THE 100TH ‘62 DAYS CELEBRATION | PAGE A3
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
153nd Year • No. 24 • 18 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
Getting back to
New sheriff
building
stability
‘NORMALCY’
McKinley focusing on
maintaining personnel,
cultivating collective vision
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant County Sheriff Todd McKin-
ley has been busy since he took the
helm of the sheriff ’s offi ce in January.
The former undersheriff , who in his
second bid for sheriff unseated long-
time Sheriff Glenn
Palmer, said his offi ce
had been on more
calls this year than
last.
McKinley said he
is not sure what he
would attribute the
uptick
in calls to.
Grant County
“I can’t exactly
Sheriff Todd
put my fi nger on it
McKinley
yet,” he said. “Maybe
we’re doing business a little diff erent,
and people are more willing to call.”
Nonetheless, he said, he has been
going out on calls himself.
“This is not a place where you can
just sit in the offi ce and type all day,”
he said.
Building stability
EOMG fi le photo
Registered nurse LeAnn Alexander administers a dose of the Phizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center CEO Lisa Guz-
man at the health clinic in Mission in December.
When 70% of eligible adults are vaccinated statewide, mask,
social distance and other limits in all 36 counties will be lifted
By Gary A. Warner
Oregon Capital Bureau
O
Like most states, Oregon is left with a remaining eligible population
who either haven’t found the time and opportunity for vaccination, or
are hesitant for personal reasons.
its goal to get at
As yet unknown is how many eligible adults are opposed to inoc-
ulations — what OHA once termed “vaccine bel-
ligerent.” County vaccination rates for getting one
shot into eligible arms range from 34% in rural
Lake County to nearly 71% in the tech hub areas of
Washington County near Portland.
Umatilla County has offi cially put shots in just
under 39% of eligible adult residents as of Fri-
day. Some county offi cials have argued the count
is too low because it doesn’t include people who
were inoculated in nearby Washington and Idaho or
at federal and other facilities that don’t show up in
OHA counts.
Public health offi cials are using fl exible hours,
drop-in sites, outreach to remote communities, lot-
PMG fi le photo tery prizes and other rewards to attract more arms
Gov. Kate Brown, at a 2020 press for now readily available vaccination needles.
event, wearing her social distancing
Brown and state offi cials presented a mix of opti-
mask in public.
mism, frustration and concern over the COVID-19
situation in Oregon.
regon is about 90,000 people short of
least one shot of vaccine into the arms
of the state’s eligible adults in order
to lift most COVID-19 restrictions by
June 25, state offi cials said Friday.
“We are so close to fully reopening our econ-
omy,” Gov. Kate Brown said during an afternoon
press conference.
Brown has said, when 70% of eligible adults
are vaccinated statewide, she will lift mask, social
distance, restaurant occupancy, audience size and
other limits in all 36 counties.
The offi cial mark as of noon Friday: 67%.
After a spring that saw Oregon residents racing
to get vaccinated, the pace has slowed to the point
that supply far outstrips demand.
The Oregon Health Authority reported Friday
that 15,761 doses of COVID vaccines per day were
being administered. That is down from an early
April peak that saw more than 50,000 shots admin-
istered on some days.
To date, 2,303,485 people in Oregon have had at least one dose.
See Normalcy, Page A18
McKinley said he and his deputies
are there to provide a service to the
voters.
At its core, he said the sheriff ’s
offi ce is a business.
“We’re supplying a service to the
voting public, and I want them to get a
good product,” he said.
Building stability within the offi ce
is critical, he said.
McKinley said the focus within the
offi ce right now is keeping personnel
long enough to cultivate a collective
vision.
McKinley said he had been sur-
prised that an institution as old as the
Grant County Sheriff ’s Offi ce had not
been further along in bringing that
shared vision into the community.
The future of the John Day
Police Department
The prospect of John Day losing
its police department due to a lack of
funding may require the sheriff ’s offi ce
to reassess their priorities.
The city plans to ask voters to
approve a levy to fund the police
department, and if that fails, city offi -
cials have said they plan to close the
police department and transition the
offi cers over to the sheriff ’s offi ce.
McKinley has said it would be dif-
fi cult for the sheriff ’s offi ce to absorb
the cost of John Day’s three police offi -
cers long term. He said too that ser-
vices in John Day would be “greatly
diminished.”
“You have to put it in context: It’s a
See Sheriff , Page A18
Grant County judge faces possible recall eff ort
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant County Judge Scott Myers
faces a potential recall eff ort.
Chief petitioner Joshua Walker of
Seneca fi led a prospective recall peti-
tion with the Oregon Secretary of
State’s Offi ce June 10.
Walker wrote in his justifi cation that
Myers has shown a “lack of adminis-
trative oversight,” a “refusal to collab-
orate,” “fi nancial mismanagement” and
a “lack of transparency.” In addition,
Walker wrote that Myers has lacked
oversight over departments and county
personnel, which has led to a lack of
confi dence in his leadership and over-
all dysfunction.
Walker wrote that “critical pub-
lic funds” were unaccounted for and
misspent, which prolonged economic
recovery in the county. He said Myers is
unwilling to invest in economic devel-
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Grant County Judge Scott Myers during
a June 9 session of Grant County Court.
opment in the county, leading to “con-
tinual population decline, decreased
revenue, and the loss of basic services
and amenities.”
He claims Myers is violating his
oath of offi ce by refusing to meet with
other elected offi cials.
Myers told the Eagle Monday,
“The record will show my position on
the potential of wasting money when
COVID-19 started, and it is evident that
I wouldn’t spend road fund dollars on
development on private property.”
Walker declined to comment Sunday
and said he wanted to wait until peti-
tions begin to circulate before speaking
publicly about it.
Lydia Plukchi, a compliance spe-
cialist with the Elections Division of the
Oregon Secretary of State’s Offi ce, said
their offi ce notifi ed Myers that a recall
had been fi led against him.
Plukchi said templates were issued to
Walker and that both a cover and signa-
ture sheet for a prospective recall petition
must be approved in writing by the elec-
tions offi cial before the chief petitioner
may begin circulating the petition.
A June 11 letter emailed to Myers
from Deborah Scroggin, the state’s direc-
tor of elections, wrote that the chief peti-
tioner must collect and submit at least
578 valid signatures from registered vot-
ers no later than 5 p.m. on Sept. 8.
According to Scroggin’s email, if
enough signatures are not gathered, then
the recall petition becomes void.
If the recall petition contains the
required number of valid signatures,
Myers would have fi ve days to decide
whether to resign from offi ce, or fi le a
Statement of Justifi cation that would be
included on the ballot in the special recall
election. The county must hold a spe-
cial county-wide election for the recall
within 35 days.
If the majority votes to recall Myers,
the governor would appoint a replace-
ment until the next pertinent election.
The last recall for a county judge was
for Mark Webb in 2009, and it failed. A
coalition of citizens failed to recall for-
mer County Commissioner Boyd Brit-
ton in 2016.