NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
A3
Wyden negotiates temporary SRS substitute into COVID-19 relief bill
Two-year program
will benefi t Grant
and other timber
counties
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
locked up aid money for Grant
County and others with simi-
lar economies tied to timber
and natural resource on fed-
eral lands.
The COVID-19 stimu-
lus bill includes a two-year
county and tribal payment
program that would award $2
billion in fl exible funding for
counties with federal lands
and declining revenues due to
federal policies.
“It will be a big boost
to our county and all of our
communities,” Grant County
Commissioner Jim Hamsher
said in an email Tuesday.
The payments — for the
time being — would replace
the Secure Rural Schools Act
payments for 2022 and 2023.
The Secure Rural Schools
Act funneled federal dollars to
timber-dependent counties in
the West to pay for local ser-
vices, including infrastructure
and fi re prevention programs,
to replace former profi ts from
timber sales on federal lands.
The law, which Wyden
sponsored, was intended to
be a six-year program but was
reauthorized seven times.
EOMG fi le photo
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
The program expired ear-
lier this year, and counties will
receive their fi nal authorized
payment later this year.
Wyden told the Eagle
March 10 that, over the next
two years, he and a bipartisan
group of senators will con-
tinue to work on getting SRS
reauthorized.
The new payment pro-
gram is fundamentally diff er-
ent from the previous one. In
addition to allocating tribal
governments annual payments
of $250 million over two
years for the fi rst time, the law
changes the formula for allo-
cating the money and which
counties benefi t the most.
Lawmakers passed SRS in
2000, after timber sales plum-
meted in the 1990s.
Each year, the program
awards counties federal dol-
lars using a formula based
on a county’s share of tim-
ber profi ts from the 1980s and
early 1990s.
Over time, this led states
with higher concentrations
of national forests and public
lands to get the lion’s share of
the funds.
Congressional
research
indicates that Oregon received
a fi fth of the total SRS pay-
ments in 2019.
Under the new program,
the funds would be based on
a county’s level of poverty,
unemployment rates, prop-
erty value and other economic
indicators.
The program calls for the
Treasury Secretary’s offi ce to
determine a specifi c formula
for awarding payments to
individual counties.
Wyden said he spoke with
Treasury Secretary Janet Yel-
len last week and said “she
is very much aware” the new
program is something “quite
diff erent.”
He said the only the only
thing Yellen will be directed to
do is to make sure the rules are
based off of economic need
and that no money is spent on
lobbying.
Wyden said the program is
a “fresh approach” designed
to get rural counties off of a
“fi nancial roller coaster.”
Hamsher said he would
need to see the formula’s spe-
cifi cs and how it would aff ect
Grant County. He said he
would still like to see it based
on timber receipts from the
past.
“You still have the same
road systems,” he said. “But
you’re don’t have the money
to maintain them.”
County Judge Scott Myers
said Congress needs to come
up with a permanent fi x for
timber-dependent counties.
“We are permanently
harmed by it unless they per-
manently fi x it,” Myers said.
“And this isn’t a fi x.”
Myers said counties would
be “permanently ignored”
when it comes to their rela-
tionship to the loss of tax rev-
enue on public lands.
Wyden said the goal is to
come with legislation that will
have “predictability certainty
and broad political support.”
In addition to SRS money,
Oregon also receives Payment
in Lieu of Taxes.
PILT is a federal program
designed to off set property
tax losses in areas with high
national public land concen-
trations. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merk-
ley said Grant County received
$700,000 from the program.
Merkley said SRS awarded
the county $3 million.
Merkley said he and
Wyden have to take “extraor-
dinary means” to keep SRS
alive because Oregon is one of
the few states that benefi t from
the program.
Uncertain about EOC laptops, county authorizes purchase of two more
County propane contract
likely going out to bid
County signs agreement with
department of revenue to
collect pot tax
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant County Court voted to
buy two new laptops for the airport
in case two of the 11 computers the
COVID-19 Emergency Operations
Center purchased for over $5,000 are
not available to check out.
County Judge Scott Myers, who
serves as airport liaison, said he con-
tacted Emergency Manager Paul
Gray to see if two laptops were avail-
able, and Myers said Gray is check-
ing the inventory.
County Commissioner Sam
Palmer, the EOC’s former public
information offi cer, said he had a lap-
top “sitting at his house” and could
not remember the password. How-
ever, he said, former EOC staff mem-
ber Seth Klingbile had it.
Palmer said there was nobody to
whom to check-in “all of the stuff ”
from the EOC that he checked out.
