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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 7, 2020)
A18 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle McKinley administration,” McKinley said. McKinley said the most significant problem the county faces criminally is methamphetamine. He said people addicted to meth drive the criminal factors. “Your thefts, your burglaries, break-ins can be routed back to someone who needs money, and they commit the crime to get the money,” he said. Asked if he thinks law enforcement could do more to address the issue, McKin- ley said he did not want to judge that side of it. “Do I think we could do more? Yes. Do McKinley said he wants the sheriff’s office to work together more effectively Continued from Page A1 with other law enforcement agencies in getting meth off the streets. county’s citizens. However, he also under- He said “portions” of the staff work stands there will be people who disagree well with other agencies and that coordi- nating with other agencies will never be with him no matter what he does or says. “I have no illusion that I need to do perfect. something to win them over,” he said. “But “Anytime you get different entities what I am going to do is do the job, the best working together, they still have their way I see fit and try to bring some pride back to they have to do it policy-wise, and they this county.” don’t mix, so it has to get a little creative He said a McKinley sheriff’s office will to make it work,” he said. “But I think be strive to be transparent. it could be better. There could be a bet- ter flow of communication, “I saw too much swept under the rug, too much stuff “I SAW TOO MUCH SWEPT UNDER THE park some egos and get a job hidden,” he said. “I don’t want done.” RUG, TOO MUCH STUFF HIDDEN. I to see that. It isn’t like it’s their McKinley said search and own club. It’s a public office, DON’T WANT TO SEE THAT. IT ISN’T rescue, which he headed up and I want to see it get back to before leaving the sheriff’s LIKE IT’S THEIR OWN CLUB. IT’S A that.” office, is “dear to his heart,” As policing faces heavy PUBLIC OFFICE, AND I WANT TO SEE IT and he wants to see it at the scrutiny on both the local and forefront. national level, McKinley said “I don’t think people real- GET BACK TO THAT.” ize in this county how many some of it, as in the case with —Todd McKinley, candidate for Grant County Sheriff search and rescues occur Palmer’s office, is warranted. in a given month,” he said. He said both sides cannot I think our focus could be in different areas “They’ve saved many lives, and there is expect perfection, though. “I don’t expect anybody to be perfect,” like actually going out and dealing with a bunch of them, and I’ve been on many he said. “Don’t expect me to be perfect the criminal aspects instead of just wanting over the years, and it’s something that is either.” to be political about everything? I want to highly needed. It’s highly technical. It McKinley said, if he prevails next see myself, if I get in that office, deal with requires good support.” month, he will expect his staff to conduct the criminal issues that are going on in the Another improvement McKinley said themselves with “integrity and honor the county and not worry so much about what he would bring to the sheriff’s office is get- office.” everybody thinks of my political stance,” ting the jail to make more money for the “I feel that that has not been occurring, he said. “I want to be truly a bipartisan county. to an extent,” McKinley said. “Trust me, sheriff that’s serving the people. That’s He said the county designed the current there are some good employees in that what it’s there for and not to be pushing 45-bed facility so it could rent out beds to facility. I feel sorry that they’ve been put in some agenda.” other entities. McKinley said the county a position where they have, and I am proud He said his agenda would be: “Don’t used to rent to the many federal agencies of them for bearing it out. I was there. I feel come here to commit a crime, and clean up and made a lot of money that way, but the for them. I know what it was like.” the act because we’re going to be coming county lost those contracts over the years. McKinley began his policing career for you.” “It’s a business, and it needs to be run as a reserve in the Grant County Sher- Asked if he thinks the county is doing as a business and get back to where it helps iff’s Office under Palmer’s predecessor, enough to help people get clean and sober, fiscally support the sheriff’s office,” he Fred Reusser, in 1998 and got hired on as he said he gets frustrated that people get said. a full-time deputy in 2001, working along- bogged down in the system. He said there McKinley said he wants the commu- side Palmer until 2015, and also serving as are several entities involved when some- nity to know that he has a “heart for the one goes through the criminal justice county.” undersheriff for