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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 2021)
A4 THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2021 Arctic blast kills over a dozen across southern U.S. BY ANNIE GOWEN,ANDREW FREEDMAN,TIM CRAIG AND FENIT NIRAPPIL The Washington Post WASHINGTON — An Arctic blast continued to wreak havoc across a large swath of the United States on Tuesday after a snowstorm left more than a dozen dead and millions without power, with officials in some places saying residents might be in the dark for days. And it’s not over. A sec- ond storm had begun taking shape Tuesday night, aimed at the nation’s southern tier and some of the same hard-hit ar- eas, according to The Wash- ington Post. Among those killed were a 10-year-old boy who fell through ice near Milling- ton, Tennessee, and a woman and a girl who died of car- bon monoxide poisoning in Houston after a car was left running in a garage to keep them warm, according to po- lice. A tornado associated with Bond Continued from A1 “It’s not ideal. You don’t want kids in a closet,” said Principal Joan Warburg. “Who wants learning in the hall? I don’t.” School administrators say these capacity issues could be fixed if voters approve Sisters School District’s $33 million bond on May 18. “If we don’t (pass the bond), I’m not sure how we fit in more kids,” Warburg said. The bond would replace Sis- ters Elementary School — the school district’s oldest build- ing — with a larger, K-5 school right next to Sisters high and middle schools. Sisters school leaders tout increased capacity, the conve- nience of being next to the dis- trict’s existing schools and an outdated building as the main reasons for a new school. School officials say a new building is simply needed for a city where new families keep arriving. Sisters’ population grew by nearly 35% between 2010 and 2018, from 2,038 people to 2,747, according to the U.S. Census Bureau esti- mates. It’s a growth rate com- parable to Bend. “The area’s growing quickly, and we want to make sure we’re ready for kids,” said Su- perintendent Curt Scholl. the storm system also struck North Carolina, killing at least three and injuring 10. Wind-chill watches and warnings stretched from the Dakotas to the Gulf Coast as the coldest of this Arctic out- break hit Tuesday morning, with Dallas, Houston, and Oklahoma City posting their lowest temperatures since at least 1989. With nearly three-quar- ters of the contiguous United States blanketed by snow, at midafternoon Tuesday, there were 3.8 million still without power in Texas, and thou- sands more in 16 states, in- cluding Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana and West Virginia, according to the website Pow- erOutage.us. Texas was hit especially hard. In Corpus Christi, a coastal community in the southern part of the state, preparations are typically un- derway to host an influx of students for spring break at this time of year. But on Tues- And for locals who need convincing, the bond won’t raise property taxes, said Scholl. It will maintain the tax rate that’s been in place since residents passed a bond in 2001 to build Sisters High School, he said. A new, larger Sisters Ele- mentary would bring fifth graders back to the school. The current setup is vexing for staff. When Warburg orders ele- mentary curriculum, it always comes as a K-5 package — which means she has to over- see what teachers are doing in an entirely separate building, she said. Furthermore, gifted fourth graders who might benefit from sitting in for some fifth- grade lessons don’t get to do so in the current setup, Warburg said. “We can’t transport kids across town just to do that,” she said. Capacity aside, Sisters Ele- mentary also dates back to the 1970s. Warburg quipped that it took a year and half to replace lightbulbs in her office and some hallways, since the bal- lasts that held the bulbs were so outdated that nobody made them anymore. Even small upgrades in pre- vious bonds, from replacing carpeting to adding classrooms, can’t fix everything, she said. day morning, the temperature had plunged to 19 degrees, causing pipes to burst and straining the city’s ability to care for its residents. “This cold has been ex- tremely difficult on us because we are a coastal community of 300-plus days of warm weather a year,” said Mayor Paulette Guajardo, who has been on the job for a month. “We are just completely un- accustomed to it — we are a bathing-suit-and-shorts com- munity, but we are going to get through it, and we are go- ing to be stronger because of it.” Like the rest of Texas, Cor- pus Christi has been hit by sustained power outages, with Guajardo estimating that