A11
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2021
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DOW
31,385.76 +237.52
BRIEFING
Bend median
home price soars
The median price of
a single-family home in
Bend shot up $56,000
from December to Jan-
uary, according to the
monthly Beacon Report
on home sales.
In Bend, the me-
dian sales price of a sin-
gle-family home was
$580,000 last month, up
from $449,000 in January
2020, according to the re-
port. The Beacon Report
uses the median sales
price, which is the mid-
point value of all transac-
tions in a month.
There were fewer than
half a month’s worth of
homes up for sale in Bend
and Redmond, according
to the monthly report,
which is produced by the
Beacon Appraisal Group
of Redmond.
In Sunriver, January
median single-family
homes sold for $793,000,
compared to $635,000 in
December.
Redmond’s single-fam-
ily homes sold for a me-
dian price of $377,000
in January, compared to
$330,000 the same time
the year before, according
to the report.
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House Democrats unveil first
draft of stimulus-bill measures
ERIK WASSON AND LAURA DAVISON
Bloomberg News
WASHINGTON — House Dem-
ocrats on Monday released the first
draft text for key pieces of legisla-
tion that will constitute President Joe
Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill.
The legislative language released
by the Education and Labor Com-
mittee and Committee on Financial
Services shows Democrats are forging
ahead with plans to increase the fed-
eral minimum wage to $15 an hour by
2025, and have earmarked $15 billion
for airline-worker payroll assistance.
The legislation includes $130 billion
to reopen K-12 schools; $40 billion
for higher-education institutions and
more.
The Transport panel detailed fur-
ther billions for airports, trains and
transit, while the House Ways and
Means Committee will handle relief
checks, paid-leave benefits and ex-
panded tax credits for families with
children and low-income individuals.
It also addresses extended unemploy-
ment benefits.
Over the weekend, Democratic law-
makers were divided over who should
get stimulus payments. Some Demo-
crats want to lower the income thresh-
olds to qualify for the $1,400-per-per-
son payments, while others want to
be sure it does not benefit Americans
with high incomes do not qualify.
In all, 12 committees are meeting
in the coming days to assemble the
stimulus bill for a House floor vote
during the week of Feb. 22. Once the
bill goes to the Senate, it is designed to
be passed with just 50 members plus
the tie-breaking vote of Vice President
Kamala Harris using a special budget
fast-track procedure.
Architecture firm
announces projects
Portland-based Scott
Edwards Architecture has
announced several proj-
ects in Bend slated for
completion this summer,
including an apartment
development, plus eating
and drinking establish-
ments.
Projects announced
by Scott Edwards include
the Outpost Apartments,
slated for construction at
NE Ross Road and Boyd
Acres Road. The 87-unit
project will be built by
Pahlisch Homes and fin-
ished by June.
Scott Edwards is also
designing a branch of
the free range fast food
restaurant Life & Time at
Neff and Cushing roads,
scheduled for comple-
tion by July. Life & Time’s
first branch is located on
Century Drive on Bend’s
west side.
Also announced is the
construction of an all-sea-
son porch to be built at
the 10 Barrel west-side
location. The construction
and renovation project
includes a permanent-
ly-covered outdoor struc-
ture with heaters to ac-
commodate expanded
outdoor dining.
Tesla invests $1.5
billion in Bitcoin
Tesla has invested
around $1.5 billion in Bit-
coin and said it plans to
begin accepting the dig-
ital currency as payment
for its high-end vehicles
soon. The price of Bitcoin
soared 15% to above
$43,000 Monday.
The California-based
electric carmaker headed
by Elon Musk revealed
the new strategy in a
filing with the U.S. Se-
curities and Exchange
Commission, saying its
investment in digital cur-
rency and other “alterna-
tive reserve assets” may
grow.
Bitcoin rose to $43,863
and briefly hit a new all-
time high. Shares of Tesla
moved higher as well.
In its fourth-quar-
ter earnings report last
month Tesla said it had
cash and cash equivalents
of $19.4 billion.
Dan Ives of Wedbush
Securities said the move
gives Tesla “more flexi-
bility to further diversify
and maximize returns on
its cash.”
— Bulletin staff
and wire reports
Robert F. Bukaty/AP file
A lobster is packed into a shipping
container in Arundel, Maine, in September 2018.
CHINESE NEW YEAR
Pandemic pinches
lobster exporters
BY PATRICK WHITTLE
The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Maine —
America’s lobster exporters
are approaching one of the
most critical times of the year
with trepidation because of the
coronavirus.
Chinese New Year is typi-
cally one of the busiest parts
of the calendar for America’s
lobster shippers, who send mil-
lions of dollars worth of the
crustaceans to China every
year. This year the holiday is
Friday, and industry members
said the Year of the Ox won’t
necessarily be the Year of the
Lobster.
That’s because shipping is
complicated this winter by
the threat of the virus. Mike
Marceau, vice president of The
Lobster Company in Arundel,
Maine, said business would
normally be booming right
now, and it has ground to a
halt. It’s disappointing because
the last spring and summer
were fairly strong, he said.
