GRADUATION SPECIAL | PAGES A13, A14 AND A15
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
154th Year • No. 23 • 22 Pages • $1.50
GOODBYE, GLEASON
MyEagleNews.com
Palmer looks
back on U.S.
Senate run
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
Justin Davis/Blue Mountain Eagle
A Tidewater Construction crew begins demolishing Gleason Pool in John Day on Monday, May 23, 2022.
John day’s aging pool
falls to wrecking ball
of John Day received to go toward the
cost of a new pool.
City Manager Nick Green reiterated
leason Pool is gone, and it’s that the old pool — which opened in
still not clear whether it will 1958 — was past its serviceable life and
be replaced.
that is the reason the facility was torn
Demolition on the site down.
began on Monday, May 23,
“John Day is not going to operate
and was completed on Friday, May 27. a pool that old,” he said. “There isn’t
The work to demolish Gleason Pool grant funding to rehab a pool that old;
was done by Tidewater Construction.
it’s a stupid waste of money. You’re on
The
Oregon
borrowed time as
Parks and Recre-
it is. You just tear
ation
Department
it out and move
purchased the pool
on. That’s why
property and the
there aren’t more
neighboring
Glea-
pools at that age
son Park from the city
in communities.
for a planned expan-
They
weren’t
sion of the Kam Wah
designed to last
Justin Davis/Blue Mountain Eagle indefi nitely.”
Chung Heritage Site.
The vote on a $4 Sparks fl y as a worker cuts down a
Green
said
million bond mea- metal lightpost during the demoli- the city currently
sure to fund the con- tion of Gleason Pool on Monday, May doesn’t have a
struction of a new 23, 2022.
contingency plan
pool, meanwhile, is
to construct a
still undecided. The May 17 election new pool in the event the bond fails.
remained a tie for two days before the “At this stage ,we’re just waiting on
no votes overtook the yes votes, eking the outcome of the pool bond vote,”
out a narrow 6-vote lead. But with 16 he said.
ballots being challenged by the county
On the other hand, he added, the city
clerk, the fi nal outcome — and the fate has 36 months from the date the agree-
of a new pool — remains in question ment was signed to use the grant funds
(see related story, Page A1).
to construct a new pool.
Also now in question is what will
See Pool, Page A16
happen to the $2 million grant the city
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
G
Bond measure
for pool in limbo
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
CANYON CITY — Sixteen unopened ballots
are holding up certifi cation of the pool bond vote.
The ballots are being challenged by County
Clerk Brenda Percy due to signatures on the ballot
envelopes not matching signatures found on voter
registration cards.
All 16 of the challenged ballots are from
within the pool tax district and would be enough
to swing the vote on Measure 12-80, which is
currently failing by a six-vote margin. This leaves
Percy unable to certify the results of the pool bond
vote until the challenged ballots are resolved.
Percy said signature challenges are routine in
every election and that the signatures are merely
being challenged and aren’t “suspicious.” Every
voter with a ballot being challenged will get a let-
ter from Percy with instructions on how to correct
the issue. If the signature issue isn’t corrected, the
ballots will remain unopened.
The last day to correct challenge issues is Tues-
day, June 7. The offi cial and fi nal vote count will
come Wednesday, June 8. The count as of Tuesday,
May 24, was 798 votes against the bond measure
and 792 votes in favor.
Voters were asked to weigh in on a $4 million
pool bond in the May 17 election. If approved, the
bond would add 70 cents per $1,000 of assessed
value to property tax bills inside the John Day/
Canyon City Parks & Recreation District.
The passage of the bond would allow the
CANYON CITY — Sam Palmer’s campaign
for the U.S. Senate ended last month and now he is
taking a breather to see what comes next.
The fi rst-term Grant County commissioner,
one of seven candidates who made a bid for the
Republican nomination in the May 17 primary,
fi nished third in the race with 42,172 votes, or just
over 12.19% of the overall tally, in his fi rst run for
statewide offi ce.
Joe Rae Perkins, the Republican candidate in
the 2020 U.S. Senate general election against Sen.
Jeff Merkley, got the GOP nod with 114,341 votes,
or just over 33%, while Darin Harbick, owner
of Harbick’s Country Inn and Harbick’s Coun-
try Store in the McKenzie River Valley, earned
106,277 votes, or 30.72% of
the tally, according to the Ore-
gon Secretary of State’s Offi ce
website.
