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, February 20, 2023
Willamette Valley Weather
Fire Totals Mobile Home in N. Danebo Park Sunday Night
We’ve had other readers report that it took more than fifteen minutes before the fire department showed up and by that time the home was pretty much totaled. Several stated how toxic the smoke was and they were thankful it wasn’t summer time as could have taken out even more homes. There is no updated information from Eugene Springfield Fire Department yet this morning. (https://coeapps.eugene-or.gov/RuralFireCad/Details/EventID/23044924)
Anti-Semitic Flyers in Bags Found In South Eugene
Anti-Semitic flyers once again are being found in Lane County. They were first spotted across the Thurston community in Springfield; now they are in the south side of Eugene.
One neighbor who lives near Tugman park said she and her fellow neighbors saw bags all across the streets and in front of their homes.
This has been happening now for over a year with no suspects being found and seems to be escalating. Sad that is still happening in our community.
‘Polar Plunge’ Returned This Weekend to the Willamette for Special Olympics Oregon
The polar plunge brings together law enforcement, medicine, businesses, organizations, and any local individuals to brave the low temperatures. Lane County Sheriff Cliff Harrold and the team completed the Eugene Track Town #polarplunge2023 this morning in support of Special Olympics Oregon Athletes!
The money raised goes towards providing Special Olympics athletes access to sports, equipment, and activities within the community. Other than the main event, there was also a 5k run and costume contest earlier in the morning. Some participants even ran into the Willamette still in costume. For more on future events or to donate, visit soor.org.
Benton County Sheriff Says, “Enough is Enough”
CORVALLIS, Ore. – “Enough is enough,” says Benton County Sheriff Jef Van Arsdall. “With assistance from Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) grant funding, I will be increasing patrols to target speeding, distracted driving, and impaired driving, to reduce traffic fatalities in Benton County.”
Benton County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) Deputies responded to more crashes involving fatalities in 2022 than they have seen yearly in over two decades. This year to date, BCSO has responded to 38 crashes, two involving fatalities.
The Enough is Enough Awareness Campaign seeks to bring to light the lives lost in Benton County traffic crashes, making sure the public is both aware of this serious problem and what drivers can do to help.
Expanded traffic enforcement will target state highways, county roads, and high-traffic areas of Benton County. Patrol deputies will be assigned to specific locations and assisted by Drug Recognition Experts, trained in DUII enforcement and drug recognition.
BCSO needs your help. If you witness erratic driving behavior, such as passing in no-passing zones, following too closely, or a vehicle failing to maintain its lane, have your passenger call 9-1-1 immediately. If you are traveling alone first find a safe place to pull over before calling. Report the location, direction of travel, license plate, and description of the vehicle.
It is important to reiterate, calling 9-1-1 is for emergencies at the time of the occurrence only. Do not report unsafe driving once you have reached your destination.
While BCSO cannot stop every crash, with assistance from the public, together they can reduce the number of lives tragically lost due to reckless driving.
BLM Waives Day Use Fees For Washington’s Birthday Today
In honor of George Washington’s birthday and to increase recreational access to public land, the Bureau of Land Management is waiving recreation standard amenity and day-use fees for visitors on February 20th.
A release said the BLM is inviting the public to visit unique and diverse natural landscapes and visitor facilities on BLM-managed lands to celebrate the life of the first U.S. President George Washington.
This marks the second of the BLM’s fee-free days of 2023. Fee-free days refer to the waiver of standard amenity fees and day-use fees, such as visitor centers, picnic/day use areas, and National Conservation Land units where fees are charged. Expanded amenity fees and other fees, like group day use, overnight camping, cabin rentals and individual special recreation permits, will remain in effect unless the authorized officer determines it is appropriate to waive them.
MORE INFO: Winter adventure in the Pacific Northwest – Our top locations for recreation in the snow, rain, or ice https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/766c58075f574db2b52f3d2e13b75bb8
Wyden and Merkley Introduce Bill To Help Communities In The Klamath Basin Respond To Severe Drought
U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley said today they have introduced legislation that would support farmers and ranchers responding to severe drought and restoring fish and wildlife habitat in the Klamath Basin.
