I hope you’ve been reading “The Death of Bobbie Kolada,” the five-part investigative series we’ve been running on the bottom of our front page. Part 2 was published last week, and the remaining installments will run in the same position over the next three weeks.

Written by Buffy Pollock of the Rogue Valley Times, our sister paper in Medford, the series is a striking example of the power of independent journalism to shine a light on deep-seated social problems and build support for much-needed reforms. Buffy’s terrific reporting exposes serious staffing issues within Oregon’s system of care for developmentally disabled adults — issues that not only compromise care for this vulnerable population but put the safety, and even the lives, of caregivers like Bobbie Kolada at risk. As a society, we must find a way to do better.

I sometimes get complaints from Blue Mountain Eagle readers that we carry too many out-of-town stories from our sister publications within the EO Media Group, and I get where they’re coming from. As a community newspaper, our main focus will always be on Grant County and the people who live here. And the vast majority of our content every week does exactly that.

But what I always try to explain to these folks is that the stories we publish from other EO Media papers aren’t crowding out local stories written by Eagle staffers. Rather, we use them to supplement our local coverage with news and information from around the region and the state that we believe will be of interest to our readers. The Blue Mountain Eagle will always be Grant County’s community newspaper, first and foremost.

In case you missed it, last week’s edition included stories about the resignation of John Day’s city manager, discussions about funding for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, the restoration of a classic neon sign in downtown John Day, a plan to manage wild horses in the Murderers Creek area and more.

Coming up this week, you’ll find stories on the DMV data breach that compromised the personal information of everyone with an Oregon driver’s license, the latest confirmed wolf depredation in Grant County, a delay to John Day’s wastewater treatment plant project (all three available to read now on our website), as well as extensive coverage of last weekend’s ’62 Days Celebration in Canyon City.

If you’d like to help support our independent community journalism, please consider subscribing to the newspaper. And if you’re already a subscriber, please accept our heartfelt thanks — we can’t do this work without you!

— Bennett Hall, Editor