“It started in spring, and it
held right up until a couple
weeks ago,” Marceau said. “We
sold a lot of product. We’ve just
lost getting a Chinese New Year
because of COVID.” China is
currently enforcing strict rules
about food importation be-
cause of the coronavirus, said
John Sackton, an industry an-
alyst and founder of Seafood-
News.com. Shipping itself is
also more difficult because of
the toll of the coronavirus on
shipping businesses, he said.
“There are all these logistics
things that are throwing sand in
the gears of the seafood trade,”
Sackton said. “The financial risk
for the importer has gone up.”
China’s interest in Ameri-
can lobsters has grown expo-
nentially in the last decade as
the country’s middle class has
grown. Lobster is especially
popular around Chinese New
Year in China because a cooked
lobster is red, a color that rep-
resents prosperity.
Intel sues engineer who allegedly
took trade secrets to Microsoft
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Intel sued a former Ore-
gon employee Friday, alleg-
ing he took trade secrets with
him when he bolted for Mic-
rosoft and used the informa-
tion to gain an advantage in
subsequent business negotia-
tions with Intel.
The engineer, Varun
Gupta, worked for Intel for
a decade before leaving for
Microsoft in January 2020,
according to the suit. He al-
legedly loaded Intel trade
secrets onto two USB drives
and accessed at least one of
them on his Microsoft-is-
sued laptop.
Gupta could not imme-
diately be reached for com-
ment.
“In his new role at Mic-
rosoft, Gupta used the con-
fidential information and
trade secrets he misappro-
priated from Intel, deploying
that information in head-
to-head negotiations with
Intel concerning customized
product design and pricing
for significant volumes of
Xeon processors,” Intel al-
leged in Friday’s filing.
Intel’s complaint suggests
its marketing and engineer-
ing team became concerned
Gupta might have taken
trade secrets while conduct-
ing business negotiations
with him after he had let for
Microsoft. An internal inves-
tigation concluded that he
had transferred 3,900 Intel
documents to a USB drive
on his last day at Intel, ac-
cording to the complaint.
Intel seeks unspecified
damages in the suit, attorney
fees and an injunction pre-
venting Gupta from using
or disclosing the material on
the USB drive. It filed the suit
Friday in U.S. District Court
in Portland.
“Intel has invested billions
of dollars in the development
of the intellectual property
critical to its success in some
of the most competitive in-
dustries in the world,” Intel
said in a written statement
Monday. “We place great
faith and trust in our current
and former employees, but
we have an obligation to pro-
tect our intellectual property
and other proprietary infor-
mation, and we will not hes-
itate to act to prevent their
misappropriation.”
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Report: Boost
in minimum
wage would
raise deficit
and cost jobs
CQ-Roll Call
WASHINGTON — Legislation that
would increase the federal minimum
wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour over five
years would increase deficits by $54 bil-
lion over the next decade, the Congres-
sional Budget Office reported.
The CBO score, which takes into ac-
count a broader range of economic factors
than a 2019 analysis that found minimal
budgetary impact, could bolster Senate
Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders’ case
that the minimum wage bill is eligible for
budget reconciliation under Senate rules.
On the other hand, the higher ex-
pected cost could make it more difficult
to fit within the confines of the budget
resolution adopted last week. And the
CBO projection of 1.4 million additional
jobless under the minimum wage in-
crease, which would lead to increased
federal spending, could pose political
hurdles. The CBO also reported, how-
ever, that the measure could lift some
900,000 Americans out of poverty.
The Vermont independent and other
Democratic leaders are working on a
$1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package
using reconciliation procedures, which
allow legislation to skirt a Senate filibus-
ter and pass with a simple majority.
Building permit
drop signals
slowdown in
development
in Portland
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
The number of new building permits
filed in Portland last year plunged by
27%, falling even below the trough of the
Great Recession.
A slowdown was already underway
before the coronavirus pandemic hit,
following a boom in new hotel and of-
fice construction in downtown Port-
land and new regulations on apartment
builders. Then COVID-19 hit and pro-
tests rocked the downtown core, accel-
erating the falloff.
“There’s three or four different things
that all kind of happened in quick suc-
cession as the market was winding
down,” said Michael Wilkerson, senior
economist with the Portland consulting
firm ECONorthwest.
Portland’s Bureau of Development Ser-
vices has notified 13 employees they will
lose their jobs March 1 because of declin-
ing permitting revenue. The bureau says
it’s holding off on further cuts until spring
while it evaluates the market outlook.
A cyclical decline in commercial
building permits isn’t a great surprise
given the number of new offices and ho-
tels that went up across the city over the
last several years, according to Wilker-
son. It may take a few years for demand
to catch up with the construction boom
at the end of the last decade, and the out-
look is particularly uncertain as employ-
ers evaluate how much remote work will
continue after the pandemic.
There was a rush for multifamily con-
struction permits before new affordable
housing rules kicked in four years ago.
Portland’s “inclusionary zoning” policy
requires developers to set aside apart-
ments in large developments for low-in-
come tenants.
Developers raced to get ahead of those
rules and that may have created a slow-
down in subsequent permitting. Since
then, Wilkerson said, the city has ad-
opted limits on rent increases and other
tenant protections that could reduce in-
vestors’ return on new projects — and
their incentive to build new housing.
Multifamily housing permit activ-
ity has been in decline for three straight
years, but the 43% falloff in 2020 was as-
tonishing. Developers filed to build just
2,000 new units in Portland, the slowest
pace in a decade.