BAKER CITY HERALD • TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2022 A5
LOCAL & STATE
Presence of avian influenza
confirmed in Oregon geese
PORTLAND (AP) — An
avian flu that’s spreading quickly
across the U.S. has been detected
in the Pacific Northwest in two
backyard bird flocks in rural Or-
egon and Washington.
Several geese in a noncom-
mercial flock of about 100 wa-
terfowl died suddenly on a farm
in Linn County and federal au-
thorities confirmed Friday, May
6, that they died of the avian flu.
It was the state’s first case since
2015. Also Friday, authorities
in Washington state received
word that chickens and turkeys
in a flock of about 50 birds at a
noncommercial farm in Pacific
County also had the disease.
All the birds in both states
were euthanized Friday and
the farms were put under
quarantine.
The latest outbreak of avian
flu hit North America in De-
cember and has led to the cull-
ing of about 37 million chickens
and turkeys in U.S. farms since
February. More than 35 million
birds in flocks across 30 states
have been affected.
The U.S. Department of Ag-
riculture has confirmed 956
cases of bird flu in wild birds,
including at least 54 bald eagles.
But the actual number is likely
significantly higher because not
every wild bird that dies is tested
and the federal tally doesn’t in-
clude cases recorded by wildlife
rehabilitation centers.
The discovery of the avian flu
in the Pacific Northwest wasn’t
unexpected as the virus has
been spreading rapidly across
the country in both domestic
and wild birds, particularly wa-
ter fowl. The virus seems to be
spreading as wild birds migrate
north along the Pacific Flyway
Scott Olson/Getty Images/TNS
Microbiologist Anne Vandenburg-Carroll tests poultry samples collected from a farm located in a control area
for the presence of avian influenza, or bird flu, at the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin-Madison on March 24, 2022, in Madison, Wisconsin.
and sometimes those birds stop
to rest amidst domestic flocks,
said Dana Dobbs, a veterinarian
with Washington state.
An infected bald eagle was
found in British Columbia,
Canada, in early March, said
Dr. Ryan Scholz, Oregon’s state
veterinarian.
“The long and the short of it
is the producer noticed that one
day a crow flew in with some of
his chickens and the next day, he
literally described that they were
dropping like flies,” she said. “We
want to contain and eradicate
this disease as soon as possible to
protect our commercial poultry
industry as well as some of our
backyard flocks that are selling
eggs and doing things like that.”
The cases do not pose a risk
to humans, and birds from the
farms were not used for food.
Wildlife authorities in the
Pacific Northwest said Friday
that the virus seems to primar-
ily affect waterfowl, but people
who feed songbirds should take
extra steps to clean their feed-
ers frequently out of an abun-
dance of caution.
There are no detections of the
avian flu in commercial poultry
in either state, state agriculture
officials said Friday.
Blurry ballots
may delay tally
CLACKAMAS (AP)
— Defective barcodes on
an unknown number of
primary election ballots
in Clackamas County will
likely delay election results
on May 17, election offi-
cials said.
Clackamas County
Clerk Sherry Hall said last
week that an unknown
number of ballots have
blurred barcodes that can’t
be read by the county’s
ballot-processing equip-
ment and election workers
will need to fill out new
ballots by hand for those
voters before they can be
counted. Oregon is a vote-
by-mail state.
The county includes
the southwest suburbs of
Portland and parts of it
are in the new 6th Con-
gressional District, which
was formed when Oregon
gained a U.S. House seat
following the 2020 Census.
A number of Democratic
and Republican candidates
are vying to advance to
November’s general elec-
tion in a closely watched
primary.
Election officials didn’t
notice the printing error
before the ballots were
sent to voters, Hall said.
The problem isn’t ex-
pected to delay the vote
tally significantly, but elec-
tion officials won’t have a
good sense of how many
ballots are affected until
next week.
“We have plans and pro-
cedures in place to com-
petently and correctly re-
spond with this situation
and many others,” Hall
said in a statement.
“There is no better elec-
tion staff than the one we
have here in Clackamas
County and we expect to
meet all deadlines for the
release of tallies and certi-
fication of results in spite
of the increase in work-
load.”
At least two election
workers registered with
different political par-
ties will participate in the
transferring of votes to the
new ballots and election
observers will be present.
The county will keep the
damaged ballots on file.
It’s not the first time the
county has had elections
problems.
