A6 BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, JULY 7, 2022
THE WEST
Offer made to buy Petersen Rock Garden
New owner would
preserve the
roadside attraction
near Redmond
BY JOE SIESS
The Bulletin
The owner of the Petersen
Rock Garden, one of Oregon’s
beloved roadside attractions,
is reviewing an offer from a
potential buyer and plans to
close it to visitors while the
deal is reviewed, according to
the owner’s real estate agent.
Kaisha Brannon, of Cold-
well Banker Sun Country Re-
alty, the seller’s agent, said the
possible new owners would
like to renovate and maintain
the rock garden for the public.
The prospective new owners
of the rock garden are long-
time residents of Central Or-
egon and wish to remain un-
named, Brannon said.
“I know that it will remain
the rock garden and be open
to the public, but I can’t really
say what they plan on doing
because we ultimately don’t
know what they are going to
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin, File
The owner of Petersen Rock Garden is reviewing an offer to purchase the roadside attraction south of
Redmond, her real estate broker said.
get pushback on,” Brannon
said.
Deschutes County land use
officials said last week that
zoning questions about the
permissible use of the prop-
erty still need to be addressed.
The county told stakehold-
ers, including Brannon, that
many potential issues could
come up given the property
is zoned exclusively for farm
use, the most restrictive zon-
ing in unincorporated De-
schutes County. The property,
on SW 77 Street southwest of
Redmond, is also listed on the
National Register of Historic
Places, creating another layer
of uncertainty regarding how
the property can and cannot
be used or altered by a new
owner.
Brannon did not disclose
financial details about the of-
fer. The rock garden’s owner,
Susan Caward, 57, is selling
the property because of health
reasons.
The rock garden was put on
the market in early June and
listed for $825,000, a price that
includes all the art and rocks
and the peacocks that freely
roam the property. It was built
by Danish immigrant Rasmus
Petersen in the 1940s and ’50s
and sits on 12 acres that was
not zoned by the county until
the 1970s.
At this point, Brannon said,
the potential buyers will have
to engage in their own due dil-
igence and research into the
property, a process that could
take months.
Brannon said while the deal
is not closed and the possi-
ble buyers have yet to actually
buy the property, the seller is
accepting backup offers to be
considered in case the current
potential buyers pull out of
the deal.
Annette Perry, co-chair of
the Petersen Rock Garden
Preservation Association, a
newly formed nonprofit orga-
nization whose mission is to
preserve the rock garden, said
the association is both pleased
to hear there is a potential pri-
vate buyer and ready to help
the new buyer in any way.
“We almost feel it is a bless-
ing that there is an outside
buyer,” Perry said. “Because
just starting out as a new non-
profit, and us knowing the
property and us having ex-
perience in a lot of different
areas...we know this is a huge
task, and having a private
buyer will allow our group to
step in and focus on what our
mission is.”
At this point, Perry said the
preservation association hopes
to hear from the prospective
new owners of the rock gar-
den and is willing to lend a
hand in any way it can.
“We are staying true to our
mission,” Perry added. “We
would love to help whoever
owns it. We can’t wait to hope-
fully meet them at some point
when they are ready to talk to
people and find out what as-
sets ... we can help them with.”
In rural West, more worries about access to abortion clinics
BY CLAIRE RUSH
Associated Press/Report for America
PORTLAND — In the cen-
tral Oregon city of Bend, the sole
Planned Parenthood clinic serving
the eastern half of the state is brac-
ing for an influx of patients, par-
ticularly from neighboring Idaho,
where a trigger law banning most
abortions is expected to take effect
this summer.
“We’ve already started hiring,”
said Joanna Dennis-Cook, the Bend
Health Center Manager.
Across the U.S. West, many abor-
tion providers serving rural areas
were already struggling to meet de-
mand in a vast region where staffing
shortages and long travel distances
are barriers to reproductive ser-
vices for women. Oregon alone is
larger geographically than the entire
United Kingdom.
Some facilities serving rural com-
munities in states where abortion
remains legal worry those pre-exist-
ing challenges could be further com-
pounded by the overturning of Roe
Voting
Continued from A5
Early Western states allowed
noncitizens to vote as a way
to encourage settling specifi-
cally by white European im-
migrants, the students found.
In Oregon, white men who
had resided in the state for six
months prior to an election
and declared an intent to be-
come U.S. citizens could vote.
People have long applied
measures of groups’ contribu-
tions to society as a means to
decide whether they should
be able to vote, Stumpf said.
Literacy tests and proxies of
taxation such as property own-
ership or residency were com-
mon qualifiers historically.
Charter review commit-
tee members cited multiple
reasons for expanding voting
rights, including reducing tax-
ation without representation.
Undocumented people in
Multnomah County pay an
estimated $19 million in state
and local taxes annually, ac-
cording to a report by the Or-
egon Center for Public Policy.
About half of those taxes are
property taxes and the other
v. Wade, as more patients travel from
states where the procedure is banned
or greatly restricted.
