The latest news stories of interest in the Rogue Valley and the state of Oregon from the digital home of Southern Oregon, Wynne Broadcasting’s RogueValleyMagazine.com
Monday, March 27, 2023
Rogue Valley Weather
WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY ISSUED: 3:14 AM MAR. 27, 2023 – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 11 AM PDT TUESDAY ABOVE 2500 FEET... * WHAT...Snow expected above 2500 feet. Total snow accumulations 3 to 6 inches. Winds gusting as high as 50 mph. * WHERE...Eastern Douglas County Foothills and Jackson County above 2500 feet. This includes Butte Falls, Prospect, Jacksonville Hill on Highway 238, and Highway 227 north of Shady Cove. * WHEN...From 5 PM Monday to 11 AM PDT Tuesday. * IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult. The hazardous conditions could impact the morning or evening commute. Gusty winds could bring down tree branches. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...The combination of strong winds and snow will result in reduced visibilities and occasional whiteout conditions. * View the hazard area in detail at https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/map/?wfo=mfr
Rogue Valley International Medford Airport Names New Director
After nearly four months, Medford’s airport has officially named the new airport director. Amber Judd will be the airport’s next director.
She has served as the interim airport director since Jerry Brienza left the area in December. Jackson County did have someone who accepted the position in January, but they backed out. Judd said she found out this week she’ll have the job full-time.
Really look forward to serving the people of Jackson County and the surrounding area,” she said. “We have people from all over the region flying out of here and just means the world to me to give them a good experience. I will continue to work really, really hard to make this a good place to fly in and out of and people can get in and out of safely.”
Judd has worked at the airport for the last nine years. Most recently, serving as the director of finance and administration.
Fatal Crash – Interstate 5 – Douglas County
On Friday, March 24, 2023, at approximately 5:58 A.M., the Oregon State Police responded to a two vehicle crash on Interstate 5 (southbound), near milepost 166, in Douglas County.
The preliminary investigation indicated a Freightliner CMV and semi-trailer, operated by Joel Lockhart (29) of White City (OR), was southbound and lost control striking the center barrier where it came to rest. A Nissan Murano, operated by Karen Sweesy (46) of Monroe (WA), was southbound and came upon the disabled CMV and semi-trailer. The Nissan crashed into the left rear corner of the semi-trailer. Sweesy was pronounced deceased at the scene by EMS.
A passenger in the Nissan, Shari Landerville (59) of Monroe (WA), received serious injuries and was taken to Sacred Heart Medical Center at Riverbend. The operator of the CMV was uninjured.
The highway was impacted for approximately 2.5 hours while the on-scene investigation was conducted.
OSP was assisted by North Douglas Fire & EMS, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, Cottage Grove PD, and ODOT.
Douglas Co. Sheriff’s Office to Conduct Training at Green and Sunnyslope Elementary Schools
ROSEBURG, Ore. – The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office will be holding an in-service training for Sheriff’s Office deputies and staff from all divisions during Roseburg School District’s Spring Break. The training will take place Tuesday, March 28th -Thursday, March 30th.
The training will be held at Green and Sunnyslope Elementary schools. DCSO staff will receive instruction in First Aid/CPR and ethics. Deputies will also participate in scenario based training. These continuing education hours keep deputies current with their certification requirements mandated by the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training and to maintain a professional level of service.
In the interest of public notification and awareness, community members should be aware that the scenario based training will look like an active shooter/active threat response. Simulated gunfire, yelling and a general police presence may be observed by community members in the area. Signage will be present indicating a training exercise is in session.
“We believe it is vitally important to train our deputies in the response of active threats. The use of scenario based training provides the deputies with the most realistic training possible and helps to develop them professionally in order to better serve our communities,” said Lt. Brad O’Dell. “We are thankful to the Roseburg School District for their support and hospitality in hosting this important training session.
Roseburg School District Superintendent Jared Cordon said he is grateful for the ongoing partnership between the district and local law enforcement agencies.
“We appreciate the opportunity to support the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in their training efforts,” Cordon said. “The more we work together to plan and prepare for potential emergencies, the safer our schools and community will be.”
For the safety of the community and deputies, the school campus will be closed to the public during the training sessions each day, which start at 7:00 am and end at 5:00 pm.
Any public questions should be directed to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office at 541-440-4450 or dcso.pio@co.douglas.or.us.
Cherry blossoms illuminated at the State Capitol State Park March 25-April 1
SALEM, Ore— Oregon Parks and Recreation Department will host a “Yozakura,” a night viewing of the cherry blossoms March 25 through April 1 at the State Capitol State Park.
Parks staff will illuminate the cherry blossoms with Japanese lanterns and lights from 6 to 9 p.m. Visitors can bring blankets, camping chairs or even a nighttime picnic to enjoy under the canopy of the illuminated trees.
