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
Monday, December 19, 2022
Rogue Valley Weather
AIR STAGNATION ADVISORY ISSUED: 2:25 PM DEC. 18, 2022 – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
...AIR STAGNATION ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM PST MONDAY... * WHAT...Stagnant air is expected, with light winds and poor mixing. This is likely to lead to deteriorating air quality. * WHERE...Valleys of northern California, south central Oregon, and southwest Oregon. * WHEN...Until 10 PM PST Monday. * 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. * View the hazard area in detail at https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/map/?wfo=mfr
Rogue Valley’s Annual Menorah Lighting on the Plaza in Ashland Heads to Grants Pass Tonight and Medford Tomorrow
The celebration is hosted by the Chabad Jewish Center. A ten-foot menorah was lit to begin the eight-day holiday. Hanukkah is a Jewish festival starting on December 18 until December 26.
Director of the Chabad Jewish Center, Rabbi Avi Zwievel said with community support, this is one tradition that is brought to the Rogue Valley. “It’s become an annual tradition now,” says Zwievel. “People come and gather from all over the valley to celebrate as we usher in the holiday of Hanukkah.”
The celebration included traditional Hanukkah food, live music, and droppings of chocolate coins for children to pick up. Zwievel said celebrating this tradition, can bring a positive message to others.
Chabad of Ashland began its celebration of Hanukkah on December 18th with the lighting of the menorah, in downtown Ashland. The Ashland Plaza was packed with people celebrating the beginning of Hanukkah.
The celebration ended with the lighting of the ten-foot-tall menorah, at sundown, signaling the start of the eight-day holiday.
“We light the menorah every night, symbolizing the importance of light over darkness, freedom over oppression, and that message is so relevant today, we all need that message of hope. We could all be that menorah lighting the candle,” said Avi Zwiebel, Rabbi with the Chabad Jewish Center.
The celebration continues Monday 12/19 with a lighting in Grants Pass’ Riverside Park at 4pm.
Then the lighting will come to Medford’s Vogel Plaza on December 20th at 4:30. And to wrap things up, the lighting will return to Ashland’s Plaza on December 25th at 4pm.
Two Elderly Pedestrians Killed in Crash On Hwy 99 In Grants Pass
On Friday, December 16, 2022, at approximately 6:33 P.M., the Oregon State Police responded to a vehicle versus pedestrian crash on HWY 99, near the 1900 block or milepost 1.75, in Josephine County.
The preliminary investigation indicated two pedestrians, Deverne Jacobsen (91) and Gwen Jacobsen (85) of Grants Pass were crossing Hwy 99 to attend a Christmas Party when they were stuck by a Toyota Tacoma traveling northbound on Hwy 99.
Both pedestrians died as a result of injuries from the collision. The driver of the truck did not stop and fled the scene. The vehicle operator, Skylar Fucci (25) of Grants Pass, was contacted at approximately 9:15 P.M. and cooperated with the investigators.
Fucci was arrested lodged in the Josephine County Jail for two counts of Felony Hit and Run. The investigation is on-going and additional charges may be applied at a later time.
The Oregon Department of Transportation counted 518 deaths on Oregon roads through November, a 5.5% drop from the 548 killed during the same period in 2021. But of those killed in traffic so far this year, 111 were pedestrians, surpassing the 90 killed through the entirety of 2021. Another 13 were cyclists.
Governor Brown Appoints Judges To The Jackson And Klamath County Circuit Courts
Governor Kate Brown has announced that she will appoint judges to the Jackson and Klamath County Circuit Courts. Governor Brown will appoint Jeremy Markiewicz to the Jackson County Circuit Court to fill the vacancy created by Judge Lorenzo Mejia’s planned retirement and will appoint Stephen Hedlund to the Klamath County Circuit Court to fill the vacancy created by the planned retirement of Judge Daniel Bunch. Both appointments are effective on December 31, 2022.
“Jeremy Markiewicz and Stephen Hedlund are talented lawyers, and are ready to make significant contributions to the trial court bench,” said Governor Brown. “Both will bring a passion for justice, devotion to their communities, and empathy for the litigants that will appear before them.”
