Friday, October 20, 2017
OFF PAGE ONE
DRUGS: House Bill 2355 also contained language about reducing racial profiling
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East Oregonian
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Morrow County District
Attorney Justin Nelson said
he had grave concerns about
the change.
“I was absolutely against
it,” he said. “I know the
entire Oregon DA’s associa-
tion was against it.”
He said his concerns
stemmed from the lack of
accurate information about
hard drug use.
“One thing that always
came up is sending users
to prison,” he said. “That
doesn’t happen. Possession
of meth is always a proba-
tionary sentence. They don’t
go to prison. Dealers go,
and manufacturers, but not
users.”
Nelson also said he was
concerned that the reduction
from felony to misdemeanor
was misleading.
“I don’t think the seri-
ousness or consequence to
society has decreased in the
past month or two,” he said.
Representative
Greg
Smith, who voted against the
bill, said the legislation was
meant to target a specific
group.
“These were crimes
primarily committed by
female offenders, and this
part of the legislation wanted
to do everything it can to
help female offenders with
families or kids, and realized
many of the offenses were
the results of drug or alcohol
abuse.”
But Smith said while
those were good intentions,
Photo contributed by Hermiston Police Department
A half-pound bag of crystal meth being weighed after
being confiscated by the Blue Mountain Enforcement
Narcotics Team.
the legislation ignored some
of the most direct victims of
crimes committed by drug
users.
“Victims have their iden-
tities stolen, or are victims
of crimes people commit
while on a substance,” he
said. “I ended up voting no,
not because I don’t have
sympathy for the people
who are victims of their
own circumstances, but in
my view, there has to be
consequences with actions
committed.”
Stuart Roberts, Pendleton
police chief and chair of the
BENT drug team, said this
bill was a response to the
passage of House Bill 3194
in 2013, which aimed to
lower the number of inmates
going into the Oregon prison
system. Specifically, he said,
that bill was designed to
lower the number of women
going to prison, so the state
did not have to build a
second women’s prison.
House Bill 2355 also
contained language about
reducing racial profiling,
requiring police depart-
ments to collect data about
a person during officer-ini-
tiated pedestrian or traffic
stops including race, gender,
ethnicity, and the nature of
the stop. The law is intended
to help officers see if they
are tracking a dispropor-
tionate number of minority
individuals.
Local officials said the
attempt to track and prevent
racial profiling may be an
issue for other communities,
but weren’t able to ratio-
nalize the issue in the same
bill as decriminalization of
hard drugs.
“Each community has
their own demographics,”
said Hermiston Police Chief
Jason Edmiston. “But how
decriminalizing got mixed
into it is beyond me.”
Nelson, too, said the issue
of racial profiling by police
may be more prominent on
the west side of the state. He
said while minorities may be
more affected on average by
drug offenses, it’s not some-
thing he’s found in Morrow
County.
Nelson also worried that
the reduced criminality
would be accompanied by a
drop in motivation for users
to follow treatment plans.
First-time offenders caught
in possession of a hard drug,
Nelson said, are offered
conditional
discharge,
where they plead and are
placed on formal probation.
If they complete probation
and treatment, the charge is
dismissed from their record.
Nelson said the promise
of having a felony charge
wiped from their record
gave offenders an incentive
to continue with treatment.
“The stigma of a felony
charge is gone,” he said.
“In my experience, there is
not the same stigma with a
misdemeanor, and not the
same incentive to comply
with treatment.”
Nelson said the new
rules haven’t come up too
often in his work yet, but
the term “usable amount” is
not always clear, making it
more work for an officer to
determine what the charge
should be.
For methamphetamines,
heroin and cocaine, a
“usable amount” is defined
as two grams or less.
Treatment,
not decriminalization
Smith and Nelson both
said the solution to the
problem lay in treatment,
rather than a reduction in
criminalization.
“I don’t believe we got
any more funding for treat-
ment,” Nelson said. “We
don’t have a drug court, and
Umatilla County doesn’t
have theirs anymore. Treat-
ment is still going to be an
issue.”
Smith said removing the
consequence at the back end
of the process was not the
answer.
“We need to eliminate it
on the front end, add mental
health counseling,” he said.
“I think the legislature is
failing us there.”
Roberts said the new
law adds several more tasks
for officers, which can be a
challenge.
“Specifically the ‘user
amount,’” he said. “There’s
also language specific to
residue. Before, it didn’t
matter — one ounce, 10
ounces. Now, it’s layered.
They have to weigh to
decide whether to arrest, or
to cite or not.”