at least a third of her city’s 325,000 residents have lost power. She and numerous of- ficials around the state said the Electric Reliability Coun- cil of Texas “failed” Texans by not doing enough to prepare for the cold snap. Fairgrounds Continued from A1 Hinds said the fairgrounds has been working with the county to get appropriate fund transfers to cover the cost of operating these kinds of services. But even those events, such as the Cascade Chute Outa rodeo, still did not make the fair and expo center as much money as they would in a normal year, given ca- pacity restrictions and more time and resources it takes to make an event safe, Hinds said. “Any return was better than none,” he said. Hinds and the fair board are now trying to plan for multiple scenarios as the county heads into another year rocked by the pandemic. The plan is to create multiple budgets for the county fair, ranging from forecasting rev- enue from a typical fair, to not having any kind of fair at all, he said. “The No. 1 goal is to do this safely and responsibly,” he said. Hinds said he is cautiously optimistic about having some kind of fair this year, even if it doesn’t look like fairs in Dean Guernsey/Bulletin file In December 2020, students at Sisters Elementary School walk apart, guided by pictures of horseshoes on the floor. “It’s starting to show its age, regardless of how much we re- pair it,” she said. Because the new school would be built next to Sisters high and middle schools, on the city’s western edge, life would be easier for school dis- trict staffers like the Latino family liaison or school psy- chologist, who work with stu- dents at all three schools, said Warburg. It could also make com- mutes easier for parents like Haley Ellis, who has students at both Sisters Elementary and Sisters Middle schools. The schools are on opposite sides of the city, and traffic going east to west, or vice versa, can be rough due to Sisters only hav- ing a couple main thorough- A number of events have already been rescheduled, either being moved onto later dates or next year, Geoff Hinds said, and he expects to see those impacts through the first part of next year. past years. And this year, De- schutes County has the bene- fit of being able to learn from the lessons already learned from running safe events in the COVID-19 era. “We’re not going into it as blind as we were last year,” he said. While not preferable, Hinds said even if a fair does not happen again this year, the situation will be “livable.” “We lived through it this year, and we’ll still be in ex- istence. We’ll still be able to pay the bills,” he said. “But it certainly doesn’t happen without challenges, and those will continue to compound into the future the longer we are forced to do things and make cuts.” As of last week, every weekend in 2021 except one was booked at the expo cen- ter, which is just one section of the whole fairgrounds property, according to a pre- sentation made to the De- schutes County Commission fares, she said. “It would definitely make my life simpler to have (the schools) all consolidated,” said Ellis, who’s also a member of a political action committee to pass the bond. The school board decided to put the bond on the May ballot, rather than November, due to timing, Scholl said. If passed in May, the district can get a head start on building the school in time for 2023-24 school year, he said. “With November, I’m not sure we’d be able to make that timeline,” Scholl said. The school district hopes to pay for other various repairs and upgrades in the district if the bond passes, said Scholl. But because the price of build- ing the new school is still un- on Thursday. Some are more traditional events, like a Taco & Margarita festival in Sep- tember and a BBQ&Brew Festival in April, as well as continued vaccination clin- ics. But a number of events have already been resched- uled, either being moved onto later dates or next year, Hinds said, and he expects to see those impacts through the first part of next year. While the fairgrounds can accommodate multi- ple events at the same time, Hinds said that if there is ever a conflict between a dif- ferent event and the coun- ty’s vaccination clinics, COVID-19 response efforts will always take priority. “We think working with medical professionals that we’ve come up with strategies in the short and midterm to allow what’s on the calendars to continue,” he said. e e Reporter: 541-633-2160, bvisser@bendbulletin.com known due to fluctuating con- struction costs, he won’t know how much money will be left over. So he didn’t want to guar- antee additional projects yet, he said. Mylee Card — a kindergar- ten teacher at Sisters Elemen- tary