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LEE MCELLIGOTT
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityheralck
February 23, 2015
iN mis aonioN: Local • Home @Living • Sports Monday QUICIC HITS
BaKerSchoolBoardlnteruiewsFinalists ForSuperintendent
Good Day Wish To A Subscriber A special good day to Herald subscribers Rob and LoriThomas of Baker City.
Nation, 6A LOS ANGELES —Hollywood is smarter than you thought. Whether by design or chance, the 87th Academy Awards elegantly and subtly shifted the tone of the season from a reductive fixation on snubs and fact-checking to a positive celebration of original filmmaking and purposeful advocacy for causes as diverse as immigration, suicide and equal rights. The self-obsessed industry might have given its best picture and director prizes to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Birdman," a trenchant examination of actorly narcissism, but the vanity seemed to stop with the opening of the envelopes. Even in their moments of singular glory, most of the winners chose to talk about something other than themselves.
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cf KathyOrr/Baker C>ty Herald
Betty Palmer
Kathy Orr/BakerC>ty Herald
Robert Vian
Kathy Orr/Baker C>ty Herald
MarkWitty
• Board Chairman Andrew Bryan expects board will make a choice Thursday
BRIEFING
Tuesday is Edward Baker Day in Oregon On Tuesday Oregon honors the man for whom Baker County and Baker City are named. That's Edward Dickinson Baker. He was elected as a U.S. senator for Oregon in 1859, the year Oregon became a state. Baker was one of PresidentAbraham Lincoln's few close friends — so close, in fact, that Lincoln named his second son Edward Baker Lincoln. Baker also gained fame in a less positive way — he was the only member of Congress who died in combat during the Civil War. Baker was killed at the Battle of Ball's Bluff in NorthernVirginia on Oct. 21, 1861. Less than a year later, on Sept. 22, 1862, the Oregon Legislature created a new county and named it in Baker's honor. Baker City was named a few years later. In 2011 the Oregon Legislature passed a resolution designating Feb. 24 as Edward Dickinson Baker Day. It was first celebrated on that day in 2012.
WEATHER
Today
44/12 Mostly sunny
Tuesday
SeeSafelPage 2A
Langrell, city make their case in court By Joshua Dillen Kathy Orr /Baker City Herald
MarkWitty, middle, and his wife, Julie, left, compare school sizes with Kathy Shaw, teacher at Keating Elementary School, on Friday at Baker High School. Witty and the two other finalists for Baker Schools Superintendent, Betty Palmer and RobertVian, met with members of the public Friday afternoon after being interviewed by the Baker School Board. By Jayson Jacoby llacoby©bakercltyherald.com
The three candidates who want to replacetheretiringWaltWe gener as Baker School District superintendent endured a schedule Friday that might even impress a politician on the campaign trail. Mark Witty, Betty Palmer and Robert Vian started the day by taking a tour — by school bus, appropriately — of the district, starting with a visit
to Haines Elementary. Later the trio met individually with members of the district's budget board, followed by separate interviews with the school board. iFour of the five directors were present; director Kyle Knight, who is working out of town, could not attend.) The three finalists then capped their day by meeting with community members during a two-hour public open house at Baker High School.
The school board will meet Thursday at 6 p.m. The agenda includes an executive session iclosed to the public) during which directors will discuss the hiring process. Board chairman Andrew Bryan said he expects the board will decide during the public portion of Thursday's meeting which of the three finaliststo offerthejob to. See Finalists/Bge 8A
BaKerCityCouncilMeets Tuesday
ounciltoconsi erSotsales an By Joshua Dillen ldlllen©bakercltyherald.com
The Baker City Council could take the first step Tuesday night toward blocking commercial sales of marijuana within the city limits. The agenda for Tuesday's meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 1655 First St., includes the first reading of a proposed of ordinance
that would require all businesses within the city to obtain a license that mandates the business comply with all local, state and federal laws. The latter is the key. Although medicinal use of marijuana is legal now in Oregon, and recreational use by people 21 and older will be legal starting July 1, the drugremains a controlled substance under federal law.
Currently a business is not required to obtain a license before opening in Baker City. The staff reportforthis agenda item recommends thecit y notcharge a feefor a business license. The City Council on Tuesday will discuss a second ordinance, one that would amend landdevelopment codetoplace am oratorium
on marijuana facilities. Such an ordinance would prohibit the construction and operation of any new marijuana facility until the council can develop regulations that control the time, place and manner restrictions concerning marijuana facilities.
TO D A T Issue 122, 18 pages
Calendar....................2A C lassified............. 4B-BB Comics....................... 3B
ldlllen©bakercltyherald.com
After hearing arguments from bothparties'attorneys Friday on a motion in Baker City Councilor Richard Langrell's civil lawsuit against the city, Judge Ronald Pahl is taking Langrell's motion for summary judgmentunder advisement. Pahl, a Umatilla County judge who is hearing the case in place of Greg Baxter, the Baker Circuit Court judge, will decide within the next month or so whether or not to award Langrell the more
than $9,000 he claims the city owes him for water and sewer fees he paid over several years for his motel, the Always Welcome Inn. If Pahl denies the motion, thelawsuit,barring a settlement, is scheduled for a jury trial April 2-3 in Baker City. Langrell, the city's former mayor, filed the suit last spring. The City Council deposed Langrell as mayor — a largely ceremonial titlelast July by a 4-3 vote. Langrell remains as a councilor. His term continues through the end of 2016.
See Pot Sales/Pbge 3A
53/22 Mostly sunny
Logan Handy, the 16-yearold Baker City boy who was reported as a runaway last week, called his mother Sunday afternoon from Kansas, and his family is en route to pick him up, Baker County Sheriff Mitch H andy Southwick said this morning. Southwick said Handy's mother, Michelle Knadle of Baker City, told police her son apparently had hopped on an eastbound freight train and ridden it to Kansas. Southwick didn't know where in Kansas Handy got off the train. Handy's father reported the boy as a runaway on Feb. 18 after last seeing his son about 6:40 a.m. Logan Handy didn't go to school that day. Several people told police they believed they had seen Handy near the Union Pacific Railroad tracks on Wednesday.
Co m m u n ity News ....3A Ho m e .........................1B Lot t ery Results..........2A Op i n i o n..... C r o ssword........BB & BB H o r o scope........BB & BB N e w s of Record........2A Sp o r t s D e a r Abby ................. BB L e t t ers........................4A Obi t u aries..................2A We a t h er....
See Langrell IPage8A ......... 4A ... 1C-4C ......... 8 B
Full forecast on the back of the B section. 8
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