiring face masks in indoor public spaces statewide. In a June 30 email, Laurie Wright, Grant County human resource man- ager, said departments are encour- aged, but not required, to close their doors to the public. The email sug- gested departments also post con- tact numbers and see members of the public by appointment only. She said, if an office remains open to the public, then a sign needs to be posted indicating how many persons can be in the office at a time. Employees who cannot main- tain the 6-foot social distancing requirement in non-public places are required to wear face coverings/ masks, Wright said. Myers said an example of a non-public space is when he works in his office unmasked, but then invites a member of the public into his office, thus requiring them both to wear a mask. Wright said the departments will be expected to sanitize frequently touched surfaces within their respec- tive offices. “This will free up some of the custodian’s time to focus on the com- mon public areas and restrooms,” she said. Myers said the courthouse is still open, but the offices will post whether they have decided to stay open to the public. Wright said she encourages peo- ple to call ahead of time before com- ing to the courthouse. The Eagle/Steven Mitchell County Commissioner Jim Hamsher. County plans to decide EOC’s future in special session soon By Steven Mitchell Blue Mountain Eagle The future of Grant Coun- ty’s Emergency Operations Center is uncertain as the number of positive cases con- tinue to increase at a break- neck pace. County Commissioner Jim Hamsher, the EOC liai- son, said he would like to see the court approve another $125,000 in funding while County Judge Scott Myers said it would be a “tough sell” to get his vote. “I’d like to see what they’re doing for me to make an intelligent decision on a budget request,” Myers said. “I would like to know more than I’ve known for the last four months.” Community members have also expressed criticism about the EOC, which was budgeted $125,000 in March by the county court to respond to the coronavirus pandemic with the plan to reassess in 45 days. EOC officials, however, spent nearly $200,000 in about three months. The county court also CCS offers free counseling for first responders unanimously passed a motion stating future EOC purchases over $200 were to be brought before the court for approval, but instead, about $90,000 of expenditures were made with- out advance approval. The court members signed off on the expenditures outside of court. Hamsher said Myers or anyone else could find out information regarding what the EOC has done for the last four months within the 230 pages of documents former EOC Incident Commander Dave Dobler submitted to the court during his May 27 presentation. Myers said he is concerned about the lack of oversight at the EOC surrounding the staff’s time cards that have been turned in. “The only record we have of how much time they’re spending has been personally prepared time cards,” he said. “And I don’t see those until pay time, so it’s going to be a tough sell for me.” Hamsher said the EOC staff reports were filled out and then verified and signed by the incident commander. He said the EOC staff has been using the $35,000 auto- mated software program the county purchased as part of its COVID-19 expenditures, and it tracks the activities of each EOC staff member, and tracks personnel costs all in one place. Hamsher said, with the EOC using the software pro- gram, they are the most trans- parent department. “With the other depart- ments, they just fill out a time sheet saying I worked eight to five at an hour for lunch,” he said. “You have no idea what they do.” Blue Mountain Eagle Community Counsel- ing Solutions announced a pilot program offering free counseling services to medical workers and first responders that live or work in the counties of Morrow, Wheeler, Grant and Gilliam. The Frontline Program provides up to four free counseling sessions, accord- ing to a press release. There is no lengthy assessment and no diagnosis required. The Frontline Program is based on the idea of offer- ing brief supportive ther- apy. If further referrals or more in-depth treatment is desired, the clinician will work to make those connections. Employees of any clinic or hospital, firefight- ers, emergency medical responders, law enforce- ment officers and dispatch- ers all qualify. This program is open to all volunteers or paid staff. To access, call 541-575-1466 and ask for the Frontline Program. The David Romprey Warmline (800-698-2392) also offers a peer-run pro- gram that is free of charge to anyone needing to talk. The North Fork John Day Ranger District opened part of Olive Lake Campground for day-use and overnight camp- ing on July 1. Day use areas that will be available include the boat launch and docks, the hiking trail around the lake and camp- sites 1-14, according to a press release. Crews are still work- ing to clear hazard trees from campsites 6-10, so visitors may hear chainsaws and find downed trees in areas that are not yet open. Campsites 15-27 