The latest news stories of interest in the Rogue Valley and around the state of Oregon from the digital home of Southern Oregon, Wynne Broadcasting’s RogueValleyMagazine.com
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Rogue Valley Weather
AIR STAGNATION ADVISORY ISSUED: 9:42 PM DEC. 12, 2022 – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
...AIR STAGNATION ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4 AM WEDNESDAY TO 4 AM PST SATURDAY... * WHAT...Stagnant air is expected, which may lead to deteriorating air quality. * WHERE...Valleys of northern California and south central and southwest Oregon. * WHEN...From 4 AM Wednesday to 4 AM PST Saturday. * IMPACTS...Air stagnation is likely to result in diminishing air quality with time, especially in and near areas with significant sources of air pollution. Diminished air quality is likely to cause health issues for people with respiratory problems if precautions are not taken. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...A weak weather system is forecast to arrive over the weekend, which may allow for some minor mixing and a reduction of air stagnation conditions. * View the hazard area in detail at https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/map/?wfo=mfr
75-Year-Old Man Dead in Fight at the Wonder Bur Lounge in Grants Pass
Grants Pass Police Department has released information:
On Thursday, December 1st, Grants Pass Police responded to the Wonder Bur Lounge & Café regarding a fight between multiple subjects inside the establishment. Upon arrival, Officers learned an off-duty bartender, Todd A. Heckers, 40 years old, had been in a fight with three men ages 75, 75, and 63.
One of the 75-year-old men sustained serious injuries, including broken ribs and a laceration above the eye. The other 75-year-old was transported to the Three Rivers Medical Center by ambulance with critical injuries, where he later died. Heckers fled the scene prior to the officers’ arrival. The fight was captured on surveillance video.
Grants Pass Police Detectives investigated the assault and arrested Todd Heckers on Friday, December 9th. Heckers was lodged at the Josephine County Jail for Manslaughter in the First degree and Assault in the Second Degree.
Anyone who witnessed the fight is asked to contact Detective Shaw at 541-450-6260 and reference case #22-52393. Grants Pass Police Department
Central Point Police Department is looking for help identifying the woman in the photo. Police say she is wanted in connection to a theft and harassment case at a local business. If you recognize the suspect, call 541-664-5578 and reference case number 22-8658.
Central Point Police Department Holding Concealed Handgun License Class
If you’re interested in getting your Concealed Handgun License before the end of the year, come on out to our last CHL class for 2022 this Sunday, December 18th, from 10-2 to get your required course completed! See the event description for more information and to sign up.https://fb.me/e/2fVfeelMT
Jackson County Sheriff’s Office Toy Drive for Foster Kids
For the last three years, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office (JCSO) has partnered with “Foster The Love” to provide Christmas presents to children in foster care here in Jackson County. The toy drive collects and distributes hundreds of toys each year to the nearly 400 kids in care.
This year, there is a collection tree at the JCSO main office front lobby where you can donate gifts. Either take a tag from the tree, or simply drop off a gift at 5179 Crater Lake Highway and we’ll match it to a tag!
We hope you join us in our effort to collect hundreds of presents and put a smile on the face of a child in foster care this Christmas. Please do not wrap the gifts, but gift bags are greatly appreciated. The deadline to drop off gifts is Monday, December 19th.
Kotek Announces 36-County Tour And Framework For First Year As Governor
Gov.-elect Tina Kotek is already at work with plans to visit all 36 Oregon counties over the next year in an effort to build trust in the state government, she announced during an annual business gathering Monday.
Kotek was the keynote speaker at the Oregon Business Plan’s Leadership Summit, which has drawn hundreds of business leaders, elected officials and lobbyists to Portland for the past 20 years.
She laid out her plans for her first year in office, which she said will encompass three overarching goals.
First, she aims to build trust across Oregon. That includes meeting with Oregonians in their communities, with a statewide tour she’ll start with trips to Yamhill and Douglas counties before her Jan. 9 inauguration, as well as her pledge to meet every two weeks with Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler as the state’s largest city addresses homelessness.
That goal also includes fulfilling campaign promises to address Oregon’s twin housing and homelessness crises, lack of mental health and addiction providers and flailing schools, as standardized tests show Oregon students falling far below their national average in math and reading.
“Despite challenges, Oregonians don’t back down when things get hard,” Kotek said. “We dig in, we think outside the box when times get hard.”
Second, Kotek said she’ll focus on increasing accountability and oversight in state government, taking a customer service approach to public service. She said she’ll deliver a list of expectations to each state agency when she takes office in January.
After her speech, Kotek told reporters she’s “possibly” considering replacing the heads of two troubled Oregon agencies: Colt Gill, director of the Oregon Education Department, and David Gerstenfeld, acting director of the Oregon Employment Department.
Gill has been blamed for long school closures that contributed to learning loss. Gerstenfeld, who was elevated in 2020 after outgoing Gov. Kate Brown fired the previous employment director over the state’s botched pandemic unemployment response, has presided over an agency that is still struggling to make pandemic-related payments and has been slow to organize a paid-leave program that’s supposed to start next year.
