WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2022 | SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
Primary elections set
36 candidates to vie for
governor, many races contested
Connor Radnovich
Salem Statesman Journal | USA TODAY NETWORK
Primary election races at the local, state and federal
levels are now set.
With new legislative and congressional district
maps and the parting of many senior political office-
holders, this year is shaping up to be one of the most
uncertain election cycles in recent Oregon history.
Gov. Kate Brown cannot run for reelection due to
term limits, Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Sa-
lem, announced he would retire after his current term
and a number of senators and representatives are ei-
ther resigning from office or are leaving after short-
term appointments.
Republicans are looking to break Democrats' multi-
year supermajority control of the Oregon House and
Senate as well as elect a Republican governor for the
first time since 1982. Democrats are pursuing to main-
tain that control as they weather shifting leadership at
the top of the party.
With the legislative session completed and only 10
weeks before the May 17 primary election, some politi-
cal analysts have remarked on how quiet the races
have been so far. Even among serious candidates, the
overt indications of the campaign season — such as
ubiquitous television political advertisements — have
so far been largely absent.
“You have to introduce yourself to the voters. All the
forums you go to in the world won’t do that. You have to
See PRIMARY, Page 4A
Names of the 2022 candidate filings appear on a
screen on Tuesday, March 8 at the Oregon State
Capitol in Salem. ABIGAIL DOLLINS / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Environment
bills address
wine in cans,
earthquake
safety, more
Here are the environment
bills the Legislature passed
Tracy Loew
Salem Statesman Journal | USA TODAY NETWORK
Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Linn County, listens during a June Senate legislative hearing.
BRIAN HAYES / STATESMAN JOURNAL
‘Egregious violation’
Parents demand equal education
time for students with disabilities
Eddy Binford-Ross
Salem Statesman Journal | USA TODAY NETWORK
A blind student is given 20 minutes of online in-
struction each day, while his peers receive more than
five hours of in-person class daily.
A kindergartener with autism is told he can only at-
tend half days, forcing his parent to quit her job to sup-
port his education.
A medically fragile student is told there’s no staff to
support them and ends up missing 40 days of school.
In districts across Oregon, families of students with
disabilities say they are being denied equal access to
public education. These families say their children’s
non-disabled peers are in school full time, while their
kids have their hours and days cut.
Shortening school days is almost always illegal un-
der state and federal disability laws, but that hasn’t
stopped it from happening to students with disabili-
ties across the state. And when it does happen, the
process to get full school days reinstated can take
years, or it might never happen.
Oregon families, government officials and disability
rights organizations are fighting to ensure students
with disabilities receive the public education the law
affords them. They’re proposing changes to state law
so that enforcing these protections is easier, working
to turn public attention to the issue and bringing legal
challenges against local and state education organi-
zations.
“Special education is not a favor. Special educa-
tion is a right,” Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis,
said.
Legislating change
The issue isn’t the laws − the actions described
above are already illegal. The problem is enforce-
ment, Gelser Blouin said.
In 2017, the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill
263, which limited the circumstances in which stu-
dents could be placed on a shortened day.
State law allows students to be placed on an ab-
breviated schedule only if it’s required for the stu-
dent’s needs and a specific set of steps has been fol-
lowed. The parents must be allowed to participate in
the decision-making process. There must be proof
that the student’s Individualized Education Program
See DISABILITIES, Page 2A
Better late than never?
Oregon to soon offer optional
digital vaccine card
Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick
Salem Statesman Journal | USA TODAY NETWORK
Oregonians toting around their physical COIVD-19
vaccine cards to get into the restaurants and venues
that require proof of immunization will soon have a
digital option.
After first making headlines in the fall, the Oregon
Wine in cans will be included in the state’s Bottle
Bill recycling program, under a bill passed during the
final days of Oregon’s 2022 Legislative Session.
Beginning July 1, 2025, wine in cans will carry a
10-cent deposit and refund like other beverages.
Senate Bill 1520 also addresses low redemption
rates by requiring large non-participating beverage
distributors in certain parts of the state to either pro-
vide redemption services, join the Oregon Beverage
Recycling Cooperative or pay a fee to support re-
demption.
And it directs the Oregon Liquor Control Commis-
sion to develop signs to be posted in all groceries and
markets to make redemption opportunities more un-
derstandable for consumers.
The Bottle Bill update was among a number of en-
vironmental bills considered during the 2022 short
legislative session.
Here’s what passed
Tank farm safety: More than 600 fuel tanks sit
along the Willamette River in Portland, on unstable
soil. In the event of a Cascadia subduction zone
earthquake, many of those tanks would spill onto the
ground, slide into the river or explode.
Senate Bill 1567 requires those fuel terminal own-
ers to conduct seismic vulnerability assessments,
and submit them to the Department of Environmen-
tal Quality by June 1, 2024. The owners then must
implement seismic risk mitigation plans approved by
the department.
And the bill requires the Oregon Department of
Energy to develop an energy security plan by June 1,
2024.
“We’re taking critical action to prepare for disas-
ter. It’s only a matter of time,” said Sen. Michael Dem-
brow, D-Portland, who carried the bill.
Zoonotic disease prevention: Live-animal mar-
kets are banned in Oregon under House Bill 3128, in
an effort to slow the spread of disease from animals
to humans. Zoonotic diseases are on the rise world-
wide, driven by habitat loss, climate change and
wildlife exploitation.
The bill also strengthens state agency coordina-
tion, and requires the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife to review and update its list of prohibited
wildlife species.
“It’s so exciting to see Oregon leading efforts to
prevent future public health crises by tackling wild-
life exploitation head on,” said Quinn Read, Oregon
policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
See BILLS, Page 4A
Health Authority is set to debut the app in late March.
The app, which lets a user upload their vaccination
information to get a scannable code, will be free to
anyone in the state who wants to use it.
People will be able to access the tool, which uses
SMART Health Card technology, on both computers
and mobile devices. OHA is conducting a web con-
tent accessibility review to ensure the app works for
users needing assistive technology, a spokesperson
said Friday. The app will be available in English,
See DIGITAL, Page 2A
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