Myers asked if there were more
items that did not come back. He
said, if so, that would be something
the county could look into.
Gray did not immediately respond
to the Eagle’s request for comment.
In September, he told the Eagle that
the county’s computers and commu-
nications equipment were accounted
for after moving the EOC’s offi ce out
of the airport.
In September, Gray told the Eagle
he hastily moved the EOC out of the
airport sooner than expected. He said
he received reports that people were
letting themselves into the airport
terminal after hours and going into
offi ces where the county had stored
recently purchased communications
equipment.
Gray told the Eagle he wanted
Klingbile to go through the supplies
with him to see if other departments
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Dan Vandehay with Valley Wide Cooperative speaks
during Wednesday’s session of Grant County Court.
Haley Walker, Grant County Airport manager, speaks
during Wednesday’s session of county court.
checked out anything and if anything
was missing, but said he did not want
to take the chance with the county’s
investment.
The EOC, which the county
court established in March amid the
COVID-19 pandemic, came under
a barrage of criticism in June when
it overspent its $125,000 budget by
almost $75,000, spending nearly
$92,000 on supply procurements.
Without pre-approval from the court,
the EOC purchased various items,
including at least 11 laptops and six
speakerphones for $900, plus $90 for
two-day shipping.
County likely to open up
bidding process for a propane
vendor
The court moved to review the
contract with its propane provider Ed
Staub and is likely to open up a bid-
ding process.
Dan Vandehay with Valley Wide
Propane, an Idaho-based cooperative
with multiple locations in the North-
west, off ered to match Ed Staub’s
$1.50 per-gallon price and waive
the county’s tank rental costs at the
fairgrounds, sheriff ’s offi ce and road
department for the fi rst year of the
contract.
Vandehay said tank rental, after
the fi rst year, would be $100 and $10
for the other locations. He said he
could also bundle the three depart-
ments but bill them separately.
He said restructuring the account
would allow him to do “free work”
in the community.
He said free work in the com-
munity was not part of the negotia-
tions in acquiring a contract with the
county. It is something, he said, Val-
ley Wide does. He said two years
ago, at the request of former Grant
County Sheriff Glenn Palmer, Valley
Wide performed $10,000 of work at
Lake Creek Youth Camp.
“We didn’t charge a thing,” he
said. “And you didn’t see our name
in the paper. You didn’t see anything
like that. It was just something that
we do.”
County mulls amateur
emergency radio system
agreement
The court tabled a request until its
next session for a memorandum of
understanding that would establish
site agreements and contact points
for amateur radio repeater sites
within the county.
Steve Fletcher, an emergency
amateur radio operator, requested
the change.
Fletcher said the group identi-
fi es locations for radio systems and
obtains the required permissions,
and creates standards that ensure
continuity of operations for radio
systems on established sites.
He said the group networks with
property owners, emergency radio
operators and emergency agencies.
Fletcher said the agreement
would establish a local contact point
at various sites with an advisory
board.
Grant County Sherriff Todd
Mckinley said the amateur radio
operators and creating an agree-
ment would benefi t residents in the
county.
He said the agreement would be
another “tool” in an emergency.
“They can literally talk across the
country wirelessly,” he said.
The court signed an agreement
with the state department of revenue
to collect taxes on retail marijuana
sales in the county. Grant County
voters said yes to a tax on retail mar-
ijuana sales on November.
County Judge Scott Myers said
the charge from the department of
revenue to collect tax is a small
percentage.
Myers said, while the state’s mar-
ijuana tax has restrictions and guide-
lines regarding how it spends its pot
tax revenue, the county’s will not. He
said the court would decide how best
to utilize the funds.
Myers said the court would have
a better idea once they know how
much money they collect, but said he
does not anticipate the court having a
line item in the budget.
“My point of view,” he said, “is that
we leave it as fl uid as it was intended.”
Court approves County Fair
proposal agreements for 2021
The court approved the agree-
ments for the Grant County Fair to
move forward.
The agreements included enter-
tainment, a ticketing company and a
sound and lighting provider.
Fairgrounds Manager Mindy
Winegar said the fairgrounds would
hold an open house from 4-7 p.m.
March 30.
In other county news:
• The court appointed Mark Lysne
the road advisory committee to a
term to expire June 30, 2023.
• The court approved a contract
between the county and the state
Department of Corrections to house
inmates for the state. County Judge
Scott Myers said it is valuable con-
tract to have with the state in that it
would pay the county $65 per day,
per inmate.
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