The head of the Oregon Health Authority, Patrick Allen, will step down as Kotek takes office, as will Steve Allen, the agency’s behavioral health director. Kotek pledged during her campaign to replace both Allens, who are not related.
She said her focus on accountability will include changing how her team thinks of success. In the state Capitol, where Kotek served as a representative since 2006 and as speaker of the House for nearly a decade, she said it was too easy to declare victory once a vote was over or a bill signed into law without keeping sight on the end goal.
“The real victory doesn’t come until that working mom enrolls her kid in an affordable child care program,” she said. “Success doesn’t come until that veteran who’s been living on the street moves into permanent housing. And we certainly won’t claim success until that student who’s been struggling to read knows the satisfaction of reading her first book.”
Finally, Kotek said she’ll encourage new and more robust partnerships between state and local governments and between the public and private sector. That includes continued work on housing and homelessness, child care and infrastructure, she said.
And it includes making sure Oregon receives a substantial chunk of the $280 billion in available federal funding from the CHIPS and Science Act for semiconductor manufacturing and technological research passed in July. Brown and a task force that includes business leaders and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, are working on a plan for the Legislature including a new tax credit and other business incentives.
Kotek said she supports the broad strokes of that plan, which she has heard could cost between $200 million and $300 million. She’s waiting to see specific dollar amounts, she said. “We have to be aggressive if we’re going to get part of what’s coming from the federal government,” Kotek said.
Wyden told attendees the Legislature needed to work quickly to make sure Oregon receives its share of the semiconductor funding. Oregon has long been a leader in the semiconductor industry, with 15% of the nation’s semiconductor workforce here. But other states, including New York and Texas, are trying to take the lead, Wyden warned. “The days are over where we take a back seat to any of them,” he said. “We’re going to out-compete all of them in the days ahead.”
Housing, one of Kotek’s top priorities, will also be a top focus for the Legislature, said House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, and Rep. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City.
“We’re 110,000 houses short,” Rayfield said. “That’s unacceptable. We need to make stuff work.”
He promised legislation and funding to help build more houses. Anderson, the former mayor of Lincoln City, said the focus will be on so-called workforce housing, for people who earn between 80% and 120% of the median income in an area. That cohort typically includes police officers, hospital employees, city workers and other professionals who are typically considered to be part of the middle class.
Those workers often make too much to qualify for subsidized housing but not enough to spend 30% of their income or less on market-rate rent or mortgage payments. Employers in the public and private sectors have anecdotally reported struggling to recruit and retain employees because of housing costs.
“We for decades have talked about the housing crisis in Oregon,” Anderson said. “We’ve done things about it, but we’ve not treated it as a real crisis, a real emergency.”
Environmental and industry groups are urging Gov.-elect Tina Kotek to increase staff and budgets to tackle water, wildfire, agriculture, climate and energy concerns in the years ahead.
About 240 people joined a video call hosted Friday by Kotek’s transition team intended to help the incoming governor prepare her first natural resources budget to present to the state Legislature Feb. 1.
The budget will cover needs for 14 state agencies for the next biennium, including the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the Water Resources Department, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Forestry.
The requests for more money for natural resources programs come as legislative budget analysts warned legislators may need to cut spending. Budget documents released this week show a nearly $560 million gap between the money available to spend and the $30.7 billion it would take to continue funding programs at the same rates as the 2021-23 budget.
Right now, Oregon ranks at the bottom for mental and behavioral health access. But change could be on the horizon in the near future.
New legislation kicking in at the start of next year is expected to help the state turn a corner and get more people access to mental health services.
Many people have struggled to get critical mental health care in Oregon, simply because there are not enough mental healthcare workers to treat them. The legislation going into effect aims at addressing the workforce shortage by improving wages.
House Bill 5202 offers staff who care for Medicaid and Oregon Health Plan patients a permanent 30% increase in rates and pay codes in the new year. The federal government recently approved this increase. The bill also ensures ongoing funding for behavioral health in Oregon.
“The mental and behavioral health crisis is affecting every community in Oregon. If we haven’t been personally impacted, we all know someone who has,” said Representative Tawna Sanchez (D-North and Northeast Portland), Co-Chair of the Joint Ways and Means Committee. “Paying providers what they deserve is a major step in the right direction and I look forward to ensuring we continue these efforts to expand access to care.”
Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland) chairs the house interim committee on behavioral health. He says this change is helping local mental health centers go from paying therapists $45,000 to $60,000 per year.
“This is a really big deal,” said Nosse. “Ideally, we finally start to get people better pay and then make it attractive to do this work. They stick with the job — and then when people start calling 311, we’ve got people that we can deploy, people who are trained and then we’ll have spaces and places for those folks to go.”
With 1.3 million Oregonians on Medicaid, leaders hope this change will help turn a new leaf on a long, underfunded issue.
