THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2021 A3
TODAY
Today is Wednesday, Feb. 3, the
34th day of 2021. There are 331
days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
In 1959, rock-and-roll stars
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and
J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson
died in a small plane crash near
Clear Lake, Iowa.
In 1865, President Abraham
Lincoln and Confederate Vice
President Alexander H. Stephens
held a shipboard peace confer-
ence off the Virginia coast; the
talks deadlocked over the issue
of Southern autonomy.
In 1913, the 16th Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution, providing
for a federal income tax, was
ratified.
In 1916, Canada’s original Par-
liament Buildings, in Ottawa,
burned down.
In 1917, the United States
broke off diplomatic relations
with Germany, the same day
an American cargo ship, the
SS Housatonic, was sunk by a
U-boat off Britain after the crew
was allowed to board lifeboats.
In 1930, the chief justice of the
United States, William Howard
Taft, resigned for health reasons.
(He died just over a month later.)
In 1943, during World War II, the
U.S. transport ship SS Dorches-
ter, which was carrying troops
to Greenland, sank after being
hit by a German torpedo in the
Labrador Sea; of the more than
900 men aboard, only some 230
survived. (Four Army chaplains
on board gave away their life
jackets to save others and went
down with the ship.)
In 1966, the Soviet probe Luna
9 became the first manmade
object to make a soft landing on
the moon.
In 1988, the U.S. House of Rep-
resentatives handed President
Ronald Reagan a major defeat,
rejecting his request for $36.2
million in new aid to the Nic-
araguan Contras by a vote of
219-211.
In 1994, the space shuttle
Discovery lifted off, carrying
Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian
cosmonaut to fly aboard a U.S.
spacecraft.
In 1998, Texas executed Karla
Faye Tucker, 38, for the pickax
killings of two people in 1983;
she was the first woman exe-
cuted in the United States since
1984. A U.S. Marine plane sliced
through the cable of a ski gon-
dola in Italy, causing the car to
plunge hundreds of feet, killing
all 20 people inside.
In 2019, in the lowest-scoring
Super Bowl ever, featuring
just one touchdown, the New
England Patriots beat the Los
Angeles Rams, 13-3.
Ten years ago: Tens of thou-
sands of protesters staged
unprecedented demonstrations
against Yemen’s autocratic
president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, a
key U.S. ally in battling Islamic
militants, as unrest inspired by
uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia
spread further in the Arab world.
Five years ago: Rand Paul
dropped his Republican cam-
paign for president, opting to
run for reelection to the Senate.
Earth, Wind & Fire founder
Maurice White, 74, died in Los
Angeles.
One year ago: In closing ar-
guments at President Donald
Trump’s impeachment trial,
Democratic prosecutors urged
senators to stop a “runaway
presidency” and recognize
Trump’s actions in Ukraine as
part of a pattern of behavior that
would allow him to “cheat” in
the 2020 election; Trump’s de-
fenders accused Democrats of
trying to undo the 2016 election
and said voters should decide
Trump’s fate. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo said a “handful”
of flights would head to China
to bring Americans home from
the province at the center of the
coronavirus outbreak.
Today’s Birthdays: Football
Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton is
81. Actor Bridget Hanley is 80.
Actor Blythe Danner is 78. Foot-
ball Hall of Famer Bob Griese is
76. Singer-guitarist Dave Davies
(The Kinks) is 74. Singer Melanie
is 74. Actor Morgan Fairchild is
71. Actor Pamela Franklin is 71.
Actor Nathan Lane is 65. Rock
musician Lee Ranaldo (Sonic
Youth) is 65. Actor Thomas
Calabro is 62. Rock musician/
author Lol Tolhurst (The Cure) is
62. Actor-director Keith Gordon
is 60. Actor Michele Greene is
59. Country singer Matraca Berg
is 57. Actor Maura Tierney is 56.
Actor Warwick Davis is 51. Actor
Elisa Donovan is 50. Reggaeton
singer Daddy Yankee is 45. Actor
Isla Fisher is 45. Human rights
activist Amal Clooney is 43. Sing-
er-songwriter Jessica Harp is 39.
Actor Matthew Moy is 37. Rap-
per Sean Kingston is 31. Actor
Brandon Micheal Hall is 28.
— Associated Press
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
Exodus at the Bureau of Land Management
When Trump moved
BLM jobs out of D.C.,
87% of affected quit
BY JULIET EILPERIN
The Washington Post
W
ASHINGTON — The
Trump administration’s de-
cision to relocate most Bu-
reau of Land Management headquar-
ters staff out West — designed to shift
power away from the nation’s capital
— prompted more than 87% of the
affected employees to either quit or
resign rather than move, according to
new data obtained by The Washing-
ton Post.
The exit of longtime career staffers
from the agency responsible for man-
aging more than 10% of the nation’s
land shows the extent to which the
Trump administration reshaped the
federal government. The reorganiza-
tion plan reestablished the bureau’s
headquarters in Grand Junction,
Colorado, moved 328 positions out
of the department’s main D.C. office
and left 60 jobs in place.
A total of 287 BLM employees
either retired or found other jobs,
according to Interior Department
Communications Director Melissa
Schwartz, while 41 people moved to
the new office in Colorado. Asked for
comment on how the shift affected
the bureau’s operations, Schwartz de-
clined to comment.
But several experts, including for-
mer high-ranking Interior Depart-
ment officials, said the shake-up has
deprived the agency of needed ex-
pertise and disrupted its operations.
