50 YEARS AGO

from the Democrat-Herald

August 16, 1971

Property tax relief for Baker County’s elderly based on income instead of straight property value is coming next year, Ralph McCray, Baker County assessor, announced.

McCray said the new tax program will help some — primarily in the elderly and low income brackets.

25 YEARS AGO

from the Baker City Herald

August 16, 1996

Firefighters hope to contain the Sloans Ridge fire by 6 p.m. today, but they’re worried about a forecast for hotter, drier, windier weather.

“This fire has been looking good, but today’s weather has us concerned,” said Dennis Scott, an information officer at the fire camp in Sumpter. “This fuel type is receptive to spotting.”

10 YEARS AGO

from the Baker City Herald

August 17, 2011

It will all come down to perceived worth.

And Baker City officials hope property owners along Resort Street can see how the section slated for improvement next year would look without power lines running above the sidewalk.

About 25 people attended a work session Tuesday night at Baker City Hall focused on burying utility lines under a section of Resort from Campbell Street to Auburn Avenue.

Getting the utility lines underground is integral to create a “park-like” atmosphere downtown from Main Street to the Powder River, said Mayor Dennis Dorrah.

ONE YEAR AGO

from the Baker City Herald

August 18, 2020

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to cancel a rule that has banned the cutting of large live trees on national forests east of the Cascades in Oregon for the past quarter century.

The 21-inch rule, which the agency adopted in 1995, severely restricts logging of trees with a diameter greater than 21 inches measured four and a half feet above the ground.

Loggers can cut live trees larger than that generally only for safety purposes — around places where logs are loaded onto trucks, for instance, or near campgrounds or roads.

But Forest Service officials say the restriction has stymied their efforts to thin forests and thus reduce the risk of big, fast-moving wildfires.

“Adjusting the 21-inch limitation to reflect learning over the past 25 years would help streamline restoration of forests in eastern Oregon and make it easier to create landscapes that withstand and recover more quickly from wildfire, drought and other disturbances,” said Shane Jeffries, supervisor of the Ochoco National Forest in central Oregon and the agency official tasked with deciding whether to do away with the 21-inch limit on six national forests.

Those forests, in addition to the Wallowa-Whitman and the Ochoco, are the Umatilla, Deschutes, Fremont-Winema and Malheur.

The rule change would affect almost 10 million acres of public land.