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Health care strike
Hospital workers walk off
the job at St. Charles Bend
OSU plans
return to
in-person
classes
Campuses in Bend and
Corvallis could be back
to normal this fall
BY JACKSON HOGAN
The Bulletin
After more than a year of half-
empty dorms and primarily online
classes, Oregon State University’s
campuses in Bend and Corvallis could
mostly return to normal this fall.
“We’re planning towards, as much
as possible, a traditional university
experience,” said Christine Coffin,
spokesperson for OSU-Cascades.
On Thursday, OSU announced
tentative plans to bring back many
in-person classes and extracurricular
activities at OSU-Cascades in Bend
and the larger Corvallis campus when
the fall term begins Sept. 22.
OSU President F. King Alexan-
der confirmed this tentative move
in a letter to university faculty and
staff Wednesday evening. President
Joe Biden’s recent declaration that all
American adults could be vaccinated
by the end of May increased hope that
OSU’s fall term could mostly return to
normal, he wrote.
See OSU / A6
County risk levels
Photos by Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Kaitlyn Carter, an echo tech, leads a chant during a strike at St. Charles in Bend on Thursday
BY SUZANNE ROIG
AND MICHAEL KOHN
The Bulletin
T
echnologists, therapists
and technicians walked the
picket line Thursday at St.
Charles Bend during the
first strike at the hospital since 1980.
St. Charles Bend officials said they
floated a supposal, which is a what-
if-kind-of-scenario, late Wednesday
to the Oregon Federation of Nursing
and Health Professionals. But the
union, which represents 156 workers,
rejected the hospital’s meeting offer.
Union officials, however, said that
the supposal wasn’t an offer at all.
“They have not made an offer to
return to the table. We uncondition-
ally are willing to meet under any
circumstances, any time, to like meet,
bargain, and discuss these issues,”
said Sam Potter, Oregon Federation
of Nursing and Health Professionals
external organizer.
“Our folks are proud to be on the
strike line, but this is not a decision
that they wanted to make. They feel
forced into this position by the hospi-
tal,” Potter said. “It is a little disingen-
uous for the hospital to characterize
reaching out through a federal me-
diator as an attempt to settle the con-
tract when they won’t communicate
with us directly.”
See Strike / A6
Grace period
given to avoid
back and forth
BY GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
Mindy Schiebler, Oregon Federation of Nursing and Health Profes-
sionals board member, grips her sign during the strike .
Counties that might fall back into
the state’s most restrictive extreme
risk level for COVID-19 spread will
be given a two-week grace period on
heightened restrictions, Gov. Kate
Brown announced Thursday.
Brown said the state’s low over-
all infection rates and its steep trend
downward since the winter holidays
allowed for “a bit more time” for some
state trouble spots. The state currently
ranks 49th of the 50 states in new in-
fections per 100,000 people — only
Hawaii scores better.
See Virus / A6
In a story headlined
“Parking restrictions
may become per-
manent,” which pub-
lished on Wednes-
day, March 3 on
Page A1, the price
of the parking per-
mit was incorrectly
stated for residential
permits. The correct
price is $25 a year for
a permit. The Bulle-
tin regrets the error.
TODAY’S
WEATHER
Bend veteran pushes for new memorial highway designation
BY KEVIN HARDEN
Oregon Capital Bureau
Oregon’s long stretch of U.S. High-
way 30, from Astoria to the Idaho
border, could become the Oregon
Veterans Memorial Highway.
Senate Bill 790, introduced Feb. 24
by state Sen. Tim Knopp, a Bend Re-
publican, would rename Oregon’s 477-
mile section of the national highway.
On Wednesday, the bill was referred
to the Senate Committee on Veterans
Breezy, cloudy
High 62, Low 33
Page B5
INDEX
and Emergency Preparedness.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Dick
Tobiason of the nonprofit Bend He-
roes Foundation is the driving force
behind SB 790. Tobiason, who served
two tours during the Vietnam War
as an Army aviator, and his one-man
nonprofit operation led efforts on past
legislation to rename eight Oregon
highways to honor veterans. His legis-
lative success rate is 100%.
“I’ve never lost a vote in 12 years
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doing these highways,” Tobiason said.
It’s simple math, he said. The Bend
Heroes Foundation raises all the
money needed to create 4-by-8-foot
signs to be posted along the highway
with the veterans designation, prob-
ably more than $10,000 for Highway
30. It pays Oregon’s Department of
Transportation to install them. Not a
dime of taxpayer funds goes into the
effort.
Vietnam-era
Army vet-
eran Dick
Tobiason
during a
Veterans
Day assem-
bly at Bend
High School
in 2018.
Bulletin file
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Vol. 119, No. 55, 18 pages, 2 sections
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Correction
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