For all the talk on Capitol Hill about how the $700 billion bailout was needed to keep credit flowing to Main Street businesses, Tom Moran, president of Community Bank, said the bill signed into law by President Bush last week primarily benefits Wall Steet.

“As you read through it, it becomes fairly evident that it’s geared more for assisting in the recovery of the Wall Street banks, and to a much lesser degree the Main Street banks,” Moran said. “We’re still at a very early stage of this whole process, so whether this plan will assist or hinder, is difficult to tell.”

In its final form, the bailout bill’s stated purpose is “to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system of the United States and to protect home values, college funds, retirement accounts and life savings, and to preserve homeownership, promote jobs and economic growth.”

Although the law’s provision increasing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s protection of individual accounts from $100,000 to $250,000 is a good thing for banks of all sizes, Moran said that change is listed as temporary, and he’d like to see it made permanent.

Rhode Island man wants to turn the county’s infestation into a gourmet feast

Baker County’s worst grasshopper infestation in 22 years is drawing national attention, including a request from the owner of a Rhode Island purveyor of edible insects who was featured in Discovery magazine and an upcoming television show as “The Bug Eating Man.”

“I heard about your situation out there through a piece on public broadcasting. I do run an edible insect business, and I have an interest in purchasing some grasshoppers,” said Dave Glacer, in a letter to the city of Haines seeking contacts for buying grasshoppers.

“I also read about plans for funding a large-scale response with insecticides. Although that’s the usual response to this kind of situation, there is a better method out there: harvesting,” Glacer said.

Store at Chamber of Commerce office offers variety of local hand-made items

Debi Bainter checks one of her favorite scented candles made by Primitives by Pam. Bainter is the Chamber executive director. The store also has books, hats and shirts that depict Baker County in words and pictures. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

The store also directs visitors to local shops.

Chamber Manager Debi Bainter said the Chamber Store, at 490 Campbell St. near Interstate 84, is a highly visible place for merchants, artisans and home-based businesses to display and sell a sampling of their merchandise.

“The more stuff people see here, the more they travel down Main Street to shop,” Bainter said. “When people get off the Interstate and stop at the chamber, my hope is that they will see something that piques their interest, so we can direct them to a business in town where they can find more of it.”

Mike Gaudern of the Oregon Small Woodlands Association talked with Baker County woodland owners last week. (Baker City Herald/Ed Merriman)

Mike Gaudern, executive director of the Oregon Small Woodlands Association, delivered that message to members of the Baker County Private Woodlands Association during a swing through Eastern Oregon last week.

“Oregon has been picked as one of three pilot project states in the nation” where cap and trade carbon credit trading will be made available to woodland owners through the Chicago Climate Exchange program, which was formed in 2002 and began trading carbon credits in 2003.

“I don’t care if you believe what Al Gore and others are saying about carbon emissions causing global warming or not. My interest is making you money,” Gaudern said. “We grow trees that suck carbon out of the air, and people want to pay us money for it — a lot of money.”

The business Bob and Kay Petrik of Baker City started in Cambodia  is thriving, and helping dozens of women

Khmer Krafts, a Cambodian business founded by Bob and Kay Petrik to offer employment for women, has signed a five-year contract to provide purses for Great American Fundraising, which works with 25,000 schools across the country. (Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr)

Khmer Krafts was established in 2005 by Bob and Kay Petrik of Baker City to provide jobs to women who graduate from Cambodia’s Battambang Trade School.

The company tagline is “Purses with a Purpose — Fashion that Makes a Difference.”

Cambodia is still recovering from The Killing Fields, the period from 1975-1979 when the communist guerilla group Khmer Rouge swept through the country and forced city dwellers into labor camps. More than three million Cambodians were killed.

The Petriks first visited the Asian country in 2004 with Musicianaries International, and that’s when they met the Rev. Setan Lee, founder of Kampuchea for Christ (KFC) and a survivor of The Killing Fields.

Lee’s sister-in-law, Chhevan Yos, manages Khmer Krafts and designs the purses, wallets and book covers.

At first, the business employed 20 women, who in 2006 sewed 2,800 purses.

Baker County residents and businesses produced slightly less trash last year than in 2006, but they recycled quite a lot more of it.

Overall, the county recycled 24.4 percent of its refuse during 2007, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

That’s an increase of 5.6 percent from 2006.

It’s also the second-highest rate DEQ has recorded since it started measuring recycling in 1992.

Baker County’s highest rate was 25 percent in 1996.

County residents generated 16,403 tons of garbage during 2007 and they recycled 3,673 tons of cardboard, glass and other stuff — 32 percent more than the previous year’s total of 2,783 tons.

(The 2007 figures equate to a recycling rate of 22.4 percent, but DEQ adds a 2-percent “credit” to Baker County’s rate due to Baker Sanitary Service’s free yard debris dumping program.)

Some growers say yields are down a bit, but the weather was conducive to a good wheat crop

Ken Austin grabs a chunk of dirt off the conveyor moving spuds to a truck during the potato harvest at Jason and Rosie Williams’ farm near North Powder. (Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr)

Also on the plus side, the cool, damp weather that affected potato yields produced an above average wheat crop at the Blatchford farm near Haines.

“It was a good water year, and that’s good for potato quality,” said Dave Blatchford, who founded the family farm along with his brother Jim in the early 1970s.

The Blatchfords grow Russet potatoes on about 700 acres. Workers were busy Monday harvesting potatoes under warm, sunny skies.

Andrew Bryan, a Baker City businessman and city councilor, has been named the county’s marketing director.

Bryan replaces Kari Whitacre, who resigned to take a new position with a community development organization in Corvallis.

Bryan began his duties Monday. He will be paid $42,000 per year.

To take the job, Bryan resigned from the board of directors for the Baker County Development Corp., a non-profit group that supervises the marketing director and channels transient room tax money to attract visitors to Baker County.

The remaining board members then hired Bryan, who’s also an education consultant.

Oregon has 18 electrical cooperatives, and a handful of public utility districts and city-owned utilities are scattered throughout Oregon and Washington. Many are eager to be partners with Baker City-based Oregon Trail Electric Consumers Cooperative, or OTEC.

Why?

Because the era of plentiful and cheap energy provided by the Bonneville Power Administration is coming to a close, and smaller utilities across the Northwest have decided it’s better to pool their risk if they must develop other sources of electricity — including renewables — themselves.

OTEC is a popular potential partner for other utilities, said the utility’s general manager, Werner Buehler, because it’s large and growing slowly.