THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2021 A7
Marijuana
Continued from A1
“I have no motivation to take it any
farther,” DeBone said Friday.
DeBone said the original vision for
the term youth activity center was to
keep marijuana operations away from
staffed children centers like a Boys &
Girls Club, and added that he thought
the term youth activity center was not
being used as intended by another
commissioner, though he did not say
specifically who.
Chang, who also supported not ap-
pealing the decision, said he thought
it was pretty clear that the county
would not prevail if the cases we pur-
sued one step further.
“It’s not prudent to waste time, staff
and money when you are fairly cer-
tain something’s not going to go your
way,” Chang said.
With the youth activity center de-
bate settled, and Deschutes County
residents voting to not allow future
marijuana growers and producers
in the county in November, Chang
said he hopes the county can start a
chapter and build a good working
relationship with marijuana produc-
ers.
Adair said she was glad the county
pursued the appeals but ultimately
realized the fight was lost.
“It didn’t make sense to do it,”
she said of an appeal to the state su-
preme court.
David Rosen — the CEO of Wa-
veseer of Oregon, a company that
seeks to build a 36,000-square-foot
facility east of Bend to grow and
process marijuana — was one of the
two applications caught up in the lit-
igation.
Rosen said Friday he was happy to
hear the commission had a change
of heart, and hopes to break ground
on his facility this year.
“We’re very happy to not have a le-
gal battle on our hands,” Rosen said.
Tommy Nehmzow, who wants to
build an 1,800-square-foot indoor
marijuana facility, will also be allowed
to move forward.
Michael Hughes, the attorney rep-
resenting Nehmzow, said he was not
surprised by the commission’s de-
cision, mostly because of the recent
change in leadership with the election
of Chang, a Democrat.
“It took a lot of time and a lot of
battle to get where we are at, but I’m
glad my client has the ability to do
what he was originally approved to
do,” Hughes said Friday.
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Reporter: 541-633-2160,
bvisser@bendbulletin.com
123RF
After roughly two years of legal battles,
two marijuana producers can move for-
ward and establish their businesses in
rural Deschutes County.
Biden defends virus progress
as weather delays 6M shots
BY ZEKE MILLER AND RICARDO
ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
The Associated Press
PORTAGE, Mich. — Presi-
dent Joe Biden toured a state-
of-the art coronavirus vaccine
plant Friday, intent on show-
casing progress even as ex-
treme winter weather across
the U.S. handed his vaccina-
tion campaign its first major
setback, delaying shipment
of about 6 million doses and
causing temporary closures
of inoculation sites in many
communities.
While acknowledging the
weather is “slowing up the
distribution,” Biden said at
the Pfizer plant in Michi-
gan that he believes “we’ll
be approaching normalcy
by the end of this year.” His
speech melded a recitation of
his administration’s accom-
plishments in its first month
confronting the pandemic,
a vigorous pitch for his $1.9
trillion COVID relief bill and
criticism of his predecessor.
The disruptions caused
by frigid temperatures, snow
and ice have left the White
House and states scrambling
to make up lost ground as
three days’ worth of vaccine
shipments were temporarily
delayed. Even the president’s
Evan Vucci/AP
President Joe Biden tours a Pfizer manufacturing site Friday in Por-
tage, Michigan.
trip to see Pfizer’s largest plant
was pushed back a day due to
a storm affecting the nation’s
capital.
Before the trip, White
House coronavirus response
adviser Andy Slavitt said the
federal government, states and
local vaccinators are going
to have to redouble efforts to
catch up after the interruptions.
The setback comes just as the
vaccination campaign seemed
to be on the verge of hitting its
stride. All the backlogged doses
should be delivered in the next
several days, Slavitt said, still
confident that the pace of vac-
cinations will recover.
Biden has set a goal of ad-
ministering 100 million shots
in his administration’s first
100 days, and he said Friday
that’s still on track and it’s only
a beginning.