and mother of two young children — said a new elemen- tary is needed. “We are very much over crowded here at SES — and our population doesn’t seem to be decreasing,” Card wrote in an email. “I also have a daugh- ter that will be a kindergar- ten student next year, and I’m very excited for her to have the possibility of the new school and all the positive things that would bring!” e e Reporter: 541-617-7854, jhogan@bendbulletin.com ENTER TO WIN THE MOUNTAINFILM GIVEAWAY! Win two tickets to the MOUNTAINFILM ON TOUR plus a $50 Old Mill District gift card! You can enter online, by email, or by mailing the form below. MOUNTAINFILM GIVEAWAY ENTRY FORM Permits Continued from A1 “These (new units) won’t immediately alleviate the hous- ing shortage,” said Damon Runberg, Oregon Employment Department regional econo- mist. “However, they will help move us in the right direction.” Runberg added that 2021 could see a restart in greater “geographic mobility” as the pandemic subsides and peo- ple are more likely to sell their homes with less worry about being in contact with others. “More churn within the ex- isting housing market com- bined with new construction means we are looking at less of a supply shortage,” said Run- berg. The demand for housing continues to put pressure on lumber markets. The average indexed price for pine was $856 in December compared to $499 in the same month a year ago. The price of lumber doubled during the pandemic as homebuilders picked up supplies and home- owners worked on projects at home during the periodic quarantines and lockdowns. Bruce Daucsavage, general manager for Prineville-based Ochoco Lumber, said there are other factors in play beyond the demand for lumber. “Mills are not able to in- crease hours of work due to the lack of workers. Not the lack of logs. All of my friends who run mills say they cannot get peo- ple to work,” said Daucsavage. That lack of workers is low- ering production, and in some cases, closing sawmills. “It is difficult to ramp up production in the West,” said Daucsavage. “The industry rarely builds large inventories and practices just-in-time pro- duction methods. There have been zero mills built in the past few years in the West. Small in- vestments are also a concern.” The building spree hasn’t eased home prices. The me- dian price for a single-fam- ily home in Bend hit a record high in January at $580,000, up from $524,000 in Decem- ber, according to data from the Beacon Report, which com- piles prices for Central Oregon. Prices in Redmond have like- wise continued to soar, with the median price for a home at $377,000 in January, up from $375,000 in December. One reason for the contin- ued surge in prices is low in- ventory, said David Gilmore, broker for Coldwell Banker Bain. Inventory in Bend is just two weeks, which means if no new homes come on the market, every available home would be sold in two weeks. Historically, Bend has had six months of inventory. The median num- ber of days on the market in both Bend and Redmond was four last month. One year ago it was 115 days on the market in Bend and 119 days in Red- mond. Gilmore said in his 11 years of working in Bend’s real estate market, he has never seen such low inventory. “This market is challeng- ing,” said Gilmore. “What I am telling buyers what they need now is patience, flexibility, and a willingness to pay over list price because the perfect house may not come up, and if it does ,there could be a feeding frenzy on it.” e e Reporter: 541-617-7818, mkohn@bendbulletin.com First & Last Name Email Address Phone Number Mailing Address Donald “Don” L. Hickman of Redmond, OR September 12, 1949 - February 2, 2021 Arrangements: Niswonger-Reynolds Funeral Home is hon- ored to serve the family. 541-382-2471 Please visit the online registry for the family at www.niswonger-reynolds. com Services: A celebration of Don’s life will be held at a later date for family and friends. Contributions may be made to: In lieu of flowers please consider donating to: Education Foundation for Bend-La Pine School (Fund: Activity Fee Schol- arships)P.O. Box 1436, Bend, OR 97709 www.engagedminds.org OBITUARY DEADLINE Call to ask about our deadlines 541-385-5809 Monday - Friday, 10am - 3pm No death notices or obituaries are published Mondays. Email: obits@bendbulletin.com Date of Birth Please check here if you would like to be contacted about subscribing to The Bulletin. MAIL YOUR ENTRY FORM TO: Enter to Win! C/O The Bulletin P.O. Box 6020 Bend, OR 97708 SEE CONTEST DETAILS AND ENTER ONLINE AT www.BendBulletin.com/offers or email your entry to enter-to-win@bendbulletin.com No purchase necessary to enter. All entries must be received by 2/21/2021. SPONSORED BY: