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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 11, 2021)
Look for the Morrow County Fair and Rodeo insert in today’s issue of the Gazette 50¢ VOL. 140 NO. 32 8 Pages Wednesday, August 11, 2021 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Vaccination winners announced as county inoculation rate hovers at 40 percent Commission approves $20 Visa gift cards, and recommends county residents ‘mask up’ By David Sykes With COVID infection rates on the rise and the county vaccination rate hovering around 40 percent, county commissioners last week recommended all county employees wear masks, and “encouraged” all county residents, vacci- nated or not, to wear masks while indoors at public gatherings. Commission- ers also approved giving out $20 VISA gift cards to those getting vaccinated at upcoming public inoc- ulation events. They had earlier authorized $70,000 Pat Sweeney, Heppner, wins $20,000 vaccination prize in county money to be spent on a lottery open to coun- ty residents receiving the vaccination. Those winners were recently announced, and commissioners hope all these efforts will bring down COVID infection rates in the county. The 40 percent vacci- nation rate puts Morrow County at number 28 in the state for percent of the pop- ulation inoculated against COVID-19. Lake County is the lowest at 31.2 percent and Hood River County is number one with 68.3 fully vaccinated. In total num- bers Morrow County has Cecilia Coria, Boardman, $10,000 4,578 people vaccinated, including 68 percent of its es and hospitalizations,” 65 or over population. Rivera later told the Ga- At its August 4 meet- zette-Times. “In response, ing, in addition to approv- new national guidance has ing the $20 Visa gift cards, been released calling for after hearing a report from masking measures to pre- the public health director, vent the spread of the highly commissioners voted two transmissible Delta variant. to one on the masking rec- The Morrow County Health ommendation. “We recom- Department is following mend universal mask usage the Centers for Disease in the county. Whether Control (CDC) and the you are vaccinated or not Oregon Health Authority’s we recommend you wear (OHA) guidance in recom- a mask in public,” Mor- mending universal mask row County Health use in public indoor Director Nazario settings in an attempt Rivera said. He said to protect ourselves that recommenda- and the community tion came down from COVID-19,” he from the national added. Center for Disease At the August 4 Control and the meeting commission- state Health Depart- er Melissa Lindsay, ment, and although Morrow who has been at the it is not a mandate County Health Direc- lead championing the county is strong- tor Nazario vaccinations and oth- ly urging people to Rivera er COVID prevention comply. actions in the county, Nazario said the county said Morrow County is health department has been headed back to a high-risk seeing an uptick in vaccina- category and she did not tions among the population want to see the county re- with his office averaging ceive lock downs or other about 10 vaccines per day strict orders again from the during their three clinic state level. “It is still there,” days per week. “We have she said of the COVID vi- seen a slight increase in rus. Lindsay said she was people seeking the vaccine concerned the population in the last couple of weeks,” has become lax. “I don’t he said. see people wearing masks,” “There has been a sig- she said pointing out it nificant jump in recent cas- appears a lot of the public has stopped paying atten- tion to new cases. “But the state has not. How do we make sure we don’t send ourselves back into a shut down? We are told it is with vaccines and masks,” she emphasized. Prior to voting on a mo- tion recommending masks for county government em- ployees and supporting the health director in efforts to get more vaccinations and lic health director, Rivera would recommend at this time that the county fair and rodeo not move forward. The 24-page Morrow County Fair and Rodeo special edition Rivera said at this time he is included in the paper this week. is not saying events should be shut down, only that the public mask up in public indoor settings. A motion to recommend the public mask up passed two to one with Doherty voting no. In other COVID busi- ness Lindsay said the county would be setting up booths at public events to give vaccinations and asked the county commissioners to authorize giving $20 Visa They’ve ‘goat’ a ‘dam’ job Jose Montes, Irrigon, wins $20,000 Merlin Pengelly, Irrigon, $10,000 Luis Reyes, Boardman, $10,000 masks, county commis- sioner Jim Doherty said he thinks the public already knows and understands all of it. “I think the constituency out there af- ter a year and a half fully understand Morrow this issue,” County Com- D o h e r t y missioner Jim s a i d . “ A Doherty top-down approach of us banding them (the public) about is not going to lead to more vaccinations and not going to lead to more masks.” He said he understands the position Rivera is in to follow the CDC guidelines and state recommendations but as a commissioner, “I am reluctant at this time to go out and tell the constitu- ency and the employees of the county something they are fully aware of at this point,” he emphasized. “I want to stress the fact even if we are adding breaking cases (of new COVID in- fections) you are aware that the vaccinations we have available now are working against hospitalizations and deaths,” Rivera replied. “If 60 percent of our citizens are not going to get vac- cinated, and I have to get a mask to keep those 60 percent from getting sick or going to the hospital, how does that work out for the folks that have gone and gotten vaccinated?” Doherty asked. Rivera reiterated he is only following the recom- mendations from the CDC and state health officials. However, Doherty wanted to know if, as county pub- each inoculation. “I think people can make a choice,” Doherty said before also voting no on this motion. “I don’t want to pay them.” As an earlier incentive by the county, commis- sioners voted to put up $70,000 in county money toward a lottery for people in Morrow County taking the vaccine. Those winners were recently announced. Pat Sweeney of Heppner and Jose Montes of Irrigon won $20,000, Cecilia Coria and Luis Reyes of Board- man both won $10,000 as well as Merlin Pengelly of Irrigon. Although the lottery is over Rivera wanted to remind county residents that the vaccine is readily available for all who want it. “The Public Health De- partment is continuing to offer the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccine. This vaccine is available at no cost. If you have any questions about the vaccine, please call: 541-676-5421,” Rivera told the Gazette-Times. See page 4 for vaccine information. Goats have arrived and are busy clearing the overgrown veg- etation on the Willow Creek dam this week. -Photo by Giselle encourage people to wear gift cards as incentive with Moses. By Giselle Moses Approximately 1000 goats arrived last Thursday and Friday to clear the overgrown vegetation on and surrounding the Wil- low Creek Dam. Sage and Hayden Petty with Petty Family Goats of Pomeroy, WA, have once again been tasked by the US Corps of Engineers to have their herd do what they love to do, eat. The goats will spend the next week clearing the area on the town side of the dam and will move to the upper end of Willow Creek Reservoir early next week. The herd consists of both, adults and kids of various breeds of goats. Farra celebrates 104th birthday Above: Ida Farra (front row center) celebrated her birth- day with friends and family. Pictured front (L-R): Cara Osmin, Farra and Mary Ann Elguezabal. Back row (L-R): Frank Osmin, Bill Mahon, Sonny Biddle, Peggy Fish- burn, Earl Fishburn and Rick Drake. Right: Ida Farra.
