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
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Willamette Valley Weather
Police Say Abandoned Hyundai Spotted In Eugene Unrelated To Idaho Murders
A white Hyundai abandoned in Eugene was found by police to be unconnected to the University of Idaho quadruple murders.
The vehicle had the same description as a vehicle of interest tagged by police in the investigation, giving hope to some that the abandoned car in Oregon would uncover further clues. However, police in Idaho now believe it to be a dead end.
“The vehicle was involved in a collision and subsequently impounded. The vehicle is registered out of Colorado and the female owner is not believed to have any relation to any property in Moscow, Idaho or the ongoing murder investigations,” the Moscow Police Department said in a Tuesday update. “The public is asked to stop contacting the owner.”
Despite the update, police assured the public that they have assembled a massive team to investigate every individual tip sent in with due diligence, of which the number at this point exceeds 10,000, a police spokesman said. The team will continue working throughout the holidays, a spokesman stressed. The FBI has assigned further personnel to help with the investigation.
Eugene to Commemorate the 32nd annual Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day December 21st starting at 5 p.m. in the downtown Park Blocks at 8th and Oak.
On Wednesday, Dec. 21—the longest night of the year—the Eugene Human Rights Commission will join in commemorating the annual Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day.
The event, sponsored by the HRC’s Homelessness and Poverty Work Group, will start at 5 p.m. in the downtown Eugene Park Blocks at 8th and Oak.
Homelessness began as a nationwide epidemic in the 1980’s. Since, an entire generation has been raised in a world where it is normal to see human being sleeping on the street. All too often, those who die on the streets are not connected to family or support systems who can hold a funeral or properly honor them.
Because of this injustice, the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council commemorate December 21—the longest night of the year—as the first Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day in 1990 to remember those who died during the year without housing.
32 years later, the epidemic has grown, with more people living and dying without housing. Let us remember all those who lost their lives for lack of housing, reflect on the shocking inhumanity of homelessness, and call for meaningful policy changes to ensure that no life is lived or lost in homelessness. Below are ways to engage in advocacy to get to the root causes in ending homeless mortality.
For 2022, advocates for the homeless shared the following advocacy agenda
Educate!
- Coordinate discussions with local policymakers, public health authorities, and Medical Examiner/Coroners’ Offices about the need to better understand the causes of homeless death. There is limited data on the causes of homeless mortality. Education is needed to increase awareness about homeless mortality and the need to develop an official death count.
- Share the Homeless Mortality Toolkit. Several cities have developed their own homeless mortality reviews to track and address the causes of these deaths. Using these lessons, the Council developed a Homeless Mortality Review Toolkit to help other jurisdictions gather the data needed to address the problem.
Activate!
- Join community groups that advocate for health care and housing as human rights, and uplift the voices of people experiencing homelessness.
- Demand your elected officials advance policies that address the root causes of homelessness, reverse existing disparities, and ensure people can receive assistance with dignity.
Advocate!
- Claim housing as a human right! Homelessness is fundamentally a housing issue and housing is a basic need that protects people from illness, violence and death.
- Local, state and federal governments should invest in low-income housing for all residents.
- All communities should ensure adequate health care and other supports to ensure the ability to maintain housing (through a Housing First approach if needed).
- Call on local policymakers to end encampment sweeps! Involuntarily displacing people from encampments causes loss of health, wellbeing, and connection to care and incites fear and a trauma response. Use this guide to amplify your advocacy voice.
- Local governments should stop disbanding homeless encampments without offering permanent housing. Shelters, often offered as a temporary alternative after displacement, are not the solution. They can enact restrictive high barrier rules and be sites for exploitation.
- Elected officials must ensure the safety, security, and housing of people and their possessions prior to requesting encampment dissolution.
- Affirm health care as a human right! Health care conditions often go untreated for lack of accessible, affordable health care, and result in premature mortality for people without homes.
- All states and the federal government should move toward policies that achieve health care as a human right, such as through a single payer–Medicare for All – system in order to eliminate existing coverage gaps and financial barriers. While working to achieve universal coverage, the existing system of health care that serves vulnerable populations must be maintained and improved upon. Medicaid coverage should be expanded in states that have not yet done so and community health centers should be funded in full.
- Medical Respite is short-term residential care for people who are not sick enough for the hospital, but too sick to return to the streets. This allows individuals experiencing homelessness the opportunity to rest in a safe environment while accessing medical care and other supportive services. Medical Respite services should be funded and developed in communities across the United States to support people without homes who are ill or fragile.
- Demand more substance use treatment! Substance use disorders are among the leading causes of death for people experiencing homelessness.
- Ensure all communities have adequate capacity to provide substance use disorder treatment for those who need it, to include longer-term residential programs, and lower barriers to accessing care.
- Implement or expand harm reduction programs – including ready availability of naloxone and fentanyl test strips, syringe services programs, and overdose prevention sites.
- Destroy racist policies and laws! People of color are disproportionately affected by homelessness and often the targets of police violence. By criminalizing homelessness, local governments perpetuate systemic racism.
