GIVING BACK SPECIAL SECTION INSIDE
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
152nd Year • No. 44 • 18 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
Treasurer recommends sending back
$15K in COVID-19 reimbursement
Request appears to include
county judge time not spent
on pandemic response
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant County Treasurer Julie Elli-
son said Thursday she plans to recom-
mend that Grant County Court mem-
bers return $15,481 of the $35,268
received from the state in reimburse-
ment for COVID-19 county court labor
expenditures.
Ellison said the county should keep
$19,787.
She said the original reimburse-
ment request did not include the correct
hours for County Judge Scott Myers,
nor did it cover health insurance or
other benefits.
Ellison said she provided COVID-
19 Emergency Operations Center Dep-
uty Finance Section Chief Jodi Cook
with one month of payroll figures so
Cook could use it to calculate a dollar
amount to submit for reimbursement.
“She didn’t know what they were
going to do with it either,” Ellison said.
“But she gave it to them, and so I fig-
ured out that they just went ahead and
(multiplied) it by three and used that.
It didn’t include the correct hours for
Scott (Myers), insurance or other
benefits.”
Grant County officials appear to
have requested reimbursement for 25%
of their full annual salaries, which
would be 13 weeks of county court
wages, for the 11-week reimbursement
See COVID-19, Page A18
Eagle file photo
Grant County Treasurer Julie Elli-
son during a May session of Grant
County Court.
ELECTION SECURITY
Eagle file photo
Jerry Barrow drops his ballot into a dropbox at the Grant County Courthouse in 2016.
Checks and balances at the County Clerk’s
Office ensure votes are accurately counted
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
C
oncerns over mail-in ballots have made
national headlines, but Grant County Clerk
Brenda Percy said the process is secure
with abundant checks and balances.
Percy said Oct. 28 is the last day people
should mail in their ballots, but people can still use the
election drop boxes until 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Percy said, once ballots have been submitted by mail
or through one of two ballot drop boxes in the county,
they are delivered to the County Clerk’s Office and each
envelope is date stamped.
The barcode on each envelope is scanned, which pulls
up the voter’s registration card on a computer, so Percy
and her team can verify the signature on each ballot.
If signatures don’t match the signature on file, or
if an envelope is not signed, Percy said she makes an
attempt to call the person, and every person whose ballot
See Election, Page A18
Eagle photos/Rudy Diaz
Grant County recently purchased a new bal-
lot-counting machine. The ballot machine counts
the votes from a test deck as the machine records
the information.
Natural Resource Advisory Committee
supports rolling back 21-inch rule
Members say Forest Service
needs to establish trust
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant County’s Natural Resources
Advisory Committee penned a letter
to the U.S. Forest Service Northwest
Region before the 30-day comment
period ended to revise a provision that
limits harvesting trees larger than 21
inches in diameter.
The 25-year-old rule dubbed the
“Eastside Screens” prevents the log-
ging of trees that exceed 21 inches in
diameter at breast height in six national
forests in Eastern
Oregon and Wash-
ington, including the
Malheur National
Forest.
It
was
adopted as a tempo-
rary set of rules to
Tim
protect streams, riv-
ers, and other wildlife
Rude
habitats.
The committee talked about what
they believe the economic impact
would be on Grant County if the rule
was rolled back.
“From my point of view, I feel it
would go a long way towards turning
these timber sales into a positive for
the, I would say, the public versus a
COMMITTEE SEEKS MEMBERS
The Natural Resources Advisory Committee seeks new members.
According to an advertisement, volunteers serve one- and two-year terms.
Members are required to be residents of Grant County and constitute a
representation of agriculture and livestock production, timber and wood
products production, recreation, hunting and fishing, water resources, min-
ing cultural resources and advocates for natural resources stewardship.
The committee meets the first Thursday of each month.
Applications are due Nov. 3. Volunteers are also needed for other com-
mittees: college, Extension and 4-H, library, mental health, senior citizens,
wildlife and the planning commission.
deficit,” Tim Rude said.
He said a stable pine tree over 21
inches would be worth a lot more
money than a seven-inch pine tree or a
10-inch pine tree.
Bill Skinner, who spent upwards of
See Rule, Page A18