He went on to say that by
the end of July, his adminis-
tration can deliver 600 million
doses for Americans. Still,
Biden cautioned that timeta-
ble could change, citing the
current weather delays and
concerns about new strains of
the virus.
“I believe we’ll be approach-
ing normalcy by the end of this
year,” he said. “God willing,
this Christmas will be different
than last, but I can’t make that
commitment to you.”
Crook County
Continued from A1
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Kerry Gillette, a physician assistant with Mosaic Medical, fills syringes Friday with the Moderna vaccine
during a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Bethlehem Inn in Bend.
Vaccinations
Continued from A1
Those numbers were ex-
pected to get a boost on Friday
when the Confederated Tribes
of Warm Springs hosted a vac-
cination clinic with 510 doses
available. The clinic was avail-
able to anyone over 18 years
old, said Pitt.
Pitt said he has already re-
ceived his second dose of the
COVID-19 vaccine.
“There was some hesitancy
with the first shot, but then,
people kept dying off around
here and around the nation,”
said Pitt. “So I thought I had
better get my shot.”
At the Bethlehem Inn home-
less shelter in Bend, Executive
Director Gwenn Wysling was
grateful to the Mosaic Medical
staff for bringing the vaccine
to the shelter for residents and
workers and other organiza-
tions in the community could
convene.
“This is keeping residents
safe and healthy,” Wysling said.
“We have to house less resi-
dents than we can to keep peo-
ple healthy. It’s been hard be-
cause we want to help as many
people as possible.”
About 140 vaccinations were
issued on Friday. The goal is to
keep these congregant living
facilities healthy, and Mosaic’s
mission is to provide health
care to shelter residents, said
Elaine Knobbs-Seasholtz, Mo-
saic Medical director of strat-
egy and development.
“We’ve been fortunate
“We’ve been fortunate that we haven’t seen much COVID-19
in these facilities. It makes sense to go where the population
is. We want to make sure that the people will get their
second doses.”
4 Elaine Knobbs-Seasholtz, Mosaic Medical director of strategy and
development
that we haven’t seen much
COVID-19 in these facili-
ties,” Knobbs-Seasholtz said.
“It makes sense to go where
the population is. We want to
make sure that the people will
get their second doses.”
The two vaccines approved
by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration require two
doses, about a month apart, to
provide complete protection
against the virus. The vaccine
is fully effective about two
weeks after the second dose.
Last week’s bad weather
meant that the VA Portland of-
fice needed to find an alterna-
tive way to getting the vaccines
to Central Oregon in a timely
fashion.
On Friday, a plane arrived
and doses were administered at
the VA’s Bend clinic, said Dan-
iel Herrigstad, VA public infor-
mation officer.
“We’ve been using the Pfizer
vaccine; there have been chal-
lenges because of the drive,”
Herrigstad said. “It’s a question
of equity, and it’s challenging
for rural veterans to get to a
clinic. We’re making plans to
expand our clinics.”
The clinic on Friday was
open to veterans age 75 and
older, he said. Spouses are not
eligible at this time, and neither
are those not registered by the
VA, Herrigstad said. To regis-
ter for the vaccine go to www.
portland.va.gov.
Deschutes, Jefferson and
Crook counties will change
the way they sign up eligible
people for COVID-19 vacci-
nations. Starting Friday, the
county will announce how
many vaccines it will receive
and on Saturdays, anyone in
that eligible group can sign up
for an appointment at the De-
schutes County Fair & Expo
Center, said Morgan Emerson,
Deschutes County Health Ser-
vices spokeswoman.
Appointments will close
when all the spots are taken,
she said. Anyone interested
should fill out the online vac-
cine interest form at vaccines.
deschutes.org. Additional in-
formation is available in Span-
ish at the El Condado de De-
schutes Facebook page.
The county does not have a
waiting list for anyone willing
to fill in a vacant appointment,
she said.
e e
Reporter: 541-633-2117, sroig@
bendbulletin.com, staff writer Michael
Kohn contributed to this report
“It was the perfect oppor-
tunity.”