Unless, he said, the
person has a prior drug-re-
lated offense — and to find
out that information, an
officer has to request the
person’s
comprehensive
criminal history.
“It’s one more step in the
process,” he said.
He added that they don’t
want field officers handling
substances more than neces-
sary, because they could
be laced with fentanyl, a
narcotic that can be harmful
to anyone who handles it.
Roberts said while the
law is designed to reduce
the stigma that was causing
felons problems with finding
housing or jobs, it doesn’t
address the root of the
problem.
“There have to be oppor-
tunities for finding housing
or treatment,” he said, adding
that those things are tough to
come by in rural areas.
Edmiston said while
the law wouldn’t alter his
department’s
day-to-day
operations much, the change
would lead to an increased
strain on all parts of the
system, from the fire offi-
cials and medics that have
to respond to drug-related
calls, to the officers that
have to do more legwork
when they arrest someone in
possession of drugs.
He added that the new
law wouldn’t automatically
lead to positive improve-
ment.
“We’re only going to be
as good as the individual
agencies hold themselves
accountable.”
–——
Contact
Jayati
Ramakrishnan at 541-564-
4534 or jramakrishnan@
eastoregonian.com.
FIRE: 22 of the 42 deaths in California’s
fires happened in a Sonoma County wildfire
Continued from 1A
EO file photo
Pendleton music instructor Andy Cary is currently battling a mysterious infection
at OHSU in Portland.
CARY: No option to reschedule concerts
Continued from 1A
concerned about me getting
better. It’s really touching.”
Cary, who also plays
alto sax and sings in a local
jazz quartet, hopes to return
to his usual healthy self
soon, but the concerts, even
if he recovers quickly, are
history. He and Callender
will focus on rehearsing
for the holiday concerts in
December.
“There’s no option to
reschedule,” Cary said.
Cary admitted he feels
a little embarrassed about
the steady outpouring of
concern from students,
family, friends and even
casual acquaintances.
“My phone is always
lighting up,” he said. “They
connect with me on social
media, they send texts and
emails — it’s been over-
whelming in all the best
ways.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or 941-966-0810.
U.S. government says laptops in
checked bags pose fire, explosion risk
WASHINGTON (AP)
— The U.S. government
is urging the world airline
community to ban large,
personal electronic devices
like laptops from checked
luggage because of the poten-
tial for a catastrophic fire.
The Federal Aviation
Administration said in a
paper filed recently with a
U.N. agency that its tests
show that when a laptop’s
rechargeable
lithium-ion
battery overheats in close
proximity to an aerosol spray
can, it can cause an explo-
sion capable of disabling an
airliner’s fire suppression
system. The fire could then
rage unchecked, leading to
“the loss of the aircraft,” the
paper said.
The U.N. agency, the
International Civil Aviation
Organization, sets global
aviation safety standards,
although member countries
must still ratify them. The
proposed ban is on the
agenda of a meeting of
ICAO’s panel on dangerous
goods being held this week
and next week in Montreal.
The FAA has conducted
10 tests involving a fully-
charged laptop packed in a
suitcase. A heater was placed
against the laptop’s battery
to force it into “thermal
runaway,” a condition in
which the battery’s tempera-
ture continually rises.
In one test, an 8-ounce
The loss total was
expected to climb “probably
dramatically so,” Jones told
reporters, making it likely
the fires also would become
the costliest in California’s
history.
The initial insurance
total covered 4,177 partial
residential losses, 5,449 total
residential losses, 35 rental
and condominium losses,
601 commercial property
losses, more than 3,000
vehicle losses, 150 farm
or agricultural equipment
losses, and 39 boats. Those
figures included some fire
losses in Southern California
— several dozen structures
were destroyed or damaged
in an Orange County fire —
though most were from the
northern part of the state,
agency officials said.
The California Depart-
ment of Forestry and Fire
Protection’s estimate of
homes
and
structures
destroyed was boosted to
6,900 from 5,700 as fire
crews returned to hard-hit
neighborhoods and assessed
remote and rural areas they
could not get to earlier,
spokesman Daniel Berlant
said.
He said most of the newly
counted destroyed buildings
burned on Oct. 8 and Oct. 9
— when the wildfires broke
out in wine country north
of San Francisco and other
nearby areas.
“The estimates are in
structures and are mostly
homes, but also includes
commercial structures and
outbuildings like barns and
sheds,” Berlant said.
