Rep. Greg Walden is urging the U.S. Forest Service to re-open the washed out Wallowa Mountain Loop Road “as fast as possible.”

“The Loop Road is a critical link between Baker and Wallowa counties and is a major tourism corridor that bolsters local economies,” he said Thursday in a press release.

Walden, a Republican who represents Eastern Oregon in Congress, plans to tour flood-damaged Eagle and Pine valleys on Sunday afternoon and then attend a public forum in Richland hosted by Halfway Mayor Sheila Farwell and Richland Mayor Dick Petterson.

The forum is scheduled for 5 p.m. at the Eagle Valley Grange.

A 500-foot section of the paved Loop Road was obliterated by North Pine Creek last week when a combination of torrential rain and melting snow from the Wallowa Mountains more than doubled the creek’s volume.

The road was severely damaged in four other places along the creek.

The affected section is between the Loop Road’s southern end at Ore. Highway 86 and its intersection with the Fish Lake Road.

Walden met Thursday with Mary Wagner, regional forester at the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Region headquarters in Portland.

In the week before classes ended June 4,  the Baker School District learned it would have extra money to fund a summer school program aimed at helping students meet math and reading benchmarks, says Betty Palmer, South Baker principal.

The $52,000 grant will fund two separate “intensive three-week” programs with the first session starting Monday.

Class time is 8:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. Monday through Thursday, with the first session continuing through July 1, Palmer said.

Breakfast will be served daily from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and lunch will be served from 11:45 a.m. to noon.

Students who were in Grades 1-3 this year will attend summer school at Brooklyn Primary, 1350 Washington Ave. Those who were in Grades 4-5 this year will attend South Baker Intermediate, 1285 Third St.

A transition program for kindergartners and sixth-graders will be added during the second session, which is scheduled Aug. 2-Aug. 19, Palmer said.

The Bikers Fighting Cancer will be out in full force this weekend to further their goal of raising money to help children fighting cancer.

“It’s all about the kids — helping the kids and families through a very tough time,” said Jim Brougham of Baker City.

The Eastern Oregon chapter of Bikers Fighting Cancer started three years ago. Reg Madsen, a retired Oregon State Police officer, is the Oregon president.

According to the Web site, the national Bikers Fighting Cancer was established in 2002 by Ray, an 11-year-old boy, and Patrick Healy, 49. Both were fighting cancer,  and Ray told Pat when he grew older he wanted to belong to a bike club. Pat suggested they start their own club immediately.

Ray designed the patch, name of the club and the slogan “Never Give Up.” He died at age 12, and was buried wearing his vest and patch.

A California motorcyclist traveling to Baker City for the Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally died in a single-vehicle crash south of Riley Thursday.

Glenn Scott Joyce, 58, of Alturas, Calif., was killed in the crash, according to Oregon State Police.

Pine Creek still raged Tuesday morning past the home of Frank and Colleen Edwards near Oxbow. The couple lost approximately 60 feet of frontage during the weekend, which has made their house now unsafe to occupy. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

About 60 feet of the couple’s waterfront property has tumbled into the creek since Friday, when a flash flood sent water careening through the canyon, carrying rocks, trees and other debris downstream.

The couple’s home, a manufactured house that they added to and remodeled in 2004, complete with a wraparound covered porch, has been deemed unsafe to live in. The swollen creek has undercut the shelf of land the house sits on, and the edge of the precipice is just several feet from the west end of the porch.

Baker County Sheriff’s deputy Scott Immoos, and Gary Timm of the county’s Emergency Management department, were among the first to respond to the Edwards home Sunday. The couple said 20 Idaho Power Company employees helped move their refrigerator, freezer and food from their house to the nearby barn, where they’re sleeping on a futon in the loft.

They are getting by with plastic chairs and a picnic table rather than taking any risks to move more furniture from the house.

They did move the rocking chair that Colleen’s dad built for her when she was 10.

Baker City’s Budget Committee recommends the city trim about $300,000 from the spending plan the city staff prepared for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

The committee’s budget — which was approved by a 9-3 vote on June 1 and now goes to the City Council for final adoption on June 22 — would leave unfilled two vacant positions in the police department and cut one job in economic and community development

“We tried as a budget committee to bring city expenditures back in line with revenues,” said Randy Daugherty, chairman of the Budget Committee and a former city councilor. “The city was planning on spending about $300,000 more than their revenues were.”

Daugherty contends the cuts are necessary to maintain the city’s reserve fund.

That fund contained about $2.3 million four years ago, but the proposed budget that City Manager Steve Bogart submitted to the committee would have pared the reserve to $686,000.

The budget the committee forwarded to the Council boosts the reserve to $905,000.

“This budget is the first step in bringing the city expenditures back in line with resources and re-establishing fiduciary responsibility,” Daugherty said.

Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally co-founder Eric Folkestad is excited about the weather.

And yes, he knows all about the severe flooding parts of Baker County have endured over the past week.

But Folkestad also has had a look at the forecast for the event that starts Friday.

And sunshine figures prominently in that prognostication.

“It looks like the weather is turning in our favor,” said Folkestad, who lives in Camas, Wash.

In past years, by contrast, rally riders have had to go, quite literally, against the wind.

And the rain.

Forest Supervisor Steve Ellis has declared a flood emergency on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.

Ellis said many roads, bridges, trails and recreation sites on the 2.4-million-acre forest have sustained flood damage during the past several days.

“The public needs to be patient as the repairs will take time,” he said.

The emergency declaration sets the stage for the Wallowa-Whitman to seek federal money for repairs that are likely to run into the millions of dollars.

Wallowa-Whitman officials are still assessing the damage, and clearing rocks and other debris from roads.

One of those, the Anthony Lakes Highway, was re-opened to traffic on Monday.

Tuesday’s sunshine was a welcome relief to residents of Pine and Eagle valleys who’ve been struggling since Thursday to cope with the floodwater that has inundated their properties.

The good weather did little to brighten the spirits of Gary Trinklein, however. He was busy trying to remove mud from his shop on Slaughterhouse Road near Halfway.

A foot of mud fouled the power tools he had stored in a shed near his home. Trinklein, who declined to give his age except to say he’s “old and retired,” uses the tools for a variety of projects, though he claims his only business these days is “monkey business.”

When the flooding first started, he said he waded out in thigh-high water to check his property.

Then he got a call from a neighbor warning him, “It’s really coming now.”

Trinklein’s driveway was washed away by high water that overflowed the ditch as it traveled through the small pipe that carries water past his property.

When it comes to deploying to Iraq, Wayne Chastain has been there, done that.

Chastain, a nine-year veteran on the Baker City Police Department already spent more than a year in Iraq in 2004-2005 as a  member of the region’s Guard unit.

Now, he is going back.

There will be some key differences this time around for the local policeman.

For one, he holds down a higher rank — 1st Sgt. — than he did back in 2004 when Eastern Oregon’s Guard outfit, the 3rd  Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team, deployed to Iraq.

The 3rd Battalion consists of Guard units from across Oregon, including Ontario, Baker City, Pendleton, Hermiston and La Grande.

He will also be able to draw upon the experience he secured from the 2004-2005 deployment to help him this time around.

Though he lives and works in Baker City, Chastain calls Ontario’s Guard unit, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team, his home away from home.

Which is just fine for the Baker City policeman.