Jeremy Markiewicz earned a bachelor’s degree from Willamette University, the first in his family to graduate college. He went on to earn his law degree from University of Colorado School of Law. After graduation, he moved to Southern Oregon, where he has devoted his entire legal career to public service with the Jackson County District Attorney’s office, first as a deputy district attorney and, since 2013, as the Chief Deputy District Attorney. Markiewicz serves on the board of the Children’s Museum of Southern Oregon, the Southern Oregon Financial Fraud and Securities Team, and is a member of the Rotary Club of Medford. He also is active with the Southern Oregon Campaign for Equal Justice and the Classroom Law Project.
Stephen Hedlund graduated from Klamath Union High School and went on to earn his bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University, and his law degree from Willamette College of Law. Upon graduation, he moved back home to Klamath Falls and began his legal career with the Klamath County District Attorney’s office. He then transitioned into private practice, with a focus on indigent defense work, including criminal and juvenile dependency matters. He also provides legal representation for public entities and public officials. Hedlund serves as the defense attorney in Klamath County’s behavior intervention court and veterans treatment courts, and as a member of the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council. Since 2016, Hedlund has served as a pro tem judge for the City of Klamath Falls Municipal Court. He also serves as an arbitrator for the Oregon State Bar Fee Dispute Resolution Program.
Driver Suspected of Felony DUII Arrested in Grants Pass After Numerous Hit and Runs
Thursday morning at 10:29 am, the Grants Pass Police Department began receiving calls regarding an erratic driver and numerous hit and runs. The vehicle was captured on city cameras as it drove the wrong way on NE 6th Street, passing the Police Station, before its involvement in its first crash, hitting two vehicles. The vehicle fled the scene shortly after the crash and struck a Pacific Power guideline on NE Evelyn Avenue. Once again, the vehicle fled the scene onto SE 8th Street, driving through the Grants Pass High School zone, and finally stopped on NE 8th Street just north of NE A Street. No citizens received injuries from the crashes.
The driver of the vehicle, Aaron J. Smock, 47 years old, was arrested by a Grants Pass Detective and Police Officers for suspicion of Drunk Driving. The investigation revealed Smock had been drinking at the Wonder Bur Lounge and Café prior to getting into his car to drive. Smock was transported to the Three Rivers Medical Center for his injuries, where he attempted to flee from officers. Later, while in the care of the hospital, Smock again fled on foot and was subsequently arrested by officers when they located him on Grandview Avenue near SE Independence Drive. Aaron Smock was lodged at the Josephine County Jail for Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants, three counts of Failing to Leave Notice at the Scene of an Accident, Reckless Driving, Third Degree Escape, and Driving with a Suspended License.
As always, and especially during the Holiday Season when vehicle traffic is heavy, and road conditions can be severe, we encourage drivers to find alternative transportation when consuming alcohol or other intoxicating substances. We also encourage all citizens to be extra aware of the driving habits of others on the roadway, to drive defensively, and to call 9-1-1 when spotting suspected drunk drivers. The Grants Pass Police Department wishes everyone a SAFE and Happy Holiday!
Josephine County Missing Person Project
ODOT Report Shows Fatal Pedestrian Crashes on the Rise
The Oregon Department of Transportation counted 518 deaths on Oregon roads through November, a 5.5% drop from the 548 killed during the same period in 2021.
But of those killed in traffic so far this year, 111 were pedestrians, surpassing the 90 killed through the entirety of 2021. Another 13 were cyclists.
In Portland, too, fatal pedestrian crashes are trending higher. A person struck and killed Wednesday evening was the 29th pedestrian to die on Portland streets this year, equal to the total number in the city throughout 2021. And Portland saw three cyclists killed in traffic so far this year, according to the website BikePortland.com, after a 2021 that saw no cyclist fatalities.
The statewide numbers this year include a spate of crashes that killed pedestrians walking on or attempting to cross rural highways, a man who was struck when his wheelchair slipped off the sidewalk in North Portland, and a man who was struck by two different cars as he walked along Southeast Foster Road.
