A16
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Mandate
Continued from Page A1
Police
“Not wearing a mask
today,” Myers said, “is not
acceptable.”
Continued from Page A1
What happens next?
John Day has maintained a police
department since the 1950s, but it’s one of
the smaller communities in the state to fi eld
its own force. Even before the council voted
to shut it down, the department was operat-
ing at half-strength: Chief Mike Durr retired
on Sept. 1 and one of the department’s
sworn offi cer positions is vacant, leaving
just one sergeant and one offi cer to patrol
the city.
In emotional testimony at the Oct. 12
City Council meeting, Sgt. Scott Moore
said he and Offi cer Travis Piercy have been
working up to 18 hours a day to maintain
police protection in the city but couldn’t
keep up that pace indefi nitely.
“With just the two of us, it’s just not fea-
sible,” he said. “It’s just not safe.”
Corvin said Oregon
OSHA has jurisdiction
over workplace safety and
health under the Oregon
Safe Employment Act. The
state law authorizes Oregon
OSHA to enforce statewide
workplace safety and health
rules.
Corvin said per state law
he could not discuss the sta-
tus or details of an ongo-
ing complaint investiga-
tion. However, he can share
the basic, pre-investiga-
tive complaint information,
including the employer’s
name, location and alleged
on-the-job hazards.
“We expect employ-
ers to follow requirements
designed to help protect
workers against COVID-
19,” Corvin said. “After
receiving a complaint, we
will often contact employers
to see if we can get things
straightened out. If we can
resolve the issue in that man-
ner, then that is what we will
do.”
Corvin said Oregon
OSHA can issue citations
during on-site inspections.
The likelihood of an in-per-
son visit from a state inves-
tigator, he added, increases
when the employer refuses
to engage with the agency
or provides an inade-
quate response during
an inquiry.
Under Oregon OSHA’s
rules, Corvin said, a severe
violation that is not willful
or repeated carries a mini-
mum penalty of $100 and
a maximum of $12,675. In
contrast, a willful viola-
tion has a minimum fi ne of
$8,900 and a maximum of
$126,749.
Corvin said Oregon
OSHA does not just con-
duct enforcement activities.
He said it off ers employers
free and confi dential consul-
tation services, specifi cally
surrounding the pandemic,
as well as free techni-
cal advice and a full range
of free online educational
resources.
What happens next?
STRUCTION, LL
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O
C
C
AW
Featuring:
•
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Roofing
• General Construction
Remodeling
Fences
Decks
Storage Sheds
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541-910-6609
Eagle fi le photo
John Day City Manager Nick Green, left, and Mayor Ron Lundbom.
Who pays for policing?
Since the decision to mothball the police
department was announced, Mayor Ron
Lundbom told the Eagle, he’s heard from a
number of John Day residents who say they
wish they could go back in time and vote for
the law enforcement levy.
But even if the levy had passed, he said,
it would only have been a temporary solu-
tion. The reality, he said, is that a city the
size of John Day can’t support its own
police force.
“We’ve been robbing diff erent funds try-
ing to patch it together for the past decade,”
the mayor said.
“This year we fi gured it was going
to cost about $500,000 to run the police
department and the general fund was right
around $300,000,” he added. “We had an
expensive car that we couldn’t aff ord.”
Noting that no other community in Grant
County is providing its own law enforce-
ment services, Lundbom said maybe it’s
time to ask all county residents to pay more
to ensure adequate funding for the sheriff ’s
offi ce — possibly through a countywide tax
levy.
“Put a dollar fi gure on it and put it on
the ballot,” he said. “If people want polic-
ing, they need to pay for it.”
S263283-1
wear a mask inside the court-
room. Myers responded that,
as he told Preston, Rowell
would either have to mask
up or leave the building.
If Rowell continued to
defy the mandate, Myers
said, he would call Grant
County Sheriff Todd McKin-
ley and have Rowell arrested
for trespassing or escorted
from the building.
“Don’t call my bluff ,”
Myers warned Rowell and
Morris.
Morris asked Myers if
McKinley would acknowl-
edge the mandate. Myers
shot back that he would
have them arrested for
trespassing.
In a statement issued
last month, McKinley said
that while the Grant County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce is not
enforcing the mask mandate,
harassment and trespassing
are crimes.
Myers said it was not fair
for Rowell and Morris to put
him and McKinley in the
position of having to enforce
the state mandate.
Morris told Myers it was
not fair for him to put them
in the position of having
to defy his order to wear a
mask in county court.
