GO! EASTERN OREGON MAGAZINE | INSIDE
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Candidates air
their views at
commissioner forum
ory that housing starts in the city
would broaden the tax base for
the entire county.
JOHN DAY — Contenders
Although the Grant County
for the open seat on the Grant Court has not formally deliber-
County Court made their case ated on the city’s proposal, court
Wednesday, April 20, during the members have been steadfast in
Blue Mountain Eagle’s
their opposition to the
candidate forum at the
idea of linking county
county’s airport.
road fund money to
During a 90-min-
police services.
ute session moderated
At the April 13
by the newspaper’s
Grant County Bud-
editor, Bennett Hall,
get Committee meet-
the three candidates
ing, Grant County
Webb
answered questions
Sheriff Todd McKin-
on an array of topics,
ley requested fund-
including how to fund
ing for three additional
policing in the county,
patrol deputies and a
how much commis-
secretary.
sioners should be paid
Mark Webb, a for-
and how they would
mer Grant County
dial down the animos-
judge and the execu-
Knepper
ity between the city
tive director of Blue
of John Day and the
Mountain Forest Part-
county.
ners, a forest collab-
Nearly two dozen
orative, emphasized
people attended the
that he would defer to
forum in person, and
McKinley about how
others watched a video
to approach the issue.
of the event lives-
That said, Webb, a
treamed on the news-
write-in candidate for
paper’s website and
county commissioner,
Rowell
Facebook page.
added that based on
The offi ce of Grant County conversations with people from
commissioner is a nonpartisan outlying communities, polic-
position. If none of the candi- ing diff ers from city to city. For
dates gets more than 50% of the instance, he said he hears from
vote, the two highest vote-get- people in Monument that their
ters will move on to the general main complaints are drunk driv-
election ballot in November.
ers, while in Long Creek, it is
County commissioners are people exceeding the speed
expected to work 13⅓ hours a limit.
week. They are paid $2,380 per
The speeding issue, he said,
month with full benefi ts, includ- could perhaps be addressed
ing membership in the Public by installing a photo camera
Employee Retirement System.
instead of having a full-time
employee sitting on the side of
Law enforcement debate the road.
Hall kicked off Wednesday’s
“We do want to provide
forum by asking each of the can- safety,” he said, “but we want
didates how they would address to do it in a smart way with
the law enforcement funding the kind of budget that we can
debate in the county. John Day aff ord.”
and Grant County offi cials have
Webb said that would be
been at loggerheads since Octo- how he would start the conver-
ber, when the John Day City sation. He said he would also
Council voted unanimously to approach the cities to determine
suspend operations of the city’s their individual needs and see
police force and off ered to pay how the county might address
the county $300,000 a year to them diff erently than it has in
hire three sheriff ’s deputies to the past.
provide law enforcement ser-
For his part, Scott Knepper, a
vices in the city limits.
Prairie City resident and retired
As part of that deal, John postal worker, said the city of
Day City Manager Nick Green John Day needs to address the
laid out a proposal for the policing problem itself and put
county to give the city $300,000 a measure back on the ballot to
a year from its road fund to reinstate the police force.
pay for street improvements
Knepper said the Sheriff ’s
to serve new housing develop-
See Forum, Page A16
ments in John Day, on the the-
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
154th Year • No. 17 • 16 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
PRIVATE PROPERTY
V S . PUBLIC ACCESS
Baker County tries to keep route into Elkhorns open
By JAYSON JACOBY
and IAN CRAWFORD
Baker City Herald
A
total of 19 Baker County
residents took their turn at a
lectern and told county com-
missioners why the Pine
Creek canyon west of Baker
City is such a wonderful place to visit and
why the county should strive to ensure the
public has access to the road and to large
swathes of public land it leads to.
The speakers, whose personal expe-
riences in the Pine Creek area date back
more than half a century in some cases,
were among those who attended a public
hearing called by commissioners on April
19 at the Baker County Events Center.
Commissioners were soliciting public
comments regarding the county’s eff ort to
declare as a public right-of-way the road
that follows Pine Creek to its source at
Pine Creek Reservoir, high in the Elkhorn
Mountains.
Although the road passes through pri-
vate property for about 2½ miles, the res-
ervoir itself is part of the Wallowa-Whit-
man National Forest, as is much of the
surrounding alpine area that’s popular
among hunters, anglers and hikers.
Contributed Photo, File
David McCarty installed this gate
across the Pine Creek Road at his prop-
erty boundary during the fall of 2020.
A herd of mountain goats lives near the
reservoir, and an unoffi cial trail crosses a
ridge and leads to Rock Creek Lake, the
largest (35 acres) and deepest (about 100
feet) in the Elkhorns.
