Rogue Valley News, Friday 7/7 – Combined Law Enforcement Agencies Bust Local Illegal Growing Organization, Josephine County Animal Shelter Kennels Full: Dog Adoptions Free Event on Saturday 7/8

Full Oregon Health Plan benefits now open to more adults as of July 1, regardless of immigration status

Starting July 1, Oregon Health Plan (OHP) coverage is available to all children and adults who meet income and other eligibility criteria, regardless of immigration status.

The change initially applies to approximately 40,000 members ages 26-54 who moved automatically from emergency coverage – Citizenship Waived Medical (CWM) – to full OHP benefits July 1. But, beginning July 1, all people who meet income and other eligibility criteria, regardless of immigration status, can enroll.

State health officials are notifying CWM members of their changes in coverage. CWM members currently enrolled through the Marketplace (HealthCare.gov) need to report their new full OHP benefits to the Marketplace after they receive their eligibility notice.

This expansion in health coverage follows the Legislature’s recent appropriation to fund the full implementation of Healthier Oregon. In 2022, Healthier Oregon made full Oregon Health Plan (OHP) coverage available to adults ages 19-25 and 55 and older, no matter their immigration status. Funding for the state’s 2023-2025 biennial budget expanded coverage to all ages.

“When it comes to health, we’re all connected,” said Dave Baden, interim director of Oregon Health Authority. “Expanded health coverage through the full implementation of Healthier Oregon will keep more people and families healthy, which will reduce health costs and risks for every community. Governor Kotek and the Legislature have demonstrated a commitment to health and health equity that sets a new standard for other states.”

Full OHP coverage includes: Medical, dental and mental health care; prescriptions and tests; X-rays and hospital care; transportation to and from health care appointments.

People experiencing disabilities or 65 and over may also qualify for other services and supports, which may include: case management services and services to support independent living, such as help with eating, bathing, and traveling within their community.

Healthier Oregon Program members will also be eligible for enrollment in Oregon’s 16 coordinated care organizations (CCOs). CCOs are networks of all types of health care providers (medical, dental, substance use and mental health care) who contract with the state to serve people who receive health care under OHP.

State health officials pledge to work with CCOs and community partner organizations to reach newly eligible state residents and enroll them in OHP through Healthier Oregon.

You can apply for OHP here, or find someone in your local community to help you apply here. You can also call 800-699-9075 weekdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Help is available in many languages. All relay calls accepted. It is better to call earlier in the day.

Additionally, a list of local offices to find OHP benefits such as medical, food, cash or childcare can be found here, or call 800-699-9075.

PUC Approves Wildfire Mitigation Plans for Oregon’s Largest Electric Utilities

SALEM, Ore. – The Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC) recently approved the wildfire mitigation plans (WMPs) for the three investor-owned electric utilities, including Idaho Power, PacifiCorp (Pacific Power), and Portland General Electric (PGE). The 2023 WMPs reflect the continued changes in the wildfire mitigation landscape and are the second to be filed since Senate Bill 762 passed during the 2021 legislative session.

Senate Bill 762 and Oregon administrative rules established formal standards for electric utility wildfire mitigation plans, including the information utilities are required to include in their plans. Plans must include identification of high-risk areas within the utility’s service territory and actions to minimize those risks, as well as protocols for implementing public safety power shutoffs (PSPS). Utilities also need to describe how they determined which risk reduction strategies to pursue.

“Although some of Oregon’s regulated utilities have been developing wildfire mitigation plans for years and reporting to the PUC informally, this is only the second formal filing to the Oregon PUC,” said Megan Decker, PUC Chair. “We recognize the progress Oregon utilities have made from the first plans filed last year and look forward to the continued evolution of these plans.”

