A18
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Challenge
Continued from Page A1
“I saw the bus at proba-
bly around 9:30 p.m., and the
game was long over by then,”
Blood said.
The bus was parked beside
the minimart, and Blood
didn’t think anything of it at
fi rst. “I thought it was a Prai-
rie City bus coming back into
town dropping kids off .”
But after seeing it was
a Union bus, he realized it
was likely having mechani-
cal trouble. He turned around
and talked to the occupants
to fi nd out what type of prob-
lems they were having.
He learned it would be 2½
hours before their replace-
ment bus would be arriving
from Union. The Union girls
Justin Davis/Blue Mountain Eagle
team had played the Grant
Union Lady Prospectors Shirley Taylor at The Outpost in John Day on Friday, April 1, 2022. Taylor and a coworker were cleaning up when Trooper William
early that night and had got- Blood came knocking on Feb. 11, but they restarted the ovens to make pizza for some stranded teenagers.
ten dinner at the Dairy Queen
in John Day during the boys’ the ovens and making fi ve tainly didn’t have to,” Blood did “goes a long ways show-
Dunlap said the students
game. The boys, however, large pizzas for the stranded said. “They had everything ing small town community fi nally made it back to Union
hadn’t had anything to eat kids — even though Blood’s cleaned up and they got it all and support. It reassured me sometime around 1 a.m.
yet. It was this information request was unique.
dirty again.”
that people do care about Trooper Blood’s actions were
that pushed Trooper Blood
“We’ve helped out a lot
Union High School Ath- each other and take care of met with relief and grati-
into action and sent him to of diff erent people over the letic Director Chris Dun- each other, especially in East- tude from the coaches and
the Outpost.
years,” Taylor said, “but lap wasn’t at the event, but ern Oregon.”
went a long way toward mak-
Shirley Taylor was one of nothing like this.”
he was notifi ed that the bus
Like Taylor, Dunlap said ing the mechanical issues the
the people working at the Out-
Fortunately, Taylor added, was having issues. As an ath- he’s never heard of anything teams were suff ering through
post that night. She said she Blood’s timing was just right letic director, he said, he was like this happening.
manageable.
and another employee were — if he’d shown up much thinking of the kids and their
“I’ve heard of maybe
Dunlap said he never got
cleaning the restaurant after later, nobody would’ve been safety.
checking on somebody or run- to speak with Blood person-
closing when Blood knocked at the restaurant to help the
“When I hear that, the fi rst ning to make a phone call for ally, but the trooper’s actions
on the door and asked if there kids. “It was probably 15, 20 thought is are the kids going somebody,” he said. “Never speak to the nature of people
was anything they could do minutes before he missed us,” to be OK? Is the bus running somebody to turn around and in Eastern Oregon.
for the bus full of hungry kids she said.
and does it have heat?”
say, ‘Hey, those kids are hun-
“We have rivalries and
in Prairie City. “He explained
Blood said it didn’t take
The team had planned to gry,’ and then fi nd a business we want our teams to win,
what the dilemma was and much convincing to get the stop in Baker City to get a bite that is open, get enough piz- but we still take care of each
that these kids were going to Outpost crew to make the to eat on their way home, but zas to feed everybody and other when the time comes,”
be there for a while,” Taylor pizzas. “They were happy to the bus breakdown derailed then pay for that themselves. Dunlap said. “We separate
said.
do this, and I give them all those plans. Dunlap called I’ve never heard of it, and those rivalries for the sake of
Taylor and her co-worker the thanks in the world for Trooper Blood’s actions a I’ve been around athletics for humanity.”
swung into action, fi ring up doing that because they cer- “lifesaver” and said what he a while.”
Blood said he felt like a
Budget
Continued from Page A1
The agreement, he said,
allowed Prairie City to pay
for law enforcement coverage
by the hour. Hamsher, who is
also Prairie City’s mayor, said
the Sheriff ’s Offi ce invoiced
the community monthly for
patrols and said the cost was
around $90 an hour.
Hamsher added the hourly
rate would
likely have
to go up
because of
infl ation and
rising
fuel
costs.
He
Quinton
said he asked
Sheriff Todd
McKinley to calculate a rate
that factors in current condi-
tions to bring to the budget
committee.
Last month, Hamsher said
Prairie City had not been able
to fund the law enforcement
contract since the start of this
fi scal year on July 1 due to
budget constraints. However,
he said he hopes the commu-
nity can start paying for polic-
ing again in the future.
Currently, he added, none
of the cities in Grant County
pay for policing.
John Day and Grant County
offi cials have been at logger-
heads since October, when the
TUESDAY | APRIL 12, 2022
AGENDA
10:00 - 10:30 Grant SWCD and Weed Dept.
Kyle Sullivan and Matt Wenick
10:30 - 11:00 Oregon Trail Electric Co-Op Susan Snyder
11:00 - 11:30 OSU Grazing Plans and Monitoring
Chris Schachtschneider
11:30 - 12:00 ODFW Big Game Ryan Platte
11:00 - 2:00 Curbside Cravings Food Truck
Tri-Tip/Brisket & Sides $9-$13. Please RSVP by April 5th
1:00 - 2:00 Oregon Water Resources Dept. Erik Julsrud
2:00 - 2:30 OSU Forestry/Fire History John Rizza
2:30 - 3:00 Firewise - Home Ignition Sources Irene Jerome
Free ATV/UTV Weed Spray
Calibration & Booths Available
from 9-3 pm
John Day City Council voted
unanimously to suspend oper-
ations of the city’s police force
and off ered to pay the county
$300,000 a year to hire three
sheriff ’s deputies to provide
law enforcement services in
the city limits.
