EASTER EVENTS THIS WEEKEND | PAGE A7
COUNTY REPORTS FOURTH COVID-19 DEATH | PAGE A5
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
153nd Year • No. 13 • 16 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
John Day
proposes tax or
agreement with
county for police
Green: City lacks funds to
sustain department without
cuts, new revenue
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Kircher Korners tenant Kathleen Evans said owner Bob Phillips began working on her neighbor’s deck but has not completed the project.
UN-SUBSIDIZED
HOUSING
Kircher Korners to lose HUD
contract April 1, leaving Prairie City
residents uncertain where to go
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
The owner of a government-subsidized
eight-unit apartment building in Prairie City
will lose his federal contract on April 1 due to
“physical disrepair” of the
property, and local tenants
are uncertain where to go.
According to a March 12
letter tenant Kathleen Evans
received from the U.S.
Department of Housing and
Urban Development that
she shared with the Eagle,
Kathleen
the building’s owner, Bob
Evans
Phillips, “repeatedly” vio-
lated his contract with the agency.
Phillips told the Eagle he only recently
found out about the letter sent to Evans when
he saw a post on social media. He said the
state, which administers the HUD contract,
had not contacted him in at least four months,
and they are supposed to provide 90 or 120
days notice of a cancellation.
Phillips said he has a service that bills the
state on his behalf and he received a response
stating his request for April had been
approved. He said he usually gets a deposit
for the rent subsidies by the second day of the
month.
Phillips said he plans to try to renew
the contract, and he will work with the ten-
ants and not immediately evict them if he is
unable to renew the contract.
Rick Lombardi, a resolution specialist
with HUD, said in an email that the viola-
tions were, for the most part, “due to physi-
cal disrepair of the property.” The Eagle fi led
a public records request for the HUD inspec-
tion reports last week.
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Prairie City resident Charles Williams, whose mother Cleo Larkin lives at Kircher Korners,
points out areas where he said there was black mold on his mother’s back porch.
Lombardi said the agency would not force
the tenants to move out of Kircher Korners,
but it will no longer pay Phillips the rent it
had been paying.
“If they wish to be placed into improved
housing in the area, the department assumes
the cost of relocation and will help them fi nd
a new place to live,” he said.
Nowhere to go
Evans said, however, she does not know
where to go because housing is sparse in
Grant County. She said, although the letter
was created on March 12, she did not receive
it until March 23, just days before the loom-
ing action.
“I’m shocked,” she said. “If I had known
this was coming, I would have been prepared.
What am I supposed to do? What is everyone
else supposed to do?”
She said she is worried about her neigh-
bors, as many of them have physical disabil-
ities. Evans told the Eagle she is also con-
cerned about herself because she has four
emotional support animals — two dogs and
two cats — and fi nding housing in the county
would be next to impossible.
“It’s already impossible,” Evans said
while holding back tears. “There’s really no
housing available in Grant County. And I
don’t want to leave Prairie (City). This is my
home.”
Evans said she does not have fam-
ily in Grant County. Her son, she said, is in
New York while her mother is in Southern
California.
Another tenant, Cleo Larkin, 83 and on
oxygen, said she intended on living out the
rest of her life at Kircher Korners when she
moved there two years ago.
“This was supposed to be my home until I
was gone,” Larkin said.
Larkin, who has lived in Grant County her
whole life, said her only other option for stay-
ing in the county would be to move across the
street into Blue Mountain Care Center.
“I’ll kill myself before I go,” she said.
See Housing, Page A16
The future of the John Day Police Depart-
ment remains uncertain as questions on funding
persist.
The John Day City Council discussed on
March 23 two possible routes the city could pur-
sue for policing in John Day:
entering a law enforcement ser-
vices agreement with the Grant
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce or seek-
ing a local levy to fund the
department.
City Manager Nick Green
said, if the city wants to recruit
John Day
a new chief after Chief Mike
Police Chief
Durr retires this year, the city
Mike Durr
would need to request a fi ve-
year local option levy —
between 10 and 15 cents per $1,000 of assessed
value — to fund the department.
Green said the levy is necessary because
the city lacks the money to sustain the depart-
ment unless they come up with another revenue
source, or cuts are made to personnel.
