The latest news stories and stories of interest in the Willamette Valley from the digital home of Southern Oregon, from Wynne Broadcasting’s WillametteValleyMagazine.com
Monday, October 17, 2022
Willamette Valley Weather
Cedar Creek Fire Updated to 45% Contained
As of 5:30 AM, 10/17, there are currently 633 firefighting personnel working to contain the #CedarCreekFire. The fire is now 124,447 acres and 45% contained. Resources assigned include: 19 Engines 12 Handcrews 3 Dozers 2 Masticators 7 Helicopters 2 Air Attack Platforms
Photo of the Day – Monday, October 17, 2022 Operations Section Chief Hector Medrano provides an operational update to members of the community gathered in person and online. Community members had the opportunity to ask questions and hear directly from the Incident Management Team currently assigned to the fire.
Marilynn Davis, Public Information Officer
Red Flag weather conditions on the #CedarCreekFire contributed to increased activity within the fire perimeter over the weekend.. Although there is a significant amount of smoke in the air, the fire remains within containment lines and crews are engaged in holding and securing any areas of intense heat.
Check out continuing coverage of the fire here on Facebook. To check out our YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/CedarCreekFire
Weather: A shift in fire weather is expected to moderate burning conditions today. The upper-level ridge will shift inland today in response to a couple of in-coming weather disturbances. This will result in cooler temperatures with higher relative humidity. High temperatures will be 8-10 degrees cooler than yesterday with highs mainly in the upper 60s to mid-70s. Relative humidity will be 5-10 percent higher and around 25-35 percent. Winds will be mainly northwest around 10 mph.
Operations: Crews will be holding and securing any areas of remaining heat in areas that saw increased activity with the critical fire weather. Repair and rehabilitation projects continue. Air resources have been heavily engaged in operations whenever it is safe to fly, providing support to firefighters on the ground.
Firefighters on the north end of the fire continue suppression repair on Forest Service Roads 750 and 1944. They are also securing the fire edge on Forest Service Roads 19 and 1938. They will continue to monitor, patrol, and mop up both direct and indirect primary lines. On the east side of the fire, crews are patrolling the 4290 road, completing suppression repair and road grading on the 640 and 4668 to return roads to pre-fire conditions. Chipping operations near Cultus Lake have been completed. To the south, crews are patrolling the 5883 road. They will continue to hold and secure control lines on spot fires. Crews on the western edge of the fire are also patrolling and securing Forest Service Roads including 352 and 353 and securing control line along 5871.
Suppression repairs on the Big Swamp and Potter Fires were completed yesterday.
Closures: There are closures in effect on the Deschutes National Forest and Willamette National Forest. These closures will remain in place until areas impacted by the fire are surveyed for safety risks and fire crews are able to mitigate these hazards. Please respect Forest closures for firefighter and public safety. Please visit Willamette National Forest and Deschutes National Forest for the most recent closure orders and maps. Pacific Crest Trail hikers should visit pcta.org for current information. There is a Temporary Flight Restriction over the Cedar Creek Fire area. Wildfires are a No Drone Zone – if you fly, we can’t.
Smoke: Air quality conditions due to smoke are expected to be Good to Hazardous within the forecast area. Smoke impacts will be heavily dependent on fire activity. For current conditions, see Fire.airnow.gov, oakridgeair.org, and LRAPA – Today’s Current Air Quality. Smoke Forecast Outlooks are available at https://outlooks.wildlandfiresmoke.net/outlook.
OSU Announced $100 Million in Gifts to Launch a $200 Million Research and Education Center
OSU announced Friday they have received millions of dollars to fund a brand-new research facility at Oregon State University. The research and education center will harness one of the nation’s most powerful supercomputers and team-based research in artificial intelligence, materials science and robotics to solve global challenges in areas such as climate science, oceanography, sustainability and water resources.
The complex will also underpin OSU’s research and teaching supporting the semiconductor and broader technology industry in Oregon and beyond.