Idaho Power, PacifiCorp, and PGE all filed their 2023 WMPs prior to December 30, 2022, as required by the bill and regulations. PUC staff and an independent evaluator reviewed each plan to ensure they met the statutory requirements and to make recommendations to continue evolving the plans to further address future risk. A series of meetings were held to evaluate key topics, including asset health, risk mitigation, vegetation management, system hardening, situational awareness, community engagement, and public safety protocols, among others.  From these discussions and numerous requests to the utilities for additional information, PUC staff developed a list of additional recommendations to be considered for the 2024 WMPs.

“As the PUC staff noted, the 2023 Wildfire Mitigation Plans show how the utilities are continuing to reduce the risk of ignitions,” added Letha Tawney, PUC Commissioner. “The in-depth review of the plans also demonstrates how utilities in Oregon – like utilities across the West – must continue adapting to the changing landscape to keep communities safe.

Idaho Power, PacifiCorp, and PGE’s plans met the requirements, leading to an approval by all three Commissioners of their WMPs and instruction to work with the PUC to address the recommendations made by the PUC in their 2024 plans. Each utility was instructed to provide a report describing their efforts to address each PUC recommendation in their 2024 WMP filing.

The 2023 Wildfire Mitigation Plans for Idaho Power, PacifiCorp, and PGE are available online for review. WMPs for all other Oregon electric utilities are currently available online; for those plans there is no specific timeline required for updates, but as they are updated, they are required to be filed with the PUC within 30 days of their governing boards’ approval for the PUC to post online.

# # # The Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC) regulates customer rates and services of the state’s investor-owned electric and natural gas utilities, including Portland General Electric, Idaho Power, Pacific Power, Avista, Cascade Natural, and NW Natural. The PUC also regulates landline telephone providers and select water companies. The PUC’s mission is to ensure Oregonians have access to safe, reliable, and fairly priced utility services that advance state policy and promote the public interest. We use an inclusive process to evaluate differing viewpoints and visions of the public interest and arrive at balanced, well-reasoned, independent decisions supported by fact and law. For more information about the PUC, visit oregon.gov/puc.

Former Portland Area Non-Profit Director Sentenced to Federal Prison for Stealing Covid Relief Funds

PORTLAND, Ore.—A former Portland area non-profit director was sentenced to federal prison today for stealing more than $321,000 in federal funds intended to help small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Theodore Johnson, 62, a Portland resident, was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison and three years’ supervised release. He was also ordered to pay approximately $321,000 in restitution to two banks, the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Oregon Department of Administrative Services.

According to court documents, in February 2017, Johnson incorporated and began serving as the director of operations for Ten Penny International Housing Foundation, an Oregon-based non-profit organization. After Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020 to provide emergency financial assistance to American employers, Johnson saw an opportunity to fraudulently obtain government funds on Ten Penny’s behalf.

In early March 2021, Johnson submitted his first of three Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) applications, falsely claiming Ten Penny employed 16 people and had an average monthly payroll of more than $57,000. To support his application, Johnson submitted fraudulent tax documents and created an electronic counterfeit IRS stamp to make it appear as though his forms had been received by the IRS. Based on these false claims, Northeast Bank issued a PPP loan worth more than $143,000 to Ten Penny.

Two months later, in May 2021, Johnson submitted two more fraudulent PPP loan applications. In these applications, he again falsely claimed Ten Penny employed 16 people and had an average monthly payroll of at least $50,000. Johnson further falsely claimed to have used the entirety of his first PPP loan for eligible expenses. As a result, Central Willamette Credit Union issued Johnson a second PPP loan worth more than $130,000.

In addition to his three fraudulent PPP loan applications, Johnson submitted a fraudulent Oregon Cares Fund application on behalf of Ten Penny and received an additional $34,975.

On October 31, 2022, Johnson was charged by criminal information with one count of bank fraud and two months later, on December 29, 2022, pleaded guilty to the single charge.

This case was investigated by the SBA Office of Inspector General and U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). It was prosecuted by Meredith D.M. Bateman, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Justice Department’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

Oregon Court Case On Homeless Camping Bans Rebuffed By Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals

Beginning Friday, the city of Portland begins something like a soft launch of a new ordinance governing how and when homeless people can camp on public property. It includes a ban on camping during daylight hours, plus round-the-clock bans in certain parts of the city.

