McDonald beats Hull in Pendleton mayoral race

East Oregonian

THE STORY: During the May 2024 primary election, Pendleton’s two mayoral candidates faced off to take over from retiring Mayor John Turner.

McKennon McDonald, the sitting Pendleton City Council president and a board member for the League of Oregon Cities, handily beat Joseph Hull, Pendleton Development Commission president and a vice president at McCormack Construction. McDonald earned 63% of the vote with 1,951 votes to Hull’s 1,136. The historic win marked McDonald as the first woman mayor for the city, the same year the Pendleton Round-Up had its first woman president, Tiah DeGrofft, leading the board of directors.

THE LATEST: McDonald will step into the new role unofficially starting Thursday, Jan. 2. However, her official swearing-in ceremony will be Jan. 7 during the year’s first city council meeting. At that time, the two other new city councilors, Brett Mulvihill and John Thomas, also start their terms. The council will start the process of filling McDonald’s seat after she takes office as mayor since her council term has two more years on it.

Generally, Pendleton residents can expect a similar direction under McDonald as was taken by Turner, with a clear focus on approachability and communication.

“Now it’s just carrying on, with me in this seat,” McDonald said in a recent interview with the EO, “with a little bit of a different perspective, and how do I continue to move us forward in that way, knowing that I bring something different to the table than the people prior to me, but not that it’s better or worse. It’s just a different perspective.”

Record-breaking wildfires in Baker County

Baker City Herald

THE STORY: An unprecedented rash of wildfires started with several human-caused blazes in northern Malheur County in early July, the largest of which, the Cow Valley Fire, burned about 139,000 acres of rangeland.

As firefighters were getting control of that blaze, a lightning bolt on the morning of July 17 ignited what would become the biggest blaze in the nation — and the biggest in Baker County history.

The fire started near Durkee, about 20 miles southeast of Baker City. Propelled by gusty winds, and spurred by temperatures topping 100 and kiln-like humidity, flames spread more than 20 miles and eventually burned 293,000 acres in Baker and northern Malheur counties.

The Durkee Fire, which was south of Interstate 84 and like the Cow Valley Fire burned primarily in sagebrush and grass, burned to the boundaries of the Cow Valley Fire.

Another lightning storm, on July 22, started several fires north of Interstate 84. Those fires became the Badlands Complex, which scorched another 50,000 or so acres, again primarily rangeland rather than forest.

That wasn’t the case, though, with the last of the year’s major wildfires in Baker County.

The Town Gulch Fire, started by lightning on Aug. 4, burned both rangeland and timber in the Eagle Creek area north of Richland. Gusty winds, combining with temperatures above 100, pushed the fire east to near the edge of Pine Valley, leading to evacuation notices.

At least one home burned along Eagle Creek, but, as with the other fires, no serious injuries were reported.

THE LATEST: Work started in late summer to rehabilitate some of the scorched ground. Top priorities are to spur the growth of grass and to repel noxious weeds, which can rapidly return after a fire. Most of the fires burned in grass and sagebrush, but the Town Gulch fire burned in forest, as well, and the U.S. Forest Service is considering offering timber sales to logging companies to salvage some of the burned trees.

La Grande annexation plan draws pushback

The Observer

THE STORY: La Grande may be getting a little bigger in 2025, but not everyone is happy about the idea.

City councilors held a public hearing Dec. 4 during their regular meeting to discuss the possible annexation of 17 properties from the urban growth boundary into city limits.

Property owners packed the council chambers to express their displeasure with the proposal.

The 17 properties under consideration are known as islands, which means they are within the urban growth boundary but are surrounded by city limits.

Oregon law provides cities with a simplified mechanism to annex islands into city limits without requiring a signed consent-to-annex agreement or sending the matter to voters.

Community Development Director Mike Boquist said these properties, which are on the south side of La Grande, are not connected to city water or sewer services, but the owners have access to and benefit from many city services.

The city in January annexed 25 properties that were contiguous to La Grande city limits, already received water or sewer services from the city and the property owners had signed a consent-to-annex agreement with La Grande. The city in August annexed 50 islands on the north side of La Grande.