The center will be named the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex following a gift of $50 million to the OSU Foundation from Jen-Hsun Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, and his wife Lori, both of whom are Oregon State University graduates. The Huangs graduated from Oregon high schools and met while undergraduates in OSU’s College of Engineering.
“We are thrilled by this extraordinary philanthropy and commitment to advancing research discovery and problem-solving,” OSU President Jayathi Murthy said.“The center will be a dynamic place where creative, driven faculty, students and partners from business and other universities come together to solve critical challenges facing the state, nation and world.”
Murthy said the three-story, 150,000 square-foot center is being designed and is anticipated to open in 2025. It will be built in the northwest corner of OSU’s Corvallis campus along Southwest Memorial Place and Monroe Avenue, near the intersection with Monroe and Southwest 23rd Street. Murthy said the center is part of Oregon State’s efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM education and research.
The center will employ a NVIDIA supercomputer to support faculty in addressing highly complex and challenging computational problems. The OSU supercomputer – powered by next-generation NVIDIA CPUs, GPUs and networking – is expected to be among the world’s fastest university supercomputers, powerful enough to train the largest AI models and perform complex digital twin simulations. The complex will also have a state-of-the-art clean room and other specialized research facilities.
NVIDIA has pioneered accelerated computing to tackle challenges that otherwise can’t be solved. Its work in artificial intelligence and computer graphics is transforming industries valued at more than $100 trillion, from gaming to health care to transportation, and profoundly impacting society.
During the 2023 Oregon legislative session, OSU will request $75 million in state-paid bonding to match philanthropic and university contributions for the collaborative innovation complex. The university and OSU Foundation also will seek additional public, private sector and philanthropic support for equipment, faculty support and research programs within the complex. This will include funding to support targeted faculty hires and the university’s goals to increase diversity in STEM fields.
The complex will build on OSU’s distinction in engineering and computer science, said Scott Ashford, dean of OSU’s College of Engineering.
It will feature a state-of-the art supercomputer incorporating NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD and OVX SuperPOD systems. Water used to cool it will help heat more than 500,000 square feet of building space on OSU’s Corvallis campus. It will also include laboratories for materials scientists, environmental researchers and others throughout the university, as well as an extended-reality theater, robotics and drone playground and a do-it-yourself maker space.
Oregon U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is co-chairing a semi-conductor taskforce to support the state’s semiconductor industry, praised OSU’s plans.
“It’s no secret that advanced computer chips are the linchpin of the 21st century economy,” Wyden said. “This state-of-the-art facility provides opportunity for Oregon State faculty and students to make generation-defining discoveries to push our tech industry forward. I am very excited for Oregon State to open this incredible facility and bring together the best and brightest to provide interdisciplinary solutions to complicated problems.”
Brown also voiced support for OSU’s collaborative innovation complex.
“Our state has benefited greatly from having a world-class research university like Oregon State University to allow us to develop further technological innovations and grow our high-tech workforce,” Brown said. “The collaborative innovation complex will further enable OSU’s world-class researchers and facilities to address some of Oregon’s most pressing issues, including semiconductor research and development, climate change and public health.”
The university has received four gifts of $25 million or more for the campaign to date. In 2021, the OSU Foundation announced an anonymous $50 million gift supporting the completion of Reser Stadium. In 2018, the university received its first $50 million gift, a contribution from alumnus Gary Carlson to name the Gary R. Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine.
Eugene City Council Taking Applications for Interim Ward Seven Councilor
After a successful recall election, Eugene’s Ward Seven does not have an elected official to represent it as of October 3. The Eugene City Council has begun the process of finding an interim successor, and the first step is to take applicants for the position.
Applicants for the position must live in Ward Seven and must have lived in Eugene for at least year before being appointed to the office. If appointed, an appointee would serve as interim Ward Seven councilor until July 2023, and if they wished to stay in the position would have to run for reelection in May 2023. Candidates must apply for the position before November 9. Local groups such as the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce hope the vacancy attracts applicants who will work for the common good of Ward Seven residents and all Eugenians with thoughtful public policy.