“The lanterns and lights create a striking and beautiful scene inside the park at night,” said Operations Manager Kevin Strandberg.
On opening night March 25, Koto player Masumi Timson will fill the park with music and staff from Focal Point Photography in Dallas will share how to take nighttime photos and macro photos of the blossoms.
Alcohol is not allowed in State Capitol State Park (without permits) and the park closes at 10 p.m. The Oregon State Capitol Foundation is the presenting sponsor of this event. For more information on the foundation, visit https://oregoncapitolfoundation.org/
For more information on events at the Capitol, call Visitor Services at 503-986-1388 or visit the events page: www.oregoncapitol.com.
Bureau Of Land Management Seeks Proposals To Fund Natural Resource Projects
About $3 million in funding is available for natural resource projects that restore and improve public lands across western Oregon. The Bureau of Land Management encourages individuals, organizations, and local governments to submit funding applications for consideration.
Project funding is available through Title II of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. Proposed projects should restore land health, improve water quality, or maintain existing infrastructure. Projects must benefit Oregon and California Grant (O&C) lands and resources. O&C lands are located in the 18 western Oregon counties, including: Benton, Clackamas, Columbia, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Washington, and Yamhill Counties.
“Title II funds are used to make investments in public lands and create employment opportunities,” said Heather Whitman, Roseburg District Manager. “These projects are vital because they improve cooperative relationships among the people that use and care for public lands.”
BLM officials encourage applicants to discuss their project proposals with them prior to submission. Please contact the BLM District representative where the project would be implemented:
- Coos Bay District – Stephanie Messerle, smesserl@blm.gov, 541-751-4230
- Medford District, Roseburg District, and Klamath Falls Field Office of the Lakeview District – Christina Beslin, cbeslin@blm.gov, 541-618-2371; or
- Northwest Oregon District – Patricia Johnston, pjohnsto@blm.gov, 541-683-6181.
The application forms, criteria, and instructions are available through grants.gov. The grant is under the heading Notice of Funding Opportunity Announcement L23AS00283 BLM OR/WA Secure Rural Schools, Title II Grants.
Applications are due by May 15, 2023.
Examples of previously funded projects include noxious weed treatments, trail maintenance, garbage removal, and stream restoration.
The Western Oregon Resource Advisory Committee will review the applications at their fall 2023 meeting.
Information about the BLM’s Western Oregon Resource Advisory Committee is available at: blm.gov/get-involved/resource-advisory-council/near-you/oregon-washington/western-oregon-rac
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
Oregon Nonprofit Hospitals Fail to Provide Financial Aid to Low-Income Patients
Oregon’s nonprofit hospitals are not doing enough to provide assistance on medical bills for low-income patients, but a bill in Salem aims to change it.
Nonprofit hospitals are required by federal law to alleviate medical costs for patients who cannot afford them.
Matt Swanson, political strategist for the Service Employees International Union Oregon State Council, said investigations have found the institutions are not going far enough to help.
“People really aren’t getting the assistance they need,” Swanson explained. “Instead, they’re getting every last dollar really wrung out of them in order to satisfy a bill that they really can’t pay, and it’s risking other things in their life, like housing and food and the ability to get over their health issue.”
House Bill 3320 is designed to ensure people get the financial assistance they need and hospitals are transparent about their assistance practices. In written testimony on the bill, the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems said it agrees with parts of the legislation but wants lawmakers to keep in mind insurers are part of the cost picture as well.
Swanson added it is important for people who cannot afford medical bills to know they have assistance available.
“The purpose of this bill is to really tighten up what compliance looks like,” Swanson emphasized. “And ensure that everyone gets screened before they are sent a bill, so that the hospital is giving a hand to folks who need the help, instead of letting them get lost in systems that are often confusing and overwhelming at a time when they’re really struggling.”
The bill received a public hearing last week and is scheduled for a work session Wednesday.
———————– An Oregon law went into effect in 2020 that requires nonprofit hospitals to screen all patients within 200 percent of the federal poverty level for discounts, but a Dollar For report found that hospitals are “not meaningfully screening patients for financial assistance eligibility but are instead sending low-income patients to collection.”
Dollar For, a Portland, Ore.-based patient advocacy group, conducted a data-driven evaluation of the Oregon case filing system, public hospital financial data and federal hospital tax filings, according to the report released Feb. 28.
“This report concludes that most Oregon hospital financial assistance programs are not compliant with the law, fail to bring in hospital revenue and leave thousands of patients with court judgments for medical debt they cannot and should not have to pay,” the report stated.
Three things to know:
1. Since the requirement to screen patients went into effect, 42 of Oregon’s 60 nonprofit hospitals gave less charity care than they did the year before.
