FOOTBALL: PROSPECTORS POUND PIONEERS FOR FIRST WIN FRIDAY | PAGE A9
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
153nd Year • No. 11 • 16 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
County responding to surge in COVID-19 cases
After only four cases in February, 29 new
infections have been reported so far in March
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Eagle fi le photo
Kimberly Lindsay, the county’s pub-
lic health administrator, during a
session of county court.
One year into the pandemic, Grant
County health offi cials are getting in front
of a surge of 29 positive COVID-19 cases
this month, with infections turning up at a
school and nursing home in Prairie City.
Seven new cases were announced Mon-
day from the Prairie City, John Day and
Seneca ZIP codes.
In a Monday press release, the Blue
Mountain Care Center announced that six
residents and seven employees have tested
positive for COVID-19 since March 8.
Prairie City School District had two peo-
ple test positive for COVID-19 as well,
according to a March 9 letter to parents from
Prairie City Superintendent Casey Hallgarth.
Lindsay said the recent uptick in cases,
particularly among residents of the care cen-
ter, concerns her.
Eagle fi le photo
See COVID-19, Page A16
Grant County Health Department Clinic Manager Jessica Wine-
gar gets a COVID-19 test in November.
Contributed image/U.S. Department of the Interior
Oregon has fi ve congressional districts, whose current borders
are shown below. Voters in each of these districts send one rep-
resentative to Congress for a two-year term. In Oregon, con-
gressional and state legislative district lines are primarily deter-
mined by the Legislature.
2020 political
redistricting: Fuzzy
math and absent maps
Contributed photo/The Nature Conservancy
By Gary A. Warner
Oregon Capital Bureau
A large herd of elk on the Zumwalt Prairie in Wallowa County.
ODFW proposing major changes
in 2022 for archery elk hunters
Controlled hunts proposed
for 13 units and parts of
three others
By Jayson Jacoby
EO Media Group
A major change to archery elk hunt-
ing seasons in most of Northeast Oregon
could start in 2022.
The Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife is proposing to shift the archery
season in 13 units and parts of three oth-
ers from the current general hunt —
meaning there’s no limit on the number
of tags sold — to a controlled hunt, with
a limited number of tags.
In a controlled hunt, archers would
have to apply for a tag through the state’s
computer lottery system.
In June 2020, ODFW announced the
Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission
would consider changing the archery sea-
son in all units east of the Cascades from
general to controlled hunts, and for elk as
well as buck deer hunting.
But in August 2020 the agency said
the commission would decide on changes
to buck deer archery seasons, but it would
delay any decision on elk seasons.
In September 2020 the commission
approved the proposal to change buck
deer archery hunting from a general
season to a controlled season starting
in 2021.
Oregon has had general archery
hunts in Eastern Oregon, for buck deer
and for elk, since 1979. Since 1983 the
archery season for both species has
lasted for one month, starting in late
August.
See Elk, Page A10
State to settle Grant County-based lawsuit
halting relief funds for Black Oregonians
John Day logging company set
to receive $45,000, establish
class action for other non-Black
business owners who were
denied funding
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
The state has agreed to settle a Grant
County-based lawsuit halting coronavirus
relief money for Black Oregonians.
Should the court approve, the fund could
resume paying out aid to Black-owned
businesses and their families, and as part of
the settlement, the state would pay an unde-
termined sum to non-Black applicants who
had applied for help from the fund last year,
according to a proposed settlement agree-
ment fi led March 12 in U.S. District Court
in Pendleton.
Great Northern Resources, a John Day
logging company that lists Tad Houpt and
Grant County Commissioner Sam Palmer
EOMG fi le photo
Tad Houpt, part owner of Great Northern
Resources, addresses a crowd in John Day in
2016.
as agents, fi led a lawsuit alleging race-
based discrimination after being denied
funding from the coronavirus relief fund
See Lawsuit, Page A16
The fuzzy future of Ore-
gon politics east of the Cas-
cades went public last week:
No diagrams, charts, data —
really nothing tangible at all to
show how new legislative and
congressional districts will be
drawn.
“We don’t have any maps,”
said Rep. Andrea Salinas,
D-Lake Oswego, chair of the
House Redistricting Commit-
tee. “We don’t have any num-
bers from the census.”
Salinas and her Sen-
ate counterpart, Sen. Kath-
leen Taylor, D-Milwaukie,
said they were making a good
faith eff ort to hold the legally
required 10 public hearings on
new political maps.
Maps that don’t exist — at
least, not yet.
The hearings are collat-
eral damage from the constitu-
tional car crash headed to the
Oregon Supreme Court.
The once-a-decade process
of rebalancing populations in
legislative and congressional
districts is a smolderingly hot
political wreck. Any fi x isn’t
expected earlier than autumn.
Like so many things over
the past year, COVID-19 is the
main problem.
In normal times, the U.S.
Census counts people every
decade, in years that end in
zero.
The Legislature gets
detailed Oregon data by April
1 of the following year. Law-
makers have until the end of
their session on July 1 to get
maps of 30 Senate, 60 House
and either fi ve or six congres-
sional districts to the governor.
If they can’t agree on a
redistricting plan, the secre-
tary of state takes over the
mapmaking with an Aug. 15
deadline.
But these are not normal
times.
COVID-19 crippled the
census count. The Legislature
received no data. No maps are
being drawn for the governor.
There’s no dispute for the sec-
retary of state to resolve.
The census offi cials in
Washington, D.C., have been
saying sorry for months. But
given all the upheaval in their
work, they now say data to
draw districts won’t get to
Oregon until Sept. 30. That
is six months late and well
beyond constitutional and stat-
utory deadlines.
To employ an over-
used term during the cur-
rent pandemic, the situation
is “unprecedented.” Transla-
tion: Nobody knows what to
do because its never been done
before.
Adding to the drama: The
offi cial population numbers
are expected to earn Oregon
a sixth congressional seat,
its fi rst in 40 years. The new
district will have to be shoe-
horned into the existing con-
gressional map.
The Legislature has a “back
to the future” solution. It’s ask-
ing the Oregon Supreme Court
to set the deadlines aside, reset
the clock and give lawmak-
ers another shot at redistrict-
ing when the data arrives in
the fall. A special session of
the Legislature would meet to
approve the work.
Secretary of State Shemia
Fagan supports the idea.
The Legislature wants
up to 90 days after the data
arrives to create the maps.
Fagan does not support that
timeline.
Pushing redistricting into
December would be cutting
things close, Fagan has said.
Any hitch and there could be
no maps when candidates are
supposed to start fi ling for
the offi ces in January. As the
state’s offi cial election referee,
she might have to step in.
House Speaker Tina Kotek,
D-Portland, and Senate Pres-
ident Peter Courtney, D-Sa-
lem, fi led a petition with the
Oregon Supreme Court this
See Redistricting, Page A16