Baker County Health Department.jpg

Almost three-quarters of the 366 people who responded to a survey about health care in Baker County are mostly not satisfied or not at all satisfied with the current situation.

Baker County commissioners heard some general results from the survey during their meeting Wednesday morning, Dec. 18, at the courthouse.

A full report could be available by early next week.

In the wake of Saint Alphonsus Health System’s closure of the ICU and birthing center at the Baker City hospital in 2023, the county worked with Oregon’s Kitchen Table to ask county residents about the status of health care and potential options for changes.

Oregon’s Kitchen Table, a program of the National Policy Consensus Center at Portland State University, set up an online survey this fall and coordinated two public meetings in Baker City in November.

About 120 people attended the meetings, Wendy Willis, director of Oregon’s Kitchen Table, told commissioners Wednesday morning.

Willis and Sarah Giles, project manager for Oregon’s Kitchen Table, participated in the meeting by Zoom.

Willis cited the closure of the ICU, in January 2023, and of the birthing center in August 2023, as factors that most people mentioned as part of the survey and during public meetings.

“There’s a lot of concern about hospital services,” Willis told commissioners.

Almost 70% of survey respondents are either “mostly not satisfied” or “not satisfied at all” with health care options in the county, Willis said.

The survey also showed “serious mistrust” among respondents regarding the health care options in the county, according to a slide that Willis and Giles showed.

“Very few people we heard from want to continue with the current system,” Giles told commissioners.

In addition to concern about the ICU and birthing center closures, a common theme among respondents was a need for more medical specialists in the county.

The most common, Giles said, are cardiology and oncology, both cited by about 20% of respondents.

No other specialty was mentioned by more than 20% of people, Giles said.

When it comes to possible solutions, Giles said the overriding desire among respondents was having some level of “local control” over health care options.

There was widespread interest among residents in partnering with an Oregon-based health care company, Giles said.

Saint Alphonsus is owned by Trinity Health of Michigan.

An idea that many people have cited, both in the survey and at public meetings, is creating a public health district, with revenue from an increase in property taxes supporting hospital and other services.

The hospitals in Enterprise and John Day, both of which have birthing centers, have health districts.

Giles said survey respondents were about “evenly divided” in supporting a public health district.

She said there was considerable skepticism, though, about whether county residents would support, or could afford, the higher property taxes necessary to support a public health district.

Regardless of the option, Giles said there is a “strong desire” among residents to do something, and soon.

Commissioner Christina Witham said she is “definitely looking forward to the written report” from Oregon’s Kitchen Table.

Other business

County commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved applications for grants for noxious weed control work in 2025. Gussie Cook, the county’s weed supervisor, described the projects to commissioners.

• Application for $51,000 from the Oregon State Weed Board to control leafy spurge, diffuse knapweed, spotted knapweed and rush skeletonweed on about 400 acres in southern Baker County. The project includes efforts to control the county’s only known infestation of leafy spurge, in the Alder Creek and Durkee areas, Cook said.

The total project cost is $92,900, and the match for the state grant would come from in-kind labor or cash from sources outside the county, according to Cook’s report.

• Application for $18,000 from the Oregon State Weed Board to control perennial pepperweed on about 115 acres along the Powder River from Haines north to the Union County line. The project would make the river, irrigation ditches and crop fields priorities, Cook said. The grant would pay half the cost of labor to apply herbicide on at least 10 private properties, with the landowners paying the other half.

The total project cost is $35,300, with the remainder coming from sources outside the county budget.

• Application for $17,200 from the Oregon State Weed Board to treat whitetop, Scotch thistle, sulfur cinquefoil, Mediterranean sage, spotted knapweed and other species on about 1,000 acres in the Bridgeport, Hereford and Unity areas. 

The total project cost is $54,100, the remainder coming from the county weed district budget.

• Application for $7,500 from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation/Blue Mountain Elk Initiative to treat about 100 acres for a variety of noxious weeds in the Ebell and Alder Creek areas southeast of Baker City.

The total project cost is $20,000.

Commissioners also unanimously approved the purchase of vehicles and equipment.

• 2016 Caterpillar road grader, for the county road department, from Western States Equipment for $272,000. With a $30,000 credit for the 1991 John Deere grader the county is trading in, the total cost is $242,000. The Western States Equipment bid was the lowest of four the county received. The money for the purchase is in the road department’s budget for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2025.

• 2024 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck from Ron Tonkin in Milwaukie for $49,773. The truck is for the Baker County Sheriff’s Office, which has $60,000 for the vehicle in the current fiscal year budget.

Sheriff Travis Ash told commissioners that he solicited a bid from a local dealer, Baker City Auto Ranch. He said the first bid was for the wrong vehicle. In a report to commissioners, Ash wrote that he found a truck on the dealership’s website for $49,820, but it doesn’t have the 6-foot, 4-inch bed the sheriff’s office asked for in its bid request. He recommended commissioners approve the purchase from Ron Tonkin.

Commission Chairman Shane Alderson said the county tries to buy vehicles from local dealers. He said he is disappointed that that wasn’t possible in this case.

• $15,500 for a 2006 Volvo 10-yard dump truck, purchased from the state, for the road department.

• Commissioners approved the purchase of 13 body cameras for sheriff’s office employees for $60,373 from Axon. Ash said the sheriff’s office will be the last police agency in the county to equip its officers with body cameras. The Baker City Police Department and Oregon State Police already use the cameras.

Baker City Police officers use Axon cameras, Ash said.

The county has received two grants, totaling $40,000, for the body cameras, leaving the county’s share at $20,000. That will cover cameras over a five-year period, Ash said.