Paula Guenther, an
employee of the Umatilla
National Forest, told Rowell
and Morris that they could
attend the meeting virtually
via conference call.
Myers said many res-
idents participated in the
court’s meetings virtually
for a variety of reasons.
Nevertheless, Morris told
Myers she was disappointed
that he would enforce the
mandate.
Myers said he held out
as long as he could when
the mandates came back
this summer and had not
required audience members
to wear masks until now.
Myers quoted the state’s
public meetings manual
and said he has the “inher-
ent authority” to command
the people in the courtroom
about what is acceptable.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
and
Much
More!
S262604-1
CCB#186113
John Day is not the fi rst city in Oregon
to dissolve its police department. According
to data from the state Department of Public
Safety Standards and Training, 13 munici-
palities have pulled the plug on their police
departments in the last decade, including
the Eastern Oregon communities of Con-
don, Athena and Lakeview. At least 12 oth-
ers have disbanded over the years, includ-
ing the Sisters Police Department, which
shut down in 1999.
Once the department shuts down, the
primary responsibility for enforcing the law
in John Day will fall to the Grant County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce. But that agency already is
stretched thin, with just four sworn offi cers
— one sergeant and three deputies — to
patrol a far-fl ung territory with about 7,200
residents spread over 4,529 square miles.
Sheriff Todd McKinley said he’s not
happy about being put in that position.
“It’s a little interesting to me that some-
body can just say, ‘We’re done doing that
(operating a police department), we’re no
longer going to spend money on it, so you
do it for free,’” he said in an interview.
“In essence, it will double our caseload
and our call volume.”
McKinley said he would need four more
deputies and one part-time secretary to pro-
vide the same level of service that John Day
residents were receiving when the depart-
ment was at full strength. With training and
equipment costs, he estimates it would cost
his department between $750,000 and $1
million to make that happen — money he
just doesn’t have.
The Grant County Sheriff ’s Offi ce will
continue to get mutual aid from the Oregon
State Police, but that agency is tasked pri-
marily with patrolling state highways, not
city streets.
As a result, the sheriff said, John Day
Vaccine
Debbie Ausmus
245 South Canyon Blvd.
John Day, OR 97845
OPEN WED. & THUR.
9 am - 5 pm
541-575-1113
24 hrs/7 days wk
debbie.ausmus@
countryfinancial.com
S262605-1
Continued from Page A1
but I also think that the people
that think the vaccine is neces-
sary and people should get it
is OK, too. Like I said, people
just want to have a choice in
the matter.”
On Friday, Hallgarth said
Last chance to play golf.
Goblin Open and
Sunday Slam Finale
is October 31, 2021.
1:00 shotgun start with lunch at the Hideout
prior to golf. Belt buckles and year end awards
will be issued after the golf event.
Sign up your two-person team today.
Dave Lewis
dave.lewis@silvies.us
or call 541-413-2216.
Silvies.us
S265088-1
Steven Mitchell/Eagle fi le photo
County Commissioner Sam Palmer, left, and County Judge Scott Myers .
residents will have to get used to a lower
level of service — the same level provided
to the other seven incorporated communi-
ties in Grant County, none of which funds
its own police department. Some calls for
assistance from John Day residents, he
warned, are going to go unanswered.
“If it’s for emergent calls, sure, life
safety, there is that obligation. But if it’s for
your neighbor’s dog barking … there are
certain things we are not going to be able to
deal with,” he said. “We just don’t have the
staffi ng to do that.”
City vs. county
John Day offi cials say they’re willing
to turn over 100% of the city’s property tax
revenues — roughly $300,000 a year — to
the county for each of the next three years to
help fund law enforcement services.
But they want something in return: an
equal amount of money each year from
the county road fund to build city streets to
wrap new housing around.
Green delivered the city’s proposal at the
Oct. 13 Grant County Court meeting in fi ery
and sometimes confrontational testimony.
It did not go over well.
Green said the county and the city of
John Day are in tight fi nancial straits due
to a declining population and declining tax
base.
“We’ve not done anything to stop that at
the county level,” Green said.
Green said the city could not, in good
conscience, give up all of its property tax
receipts for public safety without an equiva-
lent return in road funds that allows the city
to address what it sees as the core problem:
a declining population base.
County Judge Scott Myers asked Green
if he had a detailed, written proposal. Green
answered that he could draw up what he just
told the court, but he did not want to have
a lawyer put something together the court
would end up not approving.
Myers responded that he would not
sign anything that had not gone through the
county’s legal counsel. Green told Myers
that what the city and the county wrote
down would be what he just said. Myers
again insisted he would need a detailed
written agreement to take to the county’s
legal counsel.