Clackamas County
drew national attention
in 2013 when a tempo-
rary elections worker
filled in races left blank
on two ballots for Repub-
lican candidates. Deanna
Swenson, 55, received
90 days in jail and three
years’ probation for her
actions, The Oregonian/
Oregon Live reported. A
citizen committee that
reviewed the situation
found that Hall followed
protocol, but still sug-
gested improvements to
prevent something simi-
lar from happening again.
Hall, who has held the
elected county clerk po-
sition since 2003, is being
challenged this year by
Catherine McMullen, who
serves as a program spe-
cialist for the Multnomah
County Elections Division
and is certified as an elec-
tions administrator. The
race will be on the Novem-
ber ballot.
Pandemic pushes Oregon’s public defender system to the brink
BY GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — A post-pan-
demic glut of delayed cases
has exposed shocking consti-
tutional landmines impacting
defendants and crime victims
alike in Oregon, a state with
a national reputation for pro-
gressive social justice.
An acute shortage of public
defenders means at any given
time at least several hundred
low-income criminal defen-
dants don’t have legal repre-
sentation, sometimes in seri-
ous felony cases that could put
them away for years.
Judges have dismissed nearly
four dozen cases in in the Port-
land area alone — including
a domestic violence case with
allegations of strangulation —
and have threatened to hold
the state in contempt.
“We’re overwhelmed. The
pandemic is exposing all the
problems that we have,” said
Carl Macpherson, executive
director of Metropolitan Pub-
lic Defender, a large Portland
nonprofit public defender firm.
“It just became abundantly
clear that we are broken.”
Public defenders warned the
system was on the brink of col-
lapse before the pandemic and
some staged a walkout in 2019.
But lawmakers didn’t act and
then COVID-19 shut down
the courts. Now, the system is
“buckling before our eyes,” said
Kelly Simon, legal director for
the Oregon American Civil
Liberties Union.
The crisis in Oregon, while
extreme, reflects a nationwide
reckoning on indigent defense,
as courts seek to absorb a pan-
demic backlog of criminal
cases with public defender sys-
tems that have long been un-
derfunded and understaffed.
From New England to New
Mexico to Wisconsin, states
are struggling to keep public
defender services running.
Maine this month ear-
marked nearly $1 million to
hire that state’s first five public
defenders, with a focus on ru-
ral counties, after relying en-
tirely on contracts with private
attorneys until now.
In New Mexico, a recent
report found the state was
short 600 full-time public de-
fenders. In New Hampshire,
where an estimated 800 de-
fendants were without at-
torneys, state lawmakers in
March approved more than
$2 million to raise public de-
fenders’ salaries. And in Wis-
consin, where starting pay
for public defenders is $27 an
hour, there’s a shortage of 60
attorney positions statewide.
“This is America’s dirty little
secret: Thousands of people
in courtrooms all across the
country go to jail every single
day without having talked to a
lawyer,” said Jon Mosher, dep-
uty director of the nonprofit
Sixth Amendment Center.
An American Bar Associ-
ation report released in Jan-
uary found Oregon has 31%
of the public defenders it
needs. Every existing attor-
ney would have to work more
than 26 hours each week day
to cover the caseload, the au-
thors found.
“It’s horrifying. I don’t want
to mince words about this. I
am not going to make excuses
for this,” said state Sen. Eliz-
abeth Steiner Hayward, who
co-chairs the state Legisla-
ture’s Ways and Means com-
mittee. ”That being said, we
can’t manufacture attorneys
out of thin air.”
For victims, the situation is
devastating and it’s hurting the
most vulnerable.
Cassie Trahan, co-founder
and executive director of an
Oregon nonprofit that works
with teen and young adult vic-
tims of sex trafficking, said
trust in the judicial system is
fading, especially in minority
and immigrant communi-
ties. Victims no longer want to
come forward when they see
cases being dismissed or end-
ing in weak plea bargains to re-
lieve pressure on the courts.
One such victim in a pend-
ing trafficking case “lives in
constant fear that it’s going to
be dismissed,” Trahan said.
Prosecutors can get an in-
dictment from a grand jury
when cases are dismissed for
lack of a public defender and
police will re-arrest the alleged
perpetrator — but that’s small
consolation to victims.
“In her mind, it’s like, ‘Now
I’ve outed myself, now I’ve
talked against him and what’s
2022
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going to happen if he gets
off?’” Trahan said of the victim.
