4A
|
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2021
|
APPEAL TRIBUNE
Wyden, Merkley propose bill
to upgrade power line system
Virginia Barreda
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
After proposing a bill that would feed
$1 billion into Oregon's power system
improvements, the state's two U.S. sen-
ators reintroduced legislation Wednes-
day that would increase the allotment to
$10 billion.
Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Mer-
kley's "Disaster Safe Power Grid Act"
would offer incentives to utility compa-
nies to do more to protect against power
outages and wildfires through power
system upgrades, fire and disaster safe-
ty equipment installation and proper
vegetation management.
The proposal comes after historic
wildfires across Oregon in 2020, includ-
ing fires that ignited in Santiam Canyon
following the Labor Day weekend wind-
storm, and the ice storms that knocked
out power for thousands of Willamette
Valley residents last month.
"In the last year alone, families in
Oregon and around the country have felt
the severe impacts of the climate emer-
gency in their communities — some los-
ing power for days because of the recent
winter storms, and others losing their
homes because of wildfires sparked by
aging power lines," Wyden said. "The
climate fight must include a significant
investment in making our power grid
more resilient to extreme weather
events and that means partnering with
utility companies to get the job done.
This is a public safety issue, and as an-
other dry summer is imminent, there's
no time to wait."
If passed, the Act would:
h Establish a $10 billion-per-year
matching grant program for power com-
panies through the Department of Ener-
gy to reduce the risk of disaster-caused
outages or power lines causing wild-
fires.
Festival
Continued from Page 1A
on it.”
He said the board may change the
name of the event to the Silverton Arts
Festival, dropping the “fine arts” desig-
nation, though that decision is still a few
weeks out.
“With Covid, our painters aren’t
painting and nobody’s coming in,” Wood
said. “The art market has basically col-
lapsed. A name change is under consid-
eration because we need a more dis-
parate way of defining art.”
Graham
Continued from Page 3A
website, Lindsey details her business'
struggles.
"In one day, every business my hus-
band and I owned was told to CLOSE...
We had no income coming in, 6 leases to
pay, 6 overhead bills, our own personal
bills and no clue when we would be able
to earn a living again."
She said they closed all their busi-
nesses on March 23, 2020 and "were
unemployed and going into debt further
every day."
The Grahams declined to answer
questions about how many, if any, of
their businesses closed permanently.
Lindsey Graham's Facebook profile
said she started at Glamour Salon in
2009, the same year she joined the so-
cial media platform. Her social media
presence was largely muted, private and
focused on promoting her business until
May 5 — when she posted a video an-
nouncing the "grand re-opening" of her
salon.
Posts soon turned political and criti-
cal of mask-wearing and shutdown pol-
icies.
"Just got yelled at by a customer in a
store for not wearing a mask," she wrote
in one post in February. "He tried to have
me removed twice... We can win this
people!!!"
With national media attention and
the status as a hero among many pro-
testing mask mandates, the results of
the election and business closures,
Lindsey's personal Facebook spawned a
Patriot Barbie Facebook page, a Patriot
Barbie Instagram and a Patriot Barbie
Parler account.
Until recently, her Facebook pages
gave little indication that she has left
Oregon. Her Parler lists her Dream Built
page, her Mewe profile says she is in real
estate and her Instagram account de-
scribes her as an "AZ refugee."
Despite the claim of moving to a
"deep red" state, Arizona voters elected
President Joe Biden by a narrow margin
in the 2020 election. The once solidly
Republican state now has two Democrat
senators and is considered a more "pur-
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden talks with Dale Weise in front of his burned down home on Sept. 26, 2020 in Gates, Oregon.
