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NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Housing
Continued from Page A1
would make a profit if relisted
in the current market.
Franklin said low interest
rates continue to attract more
buyers, especially when a loan
is penciled out by 15 or 30
years with a fixed rate.
Eastern Oregon demand
Franklin said his inventory
is currently down by around
75% of what he normally
carries.
“That’s why we’re trying
to promote more people who
want to sell because, if they
want to, now is a good time to
start,” Franklin said.
The trend is also happen-
ing in other parts of Eastern
Oregon.
“We have super-low inven-
tory. This is the lowest I can
remember,” John Howard, the
owner of John Howard Real
Estate & Associates in Baker
City, La Grande and Pend-
leton, told the La Grande
Observer.
Franklin, who used to work
in Baker County, said it is
The Eagle/Rudy Diaz
This 1,398 square foot Craftsman-style home on Elk View Drive is under contract by East Oregon
Realty.
experiencing the same boom.
Cates said land sales have
been increasing as well, giv-
ing people the option to con-
struct a new home. Also a
property manager, she said
rental opportunities are rarer
than homes to buy in Grant
County.
New construction
Franklin said additional
housing is desperately needed.
He said he is trying to get build-
ers to construct homes, but that
has been difficult because of
high prices on materials.
The National Association
of Home Builders reported
that spikes in softwood lum-
ber prices at the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic caused
the price of an average,
new single-family home to
increase by nearly $16,000.
Statistics from the NAHB
showed that the price of lum-
ber was almost $500 per
thousand board feet on June
19. The price steadily rose
until it peaked on Sept. 11 to
just over $900.
The price of lumber fell
again to a low of $500 in late
October, but now the price of
lumber is nearly $900 again,
as of Jan. 29.
The information is sourced
each week using the Random
Hospital
Idaho
Continued from Page A1
Continued from Page A1
their work cut out for them,
but they’re up for the job.”
Brooks said the changes
would not happen overnight.
In a hospital work session
in October, Brooks said she
was a board member when
the hospital district originally
hired the management firm
Brim and Associates 30 years
ago and that the hospital “got a
lot of good out of Brim.”
Brim merged with Prov-
ince Healthcare in 1995 and
moved its headquarters to Ten-
nessee. Since then, the com-
pany has gone through three
other mergers and a rebrand-
ing to HealthTechS3 in 2015.
According to the district’s
can’t even get a seat at the
table for discussion. ... We
have no say.”
Lengths Framing Lumber
Composite, which is comprised
using prices from the highest
volume-producing regions of
the U.S. and Canada.
Real estate sales dras-
tically increased in 2020,
but the amount of new res-
idential homes being built
has remained about the
same, according to Shannon
Springer, Grant County plan-
ning director.
“I know Realtors are busy
right now, and we have talked
to lots of people, but that lag
between talking to people
and getting something built is
sometimes pretty substantial,”
Springer said.
In 2019, there were 14 site-
built dwelling permits that
were new and 10 manufac-
tured home placing permits,
she said. In 2020, there were
11 site-built dwelling per-
mits including one duplex and
eight manufactured dwelling
permits.
Springer said builders must
also line up contractors for the
work.
“It’s so much easier to buy
something and make a few
upgrades or fix-ups than to
start from scratch,” Springer
said. “There’s a lot of moving
pieces.”
Why now? Buyers want-
ing peace, quiet, less traffic and
less people make up a major-
ity of the people Cates worked
with during the last year.
“That’s a lot of what buy-
ers are looking for when they
call me,” Cates said. “From
Portland, Boise and all around,
they just want a quiet commu-
nity to lay back.”
Franklin said people are
moving into the county from
all around the west side of the
nation thanks to the efforts
from everybody to promote the
area, but the development of
future businesses in the county
is also generating excitement
for interested buyers.
“With the Dollar General
going in and the city work-
ing on their developments and
the chamber promoting Grant
County and the possibility of
Prairie Wood (reopening), I
feel better about the direction
we’re going right now than I
have probably since I moved
here,” Franklin said.
A political scientist’s
view
Boise State University’s
Ross Burkhart, a political sci-
ence professor, said moving
the border would be a “steep
order.”
He said the state legis-
latures in Oregon, Idaho
and California would have
to agree with the bor-
der changes, and then the
group would have to get
the approval of the U.S.
Congress.
Burkhart said, if the pro-
posal ever were to make it
to Congress, the members
would likely take their cues
from the California, Oregon
and Idaho delegations.
“I would imagine that
there would be differences of
opinion depending upon the
delegation itself, so there’s
just a whole lot of moving
parts here to imagine that
this gets to the reality that
all these parts would have
to operate in sync,” he said.
“And that is a lot to ask.”
Burkhart also pointed out
that political winds shift over
time. He said voters elected a
“fair number” of Democratic
legislators to Idaho’s Legisla-
ture not too long ago.
“To draw boundaries
where you are imagining
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
From left, Blue Mountain Hospital District board member Dot-
ty Parsons, board chair Amy Kreger and CEO Derek Daly at a
board meeting.
annual expense trend, from
July 2019 to June 2020, the
district paid Health TechS3
$961,717.
Daly said in the work ses-
sion that independent hospi-
tals are still in many circum-
stances contracting for other
services. He said one exam-
ple is Harney County Hos-
pital, which is very similar
to Blue Mountain Hospital
and closely connected to St.
Charles
Health
System
because of its electronic medi-
cal records program.
Presented By
Eagle file photo
Eagle file photo
Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane
Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale
that the likely perceived ide-
ology of that region is going
to remain consistent and
especially remain consistent
across these new boundaries
is a lot to ask,” he said.
He said this leads him
to think the motivations are
born out of political griev-
ances and frustration with so
much political power residing
in Salem with the Democrats.
“Trying to solve this prob-
lem with a secessionist move-
ment is dicey because things
can change politically and
have changed politically,”
Burkhart said.
Owens said, however,
rural and frontier Oregon is
not always well represented
in Salem.
“We need to figure out
how we can have a stronger
voice and how we can make
the concerns of our constitu-
ents voiced,” he said.
He said he supports any
opportunity where rural Ore-
gonians are heard.
State Sen. Lynn Findley,
R-Vale, said while moving
to a conservative state like
Idaho would be great, the
likelihood of success is very
low.
“A better way to fix
it,” he said, “would be to
remove the frustration level
that our citizenry have on
this side of the state and get
the state legislature and the
state governor to recognize
us and support us instead of
running over us.”
State lawmakers’ views
State Rep. Mark Owens,
R-Crane, said he does not
want to spend time think-
ing about the process until
someone can explain to him
whether adjusting the bor-
ders can legally be done.
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