GO! EASTERN OREGON MAGAZINE | INSIDE
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
153rd Year • No. 52 • 14 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
THE YEAR IN REVIEW
2021
Contributed photo
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
Todd McKinley was sworn in as Grant Coun-
ty’s new sheriff in January.
Grant County resident Athena Moline tells John Day Mayor Ron Lundbom to read the Con-
stitution at a town hall event in John Day.
Terry and Sharon Smith were declared
missing after their Mt. Vernon-area home
burned in 2018.
A month-by-month look back
T
he year 2021 dawned with such promise: With a vaccine finally available, hopes were high that the COVID-19 pandemic would soon be under control. But
vaccination rates stalled and the rapidly spreading delta variant pushed case counts — and fatalities — back up. Now the even more contagious omicron vari-
ant has arrived in Oregon. There was plenty of other news to report in 2021 besides COVID, of course, and the Eagle was there to cover it. Here, then, is a
month-by-month recap of stories from the year just ending as we get ready for the new year to come.
Palmer said at the time that someone he did
not name went to the courthouse to apply for
the Budget Committee and was told they could
not.
“If you’re a taxpaying citizen in this county
and there’s an opening on a board, you should
have the right to apply for it, just like every-
body else,” he said. “And if nobody applies for
it, we’ll look at the reappointment.”
For his part, Camarena said he did not know
Quinton had been on the Budget Committee
and that he contacted the county because he
thought the committee had an open seat.
Camarena said he was unaware of the com-
missioners’ request for a pay increase and
would recuse himself if any potential confl ict
of interest came up, including the commission-
ers’ pay.
On Jan. 13, the court members voted unan-
imously to reappoint Quinton.
By STEVEN MITCHELL
and BENNETT HALL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JANUARY
Grant County swore in Sheriff Todd
McKinley to kick off the year. McKinley, in
his second bid for sheriff , unseated incumbent
Glenn Palmer in November of 2020 by over
600 votes.
Having lost by just 57 votes to Palmer in
2016 — 2,208 to 2,065 — McKinley said he
was “pleasantly surprised” by the margin by
which he was elected Grant County’s new
sheriff .
A longtime Grant County resident, McKin-
ley took over the offi ce where he began his
policing career.
He was a reserve in the Grant County Sher-
iff ’s Offi ce under Palmer’s predecessor, Fred
Reusser, in 1998 and got hired on as a full-time
deputy in 2001, working alongside Palmer
until 2015 and serving as undersheriff for a
time.
Over the years, the relationship soured, and
McKinley took the helm of the Parole and Pro-
bation Department in 2015.
He said he appreciated the voter turnout in
last year’s election.
“It was great to see Grant County show
up,” he said. “This is the people’s offi ce.”
The county also swore in a new Circuit
Court judge, Rob Raschio.
Later in the month, after reappointing 20
incumbents to various boards and committees,
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
The COVID-19 pandemic continued to dominate the news in 2021.
County Court members considered replacing a
Budget Committee member who voted against
increasing county commissioner salaries in the
2020 budget cycle.
The County Court members asked two-
year incumbent committee member Bob Quin-
ton to reapply for his seat as they considered
another applicant, Prairie City Public Works
Director Chris Camarena.
County Judge Scott Myers warned the
commissioners that appointing Camarena
could create a direct confl ict of interest because
County Commissioner Jim Hamsher, who
is also Prairie City’s mayor, is Camarena’s
immediate supervisor.
Quinton said he believed that Hamsher and
Palmer wanted him off the committee because
he and the other two at-large committee mem-
bers opposed increasing the number of hours
the county paid them for.
Hamsher and Palmer both said that was
not why they considered Camarena for the
position.
“When you get appointed to a committee or
board, it’s not a lifetime appointment,” Ham-
sher said after a County Court session.
FEBRUARY
County Court members and local health
offi cials challenged the state’s decision to place
the county into the heightened COVID-19 risk
level requiring local businesses to enact more
signifi cant restrictions because of an Oregon
Health Authority data reporting error.
Public Health Administrator Kimberly
Lindsay said the state incorrectly reported a
backlog of 31 positive COVID-19 cases as
occurring on Jan. 15. She said those cases
did not happen within the two weeks that
dictated the risk categories.
See Review, Page A7
Local offi cials brace for omicron
ifi es that those who have not had COVID-19
recently and have waning natural immunity or
have not had the booster or are unvaccinated
As Gov. Kate Brown extended Oregon’s might experience the eff ects of a bad cold.
state of emergency due to the fast-spread- But, she added, people with immune issues or
ing COVID-19 omicron variant, Grant Coun- older folks from more vulnerable populations
ty’s top health offi cial weighed in on what the stand to be more seriously impacted.
What is less
variant’s impact
clear about omi-
could be on the
WHAT IS LESS CLEAR ABOUT
cron, she said,
county.
is whether it is
Kimberly
OMICRON IS WHETHER IT IS
intrinsically less
Lindsay, Grant
than
County public INTRINSICALLY LESS VIRULENT virulent
earlier
versions
health
admin-
THAN EARLIER VERSIONS OF of the disease.
istrator, said in
She told the
a Dec. 20 press
THE DISEASE.
Eagle the new
release
that
data from the United Kingdom and Denmark variant is hundreds of times more transmissi-
shows that since the fi rst cases were detected ble than the delta variant, and she said she is
roughly three weeks ago, cases have doubled hearing that the mutations of the variant are
incredibly high.
every two to three days.
In a Dec. 22 phone call, Lindsay noted
that a recent Wall Street Journal article clar-
See Omicron, Page A7
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
Kimberly Lindsay, Grant County’s public health adminis-
trator, during a session of Grant County Court.