Twenty-two
of
the
42 deaths in California’s
October fires happened in
AP Photo/Ben Margot
A sign on the chimney of a home warns looters
Wednesday, after it was destroyed by wildfires in Glen
Ellen, Calif. California fire officials have reported signif-
icant progress on containing wildfires that have rav-
aged parts of Northern California.
a Sonoma County wildfire,
making it the third-deadliest
in California history. A 1933
Los Angeles fire that killed
29 people was the dead-
liest, followed by the 1991
Oakland Hills fire killed 25.
When adjusted for infla-
tion, the Oakland Hills fire
is believed the costliest fire
in California history at $2.8
billion. It destroyed about
half as many homes and
other buildings as the current
series of fires.
California Gov. Jerry
Brown late Wednesday
issued an executive order to
speed up recovery efforts as
fire authorities say they’ve
stopped the progress of
wildfires.
More than 15,000 people
remain evacuated Thursday,
down from a high of 100,000
last Saturday.
Brown’s
order
also
allowed disrupted wineries
to relocate tasting rooms
and suspended state fees
for mobile home parks and
manufactured homes.
The order extends the
state’s prohibition on price
gouging during emergencies
until April 2018 and expe-
dites hiring of personnel for
emergency and recovery
operations.
In Los Angeles County,
authorities said a charred
body was found on Mount
Wilson,
where
crews
were trying to surround a
smoldering wildfire in steep
terrain.
The male body discov-
ered late Wednesday was
recovered by the coroner’s
office, which will try to iden-
tify it, Sheriff’s Sgt. Vincent
Plair said.
California
firefighters
were also battling a blaze
that sent smoke billowing
into the college beach town
of Santa Cruz.
The wildfire in steep and
rugged terrain had grown to
nearly half a square mile (1.3
square kilometers) and the
number of houses threatened
by the fire had doubled to
300.
Several
firefighters
suffered minor injuries.
FAA via AP, File
In this April 2014 file image frame grab from video,
provided by the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA), a test at the FAAs technical center in Atlantic
City, N.J.
LIBRARY: Plans to start ‘selfie with my library card’ contest
aerosol can of dry shampoo
—which is permitted in
checked baggage — was
strapped to the laptop. There
was a fire almost immedi-
ately and it grew rapidly. The
aerosol can exploded within
40 seconds.
The test showed that
because of the rapid progres-
sion of the fire, Halon gas fire
suppressant systems used in
airline cargo compartments
would be unable to put out
the fire before there was an
explosion, the FAA said.
The explosion might not be
strong enough to structurally
damage the plane, but it
could damage the cargo
compartment and allow the
Halon to escape, the agency
said. Then there would be
nothing to prevent the fire
from spreading.
account, the library is one of
several city departments that
has its own social media pres-
ence, along with the police
department, fire department,
parks and recreation and the
airport. The library wants
to increase its social media
contacts and website visits
by 10 percent each year.
Along with a social media
plan, the library intends to
start a “selfie with my library
card” contest each year
to help stoke library card
membership by 5 percent
each year.
Finney said library card
membership is important
because when people get
them, they can also be
informed of all the services
the library has to offer.
Library card membership
has been flat in recent years,
Other tests of laptop
batteries packed with poten-
tially dangerous consumer
goods that are permitted
in checked baggage like
nail polish remover, hand
sanitizer and rubbing alcohol
also resulted in large fires,
although no explosions.
As a result, the paper
recommends that passengers
shouldn’t be allowed to pack
large electronic devices in
baggage unless they have
specific approval from the
airline. The paper says the
European Safety Agency, the
FAA’s counterpart in Europe;
Airbus; the International
Federation of Airline Pilots’
Association, and the Interna-
tional Coordinating Council
of Aerospace Industries
Association, concurred in the
recommendation.
Continued from 1A
with the library required to
purge cards that haven’t been
used in three years.
Other
library
card
membership ideas include
sign-up
drives
during
community events like
school registration and the
Pendleton Farmers Market
and an incentive program
for things like free coffee or
copies.
Besides books and other
media, Finney said library
cards offers services such
as access to information
databases.
At a Tuesday council
meeting, Pendleton Library
Board chairwoman Rach-
elle Johnson said circulation
has dropped from 112,263
books and media rentals per
year in 2016 to 109,424 in
2017.
Johnson attributed the
drop to a decrease in the
purchase of new books and
media by the library, with
Finney adding that circu-
lation decreases are being
seen at libraries all across the
region.
In the Thursday inter-
view, Finney said the library
intends to rectify that issue
by making more purchases
in the coming year.
Although the strategic
plan only addresses adult
programming,
Finney
stressed that didn’t mean
the library was ignoring its
children’s programs.
Finney said the children’s
programming was in good
shape and the strategic plan
measures would be in addi-
tion to the library’s current
youth offerings.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.