ABIGAIL DOLLINS / STATESMAN JOURNAL
h Give special priority to smaller, ru-
ral electric companies.
h Promote proven methods for hard-
ening the power grid and reducing wild-
fire risks, including undergrounding of
powerlines, installation of microgrids,
and strengthening utility poles.
h Provide for hardening of overhead
power lines and clearing of brush and
other hazardous vegetation where un-
dergrounding of power lines is not a fa-
vorable option.
h Require power companies to have
“skin in the game” by making the pro-
gram a 1-to-1 matching grant, with an ex-
ception for smaller utilities where the
matching requirement is one-third of
the grant.
h Deliver accountability on the part
of utilities and the Department of Ener-
gy by generating a report every two
years on efforts conducted under the
grant program.
Marion County Commissioner Kevin
Cameron voiced his support for the pro-
posed bill.
“After experiencing a traumatic evac-
uation during the Beachie Creek wild-
fire, and losing electricity for days from
this recent ice storm, it is evident Ore-
gon is vulnerable to many different nat-
ural disasters,” Cameron said in a re-
lease. "And because of my experience, I
understand the need to strengthen the
utility Infrastructure against all disas-
ters.
"The improvements resulting from
Senators Wyden and Merkley’s bill will
reduce disasters in the future, but im-
prove everyday reliability for our citi-
zens who live, work and protect the en-
vironment in potential wildfire areas
and all of Oregon," he said.
Virginia Barreda is the breaking
news and public safety reporter for the
Statesman Journal. She can be reached
at 503-399-6657 or at vbarreda@states-
manjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter
at @vbarreda2.
Most Silverton Arts Association
members are in their 70s and 80s, Wood
said. Historically, most of the artists
were painters, probably watercolors,
some oil, some acrylic, he said. But both
he and Case would like to see the defini-
tions altered.
“I have a friend who says that if work
isn’t christened as art by the high priests
of the New York establishment, then it’s
not art,” Wood said. “I think we need to
change the definition.”
Case agreed.
“We all have a real appreciation for
traditional art,” Case said. “But we now
are hoping we can somewhat bridge the
gap between ‘fine art' and ‘commercial
art.’ We need a broader range of options
for people getting into the arts.”
Wood said the organization's usual
annual budget of about $80,000 in-
cludes about $25,000 from the festival.
The organization also was awarded two
grants last year, one from the federal
government and one from Marion Coun-
ty. They are awaiting a possible award
from this year’s federal stimulus pack-
age.
“We’re surviving; we’re not in the red
and we won’t go into the red,” he said.
“We’ll shut things down first. And if we
can’t do the festival this year, we will
probably go under.”
He said if the organization is able to
bring in the $25,000 typically made by
each year’s festival event, “we could sur-
vive, even if we had just most of it. It may
be a shadow of its former self this year,
though.”
“Ultimately I think (the pandemic) is
going to be our salvation,” he said, “be-
cause it’s pushing us to make decisions
now that needed to be made a long time
ago.”
The Silverton Art Festival is tentative-
ly slated for Aug. 21 and 22.
Freelance writer/photographer Geoff
Parks is based in Salem. Have Silverton
story
ideas?
E-mail
geoff-
parks@gmail.com.
ple" or "magenta" state.
In November, voters in Maricopa
County — home to Phoenix and its met-
ropolitan area, which includes Buckeye
— favored Biden over Trump in a 50-48
split.
Non-profits, legal funds and lots
of merch
merchandise at patriotbarbie.com.
Merchandise includes Trump pens, pin-
up style calendars and American flag
flowy cardigans, leggings, earrings and
purses.
It also includes a link to Graham
wearing a Santa hat and singing "Don-
ald Baby" to the tune of "Santa Baby."
The webstore specifies that proceeds
are donated to the Glamour! Institute for
Freedom.
It states all proceeds from her 2021
Patriot Barbies calendar go to the
Wounded Warrior Project and the K9s
for Warriors charities. With 100 calen-
dars being sold for $30 each, this would
amount to $3,000, but Graham declined
to specify how much had been donated
to the charities.
Graham ends her biographic section
on her site affirming her choice to bring
her family and business into the spot-
light, despite the attention and harass-
ment allegedly forcing her to leave her
home state.
"I do not regret a moment of my
choice," Lindsey said on her website.