Katherine Benanti, an ODOT spokesperson, said the agency is troubled by the trends both in Oregon and nationally.
“In recent years, we’ve worked to more quickly direct spending and make improvements in areas where it’s most needed. We’re determined to do more,” Benanti wrote in an email.
Cooper Brown, ODOT’s assistant director of operations, said the agency is still trying to understand what has caused the increase in crashes in the past couple of years. ODOT data analysts collect and study those numbers, but he said it takes a while to get the full picture.
Brown said one potential factor behind a spike in fatal crashes earlier in the pandemic is that people were driving faster while there were fewer cars on the roads. “But in terms of pedestrian fatalities, I don’t think we can definitively say,” he said.
For pedestrian and bike safety advocates, the decline in overall fatalities provides little comfort.
Zachary Lauritzen, the recently appointed director of the Portland advocacy group Oregon Walks, said the state transportation agency should be looking beyond year-to-year comparisons.
“It’s easy for ODOT to say we’re looking better, but they’re looking at a terrible year for their benchmark,” he said, noting 2021 broke the state’s record for traffic fatalities. “They should be looking at overall trends.”
Lauritzen said ODOT has made fixes in some problem areas, such as adding more sidewalks or crossing beacons to mitigate dangers. But he said the number of pedestrian fatalities is symptomatic of a much larger, systemic problem.
That’s especially true in east Portland, where the city sees a higher concentration of fatal pedestrian crashes — and where many of the city’s lower-income residents and largest communities of color live.
He’s aware that many people don’t have that option. Elderly people, young kids and people with disabilities who depend on public transit are at higher risk of traffic injury and death in his neighborhood.
Lauritzen said Oregon Walks has been considering projects to help people change the way they think about transportation.
One, he said, is to help people identify destinations within a 10 to 15-minute walking radius of a person’s home, an area the group calls the person’s “walkshed.” He said the organization hopes to help people figure out what services are available in their area, reducing car trips.
“In some parts of Portland, that walkshed is incredibly rich, especially in inner Portland,” he said. “As soon as you start talking about more suburban and rural areas, people get in cars because it’s not safe to walk and it’s too far.”
He said the city is starting to make efforts to slow drivers and create similar walkable or transit-friendly neighborhoods in other parts of the city by adding streetlights, building or improving sidewalks and promoting residential development.
Lauritzen said Oregon Walks has also partnered with ODOT and Metro to build “walking school buses,” where adults accompany kids as they walk to school, and stop to pick up other kids along the route. The adults can help the group of students navigate challenging roads or crossings.
The program launched in the Parkrose School District, which serves an area in Northeast Portland with poor pedestrian infrastructure.
Niemi said it’s still traumatic to drive past the site on Powell Boulevard where her son Eli was struck and nearly killed. But it’s driven her to fight for safer streets.
Less than two months after the car struck Eli, 50-year-old Sarah Pliner was killed just a few blocks away, run over by a turning semi-truck while riding a bicycle at Southeast 26th Avenue and Powell.
Niemi said she went and visited the site where Pliner was killed and has attended protests and public forums since then to push ODOT to improve safety on the road.
On the morning of a public forum to be held about the fatal crash, Niemi said she noticed that ODOT had put in new 20 mile-per-hour school zone signs at the intersection where Pliner had been killed weeks before.
“Which tells me they can move fast if they want to, and change can happen,” she said. “If they think this will make it safer, why haven’t we been doing this all along?”
On Friday 12/16 in Grants Pass, the preliminary investigation indicates two pedestrians, Deverne Jacobsen (91) and Gwen Jacobsen (85) of Grants Pass were crossing Hwy 99 to attend a Christmas Party when they were stuck by a Toyota Tacoma traveling northbound on Hwy 99. Both pedestrians died as a result of injuries from the collision. The driver of the truck did not stop and fled the scene. The vehicle operator, Skylar Fucci (25) of Grants Pass, was contacted at approximately 9:15 P.M. and cooperated with the investigators.