- Local governments should repeal laws and ordinances that target people experiencing homelessness such as prohibiting sitting, standing, and lying down or camping in public.
- Criminalization of homelessness increases interactions with law enforcement. People of color are more likely to be victims of fatal police shooting with unarmed Black men being the most likely to be shot by police.
- Insist on public health interventions! People living on the streets often do not have access to public bathrooms, handwashing facilities, or running water. They are vulnerable to infectious disease. People living in crowded shelters can also lack the resources to keep themselves safe from communicable disease.
- Cities should provide 24-hour public restrooms with handwashing capabilities, mobile showers, and hygiene products. Access to drinking water should be recognized as a human right and all city residents should be able to obtain clean water. For people living in encampments, cities should provide trash cans and regular trash pick-up. Pest control should be implemented.
- The city should demand that local shelters meet health inspection standards and provide access to safe and clean facilities.
Elder Pedestrian killed in hit-and-run collision in SE Salem
Salem, OR. — At approximately 5:30 p.m. Tuesday evening, December 20, motorists traveling eastbound on Madrona AV west of Commercial ST SE reported an injured woman in the roadway.
Evidence of a crash scene involving the pedestrian and a vehicle was located at Madrona AV and Woodbridge CT, and the Salem Police Traffic Team was called to assume the investigation.
The woman, identified as 74-year-old Linda Louise Wisher, was transported by paramedics to Salem Health where she was pronounced deceased.
The Traffic Team’s preliminary investigation revealed Wisher was walking along the 300 block of Madrona AV, and as she crossed the driveway to an apartment complex, she was struck by a vehicle exiting the property. The victim was dragged several hundred feet where she was found by the motorist.
The involved vehicle did not remain at the scene.
No further information is being released at this time, as the investigation into the incident continues. Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Traffic Team at 503-588-6171.
LCSO Case #22-7004 — Fatal Traffic Crash
Last night at approximately 7:30pm the Lane County Sheriff’s Office received the report of a single vehicle traffic crash in the 88000blk of Tiki Ln off of Deerhorn Rd. Deputies discovered that a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee had left the roadway and struck a tree.
The driver and sole occupant was pronounced deceased by responding paramedics. It appears the driver may have suffered a medical event prior to the crash. No other persons or vehicles appeared to be involved. The driver’s name is being withheld at this time.
Operation Winter Survival Stockpile Still Needs Your Help
Lane County Health & Human Services, along with the First Christian Church of Eugene and Cahoots, would like to thank the many community members who have contributed to Operation Winter Survival Stockpile. To date, over 3,000 items have been donated and over 200 households served. There remains, however, a need for tents, sleeping bags, and blankets.
“We are humbled by the tremendous response to Operation Winter Survival Stockpile,” said Lane County Human Services Program Coordinator, Maria Cortez. “Despite the many donations, supplies that are essential to sleeping outside this time of the year are still in short supply. We need as many folks to help as possible.“
Every winter, individuals in our community who are unhoused experience terrible weather conditions and life-threatening temperatures. To address this, Lane County Health & Human Services, in partnership with the First Christian Church of Eugene’s Helping Hearts program and Cahoots, have launched Operation Winter Survival Stockpile.
Operation Winter Survival Stockpile is a community-driven effort to create a stockpile through donations of clothing and other supplies that will help those in our community who are unhoused to stay safe and warm this winter.
As a reminder, items can be dropped off Monday through Thursday between 10 am and 2 pm at the First Christian Church, located at 1166 Oak St. in downtown Eugene. (541) 344-1425.
Items can also be purchased on Amazon and sent to First Christian Church at 1166 Oak St. Eugene OR 97402 – Amazon Wish List https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2XR33GS1ULV8Z?ref_=wl_share
Distribution of items will be prioritized to homeless outreach providers such as CAHOOTS that come into direct contact with individuals who are unhoused and unsheltered.
Bloodworks Northwest Partners With Hop Valley For Blood Drive
“Give a pint, get a pint.” That’s the motto for the blood drive happening in Eugene for the next three weeks.
Bloodworks Northwest is marking the fifth anniversary of the deadly Amtrak derailment near Dupont, Washington.
That day, Bloodworks says it sent about 150 units of blood to local hospitals. And they want to be prepared for the next major emergency.
So, they are partnering with Hop Valley. Every donor gets a pint glass and a voucher for a free soda or beer.
“And we know how much our community rallies around when it comes to things like this, like the need for blood. And it doesn’t hurt that you measure blood in pints, you measure beer in pints. It’s kind of a match made in heaven in that”, says ALEX GRAHAM with HOP VALLEY BREWING COMPANY.
The drive runs through January 7th. You can make an appointment online at the Bloodworks Northwest website.
Three million people throughout Northern California and Southern Oregon woke up early Tuesday morning to an earthquake alert on their smartphones.
Some received the alert seconds before they felt Tuesday’s earthquake off the coast of Humboldt County: a moderate to strong temblor at 6.4 on the Richter scale , according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Others who got the alert didn’t feel the earthquake at all ― but they could have, according to the USGS.
“ShakeAlert performed exactly as planned,” said Bob de Groot, early warning system’s operations coordinator at the USGS’s Pasadena office.