When Mayor Ted Wheeler brought the proposed ordinance before Portland City Council, it garnered hours of impassioned public testimony — much of it against the ban. But Wheeler later defended the ordinance by saying that it was actually less restrictive than the laws technically already on the books in Portland, and would align with a state law passed back in 2021 requiring more nuanced rules on homeless camps.

That law, passed as House Bill 3115, was itself the distillation of several important court cases establishing what rights homeless people have in a given city when there is insufficient shelter space for them. There’s a reason why police simply can’t arrest someone for camping on public property at any time of day, and its because of this court precedent. (READ MORE)

Testing Yields New Evidence of Human Occupation 18,000 years ago in Oregon

EUGENE, Ore. – Oregon archaeologists have found evidence suggesting humans occupied the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter outside of Riley, Oregon more than 18,000 years ago.

University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History Archaeological Field School, led by archaeologist Patrick O’Grady, has been excavating at the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter. Excavation has been occurring since 2011 under an official partnership agreement with the Bureau of Land Management. Discoveries at the site have included stone tools and extinct-mammal tooth fragments from the Pleistocene era. The pieces of tooth enamel are identified as bison (Bison sp.) and camel (Camelops sp.).

In 2012, O’Grady’s team found camel teeth fragments under a layer of volcanic ash from an eruption of Mount St. Helens that was dated over 15,000 years ago. The team also uncovered two finely crafted orange agate scrapers, one in 2012 with preserved bison blood residue and another in 2015, buried deeper in the ash. Natural layering of the rockshelter sediments suggests the scrapers are older than both the volcanic ash and camel teeth.

Radiocarbon-dating analysis on the tooth enamel – first in 2018 and then again in 2023 – by Dr. Thomas W. Stafford, Jr of Stafford Research and Dr. John Southon of University of California, Irvine, yielded exciting results: a date of 18,250 years before present (14,900 radiocarbon years).

That date, in association with stone tools, suggests that Rimrock Draw Rockshelter is one of the oldest human-occupation sites in North America.

Additional testing of other camel and bison teeth fragments is currently underway, and archaeo-botanists are studying plant remains from cooking fires as well.

“The identification of 15,000-years-old volcanic ash was a shock, then Tom’s 18,000-years old dates on the enamel, with stone tools and flakes below were even more startling,” O’Grady said.

Presently, Cooper’s Ferry, another archaeological site on BLM-managed public lands in western Idaho, is thought to be the oldest known site in western North America. Evidence there suggests human occupation dating back more than 16,000 years.

“This is a very exciting development for the archaeological community,” said Heather Ulrich, BLM Oregon/Washington Archaeology lead. “Thanks to the partnership with Dr. O’Grady and the University these new dates push our archaeological knowledge of human occupation in North America even farther, perhaps the oldest yet!”

These discoveries highlight the importance of good stewardship of our public lands. Damage, destruction, or removal at an archaeological site is a federal crime. Leave what you find and do not collect artifacts or otherwise harm archaeological sites on public lands.

This summer, Dr. O’Grady plans to complete the final archaeology field school at Rimrock Draw. The team will be working on several units where more Ice Age animal remains and artifacts are providing supporting evidence for the 2012 discoveries.

About the BLM

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.

Partnerships are vital to managing sustainable public lands. The BLM has long depended on working with others – through official agreements like this one with University of Oregon, or special use permits – to enhance public lands and to carry out its multiple-use mission.”

About the Museum of Natural and Cultural History

The Museum of Natural and Cultural History enhances knowledge of Earth’s environments and cultures, inspiring stewardship of our collective past, present, and future. The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and until 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays. The museum is located at 1680 E. 15th Ave., near Hayward Field at the University of Oregon.