“Portlanders and residents of Multnomah County and other parts of the state that are experiencing people dealing with mental health challenges will start to see some progress,” Nosse said.
The House Bill appropriates more than $42 million of state money to better fund mental and behavioral health every year — which will be matched by $100 million in federal funding annually.
Leaders of OHA think Oregonians will start seeing benefits from this investment within the next year. However, it’s unknown when the state will be able to get out of crisis mode regarding mental health.
Oregon’s Secretary of State Seeks More Money To Combat Election Misinformation
Citing an increase in misinformation, complaints and time-consuming public records requests from election deniers, Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan is seeking roughly $2 million over the next two years to hire more staff dedicated to election security and oversight.
That sum includes two new election complaint investigators, two more employees dedicated to combating misinformation and one senior employee to oversee public records requests and coordinate with election administrators in Oregon’s 36 counties. It’s part of more than $15.5 million Fagan is seeking beyond the office’s baseline budget, which has surpassed $90 million in recent two-year budget cycles.
This comes as Oregon is losing its second elections director in as many years with the current one announcing her resignation, saying the job is extremely challenging and citing uncertain funding.
Elections Director Deborah Scroggin told Secretary of State Shemia Fagan in her resignation letter Friday that “we are at an extraordinarily challenging time for elections officials.” Fagan herself appeared remotely a day earlier before an Oregon House committee, where she outlined those challenges and appealed for more funds.
Fagan, who began her term as Oregon’s top election official two days before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, told the House Rules Committee on Thursday that the incident sent a clear message to election officials that they couldn’t take trust in democracy for granted.
“My mission as Oregon secretary of state is to build trust between Oregonians and their state government so that Oregonians will trust the services that make an impact on their daily lives, and nowhere is that more important than in the elections division,” Fagan said.
She said her office has received more than 300 election law complaints this year and has only 1.5 full-time employees dedicated to those complaints. Adding two more could help resolve those investigations more quickly than the average four months it now takes to complete an investigation.
Legislators gave the office $370,000 for statewide public service announcements this spring, and Fagan said the ’70s-style animated videos drove traffic to the state website with voter information, Oregonvotes.gov. Unique pageviews increased from just over 100,000 in the month before the 2018 election to more than 400,000 in the leadup to the 2022 election.
Fagan is also seeking $1.17 million to begin replacing the state’s outdated campaign finance database, ORESTAR. The system has been in place for 20 years, runs slowly and can’t be opened in more than one tab or window, among other frustrations for users.
The $1.17 million wouldn’t actually be spent on a new campaign finance reporting tool, but rather on analyzing needs and requesting quotes.
The proposal referred to making sure any future campaign finance database can adapt to new campaign finance laws.
Governor-elect Tina Kotek pledged to support caps on campaign contributions while running for office. After declaring victory, she said she would support campaign finance reform measures passed by the Legislature and ballot initiatives if the Legislature doesn’t act.
House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, has long been an advocate of campaign finance reform, and Senate President-designate Rob Wagner, D-Beaverton, tried to resurrect legislation to impose some limits in the last legislative session after Fagan disqualified proposed ballot measures on technical grounds.
Wagner told the Capital Chronicle this week that he expects the Legislature will take action on campaign finance reform in the upcoming session.
Fatal Crash – HIGHWAY 39- Klamath County
On Saturday, December 10th, 2022, at approximately 6:28 PM, the Oregon State Police responded to a vehicle vs pedestrian collision at the intersection of Hwy 39 and Fargo St, in Klamath County.
The preliminary investigation indicated a white GMC Sierra, operated by Christina Mueller (22), of Klamath Falls, was traveling eastbound in the fast lane when it struck a pedestrian, Jerri Vaughn (53), of Klamath Falls. Vaughn was wearing a green jacket and jeans, was not in a crosswalk and was struck in the eastbound fast Lane. The visibility on the roadway was poor due to it raining and being dark at the time of the collision. Vaughn was pronounced deceased at the scene due to injuries sustained in the crash.
Highway 39 was open during the investigation with the westbound lanes being reduced to two-way traffic while the eastbound lanes were shut down for approximately 3 hours.
OSP was assisted by the Klamath County Sheriffs’ Office, Klamath County Fire District 1, and ODOT.
Medical Examiner Says Body Of Woman Found In Portland Remains Unidentified
The Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office is asking for the public’s help identifying the body of a woman who died Nov. 28 in Portland.
The Medical Examiner describes the woman as white, between the ages of 20 and 40 years old. They say she also was about 5′4″ tall, weighing 139 pounds. She had medium to long brown hair with brown eyes.
The woman also had pierced ears, with scars on both forearms and the following tattoos:
- Right wrist: Faith Hope Love
- Left wrist: Amirah
- Right Shoulder: Black and red butterfly
Anyone with information about the woman is asked to call the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office at (503) 988-0055 and reference case number #MU-221128-812.
