OREGON
Friday, February 14, 2020
BRIEFLY
Timber deal with
environmentalists
demoralizing
SALEM — A deal struck
between timber companies
and environmentalists with
the help of
Gov.
Kate
Brown made
Republicans’
jobs
more
difficult this
session and
d e m o r a l - Baertschiger
ized the cau-
cus, Senate
Republican Leader Herman
Baertschiger Jr. said Tuesday.
“These people come into
our offices, ask us to do
things for them, and then
turn around and throw us
under the bus,” Baertschiger
said. “You kind of scratch
your head and say: Who are
we fighting for?”
The Republican from
Grants Pass said the deal —
hailed as historic by Brown
— makes the task of blocking
a controversial greenhouse
gas emissions cap-and-trade
bill more difficult.
Baertschiger added that
smaller timber companies
and those who work in the
industry are also not being
served by this agreement.
Timber executives did not
inform the Senate Republi-
can office that the deal was
forthcoming, Baertschiger
said, instead leaving them to
find out from the announce-
ment Monday morning.
Baertschiger later had a
meeting with timber indus-
try leaders Greg Miller and
Heath Curtiss, and said he
“expressed my frustration in
their behavior.”
Kotek pushes to
make homelessness
a state of emergency
SALEM
—
House
Speaker Tina Kotek wants
more homeless shelters built
around the state and soon.
Kotek is pushing for a
first-of-its kind proposal —
she wants a statewide emer-
gency declaration that would
allow cities around the state
to more easily site homeless
shelters.
Kotek is calling for $60
million one-time dollars to
go toward creating more shel-
ter capacity from around the
state. Kotek increased the
amount from $40 million to
$60 million after the revenue
forecast this week showed
the state was predicting more
money than originally antic-
ipated earlier this year. The
money will likely be divided
up largely between creating
more shelter capacity and
helping with rental assistance.
“We are really trying to
take an emergency mindset to
the thousands and thousands
of Oregonians who are expe-
riencing unsheltered home-
lessness,” the Portland Dem-
ocrat testified to lawmakers
on Wednesday.
Kotek’s latest plan also
calls for building low-barrier
shelters or navigation centers
in Eugene, Salem and the city
of Bend.
Under the latest proposal,
shelters must meet certain
criteria, such as operating
out of a building with proper
permits, satisfy safety and
sanitary sleeping conditions
and be located near public
transportation.
The
Committee
on
Human Services and Hous-
ing voted to move the mea-
sure to the Rules Committee
on Wednesday.
ODF requests
emergency cash
infusion
SALEM — Officials
at the Oregon Department
of Forestry say just seven
months into the state’s two-
year budget cycle they’ve
spent most of the money
lawmakers approved for the
entire biennium and now
need an emergency cash
infusion.
The Oregonian/Oregon-
Live reported that agency
officials say they need
between $52 million to $132
million — otherwise they’ll
have exhausted their budget
by March.
The request comes as
lawmakers and the gover-
nor are looking to expand
the agency even further.
They’re sponsoring bills that
would bolster the agency’s
firefighting capabilities and
forest restoration work —
above and beyond the imme-
diate budget requests.
In the near term, agency
leaders are looking for the
money they say is needed to
keep keep regular programs
running; to pay a consultant
hired to help them get their
financial house in order; and
to cover firefighting costs
in the upcoming 2020 fire
season.
Sen. Betsy Johnson,
D-Scappoose, and co-chair
of Way and Means, said the
committee had yet to discuss
the agency’s budget requests
in any meaningful way.
Oregon flavored
vape products ban
proposal dies
SALEM — Flavored
vape
products
dodged
another bullet after Oregon
lawmakers killed a proposal
to ban them.
Sen. Laurie Monnes
Anderson, who championed
the bill, said the priority is
now to create a program to
license all nicotine retailers.
“The flavor ban is gone,”
the Gresham Democrat said
at the beginning of Sen-
ate Bill 1577’s work session
Thursday afternoon.
The proposal to ban all
flavored nicotine vaping and
e-cigarette products came in
the midst of an explosion of
public awareness about the
potential dangers of the min-
imally regulated industry.
Concerns escalated with
a lung illness epidemic that
has been attributed primar-
ily to black market mar-
ijuana oil vape products.
