Sam Larsen. Front: Aberen Jones, Elijah Sanchez.
There were some interesting items on the agenda for The Dalles City Council last night. Anthony Pereira, who is active in local scouting, is now also president of a revived Booster Club for The Dalles Schools. He noted that in the past, high school teams created large letters on the slope above The Dalles. He told the council that in the early days, a giant letter “D” was created by burning tires on the site. In later years a “TD” combo was created by outlining the letters in lime. Councilors granted him permission to do so on the property, which is owned by the city. He told them it would supervised by the booster club, but done by volunteers, including:
“High school students to fulfill their service to the community hours. It does have quite a slope to it, so the idea is to actually rock it, and paint those rocks, so we don’t have to lime it every year.”
In case the slope is too steep for the rocks, Pereira told councilors his plan B involve staking the area and using cement pavers.
Police Chief Tom Worthy did an update for the council on the first year of using a drone in its policing. He said they used it 41 times from March 9 of 2023 to February 5 of this year, including 17 attempts to locate people for cases, 6 to locate missing people including three children, a woman with medical concerns and a suicidal woman with a young child with her.
The drone was also used to take crime scene photos and preserve crime scenes, and to follow up on a cougar sighting. One of its most startling uses was to help the Wasco County Sheriff’s department locate a suspect at night who was hidden in tall grass. The drone has infrared capabilities as well, and was easily able at night to spot the warm suspect in the cool grass.
He said there were some limitations on the current drone, which was inherited and is about 5 years old. They include not being able to fly in inclement weather, whether rain or snow, and not having any drop points on it which they could use to deliver a life jacket, two-way radio, or water and supplies to stranded people.
“The only thing we wish we could do with it, which we can’t right now,” he said, “is to fly for surveys of environmental crimes along the river or the railroad tracks, homeless camps that are making a mess, stolen property along the riverfront. We still have to do those missions on foot, which takes a lot longer, is more dangerous and less effective.”
Worthy said Oregon has some of the strictest laws in the nation when it comes to law enforcement use of drones.
And the council postponed a decision on whether to ban the use of fireworks in the city for the fourth year in a row. Councilors said they wanted more data.