JOHN DAY — The Grant County Sheriff’s Office is investigating reports that the Rocky Mtn Dispensary offered customers a discount on marijuana or other products in exchange for a “yes”
JOHN DAY — Heather Rookstool will not be continuing in her role as the mayor of John Day following the Tuesday, Jan. 16 recall election that saw voters decide to recall her by a vote of 252 yes votes to 224 nay votes.
The recall petition was originally filed by Oren Wyss, the operator of the John Day wastewater treatment plant at the end of October in 2023. The recall petition accused Rookstool of dishonesty and a lack of transparency and claimed she is was not acting in the best interests of John Day, city staff or residents. The petition also accused Rookstool of disregarding her oath of office and the city charter, as well as putting the city’s services at risk.
The recall petition followed a criminal complaint against Rookstool filed by a group of local residents accusing Rookstool of overstepping her authority both as the mayor and as a city manager designee able to perform certain city manager duties.
JOHN DAY — A marketing firm that embarked on a nearly $500,000 municipal branding campaign for the city of John Day is now the target of a lawsuit by the city.
The John Day city council briefly discussed pursuing legal action against the firm during an executive session on Friday, Dec. 1 before entering into open session and voting unanimously to authorize the city attorney to pursue legal action against Straw-to-Gold. At the heart of the matter are deliverables John Day Mayor Heather Rookstool has said she’s asked for repeatedly with no reply from Straw-to-Gold owner Benjamin Ariff.
Among those deliverables are invoices and a proposed school curriculum Straw-to-Gold is accused of not providing despite requests to do so. Ariff gave a presentation to the John Day city council on Tuesday, July 25, giving the council some deliverables, including books on the lore of John Day and along with an update that was supposed to close their contract with the city.
JOHN DAY — The effort by the Committee to Recall Mayor Heather Rookstool received news from Grant County Clerk Brenda Percy that the original threshold of 91 votes to initiate a recall election against John Day Mayor Heather Rookstool has been increased to a minimum of 126 signatures.
The news won’t affect the group’s efforts too much in the immediate future as they have already submitted 139 unverified signatures in support of the recall effort. What the group no longer has is a more than 40 signature buffer in the event large numbers of signatures can’t be verified by Percy.
Oren Wyss, who is spearheading the campaign to recall Rookstool said the group has made no new efforts go gather signatures and will rely on the signatures they’ve submitted for now. The Committee to Recall Mayor Heather Rookstool will have until Thursday, Feb. 15 to gather the required 126 signatures in the event they fail to meet the required threshold in this round of signature
JOHN DAY — The Committee to Recall Mayor Heather Rookstool are going to have to wait until late next week before they know if they’ve collected enough signatures to recall John Day Mayor Heather Rookstool.
Grant County Clerk Brenda Percy said that the group had submitted enough unverified signatures to meet the threshold necessary to recall Rookstool but that she would not begin verifying signatures until after the Thanksgiving holiday. The group submitted the signatures to Percy on Friday, Nov. 17.
Needing a minimum of 91 signatures for the recall to proceed, the group gathered 139 signatures over the course of two days.