2. An estimated 4 in 9 patients sued for medical debt are entitled to have their bill written off.
3. Patient self-pay amounts account for 1.6 percent of hospital revenue.
“The burden must shift to the hospital to adequately screen patients for us to see real change as patients can’t be expected to navigate an already-complex system alone,” Dollar For founder Jared Walker said in a Feb. 28 news release. “These laws are safety nets for people who deserve to be screened before being subjected to the devastating consequences of medical debt — it’s time we start using them accordingly.”
$148 Million in Legal Marijuana Sold in Oregon in January and February
There was $75.6 million in legal marijuana sold in January in Oregon, and $72.7 sold in February.
Oregon sold a total of $148,366,891 million between January 1 and February 28 this year, with sales data not yet available for any part of March. This is according to data released by the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission. Based on the state’s 17% marijuana tax rate, the state garnered $25.2 million in marijuana taxes during this period.
There has now been $5.418 billion in legal marijuana sold between October, 2016 and February, 2023, bringing in roughly $920 million in tax revenue. The top month was April, 2021 with $110 million sold
The $72.7 million in marijuana sold in February was a decrease from February 2021 and 2022, but was higher than each of the February’s before that. In February, 2022 there was $80.4 million sold, with $88.8 million sold in February, 2021.
In Oregon licensed marijuana retail outlets are authorized to sell marijuana to anyone 21 and older. Personal possession limits are:
- Two ounces of usable marijuana in a public place;
- Eight ounces of usable marijuana in your home;
- 16 ounces of cannabinoid products in solid form or cannabinoid concentrates;
- 72 ounces of cannabinoid products in liquid form;
- One ounce of cannabinoid extracts purchased from a marijuana retailer; and
- Four marijuana plants.
Oregon’s marijuana law was approved by voters in 2014. (SOURCE)
Much of West Coast Faces Salmon Fishing Ban
As drought dried up rivers that carry California’s newly hatched Chinook salmon to the ocean, state officials in recent years resorted to loading up the fish by the millions onto trucks and barges to take them to the Pacific.
The surreal and desperate scramble boosted the survival rate of the hatchery-raised fish, but still it was not enough to reverse the declining stocks in the face of added challenges. River water temperatures rose with warm weather, and a Trump-era rollback of federal protections for waterways allowed more water to be diverted to farms. Climate change, meanwhile, threatens food sources for the young Chinook maturing in the Pacific.
Now, ocean salmon fishing season is set to be prohibited this year off California and much of Oregon for the second time in 15 years after adult fall-run Chinook, often known as king salmon, returned to California’s rivers in near record-low numbers in 2022.
“There will be no wild-caught California salmon to eat unless someone has still got some vacuum sealed last year in their freezer,” said John McManus of the Golden State Salmon Association.
Experts fear native California salmon, which make up a significant portion of the Pacific Northwest’s fishing industry, are in a spiral toward extinction. Much of the salmon caught off Oregon originate in California’s Klamath and Sacramento rivers. After hatching in freshwater, they spend three years on average maturing in the Pacific, where many are snagged by commercial fishermen, before migrating back to their spawning grounds, where conditions are more ideal to give birth. After laying eggs, they die.
Already California’s spring-run Chinook are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, while winter-run Chinook are endangered along with the Central California Coast coho salmon, which has been off-limits to California commercial fishers since the 1990s.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council, the authority responsible for setting ocean salmon seasons off the Pacific coast, is expected in early April to formally approve its proposed closure of Chinook fishing along the coast from Cape Falcon in northern Oregon to the California-Mexico border.
Recreational fishing is expected to be allowed in Oregon only for coho salmon during the summer and for Chinook after Sept. 1. Salmon season is expected to open as usual north of Cape Falcon, including in the Columbia River and off Washington’s coast.
Though the closure will deal a blow to the industry that supports tens of thousands of jobs, few are disputing it.
“We want to make sure they are here for the future,” said third-generation fisherman Garin McCarthy, who described catching a Chinook as “magical.”
McCarthy, whose entire income last year came from salmon fishing off both California and Oregon, has had to invest thousands of dollars in equipment to fish other species like rockfish, halibut and black cod.
“We’re all scrambling to try to make our boats do something different,” he said. “We’re all salmon trollers. That’s what we do. That’s what we live for.”
Glen Spain, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, said he believes the ban might need to be in place for two or three years to bring back sustainable stocks after many fish died in 2020, the start of a record-dry period.
The Chinook already faced challenges, with dams blocking their historic retreats to the chilly upper reaches of Northern California’s Sacramento River and the Klamath River along the California-Oregon border. Decades of development have disrupted the natural flow of rivers and polluted waters.