Palmer sought the GOP nom-
ination to challenge for the Sen-
ate seat currently held by Dem-
ocrat Ron Wyden, who won
Palmer
413,703 votes, or nearly 89%, in
his party’s primary. Wyden has held the seat since
1996.
Palmer told the Eagle in a Thursday, May 26,
phone interview that what inspired him to jump in
the race to unseat Wyden was the Democratic sen-
ator’s bill that would give “wild and scenic” status
to an additional 4,700 miles of rivers and streams
around the state.
Palmer said Wyden did not confer with elected
offi cials in rural areas about the impact of the pro-
posed legislation on their communities when his
staff was designating miles of streams and tribu-
taries to be included in the River Democracy Act
of 2021.
“I just felt that I could bring a voice from East-
ern Oregon (to the U.S. Senate) that has not been
brought forth about what’s happening to our pub-
lic lands, our future and our way of life that is
being assaulted,” Palmer said.
Palmer, who works as a registered nurse in
addition to his duties as a county commissioner,
said he drove to campaign events all over the state.
He said the sheer vastness of Oregon was one
of his biggest takeaways.
“I’ve driven roads that I’ve never driven before
to get to places that I’ve only heard of,” Palmer
said. “(Oregon) is just a ginormous state. I’m just
in awe.”
Another thing that surprised Palmer was how
fed up people were with the government and their
elected leaders.
After campaigning at gun shows and other
get-togethers in communities that included Pend-
leton, Hillsboro, Salem, Albany and the Portland
metro area, Palmer said people in those locales are
“fi ghting mad.”
Going into the race, Palmer said he thought
Grant County was “hardcore” when it came to
frustration with the government. After his cam-
paign, however, he said other regions put Grant
County “to shame” in that respect.
“I attended a lot of gun shows and a lot of these
people said if America keeps going the way it’s
going, we’re going to end up in a shooting war. In
a civil war,” Palmer said.
See Limbo, Page A16
See Palmer, Page A16
Oregon voters back female candidates
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon voters are poised to elect a
woman to succeed another woman as governor — a
rarity in the United States — as a result of the May
17 primary.
Voters also put women in position to win four of
Oregon’s six seats in the U.S. House, including the
newly created 6th District that winds from Portland
suburbs into the mid-Willamette Valley. One of those
races could pit a Democratic woman against a Repub-
lican woman, although the vote count is incomplete
in the Democratic primary for the 5th District seat.
Oregon has just one woman in its current congres-
sional delegation.
Voters also could add to the record number of
women, now 40, in the Oregon Legislature.
A national expert says that, unlike 1992 and 2018,
she does not foresee this election as “the year of the
woman” on a national level. That label has popped up
from time to time as the nation sees spikes in women
running for, and winning, offi ce.
“However, you have a unique situation in Ore-
gon,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the
Center for American Women and Politics, part of the
From left, Christine Drazan, Tina Kotek and Betsy
Johnson
Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
“You have more potential for success by women, par-
ticularly in the congressional contests, so you have a
diff erent situation than has been seen in recent years.”
Oregon’s pending gubernatorial race — with
Democrat Tina Kotek of Portland, Republican Chris-
tine Drazan of Canby and unaffi liated Betsy John-
son of Scappoose — would be only the fi fth time in
U.S. history that women have gone head to head for
governor. According to the center, the others were
Nebraska in 1986, Hawaii in 2002, and New Mexico
and Oklahoma in 2010.
The center does not track third-party candi-
dates, so Oregon may be a fi rst with a trio of women
candidates.
Whoever wins will succeed Kate Brown, a Demo-
crat who is barred by term limits from running again.
All three candidates have been in the Legislature:
Johnson for 21 years, Kotek for 15 years and Drazan
for three years, plus two years as chief of staff to the
House speaker.
Oregon will be the third state where a woman will
succeed another woman as governor, following Ari-
zona in 2009 and New Mexico in 2019.
Meanwhile, voters nominated Democrat Andrea
Salinas of Lake Oswego, a state representative, for
the new 6th District, and Democrat Val Hoyle of
Springfi eld, the state labor commissioner and a for-
mer representative, for the 4th District seat being
vacated by Democrat Peter DeFazio of Spring-
fi eld after 36 years. Incumbent Democrat Suzanne
Bonamici of Beaverton was renominated for a sixth
full term in the 1st District.
Salinas will face Mike Erickson, a Lake Oswego
businessman and a two-time GOP nominee in the
See Voters, Page A16