The Blue Mountain eagle., September 02, 2020, Image 1

WORLD WAR II — 75 YEARS LATER | PAGE B1
LEFT: During the 77th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dick Higgins, the only known Pearl Harbor Survivor living in Bend, posts a U.S. flag on the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge in
Bend on Dec. 7, 2018. Standing on either side of Dick Higgins are WWII Navy veterans, Leon Devereaux, left, and Les Joslin. RIGHT: Imperial Navy Flying Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita, the pilot of
an attack near Brookings in September 1942. It was the only bombing of the U.S. mainland in World War II.
152nd Year • No. 36 • 16 Pages • $1.50
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
MyEagleNews.com
Gov. Kate Brown recall drive falls short
Campaign short by 2,796 signatures,
less than 1% of required total
By Gary A. Warner
Oregon Capital Bureau
The Oregon Republican
Party announced Monday
afternoon that it had fallen
short of the minimum required
signatures on petitions to put
a recall of Gov. Kate Brown
before voters.
“To our great disappoint-
ment, the ‘Stop The Abuse —
Recall Kate Brown’ campaign
has fallen 2,796 signatures or
less than 1% short of the min-
imum number of 280,050 sig-
natures required to qualify to
put a recall of the Governor on
the ballot this fall,” said state
Republican Party Chairman
Bill Currier in a statement.
In a Facebook Live stream
with recall supporters, Cur-
rier called the outcome
“gut-wrenching.”
Currier said the COVID-
19 pandemic, Brown’s emer-
gency declaration and orders
limiting gathering sizes and
requiring social distancing,
along with other issues, caused
the drive to come up short.
Grant County
tracking down
COVID-19
receipts
Newly hired emergency
management coordinator
does not want ‘politics of
any type’ at the EOC
PMG file photo
Gov. Kate Brown at a press conference in March 2020.
After a final count by the state
party, Currier decided the peti-
tions could not be submitted.
“Under state law, prior to
the submission of any peti-
tion signatures, I, as chief
petitioner, must first attest to
having the minimum number
of qualified signatures,” Cur-
rier said. “Therefore, the sig-
natures cannot be submitted.”
Secretary of State Bev
Clarno confirmed that her
office had been told the recall
petitions would not be sub-
mitted by Monday’s 5 p.m.
deadline.
“The petitioners do not plan
to submit signatures today,
meaning the recall will not
take place,” said Laura Fos-
mire, Clarno’s spokesperson.
It is the second time in two
years that a Republican effort
to recall Brown has failed to
file recall petitions. In 2019,
two efforts to recall Brown
— including one by the state
Republican party — collected
signatures, but did not submit
them.
Brown slammed the lat-
est effort as a distraction from
the November presidential
election.
“This recall attempt was
just the latest political ploy
to divert attention away from
Trump’s floundering presi-
dency and disrupt the upcom-
ing election by pitting Orego-
nians against each other,” said
Brown spokesman Thomas
Wheatley.
See Recall, Page A8
Residents demand
change at hospital
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant County’s recently hired emer-
gency management coordinator and
treasurer are busy tracking down docu-
mentation and receipts for the roughly
$250,000 that was spent at the county’s
Emergency Operations
Center earlier this year.
Paul Gray, the coun-
ty’s emergency man-
agement coordinator
and EOC manager, said
he is waiting for former
EOC head of Informa-
tion Technology Seth
Paul Gray
Klingbeil to return to
Grant County from a
family emergency to
help him log into the
EOC’s computers.
Meanwhile, Grant
County Treasurer Julie
Ellison said she is trying
Sam Palmer
to get all of the documen-
tation for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief,
and Economic Security Act reimburse-
ment that the county received in case she
gets audited.
Ellison said she spoke with the
grant-writing service the EOC con-
tracted with, and some of the totals do
not match. She said they were not off by
much and that it was probably because
the state kept changing the guidelines.
Politics at the EOC
At the Aug. 26 county court session,
Gray told the court that County Commis-
sioners Sam Palmer, the EOC’s public
See Receipts, Page A8
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Board member Karla Averett, left, listens to concerns from community members Thursday ahead of the Blue Mountain Hospital District board
of directors meeting.
Nursing director says former nurse practitioner
was fired for entering her own lab results into
her medical chart before seeing her provider
doctor in a reasonable amount of time.
“It is important to see the same doctor, not
to see Joe and Martha and Fred,” she said,
rant County residents protested
“and they don’t have your history, they don’t
the firing of a longtime pro-
know about you, and they don’t have time to
vider and voiced other concerns
go read through your records.”
about the hospital’s management
She said the last provider she had at the
company Thursday at the Blue
hospital was Dr. Joseph Bachtold, who relo-
cated to Sisters. Ini-
Mountain Hospital
tially, Ediger said, she
District’s board of
started seeing another
director’s meeting.
provider but was
Many of the res-
idents were for-
unable to get back
mer patients of fam-
into her regularly.
ily nurse practitioner
“She was always
Shawna Clark. Clark
gone,” she said. “So, I
was fired last month
finally just quit, and I
for entering her lab
go to Sisters, and I see
results into her med-
Dr. Bachtold.”
ical chart before
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Ediger said she and
seeing her doctor, From left, Gary Miller, Shawn Duncan, Leslie Traylor, Meredith Ediger, Richard Boyer, Rusty the other residents are
according to BMH Clark, Mary Ellen Brooks and Peggy Clark demand change at Blue Mountain Hospital Thursday. not the only ones who
Director of Nursing
feel the way they do.
Debbie Morris.
“Time after time after
Morris said the hospital asked Clark not to time, I hear complaints about the Straw-
“She’s been represented poorly in the
community,” Morris said via teleconference. disclose why she was let go from the hospi- berry Wilderness Clinic, one complaint after
another,” she said. “I don’t even want to
“They think she (Clark) has done something tal publicly.
“I think it’s terrible that people have to begin, where that goes, and it gives the hospi-
illegal, a terrible crime, where she may have
lost her license. And she hasn’t even had a think the worst,” she said. “Because they tal a black eye.”
She said, when she talks to people who
don’t know.”
chance or an opportunity to defend herself.”
Hospital district board chair Amy Kreger show an interest in moving to Grant County,
Morris said that Clark forgot to have her
annual lab work done before her doctor’s said they would listen to the public’s con- she tells them, “It’s a wonderful place, but if
appointment in July. Upon realizing she had cerns regarding Clark’s departure, but that you’re older and have medical issues, you
need to think about it before you move here.”
forgotten, Morris said Clark asked an emer- they could not comment.
gency room provider to order the lab for her,
Meredith Ediger, a Mt. Vernon resident,
Ediger said at one point most routine
but Clark, Morris said, could not find the said in addition to being concerned about medical services could be taken care of in
order when she looked for it due to the ER Clark’s departure, she is also worried about
See Hospital, Page A8
provider’s computer crashing.
not getting an appointment to see the same
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
G
Morris said Clark entered the lab results
into her chart while a lab technician wit-
nessed it.
“That is the extent of her crime,” Morris
said. “But people think she must have sto-
len drugs or something, the way she has been
treated, and the hospital has been so silent
about it.”
“THE MANAGEMENT COMPANY HAS NEUTERED THE BOARD. IT IS TIME
FOR THE HOSPITAL TO GET BACK TO THE WAY IT USED TO BE, INSTEAD
OF SENDING THE MONEY BACK TO TENNESSEE.”
—Gary Miller, former hospital district board chair