“The farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin have weathered historic drought with significant federal investment and assistance, but the region is in desperate need of additional support, ” said Wyden. “While I’m gratified Senator Merkley and I brought resources for species recovery and habitat restoration to the region in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, it’s clear that more needs to be done to ensure the long-term viability of the Klamath Basin natural resources and economy. Our bill helps to provides long-term support for the community to ensure that farmers can make ends meet during drought years while also protecting and restoring endangered fish habitat for generations to come.”
“After years of consecutive drought, farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin need a boost,” said Senator Merkley, who serves as the Chairman of the Interior Subcommittee that funds the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.? “As efforts continue to implement the historic dam removal efforts in the Klamath Basin, our bill is critical to fulfilling commitments made to the farmers and ranchers on the Klamath Project as part of the historic Klamath Basin Power and Facilities Agreement.”
The ongoing drought conditions have been devastating for communities in the Klamath Basin, with the Bureau of Reclamation unable to meet the needs of communities in the basin. In 2021 — the worst year on record in 100 years — the Bureau of Reclamation announced for the first time no water would be made available to the farmers. That same year, canals in the area went without water, causing hundreds of households to be without water for drinking, cooking, sanitation, or other basic needs. Drought has also hurt severely impacted Tribes in the basin, imperiling culturally important fish and wildlife.
Wyden and Merkley’s Klamath Power and Facilities Agreement Support Act would help address the needs of these communities as they work together to realize long-term solutions by:
- Authorizing Interior to enter into an agreement with Bonneville Power Administration to reduce the costs of power for the Irrigation Districts;
- Authorizing Interior to complete physical projects that reduce the risk of fish entrapment, reduce or avoid impacts to fish and habitat caused by diversion of water for irrigation, and projects that restore fish habitat, including those held in trust by the Tribes;
- Helping pay for the costs of operating an irrigation pumping plan in Tulelake;
- Helping pay for the costs of replacing the C Irrigation Canal; and
- Authorizing Interior to take ownership of Keno Dam from Pacificorp, once Pacificorp removes the lower four Klamath Dams.
“Senators Wyden and Merkley have been consistent champions for delivering much-needed federal resources to Klamath County,” said Klamath County Commissioner Kelley Minty. “I am grateful they are continuing to fight for the Basin’s critical needs by taking the additional step of introducing this new legislation that provides a lifeline to local farmers and ranchers devastated by drought as well as resources to protect and recover fish and habitat that are so important to our tribal communities.”
Bill text is hereEditSign — Additionally, as part of their efforts to support the region meet its water challenges, Wyden and Merkley successfully fought for $162 million in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for habitat restoration efforts in the Klamath Basin.
Oregon Legislature Is Considering A Bill That Would Create The Nation’s Most Comprehensive Law Against Paramilitary Activity
An armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge. Over 100 straight days of racial justice protests that turned downtown Portland into a battleground. A violent breach of the state Capitol. Clashes between gun-toting right-wingers and leftist militants.
Over the past decade, Oregon experienced the sixth-highest number of extremist incidents in the nation, despite being 27th in population, according to an Oregon Secretary of State report. Now, the state Legislature is considering a bill that, experts say, would create the nation’s most comprehensive law against paramilitary activity.
It would provide citizens and the state attorney general with civil remedies in court if armed members of a private paramilitary group interfere with, or intimidate, another person who is engaging in an activity they have a legal right to do, such as voting. A court could block paramilitary members from pursuing an activity if the state attorney general believed it would be illegal conduct.
All 50 states prohibit private paramilitary organizations and/or paramilitary activity, but no other law creates civil remedies, said Mary McCord, an expert on terrorism and domestic extremism who helped craft the bill. The Oregon bill is also unique because it would allow people injured by private, unauthorized paramilitary activity to sue, she said.
Opponents say the law would infringe on the rights to freely associate and bear arms.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Dacia Grayber, a Democrat from suburban Portland, said the proposed reforms “would make it harder for private paramilitaries to operate with impunity throughout Oregon, regardless of their ideology.”
But dozens of conservative Oregonians, in written testimony, have expressed suspicion that the Democrat-controlled Legislature aims to pass a bill restricting the right to assemble and that the legislation would target right-wing armed groups like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer, but not black-clad anarchists who have vandalized downtown Portland and battled police.
