Oregonian delivery to Wallowa County may be curtailed

The Oregonian may no longer be delivered in Wallowa County after the first of the year, if the current dealer drops his contract to deliver to local stores and homes, due to the newspaper’s new policies for remunerating dealers and limitations on the number of trucks it will send out.

The Portland-based daily is currently the only newspaper in Oregon with statewide circulation, including home delivery.

Publisher Fred Stickel of The Oregonian said it is too soon to tell what impact, if any, Wallowa county residents might feel, but did say that the newspaper’s trucks will be limiting their delivery range to “sites along the I-84.” From there, independent contract dealers will pick them up and carry them to their respective service areas.

Stickel said the changes may be expected to increase the gas costs for some dealers, but he could not say for certain if newspaper deliveries in Wallowa County would cease as a result. When pressed, he said there was no more he could say on the topic.

However, according to a woman who delivered the newspaper locally for 26 years, there is more to the problem than limited newspaper drops.

Helen Ellis of Enterprise delivered The Oregonian to Wallowa County, as well as Imbler and Elgin, for 26 years before retiring in 2003, when her son, Mike, took over the contract. Mike Ellis, also of Enterprise, is out of the county this week and unavailable for comment, but his mother – who is substituting on the route again in his absence – said that The Oregonian is now making it impossible for a delivery route to Wallowa County to be profitable. She said the newspaper is cutting a supplemental payment to help offset the high cost of gas and also plans to raise the contractor’s cost of the paper to what it now sells for at the newsstand.

The Oregonian reportedly held a meeting in Pendleton last week to explain the changes to contract dealers of the daily newspapers throughout Eastern Oregon, with about 30 contractors attending, she said.

Ellis said her son plans to give up the contract after the first of the year and said she believes The Oregonian has no plans to try to replace him.

Barbara Fowler, owner of Our Little Store in Enterprise and Joseph, said that the stores sell out of The Oregonian most days, and there are even some people who stand around waiting for them to be delivered in the mornings. “I can hardly believe it,” she said of news about The Oregonian.

Phone calls to Circulation Manager Kevin Denny and Executive Editor Peter Bhatia were not returned, as of press time.

Ellis said the current delivery numbers have dropped dramatically from her early days of delivering the Portland daily to today.

For example, at one time she delivered papers to about 150 homes in Enterprise.

As of this week, there are 53 subscribers. She said the majority of subscribers are 50 or older – people who still enjoy reading a real newspaper.

“It’s losing something for Eastern Oregon.

“It’s cutting us off from the rest of the state,” Ellis said. “It’s like saying, ‘you have no value.”