Connected needs: infrastructure and a place to live

The account in context

Commissioner Cody Lathrop, who took office in July 2026 and is the board’s liaison for grant management, counts infrastructure modernization among his major priorities for the next five years: roads and bridges on a county that is mostly federal land, a landfill that needs modernizing, and broadband. He describes the county’s internet connection as an extension cord from La Grande to the lake, his picture of a concern about reliability and redundancy. He does not rank infrastructure ahead of housing: reliable infrastructure and housing for working families are, in his view, connected needs, and affordable housing for working families is not a minor concern. On second homes he separates two questions: short-term stays, for which he says the transient lodging tax is the appropriate channel, and second-home ownership in general, on which he says he is still learning what is possible. On the county’s economy, his view is that the county should evaluate its previous economic-development efforts, understand what has limited sustained progress, and identify practical opportunities to move forward, without treating past efforts as failures or its options as exhausted. He spoke on the record at the courthouse on October 6, 2026, and confirmed this wording on October 13.

Interviewer

Edan Krolewicz

Recorded at

Wallowa County Courthouse, Enterprise

Permission recorded

2026-10-13

Recorded by the atlas · Published 2026-10-13. The transcript is the participant’s approved wording.