“This bill would clearly put restrictions on who could gather in a group and for what reasons they chose to,” wrote Matthew Holman, a resident of Coos Bay, a town on Oregon’s southwest coast.
The pioneering measure raises a host of issues, which lawmakers tried to parse in a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week:
If residents are afraid to go to a park with their children while an armed militia group is present, could they later sue the group? What constitutes a paramilitary group? What is defined as being armed?
Oregon Department of Justice attorney Carson Whitehead said the proposed law would not sanction a person for openly carrying firearms, which is constitutionally permissible. But if a paramilitary group went to a park knowing their presence would be intimidating, anyone afraid of also going to the park could sue for damages, Whitehead said.
“This particular bill is not directed at individuals open-carrying. This is directed at armed, coordinated paramilitary activity,” added McCord, who is the executive director of Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
On the other side of the country in Vermont, a bill making it a crime to operate a paramilitary training camp got final approval from the state Senate on Friday. The measure, which senators earlier approved by a 29-1 vote, also allows state prosecutors to seek an injunction to close such a facility.
“This bill gives the state the authority it needs to protect Vermonters from fringe actors looking to create civil disorder,” said state Sen. Philip Baruth, a Democrat, and Progressive from Burlington.
Baruth introduced the measure in response to a firearms training facility built without permits in the town of Pawlet. Neighbors frequently complained about gunfire coming from the Slate Ridge facility, calling it a menace. Baruth’s bill now goes to the Vermont House.
Under the proposed Oregon law, a paramilitary group could range from ones that wear uniforms and insignia, like the Three Percenters, to a handful of people who act in a coordinated way with a command structure to engage in violence, McCord said.
Rep. Rick Lewis, a Republican from Silverton, asked pointedly during the committee hearing whether rocks and frozen water bottles, which Portland police said had been thrown at them during demonstrations in 2021, would fall under the proposed law.
A frozen water bottle and rocks could cause serious injury or death, so they would be considered dangerous weapons under Oregon law, responded Kimberly McCullough, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum’s legislative director.
Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, whose jurisdiction encompasses Portland, testified in favor of the bill, expressing frustration that police often can’t single out violent actors lurking among peaceful protesters.
“Our current inability to get upstream of this violence before it starts leaves us vulnerable to organized criminal elements who enter into a protest environment with the express intention of escalating the situation into an assault or arson or a riot,” Schmidt said.
McCord, the terrorism expert, said the measure would mark a milestone in the U.S., where the FBI has warned of a rapidly growing threat of homegrown violent extremism.
“This bill as amended would be the most comprehensive statute to address unauthorized paramilitary activity that threatens civil rights,” she said.
The tactic of enabling private residents to file lawsuits against paramilitary groups may be a novel one, but it has been used in other areas.
Environmental groups, for example, can sue businesses accused of violating federal pollution permits. In Texas, a 2021 law authorizes lawsuits against anyone who performs or aids in an abortion. In Missouri, a law allows citizens to sue local law enforcement officers who enforce federal gun laws.
But the Oregon bill differs from these laws because only people who are injured by unlawful paramilitary activity could sue, McCord said. The Oregon bill also opens a path for a government enforcement mechanism, since it allows the state attorney general to seek a court injunction to prevent a planned paramilitary activity, she said.
Whether the bill will pass is unclear. It needs a simple majority in both the House and Senate to go to Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek for her approval or veto. Kotek’s spokesperson, Elisabeth Shepard, said the governor generally doesn’t comment on pending legislation.
Oregon State Fire Marshal is accepting nominations for the 2023 Sparky Awards
SALEM, Ore. – Do you know someone who has done an exceptional job improving fire prevention and safety within their community? Let’s recognize them for their outstanding work!
The Oregon Office of State Fire Marshal is accepting nominations for the 2023 Golden and Silver Sparky Awards.
These awards honor and recognize people for their outstanding achievements in fire prevention and safety education. The Golden Sparky acknowledges a member of the Oregon fire service, and the Silver Sparky recognizes a member of the public.
“We know Oregonians are doing great work around fire prevention and safety in their communities. This is a great opportunity to honor their achievements,” Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said. “Past recipients were instrumental in creating fire adapted communities, leading smoke alarm installations at the neighborhood level, and advocating for fire safety through creative campaigns.”