“That’s what we’re seeing more
of, especially in communities of
color and groups that don’t trust
the judicial system anyway.”
The Legislature recently
approved $12.8 million in
one-time funding for the four
hardest-hit counties, as well as
a suite of legislative reforms.
New contracts coming this
summer will institute lower
attorney case caps. And law-
makers are withholding $100
million from the agency’s bud-
get until it shows good faith on
numerous reforms, including
restructuring, financial audits
and performance metrics.
A working group of all three
government branches will
convene this month to begin
tackling a “comprehensive and
structural modernization” of
the system.
Autumn Shreve, govern-
ment relations manager for the
state Office of Public Defense
Services, said the pandemic fi-
nally forced the hand of state
lawmakers who haven’t taken a
close look at public defenders
in nearly 20 years.
“It’s been a rag tag group of
people trying to cover the case-
loads year-to-year and because
of that there’s been a lot of past
papering over of problems,”
she said.
Meanwhile, the situation in
the state’s courtrooms is dire.
Often those going without
attorneys are charged with hei-
nous crimes that come with
hefty prison sentences if con-
victed, making it even harder
to find public defenders qual-
ified to handle such complex
cases. And those who handle
misdemeanors are often young
attorneys carrying 100 cases or
more at a time.
“You can’t keep everything in
your head when you have that
many clients at the same time.
Even things like, you know,
‘What’s your current plea offer?’
I can’t remember that for 100
people. Or I can’t remember,
‘What exactly does the police
report say?’” said Drew Flood, a
public defender at Metropolitan
Public Defender.
“This is the scariest thing
they have going on in their
life,” he said.
Other public defender ser-
vices, including private investi-
gators and legal advisors, have
also reached a breaking point.
Renardo Mitchell, who is
jailed on attempted murder
charges, chose to represent
himself after he said he didn’t
hear from his public defender
for five months. The legal ad-
visor assigned by the court to
help him hire expert witnesses
and file motions died suddenly
in February and he’s been with-
out legal counsel since then.
Two years after his arrest, he
still hasn’t seen all the discov-
ery in his case, said Mitchell,
37. His public private investiga-
tor — Mitchell’s only connec-
tion to his proceedings — re-
cently had to petition the court
to get more paid hours devel-
oping evidence for his defense.
“We’re all innocent until
proven guilty. Nothing has
been proven yet — I haven’t
been found guilty,” said Mitch-
ell, who faces more than 22
years in prison if convicted.
“Even if I did those things that
they allege, I still have a right to
due process of law. ”
The chief prosecutor in Port-
land has become an outspoken
advocate of public defender re-
form for that very reason.
“The most important thing
is everybody has a right to
an attorney, it’s a constitu-
tional right,” said Multnomah
County District Attorney Mi-
chael Schmidt.
“It’s an ecosystem, like a
coral reef. If you take away one
aspect of this system, then all
the other aspects fall apart.”
Recommended candidates by the Baker
County Republican Executive Committee
Baker City Precincts
Precinct #1 (Vote for 5)
Sharon Bass
Brandy Bruce
Chuck Chase
Bradley Golar
Duane Morris
Precinct #2 (Vote for 6)
Nora Bass
Michael Bennett
Sue Holtz
Megan Langan
Marilyn Shollenberger
Johnny Waggoner Sr.
Precinct $3 (Vote for 6)
Tisha Bass
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Ray Dixon
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Precinct#4 (Vote for 7)
Doni Bruland
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Precinct #5 (Vote for 7)
Janice Burchard
Donn Christy
Terrie Evarts
Kimberly Hughes
Thomas Hughes
Justin Langan
Samantha Tugman
Precinct #13 - Baker
County(Vote for 4)
Mike Miller
Shannon Black
Whitney Black
Tom Van Diepen
Precinct #17 - Haines
(Vote for 3)
David Sherman
Kathleen Sherman
Connie Pound Lewis
Precinct #18 - Hereford
(Vote for 2)
Keith L. Jones
Suzan Ellis Jones
Precinct #22 Halfway
(Vote for 1)
Kathryn Grace
Precinct #24 - Poco-
Wing (Vote for 4)
LeeAnn Haberle
Peggie Longwell
Jeff Nelson
Joshua Srack
Precinct #25 Sumpter
(Vote for 1)
Jullie McKinney
Precinct #28 Unity
(Vote for 2)
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Jim Juhola