LA GRANDE —The Union County Board of Commissioners took action Wednesday, March 17, guaranteed to create a buzz at the Oregon Capitol.

The commissioners approved a letter to Gov. Kate Brown and two other state officials asking the state to give counties the reins for managing their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We think the pandemic should be managed on the local level,” Union County Commissioner Paul Anderes told The Observer on Thursday, March 18.

The letter is one of two advocating for local control. All three Union County commissioners signed the letter addressed to the governor, to Pat Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority, and to Andrew Phelps, director of Oregon Emergency Management.

Anderes said county commissioners throughout Eastern Oregon are stepping forward to sign a second letter with the same text also bound for Brown, Allen and Phelps.

“We are getting buy-in from folks across the region,” Anderes said.

Union County Commissioner Matt Scarfo said he and others want to see a situation similar to the one school districts have. Brown earlier this year granted school districts the authority to manage the COVID-19 pandemic on their own while being allowed to regard direction from her as advisory.

Scarfo said local control would work best for counties because people on the ground know where COVID-19 outbreaks are coming from.

“All the state sees are numbers,” Scarfo said.

He noted a state official he talked to recently regarding five new Union County cases in early March did not realize they all came from the Elgin School District, which addressed the issue by closing its high school to in-person instruction. Scarfo said in the eyes of the state, such an increase could have given the state reason to clamp down on the operation of restaurants, gyms and other businesses in the county.

Union County Commissioner Donna Beverage shared the sentiments Scarfo and Anderes expressed.

“I feel the time has come where we can go back to local control and work with the community to move forward in a safe way that is good for all of us,” Beverage said.

Anderes said if the state grants counties local control, Union County would be prudent and responsible in how it applies rules.

“We would not blow things open,” Anderes said.

He said Union County has established a good track record in how it has managed COVID-19.

“We have met the goals that have been set,” Anderes said.

He noted when COVID-19 infection rates have gone up, Union County dialed up regulations to more restrictive levels.

Scarfo said Union County officials are in close contract with officials from Grande Ronde Hospital, public health, cities and others about what is happening locally with regard to COVID-19. He said he speaks almost every day with Carrie Brogoitti, the public health administrator for the Center for Human Development, La Grande, which oversees much of the county’s response to the pandemic.

The letter the Union County commissioners approved echoes Scarfo’s statements.

“Counties are in a key position to evaluate local conditions such as case counts, positivity rate, local hospital capacity, hospital system capacity, outbreak clusters and available resources,” the letter states, “while also placing those factors in the context of the regional, state and national situation.”

The Oregon Health Authority, as of Friday, March 19, reported the state’s COVID-case total was 160,994 since February 2020 with 2,357 deaths. Union County’s case total stood at 1,345 with 20 fatalities. Wallowa County’s total number of cases was 145 with five fatalities, an increase of one death in each county.