"Going through this has given me the
strength to be who I need to be. A strong
voice for conservative women, a voice
for small business owners, a voice for
Americans."
She said the turmoil spurred her to
become "Patriot Barbie" — an insult
once lobbed at her by a "liberal" in Sa-
lem that she then took on as her own
moniker.
Graham said she intends to use her
new-found platform to forge ahead and
those intending her destruction actually
created new opportunities for her fam-
ily.
She vowed: "You can certainly expect
to see big things coming from me soon."
For questions, comments and news
tips, email reporter Whitney Wood-
worth at wmwoodworth@
statesmanjournal.com, call 503-910-
6616
or
follow
on
Twitter
@wmwoodworth.
Robert Anglen investigates consumer
issues for The Republic. If you're the vic-
tim of fraud, waste or abuse, reach him
at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com
or 602-444-8694. Follow him on Twitter
@robertanglen.
A fresh start in the desert
In July, the same month Lindsey took
the Oregon government to court, the
Grahams registered their new business
Dream Built Investments LLC with the
Arizona Corporation Commission.
Both are registered as members and
managers with their Silverton address-
es listed.
But they do not appear to own the
house where the business is registered,
property records show. The house is in
Buckeye, near an age-restricted, "active
adult" master-planned community
called Sun City Festival.
Maricopa County Assessor records
show the Grahams purchased a differ-
ent house in Buckeye in September for
$395,000. The assessor's site lists the
home's cash value as $324,000.
The only property listed as being
owned by Dream Built Investments is a
residential parcel in Sun City purchased
in February.
Many of the geotags on the Dream
Built Instagram page in early March ap-
peared to be false.
A photo matching Zillow photos of
the Grahams' former Silverton home is
tagged "Phoenix, Arizona" and posts on
the business's Instagram site include
several tags for Verrado — a master-
planned community in Buckeye. None
of the properties connected to the Gra-
hams through real estate records are lo-
cated in Verrado.
The business website in early March
displayed several galleries of staging,
custom builds and interior design.
Many of the pictures — a chande-
liered bedroom, brick patio, a freestand-
ing bathtub overlooking a green field —
appeared to have been pulled from the
real estate listing for the Silverton home
and appeared on the Zillow listing.
Others, like one showing a wheeled,
wood pallet coffee table, appear to be
stock photos and are on websites dating
back years.
Lindsey has turned her struggle pub-
lic. And it has led to donations. Thou-
sands of them.
In the statement announcing her de-
parture from Oregon posted on her so-
cial media page, Lindsey said the perse-
cution from Brown gave her a voice and
a platform.
This platform includes multiple so-
cial media accounts, a webstore and a
non-profit organization.
Her website features a prominent
"Donate Now" button, links to a Go-
FundMe fundraiser and an online store
featuring American flag motifs and
shapely silhouettes in front of American
flags.
Two GoFundMe accounts state that
they were created for Graham to help
pay any fines or attorney fees for re-
opening early.
By March 2, one of the accounts with
Graham listed as the organizer had
raised $79,676.
On her website, she mentions a sec-
ond GoFundMe account "opened by a
supporter" that raised enough money to
cover her OSHA fine and legal fees. A
link to this account is not active.
Lindsey created a non-profit founda-
tion called the Glamour! Institute for
Freedom, whose stated purpose is to
"promote and support legal challenges
and cases ... that advance the free mar-
ket, support property rights and ad-
vance the cause of freedom in the pub-
lic's interest."
When asked, Graham and her attor-
ney did not say whether they were han-
dling cases other than Graham's.
The Institute for Freedom and Glam-
our Institute for Freedom Legal Center,
Incorporated, are both registered as
non-profits under Lindsey's name, ac-
cording to Oregon Secretary of State
records. Graham's attorney, Day, is list-
ed as the registered agent for both or-
ganizations.
Graham and Day declined to specify
how much money the non-profits had
raised and how the funds were spent.
Graham has also created a social
media presence on Facebook, Parler and
Instagram directing fans to her online