Although student enroll-
ment dipped in school dis-
tricts locally and statewide
this school year, the Crook
County School District has
bucked that trend. Enrollment
has grown by 42 students
compared to last winter, to an
enrollment of 3,121, accord-
ing to the district.
There are many possi-
ble reasons for this growth.
Crook County School Dis-
trict offers a variety of op-
tions for families, including
a district-run homeschool
program. School staff, despite
safety concerns, still collabo-
rated with district adminis-
trators and returned to class-
rooms.
But perhaps the biggest
reason is that Crook County
schools were teaching stu-
dents in-person as early as
September, long before any
other district in the region.
That’s appealing to parents
like Peniche.
“It’s 100 times better than
that ridiculous online stuff,”
she said.
The district was unable to
calculate how many new fam-
ilies enrolled in the Crook
County School District this
school year, said district
spokesperson Jason Carr.
Superintendent Sara John-
son credits Crook County’s
emphasis on offering multi-
ple choices — or a “customer
service direction,” as she put it
— for retaining and recruiting
students.
“From the beginning of this
challenge, we started figur-
ing out what our community
wanted, then tried to offer op-
tions that would meet that,”
she said.
On top of common options
like fully in-person school,
part-time in-person, or the
entirely remote Crook County
Schools On-Line, the dis-
trict offers a unique program:
Grizzly Mountain HomeLink,
which is similar to homes-
chool.
Families who choose Griz-
zly Mountain are given a up
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Gina Peniche and her sons, first grader Anthony Hernandez and
Leo Hernandez, 1, spend time at Barnes Butte Elementary School in
Prineville.
to $1,000 when they start to
purchase homeschool cur-
riculum, said Jonny Oelkers,
the program’s director. Crook
County also has a staff of
eight teachers and three in-
structional assistants to assist
families when needed, and
frequent in-person P.E. and
science lab classes are avail-
able, he said.
Grizzly Mountain, which
launched in September, was
intended to retain Crook
County families who would
otherwise bail for homes-
chooling or online charters,
Oelkers said. And he believes
the program, which has en-
rolled 225 students, has ac-
complished that mission.
“When everybody was try-
ing to get out of school dis-
tricts and get into charters, we
were starting the equivalent of
a charter,” Oelkers said. “But
it’s not a charter.”
The Rodgers family — a
Prineville family of three who
had homeschooled for two
years before September —
switched to Crook County
last fall explicitly because of
Grizzly Mountain, said patri-
arch Rory Rodgers.
He’s been pleased with the
program so far, and finds dis-
trict staff to be supportive, he
said.
“It’s a super-friendly, wel-
coming staff that appears to
really like this job and work-
ing with the parents,” Rodgers
said. “They’ve really got their
stuff together.”
The willingness of Crook
County school staff to work
in-person, despite worries
over COVID-19, was also
cited as a major factor for re-
taining enrollment.
Macy Hagensee — pres-
ident of the Crook County
Education Association and
the culinary arts instructor at
Crook County High School
— said the school district
quickly put lots of pressure
on teachers to reopen classes.
And Prineville’s political cli-
mate added to that, he said.
“We’re already, because of
the conservative nature of our
community, seen as villains
against the well-being of kids,”
said Hagensee.
Although many teachers
were concerned about safety,
the school district assuaged
their concerns by giving the
union a seat at the table when
shaping reopening plans,
Hagensee said. The healthy
union/district relationship,
and braveness of teachers,
helped Crook County schools
reopen quickly and safely,
which in turn, likely con-
vinced families to not jump
ship, he said.
“Most of the things that we
really pressed the school dis-
trict on about safety were ad-
dressed,” Hagensee said. “As
long as nobody dies between
now and everybody getting
their (vaccines), I’d say the
district deserves an A+.”
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
jhogan@bendbulletin.com