along the east access road will remain closed at this time. A mountain pine beetle out- break at Olive Lake Camp- ground has severely impacted lodgepole pine spanning approximately 250 acres sur- rounding the lake. This infes- tation has resulted in large numbers of hazard trees in the campground that need to be removed before the area can be opened to the public. Hazard trees are dead or dying trees in areas where they could fall on forest visitors at picnic tables or in campsites, parked vehi- cles in day use areas or struc- tures such as outhouses. “We know that everyone loves Olive Lake and is eager to come up now that warm weather is finally here,” said District Ranger Paula Guen- ther. “We appreciate the pub- lic’s patience and understand- ing while we finish up this year’s hazard tree removal and get the areas closest to the lake ready for visitors.” Forest staff have been working to fall hazard trees on the road leading to and in areas surrounding the docks, boat ramp, picnic sites and camp- sites on the northeast side of the lake. These 14 campsites will be the only part of the campground open until fur- ther notice. A detailed map of the open portion of Olive Lake Campground is available on the Forest website at www. fs.usda.gov/umatilla. The schedule for opening other parts of the campground will be based on mitigations of hazards trees surrounding those campsites. The Uma- tilla National Forest is pursu- ing options to contract haz- ard tree removal along the east access road where sites 15-27 are located. Until the contract is implemented, that area of the campground will remain closed to any public access. Visitors are asked to stay on the hiking trail at the south end of the campground rather than walking along the access road. At the north end of the camp- ground, hikers can cross the dam to access the trail that cir- cles the lake, offering addi- tional fishing and views of wildlife including osprey and otters. Visitors are reminded that the Olive Lake dam is an aging structure, and the head- gate on the intake to the his- toric Fremont Power water- line is inoperable. 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TOM CHRISTENSEN CHRISTENSEN TOM There are many ways we can tackle IRS or State tax relief together: SCHEDULE YOUR FREE IN-HOME ASSESSMENT TODAY! 1-866-373-9175 sors and removing vegetation and debris in the spillway. A small portion of Olive Lake itself is closed, indicated by floating buoys that indi- cate the area off the dam where monitoring instruments and headgate controls are located. Visitors should be aware that late in the season, the hiking trail and spillway will be closed for public safety while contrac- tors remove old logs and debris that threaten to block flow through the spillway. Olive Lake is a popular mountain lake and campground located 12 miles west of Gran- ite. The natural lake was deep- ened by a 30 foot-high dam built in the early 1900s by the Fremont Power Company to provide hydroelectric power, generated at the Fremont Pow- erhouse, to the then-booming gold mining community. For more information about Tax Problems: RESOLVED Prepare for unexpected power outages with a Generac home standby generator MO. wants to amend the court’s rule to bring purchases of over $200 before the court. “You wouldn’t sit there in the middle of a pandemic and have to have a court meeting to approve a $200 purchase in the middle of an emergency,” he said. “That just doesn’t make any sense.” He said no other depart- ment ever had to follow that rule and it was specific to the EOC. Hamsher said a year- old resolution stating the county judge can approve any pre-budgeted item is still valid. Myers said he wants to see the rule that purchases over $200 come before the court remain in place. Hamsher said, going for- ward, any unexpected items not in the EOC’s approved budget would be brought before the court. He said he hoped the county court would meet in a special session soon to determine the EOC’s future. County Commissioner Sam Palmer did not return requests for comment. Olive Lake Campground partially opens Blue Mountain Eagle FREE The Eagle file photo Grant County Judge Scott Myers. Hamsher said, while he does not have a specific breakdown of how the newly requested $125,000 would be budgeted, he would like to see approximately 90% of the funds be available for person- nel costs. Myers said 90% of the EOC’s first round of funding went to build out the infra- structure at the EOC: the $35,000 software system, radios, laptops and wifi net- work. This round, he said, should “buy a lot of hours” for the staff. Hamsher said the three current EOC employees are working on an as-needed basis from home under Deputy Inci- dent Commander Chris Rush- ing, who has stayed on to help the county. Hamsher said the county is in the process of hiring a new emergency manage- ment coordinator who would serve as EOC incident com- mander, and he wants to com- pile a list of approximately 12 on-call staff members to bring in should the county see an uptick in cases. 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