The county’s campaign to formalize
public access on the road was prompted
by a civil lawsuit that a Pine Creek land-
owner, David McCarty, fi led against the
county almost a year ago, on April 30,
2021.
In September 2020 McCarty bought
1,560 acres in the Pine Creek canyon,
the largest chunk of private land through
which the road runs.
Soon after buying the property McCa-
rty installed a metal gate across the road,
with a lock, at his eastern property bound-
ary, near the edge of Baker Valley.
On Sept. 30, 2020, county commis-
sioners voted 3-0 to order workers from
the county road department to remove the
lock. That happened on Oct. 1, 2020.
After commissioners contended that
the Pine Creek Road is a public route,
including the section through McCarty’s
property, McCarty asked county offi cials
to supply records documenting the road’s
status as public.
In the lawsuit he fi led in April 2021,
McCarty asks for either a declaration that
the disputed section of the Pine Creek
Road crossing his property is not a public
right-of-way, or, if a jury concludes there
is legal public access, that the limits of that
access be defi ned and that the county pay
him $730,000 to compensate for the lost
value of the land based on the legal public
access and for other costs he has incurred
as a result of the county’s actions.
In his lawsuit, McCarty says that
before buying the timbered property
through which the Pine Creek Road runs,
he reviewed the title report and other doc-
uments, none of which showed a public
road through the land.
See Access, Page A16
“IT’S A REAL SHAME THAT SOMEONE COMES IN AND SAYS I OWN THIS, AND TO
HECK WITH THE REST OF THE COUNTRY. THAT’S NOT RIGHT. WE NEED TO DO
SOMETHING TO KEEP IT OPEN FOR EVERYBODY.”
— Mike Thompson, speaking to Baker County commissioners about the Pine Creek Road
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald, File
The Pine Creek Road, in the Elkhorn Mountains northwest of Baker City, climbs to an alpine zone that includes views of Rock Creek
Butte, upper right, at 9,106 feet the tallest peak in the range.
John Day passes Grants fuel work of
forest
collaboratives
$30.3M budget
Lone ‘no’ vote cast over
law enforcement funding
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — The John Day Budget
Committee passed a balanced budget of
$30.3 million for fi scal year 2022-23 at its
meeting on Tuesday, April 19, but not with-
out some dissent.
Citizen committee member Sherrie
Rininger voted no on the proposed budget,
citing concerns the city wasn’t allocating
funds to the county to help pay for polic-
ing services provided by the Grant County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce to John Day.
Funds that could’ve been given to the
county for that purpose were moved into the
street fund after the City Council rejected
the county’s proposal for the city to pay for
law enforcement services.
Rininger says John Day’s residents
shouldn’t have to suff er because the John
Day and Grant County governing bodies
have issues with one another.
The City Council voted unanimously
to suspend the city’s police department in
October after years of struggling to fund the
department. John Day’s police force was
comprised of four men and had an annual
budget of $450,000, which outstripped the
$300,000 the city brings in with property tax
revenues by a large margin. A bond measure
to provide additional funding for the depart-
ment failed in August when it fell short of
the election’s double-majority requirement.
The county’s proposed budget for the
coming fi scal year includes a $300,000 law
enforcement contribution from John Day
even though no agreement has been reached
with the city.
Also passed at the city budget meet-
ing was a property tax rate of $2.9915
per $1,000 of assessed property value as
See Budget, Page A16
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
WASHINGTON — Five forest
collaboratives in Central and East-
ern Oregon have received word they
will be getting upwards of $11.6
million in federal funding.
The collaboratives, which bring
together environmentalists, public
and private land managers, and tim-
ber industry professionals, seek to
fi nd common ground on hot-button
forestry issues.
The projects were selected by
a federal advisory committee and
funded through the Collaborative
Forest Landscape Restoration Pro-
gram, which is intended to encour-
age ecological and economic sus-
tainability and reduce the risk of
catastrophic wildfi res.
The Southern Blues Restoration
Coalition, a joint eff ort of Blue
Mountains Forest Partners and the
Harney County Restoration Col-
laborative, received $3 million.
Both groups are forestry collabora-
tives, groups of diverse stakeholders
formed to fi nd solutions to stubborn
forestry issues that satisfy environ-
mental concerns while providing
jobs in the woods and generating a
steady and predictable timber supply
to feed area lumber mills.
Backed by the two collabora-
tives, the Southern Blues Resto-
ration Coalition has been supported
by CFLRP money since 2012. The
coalition was initially awarded $2.5
million per year and received a
bump to $4 million per year in 2016.
Malheur National Forest pro-
gram manager Roy Walker said a
big chunk of the money they will
receive would go toward prescribed
burning. Some of the funding, he
added, would go to pre-commercial
thinning throughout the Southern
Blues Coalition area.
See Grants, Page A16