Police department expenditures have grown
in the past 20 years, far outpacing the sources
of revenue funding the department, according to
graphs presented by Green.
Green said future costs — an incoming col-
lective bargaining agreement, aging vehicles in
need of replacement over the next fi ve years, hir-
ing a new police chief and legislation in Oregon
— all present cost increases in the next fi scal
year, which concerns him.
“What we have seen over the past two
decades (in expenditures) is pretty consistent
price escalation that signifi cantly outpaces our
revenue,” Green said. “The gap that we’re trying
to close from 20 years ago, which was just a little
over $100,000, today has grown to a little over
$400,000. All the while, we lost 300 residents.”
If the city were to pursue a local tax, it would
need to be approved by voters in John Day.
Green said he spoke with Grant County Sher-
iff Todd McKinley to see what a law enforce-
ment services agreement would look like. The
city would be required to cover the costs of the
staff members that would be repositioned, two
full-time offi cers and a full-time sergeant, for the
fi rst year, he said, and the county would request
the city pays for four full-time positions.
“I’ll just relay what Todd told me, the county
expects us to pay for four (full-time offi cers),”
Green said.
No decision was made, but the council said
it would be important to continue talking with
members of the community to see how they feel
about both options. They discussed holding a
study session with McKinley and possibly the
county commissioners.
“One or the other thing is going to happen,
and it’s going to happen this fall,” Green said.
“But I need to know by the end of next month if
we’re recruiting for a new chief or if we’re going
to pursue the transition option.”
Durr was not present at the city council meet-
ing for comments.
Bill barring fi rearms from Oregon’s state buildings passes Senate
Local governments would
be allowed to ban guns in
their own buildings
By Peter Wong
Oregon Capital Bureau
Firearms would be barred from
state buildings, and local governments
would have the option of banning
them from their own buildings, under
a bill that is halfway through the Ore-
gon Legislature.
The Senate voted 16-7 on Thurs-
day for Senate Bill 554. It goes to the
House after a debate lasting more than
three hours and refl ecting the national
arguments about gun regulation.
Majority Democrats defeated a
Republican-proposed substitute that
would have affi rmed the constitutional
right to bear arms and required a study
of gun-free zones. They also rejected
seven other Republican motions that
would have delayed or killed the bill.
Eagle fi le photo
State Sen. Lynn Findley
The bill would bar about 300,000
holders
of
concealed-handgun
licenses from bringing their fi rearms
into state buildings, including the
Capitol. Some places, such as state
courts, already are off limits.
Cities, counties, schools and other
local governments would have the
option under the bill to bar fi rearms
from their buildings, although adja-
cent garages and parking lots are
excluded. A ban also can apply to air-
port terminals; the federal Transporta-
tion Security Administration oversees
boarding areas and the shipment of
fi rearms in stored luggage.
Violations would be considered a
Class C felony, maximum penalties
for which are a $125,000 fi ne and fi ve
years in prison, although unlikely to
be levied on a fi rst off ense.
The bill also would raise initial
fees for concealed-handgun licenses
from $50 to $100, and renewals from
$50 to $75.
The debate got so heated that
Senate President Peter Courtney —
who apologized earlier for a com-
ment about “crushing opponents”
that referred to Oregon opponents in
the NCAA basketball tournaments —
said, “People are getting angry about
this measure from all sides.”
But it was clear that Democrats had
the votes to prevail, rejecting Republi-
can motions to send the bill to various
committees.
The Senate Judiciary Committee
spent four hours Feb. 22 listening to
testimony, much of it from gun-rights
advocates opposed to the bill, and
passed it on a 4-3 party-line vote a few
days later.
What supporters said
The bill’s chief sponsor and fl oor
manager was Sen. Ginny Burdick,
D-Portland, a long-time supporter of
gun regulation.
Burdick said that under a state
law dating back to 1969, possession
of fi rearms in a public building is a
felony unless that person has a con-
cealed-handgun license.
But until 1989, when state law
changed to require issuance of
licenses to people who met specifi ed
standards, Burdick said sheriff s had
See Bill, Page A16