Baker City, Ore – (Released in Baker City’s The Weekly Newsletter) On Thursday night of this week, I attended a Law Enforcement Recognition Banquet. Law enforcement agencies across the county were represented. The food and drink companies provide an excellent meal and the banquet organizers provided an excellent and efficiently run awards ceremony. All in all, it was a night that our law enforcement could be proud at which to be honored. Two of our own in the Baker City Police Department received awards. Sergeant Wayne Chastain received an award as the Drug Recognition Expert. Phoebe Wachtel received a Community Service Award. Congratulations to both of our award recipients for a job well done.
Baker City would like to welcome Melody Pierce to our Police Department. Melody joined the Police Department as a part-time Evidence Technician on February 7, 2023, and while she has very big shoes to fill, she has already proven to be a quick study and very enthusiastic about her new role. Melody, formally of Nampa, Idaho, moved to Baker City with her husband in May 2022 after retiring from Micron Technology, with a career spanning 24 years. We are glad she has joined our Baker City Staff.
Baker City would also like to thank our retiring evidence technician, Lynn Magnuson, for over 9 years of dedicated service to the Baker City Police Department and this community.
City Council will meet on February 14 in a regular meeting. The agenda item discussions from January 24, 2022, Council Work Session will be included in the agenda as well as additional items related to the audit. The agenda packet is now published for this meeting.
City Hall is busy working on budget planning for the upcoming fiscal year. We anticipate an intense schedule as we try to prepare the necessary plans and documents to make this most important and fundamental responsibility of the city occur as it must. We all take budgeting very seriously and holdfirm that we want to use the money collected by Baker City in accordance with law and the instructions and goals of the city council. Prior year budget information can be found on our website in the Finance Department.