Anticipating an abortion ban in
Idaho, Oregon lawmakers earlier this
year created a $15 million fund to in-
crease access to abortion services.
Northwest Abortion Access Fund,
a nonprofit that helps patients pay
for travel and the procedure itself,
has been tapped to receive the first
$1 million. NWAAF has worked
with the Bend clinic for 20 years, and
they are collaborating to meet the
needs of a growing number of pa-
tients.
Dennis-Cook says her clinic is
providing additional training for
staff and modifying schedules “to
ensure that we can accommodate in-
creases in patient numbers” as more
people travel farther for care.
Before the Supreme Court over-
turned Roe v. Wade, 20% of U.S.
women already had to travel at least
42 miles to reach the nearest abor-
tion clinic, according to 2014 data
analyzed by the Guttmacher Insti-
half are income taxes and ex-
cise taxes on goods like gas
and alcohol, the report shows.
Undocumented people ar-
en’t eligible to access many of
the social services to which
they contribute, however. They
can’t access Social Security,
Medicare, the Oregon Health
Plan after age 18, federal food
assistance programs, and state
and federal earned income tax
credits, among others, the re-
port states.
Legal challenges
Granting voting rights to
noncitizens likely will face sub-
stantial legal barriers, Katherine
Thomas, assistant Multnomah
County attorney, told committee
members in March.
First, Oregon’s constitution
requires citizenship for voting.
State statutes related to voting re-
fer to citizenship requirements,
including one that says state
voter registration cards must in-
dicate a person is a U.S. citizen.
“Ultimately, it’s untested,”
Thomas said. “I’m not aware
that there is a local jurisdiction
that has expanded voting to
noncitizens. We don’t know how
a court would necessarily treat
tute, a research group that supports
abortion rights, which published
its findings in The Lancet Public
Health. Across much of eastern Ore-
gon, that distance can jump to nearly
180 miles. As more states move to
enact trigger bans on abortion, dis-
tances could increase further for
many patients.
Dennis-Cook says the Bend health
center has been seeing patients com-
ing from as far away as Texas.
Bend’s clinic has six exam rooms
and receives about 600 visits per
month. As it is “on the smaller side,”
Dennis-Cook said it is “limited” in
what it can provide.
“We only do first trimester pro-
cedures here,” she explained. She
added the clinic can’t do procedures
involving general anesthesia. “We
don’t have a plethora of nurses who
can do that type of work to draw
from.”
Smaller abortion clinics, partic-
ularly ones in rural areas, have his-
torically grappled with shortages of
staff and doctors who can perform
that kind of proposal if it was
challenged in court.”
The committee will pres-
ent by Aug. 4 all of its recom-
mended charter changes to the
county board, which files the
ballot title and other informa-
tion with the elections divi-
sion. Any ballot title challenges
must be resolved by Sept. 8 to
appear on the ballot for the
Nov. 8 election.
If the measure passes, county
staff would consult with the
board about how to implement
an expansion of voting rights,
said Ryan Yambra, spokesper-
son for the county.
The committee also re-
searched whether people un-
der 18 and people currently
prohibited from voting be-
cause they’re serving a sen-
tence for a felony conviction
could gain voting rights.
“The committee expects
that the county will explore
every possible avenue to ex-
pand local voting access,”
Yambra said. “The details of
implementation would de-
pend on a variety of factors,
and so we can’t say at this time
whether or what board action
might be required.”
the procedure. This in turn affects
scheduling availability.
Amidst growing demand for travel
funds, NWAAF has already ex-
hausted its planned operating bud-
gets for this year, according to Riley
Keane, a Practical Support Lead for
the group.
“Last year we gave away about $1
million all told,” Keane explained,
referring to grants given to clinics to
cover abortion costs and travel funds
provided to patients. She said this
year NWAAF is “on track to double
that potentially.”
Keane expects the $1 million from
Oregon’s new abortion access fund
will make “a huge difference” for
NWAAF, which normally relies on
individual donors. She says this year
marks the first time the group is re-
ceiving government money.
NWAAF says it is concerned
about providing travel funds to pa-
tients in states where abortion is
banned or greatly restricted, but
added it is working with legal pro-
fessionals to assess the shifting land-
scape.
“They keep us up to date on things
we need to be concerned about,”
Keane said.
In response to laws such as those
passed in Texas allowing private in-
dividuals to sue abortion providers,
the governors of Oregon, Wash-
ington and California announced a
joint commitment to protect patients
and doctors “against judicial and
local law enforcement cooperation
with out-of-state investigations, in-
quiries and arrests.”
The three Democratic governors
also said they will refuse “extradition
of individuals for criminal prose-
cution” for receiving or supporting
abortion services that are legal in
their states.
NWAAF’s service region includes
Oregon, Washington, Idaho and
Alaska.
Keane says NWAAF will continue
its work for now.
“Currently, our legal advisers hav-
en’t told us that we need to stop op-
erating,” she said.
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