I have great pride in the community of Baker. Pride that has been fostered through a lifetime of experiencing the care, compassion, and grit of our little community. Over the past year, Baker City and County leadership have done their best to tarnish our community pride and spirit. Our leadership has failed to secure resources for our fire and EMS departments, wasted time posting ignorant propaganda on social media sites — then refusing to take responsibility for those actions. Additionally, our leadership chose an out of towner to act as interim manager when we had three quality candidates from our own community. Look past your blinders and become leaders. Our community is in a tenuous position and now is the time when we need our leaders to step up and do their jobs — or step down. We need leaders who will fight for everyone in our community and ensure that we have a high standard of care for our citizens.

Apart from the issues above, a very real threat our leadership needs to address is the closing of the St. Alphonsus Birthing Center. This is a vital resource that has served generations of Baker residents. I myself have bragged to friends in urban areas about the quality of care I received from our local doctors, nurses, and others in my prenatal care, birth, and postnatal care of my son. I have zero doubt in the passion and concern that our providers and nurses have in continuing these services for our community. Odette and other St. Alphonsus leadership are crumbling the foundation of our health through destaffing and closing of the ICU and birthing centers.

I am proud to see community members show up and stand for what we believe. The town hall with Senator Wyden was successful and I commend Senator Wyden for following up with calls to St. Alphonsus attempting to keep our birthing center open. This is our time as a community to hold leadership accountable, hold businesses accountable to serve our community, and hold one another accountable to uplift and support one another.

Dallas Hall Defrees

Baker City