After the application window expires on November 9, city councilors will review the applications and select a pool of the best candidates. Interviews with those candidates are scheduled to begin in early December, and the Eugene City Council hopes to confirm an appointment by December 12.
Applications for the interim city councilor position are available at the city of Eugene’s website.
Voters in Lane County must register to vote no later than October 18, 2022.
Election Day is quickly approaching, and the Lane County Elections office would like to encourage voters to be #ElectionReady for the November 8, 2022 General Election. Voters in Lane County must register to vote no later than October 18, 2022.
“In the weeks leading up to Election Day, voters have multiple ways to ensure they are ready to vote and have their voices heard,” said Lane County Clerk Dena Dawson. “My team and I are working diligently to ensure the success of the November 2022 General Election by providing convenient and safe voting options.”
The voter registration deadline is October 18, 2022. If a voter registration form is hand-delivered, it must be received no later than 5:00 pm at the Election Office (275 W 10th Ave., Eugene) on that day. If mailed, it must be postmarked no later than October 18, 2022. If registering via www.oregonvotes.gov, it must be completed no later than 11:59 p.m. on October 18, 2022.
Ballots will be mailed starting on October 20, 2022. To track the status of a ballot, visit www.oregonvotes.gov/MyVote.
Voters may return their ballot by regular mail, ballot drop box, or at the Elections Office. For ballot drop box locations, visit www.LaneCountyOR.gov/elections.
Voters with questions can email elections@lanecountyor.gov or call 541-682-4234.
About the Lane County Elections Office: The Elections Office, located at 275 W. 10th Avenue in Eugene, is responsible for conducting elections in Lane County. The elections office manages voter registration, the processing of mail ballots, recruitment and training of election workers, and certification of elections. Lane Co. Government
Measure 111 Will Decide If Healthcare Should Be A Right For All Oregonians
Oregon voters will decide if health care should be a constitutional right. The Right to Healthcare amendment would be the first of its kind in the nation. Passage of Measure 111 would amend the state constitution to ensure that every resident has access to “cost-effective, clinically appropriate and affordable health care.”
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Steiner Hayward is a family doctor and was Chief Sponsor of the measure that was referred by the Oregon legislature. She calls the proposed amendment a “guiding principle.”
“It doesn’t create a tax. What it does is, it says ‘here is a value that Oregonians share and hold deeply enough that they want it in their constitution.’”
Private physician Sam Metz passionately supports a single payer health care system and opposes Measure 111. He says one reason is legal liability. “According to legislative legal counsel, any Oregonian who does not receive cost-effective or affordable health care has standing to sue the state.”
If Measure 111 passes in November, it would be the first amendment adopted by any U.S. state to secure the right to affordable healthcare for every resident.
As the measure reads, the state’s obligation to ensure affordable health care would have to be balanced against existing obligations including “funding public schools and other essential public services.”
And it reads that “legal remedies for lawsuits may not interfere with the balance between a right to healthcare and funding other essential public services.”
If voters pass Measure 111, it would be up to lawmakers to determine how to fulfill the state’s obligation. The measure does not contain any built-in funding.
MORE INFO: https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Measure_111,Right_to_Healthcare_Amendment(2022)
Measure 113 will decide in November whether to punish state lawmakers who boycott the Capitol, a tactic that Republicans have effectively used in recent years to push back against the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature.
Ballot Measure 113 would amend the Oregon Constitution to prevent lawmakers with 10 or more unexcused absences from serving their next elected term in office. It is aimed at discouraging lawmakers who are in the minority from using walkouts as a tactic to kill proposals with which they disagree. Republicans used walkouts in recent years to kill legislation seen as priorities for Democrats, including greenhouse gas cap-and-trade plans introduced in 2019 and 2020.
They were able to successfully do that because Oregon is one of just four states in the nation, along with Indiana, Tennessee and Texas, that requires two-thirds of lawmakers to be present in order to vote on bills. All other states require no more than half of the lawmakers to be present. Measure 113 would not change Oregon’s high quorum requirement.
