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, March 27, 2023
Willamette Valley Weather
Man Hit By Train In Eugene Taken To Hospital After Being Issued A Citation
A crash involving a train and a pedestrian in Eugene ended with non-life threatening injuries, but a citation for the victim. The crash occurred just after 5 p.m. on March 24 at the corner of W. 2nd Avenue and Monroe Street.
According to Eugene police, 28-year old William Moran was talking to someone near the railroad tracks. When the conversation was over, Moran crossed the tracks and was hit by a train.
The train had activated its emergency brakes and stopped. Moran was found on the ground by a camp, police said.
Police said Moran was then taken by Eugene Springfield fire to a local hospital for treatment. Moran had suffered non-life threatening injuries.
Moran was issued a citation for First Degree Criminal Trespass for being on the railroad tracks, police said.
UPDATE: Man Arrested At Alleged Bank Robbery Identified As Sex Offender From UO Trespass Incident
Last Wednesday, Eugene Police Department responded to an alleged bank robbery at the Wells Fargo on Oak and Broadway. When they arrived, they determined there was no robbery, but did arrest Elijah Weber, 28, of Cottage Grove.
According to Eugene police, Weber went into the bank demanding money. Call details provided to the officers indicated Weber could be high risk. When officers arrived on scene, they found no robbery, but Weber did begin fighting with police and resisting arrest.
Weber made headlines earlier this month when he was found allegedly masturbating in the showers of the women’s locker room at the University of Oregon Student Rec Center. At the time, the University of Oregon Police Department identified Weber as a registered sex offender. But because neither witness wanted to press charges, there was no case and Weber was given a UO Letter of Trespass. The letter stated Weber would be subject to arrest if he set foot on any property owned or operated by the university.
When police looked closer into Weber’s record, they found an outstanding warrant for his arrest. They also determined that he was a sex offender. But contrary to the run-in with UOPD, Weber showed up as “failed to register.”
Chris Parosa, Chief Deputy District Attorney for Lane County, explained how a sex offender’s status can change in such a short time.
“A person who is a registered sex offender ultimately has to notify a law enforcement agency within ten days of moving, so if they move to a new residence,” Parosa said. “Or ultimately annually on their birthday.”
But Parosa pointed out certain factors specifically in this area that make it hard to always keep up with sex offenders and their registration status.
“The reality is a lot of our sex offenders in this community — many of them are homeless,” Parosa said. “You know it’s very difficult to prove they failed to register after, or within ten days of a move, if they never had a home to begin with.”
At this time, Weber’s housing situation is unclear. He is currently in custody at the Lane County Jail on charges of resisting arrest, first-degree disorderly conduct, and failure to register as a sex offender.
The original warrant police identified was for failure to appear in court on a reckless driving charge from Oregon State Police.
Drop-in center located in Benton County provides safe space for people who are unhoused & housing-insecure
Watch this video and hear what volunteers, staff, and community members have to say about their local resource center for unhoused and housing-insecure members of the Benton County community.
The Corvallis Daytime Drop-in Center is doing a lot with a little to give a hand up to some of the most vulnerable populations in Benton County. The community-based resource hub provides information, referrals, job placement, and direct services for people experiencing homelessness and poverty in Benton County and beyond.
“The drop-in center exists because people need to feel loved and understand that they’re cared for and have a social community that they can be a part of and feel safe,” said Allison Hobgood, executive director of the Corvallis Daytime Drop-in Center.
Corvallis Daytime Drop-in Center, in collaboration with Benton County, is seeking additional support from state legislators to help build a navigation center that will provide 24-7 shelter and crucial services to county residents who are experiencing homelessness.
In alignment with policy recommendations from Benton County’s Home, Opportunity, Planning, and Equity (HOPE) Advisory Board, the navigation center will support systems-level outcomes to improve data coordination, care coordination, augment sheltering, identify and address gaps in services, and provide a one-stop resource center for people most in need.
Contact healthdeptcommunications@bentoncountyor.gov to learn more.
Lebanon Fire District responds to second structure fire in the same day!
At 1920 Lebanon Fire District was dispatched to its second structure fire of the day. Initial reports stated that a fifth wheel RV was on fire and everyone was out.
The Incident commander arrived on scene to a fully involved fifth wheel trailer with no exposures. The fire was extinguished in about 20 minutes after the first engine arrived. Lebanon Fire had 16 personnel respond to the fire. No injuries were reported during the fire. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Lebanon Fire District Responds to Fire that Destroys Shop and Contents
At 10:09 Lebanon Fire District responded to a report of a structure fire. The first arriving unit arrived to a 36X36 pole building with smoke and fire showing. After using the circular saw to gain access into the building, the Lebanon Fire District was able to knock the fire down.
Lebanon Fire District responded with 19 personnel to extinguish the fire. Albany Fire Department and Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District assisted with the numerous medical calls that came in during the fire. No injuries were reported during the fire. The Cause of the fire is still under investigation.
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)