Raising his voice, Green asked, “Do you
understand what I just said?”
Myers told Green he could leave the
room.
At that point, Commissioner Sam
Palmer stepped in and said he would like
to have the city’s proposal in writing. Green
agreed and left the meeting.
Looking ahead
In an interview with the newspaper,
Green admitted the episode “was not my
fi nest hour.” But he also defended his pro-
posal, saying it’s in the best interests of both
governments.
he did not anticipate losing
any of his staff over the vac-
cine mandate.
For his part, Grant School
District Superintendent Bret
Uptmor said 58% of his dis-
trict’s staff had been vacci-
nated as of Monday, with 42%
being granted medical or reli-
gious exceptions.
Like his counterpart in
Prairie City, Uptmor said he
does not anticipate losing any
staff due to the mandate.
Monument School District
Superintendent Laura Thomas
said all staff within her district
He pointed to the most recent census
numbers, which showed Grant County had
lost 212 residents over the last decade —
the only county in the state that is shrink-
ing instead of growing. That’s a problem, he
said, because local governments get most
of their funding based directly or indirectly
on their population, either through property
taxes or other mechanisms such as state rev-
enue sharing.
“John Day’s reversing that,” he said.
“We grew last year for the fi rst time in 30
years.”
The key to rebuilding Grant Coun-
ty’s economy, Green argued, is investing
in new housing and other initiatives such
as the John Day Innovation Gateway. He
said the county has a signifi cant surplus in
its road fund that could help jumpstart that
growth by making street improvements in
John Day, spurring residential and commer-
cial development that would broaden the
tax base for the whole county over the long
term.
“It doesn’t cost either agency a dime
to do the fund exchange,” Green said.
“Whether you care for me as an individual
doesn’t really matter — it’s what is being
off ered and is it in the best interests of the
public.”
Grant County Commissioner Sam
Palmer characterized Green’s proposal as
an “ultimatum.”
He acknowledged that the county has
between $55 million and $60 million in
the road fund but said he’s skeptical about
the idea of using any of that money to fund
projects for the city of John Day.
“Nick Green wants in that fund. He’s
been trying to get in that fund for two or
three years,” Palmer said.
“I’m always willing to sit and listen and
talk and work on solutions, but some are
easier than others, and this has been pretty
contentious.”
Still, Palmer added, when it comes to
public safety, the stakes are too high to let
personality confl icts get in the way of good
policy.
“It’s our citizenry that suff ers when gov-
ernments can’t get along,” he said.
“We’ll get through it,” he predicted.
“We’ll make it happen and keep our citi-
zens safe.”
For his part, Sheriff McKinley said
he’s hopeful some sort of solution can be
reached soon, although he’s not sure what
that might look like. In the meantime, he
said, his department will do everything it
can to fi ll the void left by the shutdown of
the John Day Police Department.
“I am committed to providing law
enforcement to the best of our ability,” he
said. “I will let the (county) court and the
city determine how that will look, because
they’re the ones that provide the fi nancial
ability for us to do our jobs.”
Reporter Steven Mitchell contributed
to this story.
had been vaccinated or were
given a religious or medical
exception.
Thomas said the district
lost one staff member due to
the mandate.
Brandon Haberly, Dayville
School District’s superinten-
dent, did not respond to multi-
ple requests for comment.
Law enforcement
Grant County Sheriff Todd
McKinley noted that the vac-
cine mandate did not apply
to his offi ce. He did, how-
ever, mention in a session of
the Grant County Court on
Wednesday, Oct. 13, that the
local Oregon State Police
substation could lose state
troopers due to the vaccine
mandate.
Capt. Stephanie Bigman,
government and media rela-
tions spokesperson for the
Oregon State Police, said Fri-
day that she had no data on
resignations due to the gover-
nor’s executive order, nor did
she have data specifi c to Grant
County.
Bigman said that as of Oct.
12, OSP’s current staffi ng was
at 1,271. At that point, 68%
of troopers were in complete
compliance with the mandate.
The remaining 32% of the
agency’s work force were not
fully in compliance with the
mandate; she said that works
out to 406 OSP employ-
ees across all divisions and
programs.
Bigman said 2% of OSP
employees had submitted a
request for a medical excep-
tion as of Oct. 12, and 15%
had submitted a request for a
religious exception. Another
12%, which works out to
152 OSP employees, had not
taken any steps to get vac-
cinated or submit exception
paperwork.