CHRISTMAS ON THE PRAIRIE | PAGE 5
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
153rd Year • No. 46 • 14 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
B OUNCING BACK
FROM BULLYING
Courtesy of Opsis Architecture
This conceptual drawing shows what the proposed aquatic cen-
ter at the Seventh Street Sports Complex might look like.
John Day pool
plan moves ahead
By BENNETT HALL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — Plans for
a new public swimming pool
took another step forward on
Tuesday, Nov. 9, as the John
Day Planning Commission
granted a permit for the proj-
ect and the City Council took
several actions to advance
the proposal.
In the fi rst of two back-
to-back meetings at the John
Day Fire Station, the Plan-
ning Commission voted 3-1
to grant a conditional use
permit to the John Day/Can-
yon City Parks and Recre-
ation District for a proposed
aquatic center at the Seventh
Street Sports Complex to
replace the old Gleason Pool,
located in a city park adjacent
to the Kam Wah Chung State
Historic Site.
Gleason Pool, which
opened in 1958, has been
closed the last two seasons
due to COVID-19 concerns
and has signifi cant deferred
maintenance issues. Plans for
the new aquatic center call
for a six-lane, 25-yard com-
petitive pool with spectator
seating and an 8,000-square-
foot structure to house locker
rooms, a lobby and offi ce
space for parks and recre-
ation staff .
The project has an esti-
mated price tag of $6 million.
In the second meeting
Tuesday night, the John Day
City Council voted unani-
mously to approve the sale
of Gleason Park to the Ore-
gon Parks and Recreation
Department for $222,000,
the 3-acre property’s maxi-
mum appraised value. The
state plans to expand the
Kam Wah Chung Historic
Site on the park property and
add a number of improve-
ments, a $4.5 million project
that will include a new inter-
pretive center highlighting
the history of Chinese immi-
grants who fl ocked to John
Day during the city’s days as
a mining boomtown.
As part of the land deal,
the city agreed to demolish
the old pool. City Manager
Nick Green estimated the
demolition would cost about
$80,000, but he added that
state grants were available
to off set most of the expense
and the city would be able
to use concrete from the old
pool in street projects.
The city has already
obtained $2 million in state
funding for the aquatic cen-
ter project and is considering
up to $1 million more in cash
and in-kind contributions for
site improvements, includ-
ing the money from the sale
of the Gleason Park property.
The city also plans to cover
utility costs for the new pool.
The parks and rec district
still needs to raise roughly $3
million to $4 million to cover
design and construction of
the aquatic center, depend-
ing on the city’s contribution
and fi nal cost estimates. The
district plans to put a bond
measure on the ballot next
year for either the May or the
November election.
At that price range, the
bond add between 53 cents
and 72 cents per $1,000 of
assessed valuation in taxes
for property owners in the
district, according to data pre-
sented by Green at the coun-
cil meeting. For the aver-
age household with property
assessed at $120,000, that
would mean $64 to $86 per
year in added property taxes
for the 20-year life of the
bond.
If voters in John Day and
Canyon City (the area cov-
ered by the district) approve
the bond measure, the new
aquatic center could open as
soon as the summer of 2023
(based on a May 2022 elec-
tion). If voters reject the mea-
sure, the pool would not be
built.
Design work on the pool is
still in the preliminary stage,
making it diffi cult to obtain
accurate cost estimates, Green
said. He proposed that the
city obtain a $3 million line
of credit, secured by the pro-
ceeds from the land sale, to
cover 90% of the design costs
so design work can begin
before the $2 million state
grant comes through. That
way, he said, voters would
have a clear idea of how
much pool their money would
buy before the bond measure
comes to a vote.
Several councilors spoke
in favor of that strategy, and
the council voted unani-
mously to put out a request for
proposals from design fi rms.
Both of Tuesday’s meet-
ings drew plenty of pub-
lic comment, with the vast
majority of speakers favoring
the new aquatics center.
Arguments in favor
included teaching children
to swim in a supervised set-
ting, providing a facility for
the Grant Union High School
swim team to train and host
swim meets, supporting the
health of the community and
providing an amenity that
would attract people to the
area.
See Pool, Page A14
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
After Billy Radinovich’s parking spot at Grant Union High School was defaced with a hurtful slur about her weight, friends
rallied around her and painted over the graffi ti with a show of kindness.
Grant Union student speaks out
on body shaming and mental health
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
I
nitially, Grant Union High
School’s Billy Radinovich
thought the black markings on
her senior parking space were
tire tracks from someone peel-
ing out in the school parking lot.
However, after pulling her car out
of the spot, the glaring ugliness of the
spray-painted message came through
loud and clear: “450LB,” a cruel pub-
lic shaming referencing her weight.
“My instant reaction was: why?”
Radinovich said.
Sadly, Radinovich’s experience
underscores the fact that bullying is
far too common in schools around the
state and across the country.
In the most recent edition of the
Oregon Health Authority’s Healthy
Teens Survey, conducted in 2019,
three out of 10 Oregon eighth-graders
surveyed reported they had been bul-
lied at least once in the past 30 days.
That number was slightly
higher close to home, with 35% of
eighth-graders in Lake, Harney and
Grant counties reporting that they had
experienced bullying in the previous
month.
The numbers were lower for high
school juniors in the region (which
Billy Radinovich, left,
sits with Kate Hughes
during a Grant Union
volleyball game. With
many friends in school,
Radinovich was shocked
by the graffi ti incident.
Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
includes the Prairie City and Grant
school districts), but they were still
alarming at 25% and higher than the
statewide average of 20%.
Nationally, 28% of middle-school-
ers surveyed said they had been bul-
lied one or more times during the
most recent 30-day period, according
to a 2019 study conducted by Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Preven-
tion. The nationwide fi gure for high
school students was 16%. The aver-
age for students of all ages was 20%,
or one in fi ve.
Still, there are reasons to be opti-
mistic: According to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Health and Human Services,
bullying in schools has decreased by
11% over the last 10 years.
What is bullying?
Traditionally viewed by some as
a rite of passage everyone has to go
through in life, bullying can have very
See Bullying, Page A14
Contact tracers face abuse
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
CANYON CITY — As the pandemic
drags on, contact tracers with the Grant
County Health Department say they are
facing rising levels of uncooperative and
abusive behavior.
Kimberly Lindsay, the county’s pub-
lic health administrator, said during a
meeting of the Grant County Court on
Wednesday, Nov. 10,
that contact tracers are
increasingly on the
receiving end of ver-
bal tirades from peo-
ple who are deliber-
ately fl outing pandemic
protocols.
Kimberly
The goal of con-
Lindsay
tact tracing is to limit
the spread of COVID-
19 by identifying people who may have
been exposed to the disease and advis-
ing them on the need to get tested and
possibly self-quarantine.
But with communities around the
state and across the country growing
increasingly weary of COVID-19, pub-
lic health workers are facing an increas-
ing level of vitriol.
Lindsay said the hostility level had
driven one contact tracer to quit.
“It’s hard when you’re getting yelled
at all the time,” Lindsay said, “or people
make comments when you go into the
grocery store and it’s like the Red Sea
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
Jessica Winegar, Grant County Health Department clinic manager, addresses the
Grant County Court.
parting.”
One staff er, according to Lindsay,
avoids going out in public due to the
hostility.
Lindsay said quarantine impacts peo-
ple and businesses, especially now that
the dollars in programs to off set the loss
of income are drying up. She said it is
understandable that people are frustrated
in that respect.
County Judge Scott Myers said on
Friday, Nov. 12, that Lindsay emailed
See Tracers, Page A14