That crisis brought atten-
tion to an entirely differ-
ent one — a spike in youth
addiction to nicotine, driven
by addictive, available and
easily concealable vaping
products.
Monnes Anderson’s bill
would have banned the sale
of all nicotine vape products
with flavors, such as mango
and mint. Only those that
actually tasted like tobacco
would have been allowed.
A7
Bill seeks to put more troopers on highways
By JAKE THOMAS
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Parts of the
state with sparse police
presence could see more
state troopers on the high-
way under a bill advanc-
ing through the Oregon
Legislature.
If passed, Senate Bill 1545
would put hundreds more
state troopers on the state’s
highways over the next
decade. During a committee
hearing on the bill held last
week, State Police Superin-
tendent Travis Hampton told
lawmakers that Oregon’s
current trooper-staffing level
is at the “bottom of the bar-
rel” compared to other states.
He said that Oregon has
458 troopers assigned to its
patrol division, about the
same number it had in the
late 1960s and early 1970s,
to cover a state that’s grown
to a population of over 4 mil-
lion. He presented the com-
mittee with a map showing
EO file photo
An Oregon State Police trooper places the driver of a ve-
hicle into the back of a police cruiser on Sept. 5, 2015, on
Highway 37 north of Pendleton.
vast expanses of Oregon, pri-
marily outside of the Inter-
state 5 corridor, where state
troopers aren’t available 24
hours. He said that after dark
in some areas “you’re really
on your own.”
“This illustration should
be a little bit scary to all of
us,” he said.
He said that the lack of
state troopers has left local
law enforcement agencies
spread thin as they respond
to situations on highways
that should be addressed by
the Oregon State Police.
If passed, the bill would
start ramping up trooper
patrol staffing levels begin-
ning next year. For the 2021-
23 two-year budget cycle, the
number of state troopers on
the patrol division would be
boosted to 522. That num-
ber would rise to 796 by the
2029-31 budget cycle. The
bill would require the state
police to maintain a staffing
level of 15 patrol troopers
for every 100,000 residents
by 2030. Hampton said the
bill would gradually put Ore-
gon’s trooper staffing levels
in the middle compared to
other states. As of 2016, Ore-
gon has eight troopers per
100,000.
Hampton pointed out
during the last session law-
makers provided funding
allowing the Oregon State
Police to hire more dispatch-
ers, records technicians,
medical examiners and other
staff that troopers need to do
their jobs. He said that the
earlier funding made it pos-
sible for the state police to
hire more troopers and was
currently on a “hiring spree.”
The bill was introduced
at the request of the Oregon
State Police Officers’ Asso-
ciation. Tanya Henderson,
the group’s president, told
the committee that the low
staffing levels create unsafe
situations for officers who
have to wait long times for
backup.
F
F
O
Police: Uber driver
locked passenger
in car, raped her
MEDFORD — An Uber
driver in Southern Oregon
has been charged with lock-
ing a passenger inside his car
and raping her, according to
police and court records.
Antonio
Gonzalez-Sa-
linas, 51, was arraigned
Wednesday in Jackson
County Circuit Court on
charges of first-degree rape,
kidnapping and sexual abuse,
as well as public indecency,
records show.
He remained held in Jack-
son County Jail Thursday
on a $1 million bail, accord-
ing to jail records. It wasn’t
immediately known if he has
a lawyer.
An Uber spokesman told
The Oregonian/OregonLive
in an email that the com-
pany is cooperating with law
enforcement to support their
investigation.
The company reported
3,045 sexual assaults during
its rides in the United States
in 2018, according to a study.
Police said Gonzalez-Sa-
linas picked the woman up
early Sunday in downtown
Medford after she had been
out drinking with friends.
The driver was supposed
to take the woman, 21, to the
house of an acquaintance,
according to Medford police.
The woman’s friends
called her phone when she
didn’t arrive and Gonza-
lez-Salinas answered, say-
ing he was having trou-
ble finding the house, said
Lt. Mike Budreau, a police
spokesman.
Subsequent calls to the
woman’s phone went unan-
swered, prompting her friends
and a relative to search for
her using the phone’s location
data, Budreau said.
They found the woman
crying inside Gonzalez-Sa-
linas’ car a few blocks from
her acquaintance’s house,
police said.
Gonzalez-Salinas
was
arrested at his home.
— Associated Press and
wire services
East Oregonian
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