In 2020, the Trump administration ended federal protections for millions of waterways, allowing for more water to be pumped out of the Sacramento River Basin for farming despite warnings from biologists that it could harm salmon runs in the future.
Fishers say river water temperatures increased with the diversions for irrigation, killing more eggs and hatchlings and preventing the stocks from bouncing back amid the drought.
“This one ain’t on us,” said Bob Maharry, 68, a lifelong San Francisco-based fisherman. “This has nothing to do with overfishing. This is poor management of water.”
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said the estimated number of adult fall Chinook expected to return to spawn in the Sacramento River this year is less than 170,000, one of the lowest forecasts since the current assessment method began in 2008. Fewer than 104,000 fall Chinook are likely to return to the Klamath River, the second lowest estimate since 1997.
In 2021, a judge determined the Trump administration improperly limited federal protections and restored them to a narrower 1986 standard. The Biden administration is expected to expand the protections in 2024.
Some are banking on the unusually wet winter to bring relief. Record rain and snowfall since late last year have freed two-thirds of California from drought. But too much water could also flush out eggs and hatchlings.
Businesses tied to salmon want the government to declare the situation a federal disaster so they may receive aid. As the market shrinks, more restaurants turn to farm-raised salmon, while gear suppliers stop stocking the proper equipment to fish Chinook.
“Not everybody is going to make it out of this type of a closure unfortunately,” said Andy Giuliano, who owns Fish Emeryville, a bait-and-tackle shop and booking service for 16 charter boats that offer salmon fishing trips to tourists in the San Francisco Bay area. “It’s a real stress test on the industry.”
Eric Schindler, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s ocean salmon project leader, said he “was not expecting it to be this drastic,” assuming the year would bring restrictions but not a full closure for most of Oregon.
Jeff Reeves, who has been salmon fishing from the Coos Bay, Oregon, area since the 1970s and is also a member of the Oregon Salmon Commission, said he plans to fish rockfish, black cod and maybe tuna. Later this year he plans to target coho salmon from Oregon, which is doing well enough to be fished unlike the coho in California. But it won’t make up for the loss of the Chinook, which are bigger, fattier fish that are in higher demand.
“It’s devastating,” he said. “The Oregon fleet is already on life support,” which dropped from a height of about 4,500 boats to about 180 today, he added.
On a stretch of the Klamath River in Northern California, the Yurok tribe has watched for years the decimation of the culturally significant salmon population. Barry McCovey Jr., director of the tribe’s fisheries department, said the tribe’s Chinook allotment is likely to be very small this year.
Still, he is hopeful the planned removal of four dams on the Klamath River will improve the fish’s future.
“It’s not a silver bullet, but a big step in right direction,” McCovey said. “There’s still a lot of battles to fight if we want to have coho and Chinook.” (SOURCE)
Survey Finds Northwest Drivers Are More Aggressive And Less Kind Compared To Previous Years
A new poll found that Northwest drivers are less courteous and more aggressive when compared to previous years.
PEMCO Mutual Insurance held an independent survey conducted by FBK Research of Seattle that asked Washington and Oregon residents questions about driving habits and attitudes toward current Northwest issues.
“We’re all busy getting to where we need to go, but we hope our poll shines a light on an opportunity to slow down and show each other some grace on the road,” said PEMCO spokesperson Allison Leep.
According to the poll results drivers in the Northwest are seeing less of courteous gestures such as yielding, waving, signaling or allowing someone to pass, but instead seeing a rise in rude gestures when compared to 2015.
In Portland, 36% of drivers said they see at least five kind gestures a month which is 12% less than the percentage when the same question was asked in 2015.
Seattle drivers do witness more kind gestures, but not by much. In the 2023 poll, 40% of drivers said they saw at least five kind gestures a month which is down from their 2018 percentage by 13%.
“There’s a good chance a simple gesture, like waving when someone lets you in or yielding to let another merge in front of you, will go a long way to brighten someone’s day,” said Leep.
Compared to 2015, there has been an 8% jump in aggressive acts and/or gestures seen by Seattle drivers with 43% of those interviewed saying they see rude gestures from other drivers at least 10 times per month.
PEMCO says that more than half of Northwest drivers claim to keep their cool on the roads, but the numbers behind the aggressive behaviors don’t add up.
“When we talk about places known for aggressive drivers, the Pacific Northwest doesn’t often come to mind for many of us, so we’ll be interested to continue tracking these attitudes over time,” said Leep.
The poll also found that Seattle parents drive almost three times more aggressively than drivers without children. Out of those interviewed 17% of drivers with children say they’re aggressive more than 10 times per month while 2% of drivers without children say the same. To view the complete results from PEMCO’s poll, click here. (SOURCE)