Legislative leaders from the majority party, decide when to excuse fellow lawmakers from floor votes and Measure 113 would not change that, either. While some lawmakers regularly miss votes for personal reasons and are excused, the number missing from any one vote is low enough that voting can continue.
Public employee unions and other groups that tend to support Democratic candidates spearheaded and funded the effort to get Measure 113 on the ballot.
Democrats currently hold supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature, as well as the governor’s office which has allowed them to power through a broad array of progressive priorities, from a minimum wage increase to statewide rent control. But Republicans in the state Senate and House have boycotted votes at the Capitol six times since 2019 in an effort to kill Democratic legislation.
In three cases, they were no-shows for just one day: to push for Democrats to slow down the pace of lawmaking in February 2020, to push for Gov. Kate Brown to return Oregon schools to in-person learning in February 2021 and in a holdout against a compromise congressional redistricting plan in 2021. House Republicans ultimately returned and allowed the redistricting plan to become law.
Senate Republicans’ two lengthier walkouts in 2019 targeted that year’s climate cap-and-trade bill, a proposal to close loopholes in Oregon’s vaccine mandate for schoolchildren and a package of gun policies including penalties for some gun owners who fail to lock up their weapons. Gov. Kate Brown killed the vaccine and gun bills in exchange for Republicans returning and allowing a vote on a new business tax to raise roughly $1 billion annually for Oregon schools. Democrats ultimately gave up on the climate bill that year, conceding that some Senate Democrats also opposed it.
In 2020, Senate Republicans walked out again to kill that year’s version of the climate bill and House Republicans joined in the boycott as a protest since the bill never left the Senate. Those walkouts shut down the legislative session early, around when COVID-19 hit Oregon.
Record Temperatures Around the State But Cooling on the Way
The northwestern United States has had its share of heat waves since early this past summer, and another bout of abnormal warmth reached a peak this weekend, AccuWeather meteorologists say.
Across much of the nation, average high temperatures tend to drop significantly as the autumn season progresses, and the Northwest is usually no exception. But this fall has been a different story.
In the case of Seattle, for example, the average high temperature typically declines from 66 to 56 from the start of October to the end of the month. Yet, so far this month, temperatures have not abided by the consistent downward trend in much of the Northwest.
Another record high temperature was set in Portland on Sunday at 86 degrees, which officially made it the hottest weekend on record in Portland for this late in the year. Records at the Portland International Airport date back to 1940.
Morning clouds will give way to afternoon sunshine and the hot/dry east wind has abated. This is good news for firefighters battling the Nakia Creek Fire in Clark County.
Even though October sunshine and short days will not support anything close to those temperature levels this time, the persistence of the warmth is rather unusual, forecasters say.
Medford, Salem, Portland and other cities in Oregon broke records for high temperatures this weekend in the state.
After the record-setting weekend of heat and strong east wind across the region, we will cool things down from the coast to the Cascades on Monday.
Community Bank Week Oct. 17-22
SALEM – Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has proclaimed Oct. 17-22 as Community Bank Week. The week honors local banks and their employees for their economic and civic contributions in communities across the state.
Oregon community banks provide more than 5,800 family wage jobs through more than 375 branch and loan offices, issue $13 billion in home purchase and refinance loans, and safeguard $37 billion in deposits. They also make 80 percent of all agriculture-related loans.
Oregon’s community banks, most of which are chartered by the Division of Financial Regulation, play an essential role in promoting the economic health and prosperity of the state. In some communities, they are the sole provider of banking products and services and sometimes the largest employer. Community banks donate millions of dollars each year to nonprofits and local organizations.
“Our state banks continue to support small businesses and agriculture in Oregon, as well as provide banking services and create thousands of jobs,” said TK Keen, administrator for the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation. “State banks are also invested in their communities through their 64,000 volunteer hours each year and the millions of dollars they have pledged to support nonprofits and other endeavors throughout the state.”
State-chartered banks throughout Oregon are celebrating Community Bank Week in their local neighborhoods. To learn more about Oregon’s state-chartered banks, go to https://www.oregonbankers.com/local.html.
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