During a heated session of
Grant County Court, John Day
City Manager Nick Green laid
out a proposal for the county
to give the city $300,000 a
year from its road fund to
pay for street improvements
to serve new housing devel-
opments in John Day, on the
theory that housing starts in
the city would broaden the tax
base for the entire county.
Although the Grant County
Court has not formally delib-
erated on the city’s proposal,
court members have been
steadfast in their opposition to
the idea of linking county road
fund money to police services.
In a recent phone inter-
view, citizen budget commit-
tee member Bob Quinton said
commingling road fund dol-
lars and police services was a
nonstarter for him as well, but
he added that it was frustrating
the county had not reached an
agreement with the city ahead
of the budget sessions.
Contract
negotiations,
Quinton said, are the responsi-
bility of the County Court and
not the budget committee.
The budget committee, he
said, is there to discuss the
fi nancial implications of the
agreement. For that reason, he
said, if a contract is not signed
by the close of the budget ses-
sions, then the budget would
not get his vote.
“I can’t in good faith,” he
said, “vote for that type of a
budget, if there’s no contract
signed.”
Quinton added that his role
on the committee is to look out
for the citizens of the county,
and voting for an expendi-
ture with no contract in place
would be irresponsible.
Amy Kreger, another citi-
zen member, said Monday that
the absence of a law enforce-
ment contract between John
Day and the county would
make the budget process
diffi cult.
Overall budget outlook
Still, it’s worth noting that
any law enforcement services
agreement represents a rel-
atively small portion of the
county’s overall budget. All in
all, the county’s fi scal outlook
is considerably brighter now
than it was a year ago.
The county faced a loom-
ing fi nancial crisis heading
into last year’s budgeting pro-
cess. In order to present a bal-
anced budget to the commit-
tee, the county’s reserve funds
had to be reduced substantially
to off set a major shortfall from
reduced federal funding com-
bined with the cost of major
projects, repairs and spending
increases in nearly all of the
county’s funds.
Quinton, Kreger and the
committee’s third citizen
member, Rob Stewart, pulled
no punches in budget com-
mittee meetings, saying the
county might have to cut jobs
instead of simply reducing
hours and furloughing certain
positions as the committee had
discussed in earlier sessions.
In the end, however, the
“rock star” when the kids
saw him pull the pizzas
from the passenger seat of
his patrol vehicle. “I stepped
onto the bus and I hon-
estly couldn’t tell you (how
but) the pizzas were gone,”
he said.
Following the pizza deliv-
ery, Blood said, one of the
Union basketball players told
his teammates to get out of his
way because he was “going to
give that man a hug,” adding
“that started the long line of
hugs from the kids.”
Blood said his own experi-
ences as a high school athlete
aroused his sympathies for
the stranded basketball team.
“I played sports in high
school,” he said, “and I know
what it is like to be in a small
town where nothing is open
and you’re hungry.”
Blood’s act of kindness
did not go unnoticed by his
supervisors with the Oregon
State Police.
For his deeds that night,
he was awarded a certifi -
cate of recognition and two
challenge coins, one from
OSP’s John Day outpost and
the other from the agency’s
Ontario, Burns and John Day
area command.
Lt. Mark Duncan pre-
sented Blood with the chal-
lenge coins and certifi cate in
a brief ceremony at the John
Day OSP outpost on Wednes-
day, March 30, noting that
the challenge coins are not
handed out often and should
be held in high regard.
Duncan said Blood “went
above and beyond, showing
compassion, and that Trooper
Blood represents the Oregon
State Police and their core
values well.”
committee scrapped that idea
and opted for backfi lling bud-
get holes with COVID-19
relief funds and money from
prospective legislation in
Congress that could poten-
tially increase the county’s
payment in lieu of taxes fund-
ing to upwards of $900,000.
In addition to reducing the
hours of two library employ-
ees, Angie Uptmor, the coun-
ty’s senior coordinator, agreed
to cut her hours from 40 to 32
per week as she gets ready to
retire at the end of September.
Cash on hand at the start of
the 2021-22 fi scal year on July
1 was $1,509,816. This year,
according to the county’s bud-
get message, with grant fund-
ing and carryover from fed-
eral COVID-19 relief funding
that has not been spent, the
county is relatively fl ush, with
$3,072,697.
Ellison’s budget proposal
includes $9.2 million in the
general fund, which makes up
the bulk of the county’s unre-
stricted spending capacity.
She said the general fund fl uc-
tuates between $8 million and
$9 million from year to year.
Asked if she thought the
county has enough revenue to
sustain the budget going for-
ward, however, Ellison said if
the county and John Day can-
not come to an agreement on
a policing contract, she does
not know how the county
can fund the additional law
enforcement positions in the
long term, regardless of the
$700,000 in ARPA funding.
Another challenge the
county faces is fi nding candi-
dates to fi ll those deputy patrol
positions.
2022
I
Northeast Oregon
Location
Pavilion - 411 NW Bridge
St. John Day, OR 97845
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