By Terri Harber

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The Family YMCA of Baker County has agreed to purchase the building that used to be the site of Wilson’s Food Town.

Relocating to the 15,600-square-foot building in the 3500 block of Pocahontas Road will be the fitness center, preschool and youth program. 

Baker School Board member Kyle Knight has filed a civil lawsuit against the Baker School District, its superintendent, Walt Wegener, and two fellow school board members, Lynne Burroughs and Mark Henderson.

Knight, who is represented by Canby attorney Tyler Smith, filed the suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Pendleton.

In the 32-page complaint, Knight alleges that the defendants deprived him of "his right to free speech; his right to serve as an elected official; his statutory right to serve as an elected school board member; and his right and duty to represent the electors of the Baker 5J School District."

Knight is seeking at least $500,000 in compensatory damages, and $200,000 in punitive damages, as well as attorney fees, Smith clarified on Thursday. A jury could award Knight considerably more, however.

Knight, who has asked for a jury trial, said Thursday that he would use any monetary damages to set up an educational foundation to benefit Baker students.

Knight, who defeated incumbent Damien Yervasi in May 2011, has clashed with other board members, and in particular Burroughs and Henderson, several times during his tenure.

In April 2012 the board voted 3-2 to censure Knight. Burroughs, Henderson and Andrew Bryan voted for the censure motion. Knight and Jim Longwell voted against the motion. 

See Friday's edition of the Baker City Herald for more information about the lawsuit. 

S. John Collins / Baker City Herald Mel Duran, right, and Susie Rodriguez help sort spuds on a fast-moving conveyor at the Blatchford Brothers Farms in Baker Valley.

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Baker Valley’s potato harvest is under way, and the outlook is good.

Although growers have their eyes peeled for the trucks that haul their spuds to be sliced into french fries and other foods.

For some farmers, a shortage of semi-trucks further complicates the tricky business of coordinating the digging of potatoes with transporting them to processing plants in Ontario and elsewhere, said Cory Parsons of the Oregon State University Extension Service’s Baker County office.

“There’s just not enough semis to go around,” Parsons said Tuesday.

Most growers, though, have cellars or other facilities where they can temporarily store potatoes until the processing plants need them, and there are trucks available.

By Terri Harber

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Baker City Councilors on Tuesday moved forward with their plan to relocate utility lines so they run under the section of Resort Street slated to be rebuilt in the next year or two.

They unanimously approved a resolution that allows city staff to begin planning the burial of the utility lines along Resort Street from Campbell Street to Auburn Avenue. 

The councilors voted to approve resolution 3686, which authorizes city staff to seek bids and draw up contracts for the utility lines being moved underground.

“I think this’ll be a great asset, a benefit to our community,” said Mayor Dennis Dorrah.

This would be part of the overall improvement project that would includes rebuilding the street and sidewalks. It also would add sidewalk amenities, such as benches and planters. 

Llewellyn “Lew” Robbins owns a commercial property that faces the 2000 block of Main Street but backs onto Resort Street.

By Terri Harber

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Fliers billed the event Saturday evening at the Sunridge Inn simply as “Coffee With Rita,” but her story of survival is complicated: riveting, sometimes sad and, at other times, inspiring.

Rita Chretien came back to Baker City to thank people who helped search for her and her husband, Albert, after they lost their way during a road trip to Las Vegas and ended up stranded in the desolate wilderness of northern Nevada.

The couple, from Penticton, British Columbia, Canada, were seen together at Jackson’s Food Store in Baker City on March 19, 2011. Search efforts for the couple were centered in this area for a while.

It turned out, though, that the Chretiens were hundreds of miles away, their minivan stuck in the mud of a road in the Nevada backcountry.

“Al tried real hard to get us out of this mess,” Rita said Saturday.

Albert was able to make a successful 9-1-1 call from a cellphone but couldn’t finish telling the dispatcher everything first responders would have needed to know so they could reach them.

The couple separated after three days. Albert left Rita inside their minivan and began walking in an effort to get help.

He hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Baker City's third longest run without rain ended Sunday morning.

Between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. the National Weather Service's automated rain gauge measured .01 of an inch of rain at the Baker City Airport.

That's the minimum amount of rain that's officially "measurable" by the Weather Service's standards.

A trace of rain has fallen at the airport on several days during the 70-day "dry" spell, but the last measurable rain, before today, fell on July 14.

The longest stretch without measurable rain, of 79 days, happened in 1987 (Aug. 14 through Oct. 31).

The runner up was a 72-day period in 1999 (Aug. 15 through Oct. 25).

S. John Collins / Baker City Herald Orienteering co-instructor Barbara Taylor goes over a few details before Brogan Lewis takes his bearing to begin his compass course at the Outdoor School this week.

By Chris Collins

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Dorothy Mason recounts how her life in Baker County has been interwoven with lessons about the outdoors.

She and her husband, Bob, two retired wildlife biologists, moved to Baker City in 1990 with their two small children, Jessica and Alex.

As the youngsters grew, the Masons were involved with their activities through Scouting, sports and YMCA programs that included summer rafting trips coordinated by the Masons.

By Terri Harber

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Joyce Segers, the opposing candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, 2nd District, came to Baker City on Thursday to meet with local Democrats.

Segers said she seeks to “empower each citizen to be heard and truly acknowledged by those they elected as their leaders.” 

Satellite photo from this morning shows the smoke plume from wildfires in Central Washington

Smoke from large wildfires in Central Washington rode the wind straight into Baker County overnight.

The smoke, although not dense at ground level, was so thick higher up that it more resembled an overcast, except tan rather than gray.

Fortunately, the pall shouldn't persist.

The National Weather Service predicts that the upper level wind direction will shift from north to south over the next day or so, which should push the smoke away from rather than toward Baker County.

The smoke plume is quite apparent on satellite photos. 

Ron Edge of Baker City objects to the mandatory installation of a “smart” electric meter at his home.

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Ron Edge is preparing to go off the power grid.

The Baker City man has stocked up on candles and matches, and he’s looking into buying a natural-gas generator to provide power to his home at Third Street and Court Avenue.

Edge’s actions are in protest to the insistence of the Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative that a “smart meter” must be installed to replace the analog meter the co-op has used to monitor his past power consumption.

According to OTEC, the smart meters don’t need to be read by an employee but instead use “a combination of power line carrier and Internet communications,” not radio frequency, to automatically send information about a customer’s power usage from each home or business to the OTEC office “almost instantly” — improving service and saving money for OTEC and its customers.

But Edge just isn’t interested.

“I have no intention of accepting that meter,” he says.

Edge is concerned about the negative effects the meter might have on his health and on the health of others in his home, and he’s worried about how the power company might use the information gleaned by smart meters.