a time. Over the years, the relationship soured, system. “My roots are here. My family’s here. and McKinley took the helm at the proba- “From my aspect (in the probation We enjoy this county. I want to see this tion department in 2015. office), most of us work together with my county be able to hold its head up,” he said. “I departed because I didn’t like see- office reasonably well, and when we reach “I want to be able to be a part of bringing ing where (the sheriff’s office) was going, out, we get answers if we see a problem,” that back, bringing some pride back to this and I could not consciously be a part of his he said. county.” Cancer Continued from Page A1 crying in the back, I watch as a patient is concerned for the health of others because he has a common cold, and I expe- rience the most wonderful, beautiful bald lady as she jokes with everyone, bring- ing such a light into that small room. I would determine that this was indeed not an ordinary doctor’s waiting room! I then spent 6 1/2 weeks traveling back and forth to Bend, feel- ing blessed to have a son to live with during the week and a job that worked around my treatments. To sum up that six-month period, I would say that it was a time filled with so much faith, love and kind- ness that, while I never want to do all that again, I feel blessed beyond measure for that dance with cancer for those very reasons. Fast forward 10 years — one in 39 women die of breast cancer! I love that I am not a part of that statistic and that I will be celebrating 10 years of survivorship this year. Surviv- ing and thriving are great in my world! Wednesday, October 7, 2020 County Continued from Page A1 work we did while there.” Cook said she had not seen the original nor the updated versions of the cost summary but said it was a mistake. She said Grant County Treasurer Julie Elli- son provided the county court payroll information the EOC used to submit the reimburse- ment request. Ellison said the only thing she provided was monthly payroll figures so the EOC’s finance team could use it to calculate a dollar amount to submit for reimbursement. She told the Eagle last week the figures submitted for county court reimbursement didn’t make sense. “You’ve probably tried to add it up, and it doesn’t,” she said. “If we get audited, then somehow they’re going to have to substantiate that $35,000.” On Tuesday, Ellison said she determined that three months of the two county commissioners and the county judge’s gross wages would equal the $35,268 requested for reimbursement. While Hamsher and County Commissioner Sam Palmer, each regularly paid for 13.3 hours per week, said they spent all of their coun- ty-paid hours on COVID-19 and volunteered extra time, County Judge Scott Myers said he tracked his COVID- 19 time by the hour and only accrued 46.5 hours over the 11-week period. “If I were sitting in on conference calls with the health department or some- body like that, I would add that to my daily log,” Myers said. “I would just mark ‘COVID-19, two hours’ or ‘COVID-19, an hour and a half,’ or whatever. When they asked me for that, I went back and looked, and I totaled them all up on a handwritten sheet with each day written on a single page.” Another change between the original and updated “Summary of Costs” is a line item under materials and equipment, which changed from “Grant County EOC PPE” to “Grant County Sheriff’s Office.” The total changed from $5,076 to $4,926. Hamsher said he has reached out to Witt O’Brien’s for more information. Palmer, the EOC pub- lic information officer, said he would need to go to the courthouse and look at Witt O’Brien’s financial sum- mary with Ellison. “I haven’t dealt with any of the financial side of this stuff,” Palmer told the Eagle on Friday. “I pretty much stayed in the health side of it and turned my hours in when they asked me to turn my hours in.” Ellison said the county received the entire $335,199 requested for reimbursement in June, but she has only dis- tributed funds from that reim- bursement to expenditures with documentation. She said she has copies of every invoice for the funds she has distributed. Ellison said she could not independently send the money back to the state unless the county court directs her to do so. Myers said he does not know what the county is going to do. “We don’t know if all of a sudden the CARES Act is going to contact us and say, ‘We have some inconsis- tency. Please return such and such,’ and then we take that as it comes,” he said. “We deal with that, give them everything that we possibly can. If we still fall short, we fall short.” He said there is a “large sum” of the original $335,000 reimbursement that the county has not dispersed. Myers said the county would “balance it all out somehow.” He said the county court is “ulti- mately accountable” for the discrepancy. “The county court passed those documents, approved those documents and I signed those documents,” he said. S210787-1