When USGS sensors near Fortuna, California, registered the temblor, the 2:34 a.m. alert went out to anyone who might be affected: North to the Northern California-Oregon border, south to the San Francisco Bay Area and San Jose, east past Shasta County and northeast as far as Medford, Oregon.
For an earthquake its size, it was the most widespread ShakeAlert sent since the system went up in California in 2019.
The reason so many people got the warning was the quake had tremendous possibility to affect a widespread area, de Groot said. The shaking from deep strong temblors ― the one in Humboldt County started deep in the Gorda Plate ― have the potential to travel far from their source.
With three tectonic plates bumping and sliding against each other, the area near Fortuna is “pretty complicated,” de Groot said. “There’s a lot of action there.” There were 40 quakes with magnitudes of 6.0 and higher in the past 100 years near Fortuna, one of which ― a 6.2 ― hit in December 2021.
When setting up the alert system, geologists also consider the type of ground through which an earthquake travels, de Groot said. That’s because some soil pushes the seismic waves along more than other soils.
Soft soil absorbs more of the seismic waves, slowing them down; but it also makes them bigger, so you get harder shaking.
On Oct. 17, 1989, part of the Cypress Freeway in Oakland collapsed when the 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake hit the Bay Area. The part that failed was built on mud, de Groot said.
“We’re always looking at fine tuning” the alert system, he said. “We learn from every earthquake.”
Some people contacted the USGS to ask why they got Tuesday’s alert when they lived so far away from the epicenter.
“We’re trying our best not to over-alert people,” de Groot said. The USGS is working with social scientists to predict people’s responses to the alerts: How too many alerts for small quakes could make people complacent, etc.
Because different earthquakes can travel different distances and shake at different strengths, geologists want to strike a balance between speed and accuracy.
“There’s the chance more people would be alerted and not feel any shaking,” de Groot said, but “ultimately it’s about safety.”
First pioneered in 2006, the ShakeAlert system was first used in 2018 to warn trains and other industries to brace for earthquakes. It went public in California in 2019, then in Oregon and Washington in 2021.
The California Office of Emergency Services helped fund and set up sensors to detect earthquakes, de Groot said: 1,115 in California.
As of December 2022, ShakeAlert uses a network of 1,675 sensor stations and serves 50 million people from Washington to San Diego.
To see a list of apps for which you can sign up to get alerts in your area go to shakealert.org .
Ban On Measure 114 To Stay In Effect
On Tuesday, Dec. 13 in Burns, Harney County Circuit Court Judge Robert S. Raschio ruled that he would continue a temporary restraining order on Measure 114 (M114) until he receives notice from the state on the new permit system to purchase a firearm in the state of Oregon.
M114 passed in November and was scheduled to go into effect on Dec. 8. The measure requires permits, background checks, and completion of a safety class. The measure also bans purchasing magazines that carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
If the measure takes effect, individuals who already own magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds can continue to possess or use them at firing ranges, competitions, or for hunting (if allowed by the law). However, individuals wouldn’t be able to purchase a new magazine in the state of Oregon that holds more than 10 rounds.
The lawsuit — which was filed by Harney County residents Joseph Arnold and Cliff Asmussen, along with the nonprofit Gun Owners of America — argues that aspects of M114 violate the Oregon State Constitution.
On Dec. 13, Ben Callaway, owner of Spent Cartridge in Burns, testified that his distributors would not ship such guns to his store because of M114. He stated that he could only purchase firearms that ship without a magazine.
On Friday, Dec. 23, Rashcio will hear challenges from the attorney general’s office.
Oregon Veteran Home Loan Max Loan Limit Increases in 2023
The Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs (ODVA) will increase the maximum loan limit for the Oregon Veteran Home Loan for 2023, conforming to loan limits for mortgages set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). ODVA will now accept loans up to the new maximum loan amount of $726,200, an increase of $79,000 from $647,200 in 2022, for funding on or after January 1, 2023.
The Oregon Veteran Home Loan Program offers eligible veterans fixed-rate financing for owner-occupied, single-family residences in Oregon. The veteran home loan product is a non-expiring, lifetime benefit for any eligible Oregon veteran and may be used up to four times. The program provides financing for purchases only, and cannot be used for refinancing.
This state benefit is separate and distinct from the federal VA Home Loan Guarantee and has lent nearly $9 billion in low-interest home loans to more than 336,000 veterans since 1945. To be eligible, a veteran must have served on active duty with the U.S. Armed Forces, as documented on their DD-214, and must meet one of the service criteria outlined on ODVA’s website.
For more information about the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs Veteran Home Loan, and program eligibility, please visit www.orvethomeloans.com or call 800-633-6826 to speak with an ODVA home loan specialist.
Oregon’s Homeless Number On The Rise
Homelessness in Oregon increased 22-percent this year compared to 2020.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report which estimated the number of homeless people on a single night last January was 14-thousand-655.
The number of homeless youths declined 19-percent over the last two years.
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 Says Body Of Woman Found In Portland Remains Unidentified – Seeks Public Help
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.
