GO! EASTERN OREGON MAGAZINE | INSIDE
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
154th Year • No. 48 • 14 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
Art
center,
diner
trading
spaces
8 THINGS TO KNOW
ABOUT MEASURE 114
1. Mandates a purchase
permit, which includes a
criminal background check
and live ﬁ re training, before
obtaining a ﬁ rearm in most
circumstances.
2. Bans the sale, manu-
facture, importation, use,
purchase or other transfer of
any large-capacity mag-
azine (holding more than
10 rounds) in Oregon after
the eﬀ ective date of the
measure.
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — Painted Sky Center
for the Arts is moving to a new base
of operations earlier than expected to
make way for the Squeeze-In Restau-
rant’s new location in a real estate
version of musical chairs.
The arts center’s current head-
quarters next to the state employ-
ment oﬃ ce in Canyon City is set to be
vacated in favor of a new space at 116
NW Bridge Street in John Day. Painted
Sky has already vacated its ceramics
and leatherworking studio at 295 S.
Canyon City St., which once housed a
Chinese restaurant, so the Squeeze-In
can set up shop there.
The new site in John Day, a for-
mer middle school, is where Painted
Sky had planned to eventually wind
up after receiving grant funding that
would allow the art center to purchase
the building.
But the need for the Squeeze-In to
have a place to land after its lease at
423 W. Main St. in John Day expired at
the end of October pushed up the time-
table for the nonproﬁ t’s move, accord-
ing to Painted Sky’s Alicia Griﬃ n.
“We contacted Shawn (Duncan)
from the Squeeze-In and let her know
what our future plans were. And we
didn’t want her to really give up on her
restaurant or that option. We thought
that might be a really good place for
her out in Canyon City,” Griﬃ n said.
“And so we did explain this as this
is a future thing, that it’s not some-
thing that we can do right away or
have arranged to do right away, but
you know we just didn’t want her to
give up and that we would try to help
See Moving, Page A8
Lutsenko Oleksandr/123rf
Sales of ﬁ rearms with high-capacity magazines like these — and sales of the magazines themselves — would be illegal
in Oregon under Measure 114, which is set to take eﬀ ect Dec. 8.
Breaking down
Measure 114
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
N
ow that Oregon has passed
one of the nation’s most
restrictive gun control
laws, Grant County resi-
dents may be wondering:
What does it mean for me?
Maybe nothing, if a lawsuit ﬁ led in
federal court is successful.
If the suit fails, however, the new law
could mean an end to the sale of some
types of ﬁ rearms in the state, the creation
of a new registration database and permit
system, and long waits to buy guns while
the permit system is being set up.
Measure 114, also known as the
Reduction of Gun Violence Act, passed
by less than a 2% margin in the Nov. 8
election.
The law limits the number of
rounds a magazine can hold to 10
and requires almost everybody who
acquires a ﬁ rearm to ﬁ rst obtain a
purchase permit, whether the gun is
gifted, loaned, leased or bought.
Purchase permits will be issued by
local law enforcement agencies for a fee
of $65 and will require a background
check and the completion of a ﬁ re-
arms training course. The measure also
requires the police to maintain an elec-
tronic database of all permits, whether
active, expired or revoked.
Supporters of Measure 114 say the
initiative was introduced in reaction to
numerous mass shootings over the years
and that public safety is the sole priority
of the new law.
But opponents say the measure is
unconstitutional and will only make it
harder for law-abiding citizens to defend
themselves against criminals.
The measure is already being chal-
lenged in court by the Oregon Fire-
arms Federation with the support of the
Sherman County sheriﬀ and a Marion
County gun store owner. The suit, which
seeks to have the new law overturned
on constitutional grounds, also asks the
court for an injunction to block the mea-
sure from taking eﬀ ect.
Measure 114 is scheduled to come
into force on Dec. 8.
What does it do?
Measure 114 makes a purchase per-
mit a requirement before a ﬁ rearm can
be transferred in nearly all instances. The
measure deﬁ nes a transfer as the delivery
of a ﬁ rearm from one person to another,
including the sale, gift, loan or lease of
the ﬁ rearm.
Cases where a purchase permit is not
required are rare and generally involve
either transfers of weapons from an indi-
vidual to the police or military or the
transfer of a ﬁ rearm to a spouse, domes-
tic partner or immediate family member.
The measure also outlaws the manu-
facture, sale, possession and importation
of any magazine that accepts more than
10 rounds of ammunition as well as their
use anywhere but on the owner’s prop-
erty or at a shooting range.
See Guns, Page A14
3. Exceptions to the
purchase permit require-
ment include the transfer
of a ﬁ rearm to a spouse or
domestic partner, parent or
stepparent, child or step-
child, sibling, grandparent,
grandchild, aunt or uncle,
ﬁ rst cousin, niece or nephew,
and the transfer of a ﬁ rearm
in the event of the death of
a ﬁ rearm owner provided
the transfer is conducted by
a personal representative or
a trustee of a trust created
in a will.