The nomination deadline is April 3. Include an explanation and examples of your nominee’s contributions to preventing fires and fire losses in Oregon. Anyone can submit a nomination; you do not have to be a fire service member to nominate someone. Nomination formsEditSignEditSign can be found on the OSFM’s website.
Please email nominations to licAffairs@osp.oregon.gov“>OSFM.PublicAffairs@osp.oregon.gov or mail them to OSFM Public Affairs, 3565 Trelstad Ave. SE, Salem, OR, 97317.
Film Submissions Open For Klamath Independent Film Festival
Klamath Film, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes filmmaking in the Klamath Basin, is now accepting film submissions for the annual Klamath Independent Film Festival (KIFF) through June 1 via FilmFreeway.
The festival, scheduled to take place Sept. 22-24 at the Ross Ragland Theater in Klamath Falls and simultaneously presented via livestream and on-demand, is entering its 11th year. Dubbed “the premiere Oregon-centric film festival,” KIFF is the only film festival that exclusively showcases independent films made-in-Oregon or by Oregon resident filmmakers, along with submissions from bordering California counties Siskiyou and Modoc.
Festival submissions are split into six categories based on geographic location as northern or southern Oregon, designated as either feature films (40 minutes or longer), shorts (under 40 minutes), and Kindergarten-College student films. Student films should be no longer than 15 minutes. As with 2022’s festival, prize money totaling $5,000 will be divided among the six categories.
Any film completed by Jan. 1, 2022 or later and is made predominantly in Oregon or by an Oregon resident filmmaker is eligible to submit for consideration. Film selections for KIFF will be announced in mid-July. Continuing a popular tradition, award-winning films from the six categories will receive a one-of-a-kind art piece trophy custom carved by the Southern Cascade Woodcrafters Guild along with a cash prize.
The festival is a popular draw for filmmakers and film fans from across the Pacific Northwest to Klamath Falls for several days of films and social activities. Since 2020 due to the then COVID-19-related crowd restrictions, the festival has also been at the forefront of virtual festival structure, presenting KIFF in a hybrid format by live-streaming all on-stage activities and presenting every film along with an exclusive director Q&A on-demand for a limited time.
From major feature film productions to videos shot on cell phones by amateurs, films of all variety are accepted for festival consideration. KIFF is an all-genre film festival, themed solely around the celebration of filmmaking in Oregon. The festival combines film screenings – many of them world premieres – along with director interviews, panel discussions, and social activities.
The festival has grown by leaps and bounds since its early days, established initially in 2013 one year after Klamath Film’s founding as little more than a means for members to showcase their own projects locally. The festival has grown in popularity and volume, now a three-day nationally recognized celebration of Oregon filmmaking.
“We are ecstatic about our 11th annual film festival this year,” said Cassidy Quistorff, Klamath Film director. “We have some big plans and couldn’t get any of this accomplished without our fabulous filmmakers, generous sponsors and grants, and hardworking board members and volunteers. The talent that Oregon filmmakers have is totally unmatched, and our goal is always for everyone and anyone to feel welcome and appreciated at KIFF.”
In recent years an opening night gala and street fair have been added to the schedule, along with a variety of social gatherings. In 2020 after the pandemic began KIFF gained further notoriety as the only film festival nationwide able to welcome an in-theater audience for over a year.
Last year’s festival celebrated over 30 made-in-Oregon films, including a special anniversary screening of the iconic 1970’s comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House, complete with on-stage toga dance-off, cast reunion, and special appearance by Otis Day.
The festival is not only a tourism draw but has also proven to be a networking opportunity for filmmakers and creatives across Oregon. In recent years several films have even been created as a result of filmmakers meeting at KIFF, and several film productions from KIFF alumnus are in pre-productions stages – some even slated to possibly be filmed in Klamath County.
Filmmakers may submit up to two films for KIFF at https://filmfreeway.com/klamathfilm. There is a $20 submission cost, but some waivers are available. Youth K-College film category submissions are free thanks to a scholarship partnership with Oregon Film. Filmmakers may submit their films from Feb. 1 through June 1.
Sponsors, volunteers, and film screeners are being sought to help present the film festival. If interested, contact info@klamathfilm.org. For more information about the Klamath Independent Film Festival visit www.klamathfilm.org.