The latest annexation proposal is the third and final phase, Boquist said.

“That is why we saved this one for last because these are folks that benefit from city services primarily because of proximity to the city,” he said.

But some property owners spoke against the plan.

Toney Hamilton, along with his wife, Karen, and Arthur Crocker said they are in a difficult situation since their properties do not have direct frontage on a city street with direct access to city water and sewer.

“We or future purchasers of our property would have the cost of attaining utilities, easements, plus costs of construction of 1,600 feet of sewer and water lines, estimated between $180,000 and $400,000,” Toney Hamilton said. “The devaluation of our property is real.”

THE LATEST: The council made no decisions at the meeting as it was the first of two public hearings on the topic.

Property owners have another opportunity to voice their opinions during the second public hearing in January at the first regular session of 2025. Councilors then vote on whether to annex the properties.

Complaint seeks halt to work on Dollar General

Wallowa County Chieftain

THE STORY: Dollar General, the national chain of discount general-merchandise stores, applied for a building permit in March 2023 to construct a store just outside the Wallowa city limits.

But the move prompted pushback from some members of the community, who said the chain store was a bad fit for Wallowa County and might undercut local businesses. They began organizing to keep the store from opening, circulating petitions and filing appeals with the Wallowa County Planning Commission and the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners.

On Feb. 5, 2024, opponents filed a complaint with Wallowa County officials demanding a stop to work on the store, alleging that Dollar General is in violation of the county land development ordinance and an agreement between the county and city of Wallowa regarding the city’s urban growth boundary. Opponents also began working with the planning commission on an ordinance aimed at keeping chain stores like Dollar General out of Wallowa County.

The store opened in April.

THE LATEST: The board of commissioners pulled the plug on work to create a commercial development overlay that would have required so-called “formula businesses” such as Dollar General to meet certain criteria before being approved in unincorporated areas of the county.

A memo from the county commissioners that was read at the planning board meeting on Oct. 29 was to the point: “We direct the Wallowa County Planning Commission to cease developing a formula store overlay,” it read in part.

Summer of fire

Blue Mountain Eagle

THE STORY: Beginning in mid-July, a wave of destructive wildfires swept through much of Eastern Oregon, including Grant County. A second wave hit the region on Labor Day. By the end of fire season, nearly 2 million acres in Oregon had burned, a new record for the state.

Three megafires — blazes of more than 100,000 acres — raged either partly or entirely within Grant County’s borders: the 152,000-acre Falls Fire, the 177,000-acre Rail Ridge Fire and the 183,000-acre Battle Mountain Complex. The Courtrock Fire torched another 20,000 acres within the county.

No local residents died in the fires, but an air tanker pilot was killed in a crash near Seneca while battling a blaze in the vicinity of the Falls Fire. James Bailey Maxwell, 74, of Clarkston, Washington, was working under contract with the Bureau of Land Management when his single-engine aircraft went down shortly before 7 p.m. July 25.

THE LATEST: All told, wildfires consumed an estimated 314,172 acres in Grant County in 2024, nearly 11% of the county, according to data compiled by Eric Bush, the county’s emergency management coordinator, and Kyle Sullivan of the Grant Soil and Water Conservation District.

More than a third of the burned area — 87,882 acres — was private ground, and the public lands consumed by fire included numerous grazing allotments. About 155 landowners suffered some level of damage to their property.

A total of 16 structures, including two primary residences, were lost to the flames. Miles upon miles of fences were destroyed, and a still-unknown number of livestock were killed.

Newspapers often wrap up the the year with a list of their top reporting of the previous 12 months.

The East Oregonian did that, but this review of the year is different because we’re now a regional paper with newsrooms representing the EO and the Baker City Herald, Blue Mountain Eagle in John Day, the Hermiston Herald, The Observer in La Grande and the Wallowa County Chieftain.

From Dec. 28 through Dec. 31, we’re showcasing recaps and brief updates of some of the biggest news and more interesting people and events our newsrooms covered in 2024.

Any kind of list such as this is up for debate, and we also only have so much space in print, of course. You always can find much more of our reporting on our websites.

From all of us to all of you, happy New Year.

— East Oregonian