4. High-capacity maga-
zines purchased before the
measure’s enactment date
are legal but can’t be used
anywhere but on private
property or at a gun range.
Attached tubular magazines
for .22 riﬂ es and lever-action
riﬂ es are also exempted.
5. Failing to comply with
permit requirements is
a Class A misdemeanor.
A previous conviction of
failing to comply with permit
requirements raises a second
oﬀ ense to a Class B felony.
6. Being in possession of
an unlawful high-capacity
magazine after the mea-
sure’s enactment is a Class A
misdemeanor.
7. Failure to comply with
permit requirements at gun
shows is a Class A misde-
meanor. Two previous con-
victions raises a third oﬀ ense
to a Class C felony.
8. Police departments and
sheriﬀ ’s oﬃ ces are required
to keep and maintain a data-
base of all purchase permits,
whether active, inactive or
revoked.
Two months in captivity
La Grande native looks back on 62-day ordeal in Haiti
“AFTER SOME
THINGS WE’D SEEN
WE WERE PRETTY
SURE THESE
GANGSTERS DIDN’T
HAVE OUR BEST
INTERESTS IN MIND.”
By ANDREW CUTLER
The Observer
Justin Davis/Blue Mountain Eagle
The front door to the new home of
Painted Sky Center for the Arts at 116
NW Bridge St. in John Day is seen on
Monday, Nov. 28, 2022.
LADYSMITH, Wis. — They were
coming back from an orphanage in
Ganthier, Haiti, when they spotted the
roadblock ahead, outside the capital of
Port-au-Prince.
Melodi Korver, a La Grande native,
sat in a passenger van with her hus-
band, Ryan.
It was October 2021, and for the
past few months Ryan had worked as
support staﬀ for Christian Aid Ministry
in Titanyen, Haiti, while Melodi took
care of the couple’s home and children.
In the van were 16 Americans and
one Canadian, including Melodi Kor-
ver’s children, Andre, 3, and Laura, 10
months. As they approached the road-
block, the adults in the van wondered
what would happen next.
They didn’t have long to wait.
Moments later men with weapons
appeared in vehicles and motioned for
them to drive toward the roadblock.
The day marked the beginning of
62 days under the guard of members
of one of Haiti’s most notorious gangs.
More than a year later, Korver and her
family look back on that day as a deﬁ n-
ing moment, the beginning of an ordeal
that strengthened their faith.
“I still rather believe that they were
out looking for people to kidnap and
thought, ‘Oh, a passenger van, this
looks like material.’ But when they
— Melodi Korver, who was kidnapped in
2021 while doing humanitarian work in Haiti
Melodi Korver/Contributed Photo
Melodi Korver and her husband, Ryan, and children, Andre and Laura, pose
for a photo on Dec. 16, 2021, at the Haitian mission where Ryan worked. They
had only recently returned to the mission after escaping from kidnappers.
realized that they actually had 17 peo-
ple in there, they weren’t quite sure
what to do,” said Korver, who was
born in La Grande in 1993 and lived in
the community until 2018.
The kidnappers belonged to the 400
Mawozo gang. They forced the van to
follow them to two out-of-the-way
stick, mud and concrete houses, Kor-
ver said.
“And they lined us all up along the
side of one house,” she said. “Kind of
preliminary searched us, took a video
of us and then put us into one room
at the back of the house. It was fairly
small, 10 by 12 or so.”
The kidnappers brought them some
food that ﬁ rst night and some water,
but “nobody was hungry,” Korver said.
“Later they brought out an
English-speaking man, and at that point
he was saying, ‘I’m on your side. This
is all political,’” she said. “We weren’t
sure exactly how much to believe.”
That ﬁ rst night, the group discov-
ered there were 11 other hostages in a
room next to theirs.
“They were usually tied, hand and
foot, in the room. That was how most
of the other hostages were treated,”
Korver said.
Wrestling with decision
Korver and her group were not
tied up, and, eventually, had some
access to a backyard guarded by
thick undergrowth. Five of the cap-
tives had earlier reached freedom,
whittling the numbers of the mis-
sionary group down to 12.
Unknown to Korver and her
group, the gang was demanding $1
million ransom for each captive.
“They told us if one of you
escaped, we’re gonna shoot all the
rest of them. They were pretty sure
we were fairly helpless, too, as far as
just knowing our way around,” she
said.
Korver said if they did try to
escape, the group would “stick out
like a sore thumb because we were
white and there are not many white
people in Haiti and you have miles
of gang territory before you get out
of it.”
The idea of an escape, though,
never completely evaporated.
“For a long time we had been
See Escape, Page A14