The bureau oversees all oil and gas
drilling on federal lands, which has
emerged as a flash point in the early
days of the Biden administration.
The agency manages more than 16
million acres in Oregon and Wash-
ington.
Joe Tague, a 42-year BLM veteran
who retired as chief of its division of
Dean Guernsey/Bulletin file
Bureau of Land Management rangeland near Millican, east of Bend.
forest, rangeland, riparian, and plant
conservation a year ago, said in a
phone interview at least half of his di-
vision’s staff left rather than relocate.
He retired “in part” because of the re-
organization.
“It wasn’t a pleasant thing, seeing
everyone forced to move,” said Tague,
who moved to Oregon.
Tague, a member of the Citizen
Potawatomi Nation, said he was par-
ticularly worried about the agency’s
diversity in the wake of the exodus
because a disproportionate number
of Black employees left. He added
that some divisions, such as the one
that oversees land use plans, were
particularly hit hard.
“I think it’s going to take a long
time to regain what the Washington
office does,” he said.
About 95% of the BLM’s more
than 9,000 staffers were working out-
side of Washington before the reloca-
tion took place. The Trump admin-
istration argued that it made more
sense to place more of the agency’s
workforce in the West because most
of the areas it manages are located
there.
Congressional Republicans are
lobbying to maintain the new head-
quarters in Grand Junction. The
Trump administration shifted 76 po-
sitions out of headquarters altogether,
so there are now a total of 480 head-
quarters jobs, 100 of which remain
vacant.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said
this week she was leading a campaign
to keep the bureau in the city she rep-
resents.
“Moving the BLM Headquarters to
Grand Junction was a game changer
for the West and local communities.
People from nearby states that would
have never traveled to Washing-
ton D.C. for a meeting have already
found their way to Grand Junction
including sheriffs, ranchers, and
county commissioners,” Boebert said
in a statement. “What’s not to like?”
And the senators from the state,
Democrats Michael Bennet and
John Hickenlooper, support the idea
of having an expanded BLM head-
quarters in Colorado. The two wrote
Biden last week to say they support a
“fully functioning” headquarters with
hundreds of employees instead of the
current setup.
“The BLM assigned only 41 senior
staff positions to relocate to Grand
Junction, positions that they had to
rush to fill at the end of 2020,” the
senators wrote. “While this is a rea-
sonable start and is appreciated by
the Western Slope, the job is far from
finished.”
But Steve Ellis, president of Tax-
payers of Common Sense, said in an
interview that the BLM staff working
at Interior Department headquarters
play a crucial role in coordinating
policy decisions.
“They’re going to have the national
perspective and will be able to tie in
the regional offices into the overall
policy and know historically what the
agency’s role is,” he said. “And they
also would be working with other
agencies, both within the Interior De-
partment and throughout the federal
government.”
ENTER TO WIN THE
Stolen yurts disrupt
school’s expansion plan
BY JAKE THOMAS
Salem Reporter
SALEM — Somewhere, there
is someone with thousands of
square feet of yurt coverings.
In Salem, there is a school that
badly wants them back.
The yurts were intended to ex-
pand the growing Kaleidoscope
Community School. Ashley Ac-
ers founded the school in 2015
with just two preschoolers in a
classroom inside the Unitarian
Universalist Congregation of Sa-
lem, and has watched it grow.
Two years ago, Kaleidoscope
started looking for new space
for all the families that wanted
to sign up and to accommodate
programs for children ages 6-9.
A neighbor offered an unused
patch of pasture for the school’s
expansion, said Acers. The
school considered using old
railroad cars or portable class-
rooms, which were too expen-
sive at $250,000. A parent sug-
gested using yurts.
At first, Acers dismissed the
idea. But she realized the yurts
were insulated, more economi-
cal and their layout would work
for classrooms where students
work collaboratively and aren’t
organized by grade.
“You know, we’re kind of
a hippie school anyway,” said
Acers. Students at the school
practice yoga, care for Dotty, a
spoiled Kunekune-Juliana mix
pig, tend to the garden and pur-
sue their own learning interests
that include bullet trains and
Roman numerals.
After ordering four tradi-
tional yurts, students and par-
ents waited months as they were
shipped all the way from Mon-
golia, said Acers. In January,
they finally arrived.
But Acers said the contrac-
tor hired to assemble the yurts
showed up at the school one
morning with some bad news:
three of the coverings had been
stolen.
“They basically stole our
school,” she said.
Luckily, one of the yurts had
already been assembled at the
school and the metal poles
and scaffolding for the other
three weren’t stolen, she said.
But replacing the coverings for
the three stolen yurts will cost
$20,000.
They’ve reported the theft to
police. While they wait for tips,
the school has set up a fund-
raiser to recover the costs.
Carbon monoxide poisoning
likely killed father, daughter
KALE WILLIAMS
The Oregonian
A man and his 17-year-old
daughter likely died from car-
bon monoxide poisoning after
using a propane heater inside a
trailer in Marion County, offi-
cials said Tuesday.
Police responded to reports
on Monday of two people found
not breathing in the trailer, east
of Salem, according to the Mar-
ion County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators discovered
50-year-old Richard Yaple of
Salem and daughter Hannah
Yaple of Keizer both dead, offi-
cials said.
Two animals, a dog and a
cat, were also found dead in the
trailer.
Investigators determined the
likely cause of death was carbon
monoxide poisoning.
About 430 people die every
year from carbon monoxide
poisoning, according to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. Experts recom-
mend installing carbon monox-
ide detectors and making sure
propane heaters are in proper
working condition before using
them inside.
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