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. The Forest
Service has planned mainte-
nance work around the dam
this summer, including install-
ing water level detection sen-
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the closure areas or permitted
recreation activities on Olive
Lake, contact the North Fork
John Day Ranger District at
541-427-3231.
The public is reminded
that as sites reopen services
may not be available. At Olive
Lake, two outhouses are avail-
able at the north end of the
campground. The Forest can-
not guarantee restrooms that
are open will be routinely ser-
viced and those utilizing these
facilities are doing so at their
own discretion. Forest vis-
itors should come prepared
with personal hygiene items,
including hand sanitizer and
toilet paper. Additionally, be
prepared to pack out any items
brought on site.
Many other campgrounds
have already been opened on
the forest. A full list of open
campgrounds is available at
fs.usda.gov/umatilla.
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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-
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gold mining community.
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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
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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.
Hamsher said he also
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