Fucci was arrested lodged in the Josephine County Jail for two counts of Felony Hit and Run. The investigation is on-going and additional charges may be applied at a later time.
Leaking Semi-Truck Leaves Miles Of Red Dye On I-205 And I-84 From Happy Valley To Troutdale
A semi-truck driver left miles of soluble red dye on Interstate 205 and Interstate 84, from Happy Valley to Troutdale through Portland, on Saturday after the liquid cargo sprung a leak on the road, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said.
The driver, 40-year-old Junior Jean, told deputies that he stopped to check the leak but his company, which the sheriff’s office did not identify in its press release, told him to keep driving to his destination in Troutdale.
Jean said the dye is used for coloring mulch and would wash off with water, the sheriff’s office said. Officers cited Jean for operating a vehicle with a leaking load, third-degree criminal mischief and reckless driving.
Multnomah County Sheriff’s deputies responded to reports of the leaking truck trailer near Northwest Marine Drive and Eastwind Drive around 7:30 p.m.
Jean allegedly drove north on Interstate 205 from Southeast Sunnyside Road, then took Interstate 84 east and exited at Northeast Marine Drive, the sheriff’s office said. The Oregon Department of Transportation and Oregon State Police also responded.
The sheriff’s office said motorists who drove on splattered roads between 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday should check their cars for stains. The dye should wash off, but if it doesn’t, vehicle owners can contact the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office at webmaster@msco.us and provide their full name, phone number, vehicle make and model and a picture of the damage.
Survey Finds More Than A Million Acres With Dead Fir Trees In Oregon
Climate change, droughts, invasive insects and other factors have had an impact on Oregon’s vast forests for years, but recent research reveals a proliferating issue.
Environmental journalism nonprofit Columbia Insight first reported on the data collection effort from the Oregon Department of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service, which found that 1.1 million acres of fir trees in Oregon had died off in 2022 alone.
“This survey is actually one of the longest running in the nation of its kind,” Christine Buhl, Forest Entomologist at ODF says “It’s a forest health survey that we fly over the entire state of Oregon that’s forested to collect data on insects, diseases, abiotic stressors that are damaging or killing trees.”
According to Buhl, forest health is almost always impacted by several, complex factors, rather than one singular cause.
“The primary thing we think of damaging these trees is climate change that is causing ongoing hot drought,” she said. “And it’s not only that it’s really hot and really dry, but either long duration droughts — they’re happening frequently — and the timing of them is very important as well. Early in the season when trees are waking up and need a lot of moisture, it’s really dry out there.”
The entomologist listed other primary causes such as root diseases that break down trees’ root systems, and the invasive Balsam Woolly Adelgid insect that continues to stress trees. After the trees are already hindered by these primary agents, secondary agents like the fir engraver beetle can cause the trees to die-off.
These factors have been reported by entomologists for a long time, but ODF hasn’t seen fir tree mortality of this magnitude since the agency was founded in 1911.
“In our history of collecting data, I believe that we have not detected 1 million acres of true fir mortality ever,” Buhl said. “However, we have had peaks in mortality across the landscape in Oregon of combined tree species from multiple agents that have been comparable to some of our worst wildfire seasons.”
USFS and ODF’s latest Forest Health Highlights in Oregon review did say that the heat dome of 2021 was novel, and could have lasting effects on the state’s forests. It may be too late to reverse those effects, but Buhl says strategies like thinning defective trees or planting tree species in their preferred habitat could help.
“On the other hand, there’s not a lot we can do on the larger scale with climate change. We’re reaching the point where there’s not really much we can do to turn back and we just need to try and slow the progress of climate change,” Buhl said.
Oregon Department of Emergency Management Warning
Enjoy the holidays safely with fire prevention:
Keep candles 12 inches away from other objects.
Use a sturdy candle holder that won’t tip over.
Don’t leave burning candles unattended. Blow them out before leaving or going to bed.
Consider using flameless, battery-operated candles.
Medical Examiner Seeks Public Help to Identify Woman Found In Portland
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.
