A4 The BulleTin • Friday, april 23, 2021
Three bills honoring veterans
headed to House for final vote
Oregon Capital Bureau
An Oregon House com-
mittee approved a trio of bills
Thursday that honor military
veterans.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Dick
Tobiason of the Bend Heroes
Foundation testified in the vir-
tual hearing in support of the
bills.
“We appreciate your work,”
Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth,
chair of the House Committee
on Veterans and Emergency
Management, told Tobiason.
The bills have all passed the
Senate and after the House
committee approval go to the
House floor for final passage,
then to Gov. Kate Brown to sign
into law.
Senate Bill 790 approves
naming the Oregon portion of
U.S. Highway 30 as the Oregon
Veterans Memorial Highway.
The highway runs from Astoria
to Portland, then west through
Hermiston, Pendleton, La
Grande and Baker City before
leaving the state near Ontario
on the Idaho border.
Senate Bill 319 would dedi-
cate an area in the State Capitol
State Park for a Vietnam War
memorial to be paid for and
built using funds from a non-
profit corporation.
Senate Bill 441 modifies the
criteria for erecting roadside
memorial signs for deceased
veterans to include former pris-
oners of war and missing in
action previously unaccounted
for, but whose remains have
been discovered in recent years.
Llerandi
Douglass
School board
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The virtual forum was
hosted by local nonpartisan or-
ganizations City Club of Cen-
tral Oregon and the League of
Women Voters of Deschutes
County. It was recorded Tues-
day evening and posted on
City Club’s website Thursday.
When the candidates were
asked how they would use fed-
eral COVID-19 money to help
the district, the candidates of-
fered many options.
LeGrand said the funds
should be used to help with
the transition out of distance
learning, by improving school
ventilation systems and buy-
ing more personal protective
equipment.
He also said new posi-
tions created with funding —
whether those are new federal
funds or state money from
the voter-passed Student Suc-
cess Act — should come with
enough staff to help them
achieve their goals.
“Don’t load it down on one
person,” LeGrand said. “If you
have a director of diversity,
don’t give that person (all the)
responsibility with no staff.”
Douglass said the school
board plans to use a lot of the
federal money to fund sum-
mer programs to help stu-
dents who struggled with on-
line schooling. But the federal
funds Bend-La Pine has re-
ceived so far — about $8 mil-
lion, she said — won’t make a
huge impact, she said.
“It’s great, and we’ll use it
wisely, (but) it is not nearly
enough to make up for a year
of lost learning,” Douglass said.
Llerandi — who is also the
finance coordinator for edu-
cation nonprofits Better To-
gether and Early Learning Hub
of Central Oregon — agreed
that the $8 million will be used
up quickly. But she’s skilled in
working with tight budgets,
she said.
“As a single parent, my
added layer of experience hav-
ing to work on shoestring bud-
gets counts for more than you
can imagine,” Llerandi said.
Llerandi wasn’t the only
candidate to say life and ca-
reer experience would benefit
Bend-La Pine Schools.
Olson touted her de-
cades-long career in the ed-
ucation world, from being
an educational consultant
for companies like Pearson
to serving as an elementary
school principal and adminis-
trator in multiple school dis-
LeGrand
tricts, including Salem-Keizer.
“I have seen lots of questions
and lots of solutions,” she said.
As the lone incumbent, serv-
ing on the board since 2017,
Douglass said she would pro-
vide stability as the COVID-19
pandemic continues and a new
superintendent, Steve Cook,
takes charge in July.
“I’m really uniquely qual-
ified to continue to provide
strong and consistent, but also
transformative, leadership at
this time,” she said.
Raised by a single parent in
a small North Carolina town,
LeGrand used his military ca-
reer to pay for college. Now,
as a college and career success
coach at Central Oregon Com-
munity College, he works hard
to help other young adults re-
alize their goals, and can do the
same at Bend-La Pine, he said.
“I’m a small town kid who
understood that hard work is
going to get you somewhere,”
LeGrand said. “Now, I can
hand my experiences over to
some student, or many stu-
dents, who need that knowl-
edge.”
All four candidates also
agreed that if elected, they
likely wouldn’t mandate school
staff to receive the COVID-19
vaccine.
“I believe in fact-based evi-
dence. I believe in the science,”
Llerandi said. “But I also be-
lieve it is the responsibility of
Olson
each household parent to make
that decision.”
The candidates’ four oppo-
nents, who did not participate
in the forum, were briefly men-
tioned at the virtual event.
When asked what differen-
tiates the candidates from their
opponents, both Douglass
and Llerandi pointed out that
their challengers — Maria Lo-
pez-Dauenhauer and Jon Haff-
ner, respectively — seemed to
be primarily focused on re-
opening schools.
Bend-La Pine Schools began
bringing back students in-per-
son in late January.
“Being a one-issue can-
didate is not healthy for a
board any time, especially not
now, in the middle of a crisis,
and with a new superinten-
dent,” Douglass said of Lo-
pez-Dauenhauer.
LeGrand noted that he
hadn’t seen his opponent,
Wendy Imel, engaged in the
Bend community, and wel-
comed her to join him. LeG-
rand is a board member of The
Father’s Group, a Bend educa-
tional nonprofit led by Black
fathers.
“We’re all fighting hard for
change, so let’s do it together,”
LeGrand said.
Olson said she did not know
much about her opponent,
Gregg Henton.
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
jhogan@bendbulletin.com
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Skyline
Continued from A1
At least half of those units
will be reserved for those who
make 80% of the area median
income or less — meaning
about $52,070 or less, accord-
ing to U.S. Census data.
Skyline Village will be lo-
cated just northeast of Red-
mond’s current city limits,
between NE 13th Street, NE
17th Street, NE Kingwood
Avenue and NE Negus Way.
The development will feature
a variety of housing types,
from town homes to three-
story apartment buildings to
cottage housing — which are
single-family houses spaced
closely together.
In late 2019, Deschutes
County agreed to donate the
40 acres needed for Skyline
Village to the city of Red-
mond.
At the April 13 Redmond
City Council meeting, coun-
cilors unanimously approved
a bundle of four applications
meant to move the develop-
ment of Skyline Village for-
ward.
The City Council first
voted to rezone the 40 acres
for mixed-use and residential
use. Previously, it was zoned
for exclusive farm use.
Then, the council agreed
to add the 40 acres to Red-
mond’s urban growth bound-
J&J
Continued from A1
Until the investigation is
complete, which health offi-
cials predict will take a week
or more, it’s not certain that
her death is related to the vac-
cine, the agency said.
Federal and state agencies
paused the J&J vaccine rollout
on April 13 due to concerns
about blood clots.
“For most people that re-
ceived the (J&J) vaccine, we
are nearing the end of that
time of where they need to
be monitoring for symp-
toms,” Sharief said. The CDC
warned that if people have
symptoms within three weeks
ary. This makes it easier for
the city to annex the land,
which should happen later in
2021, said John Roberts, dep-
uty city manager.
The council also parti-
tioned the 40 acres, to sep-
arate it from the larger sur-
rounding parcel. This was a
requirement of the county’s
land donation, according to
city documents.
Finally, the City Council
approved a master develop-
ment plan for Skyline Village.
This dictates what parts of the
40 acres will be used for spe-
cific purposes, Roberts said.
The council’s next two
steps are to wait until De-
schutes County amends its
comprehensive land use plan
to accommodate Skyline Vil-
lage, and to hire a master de-
veloper, Roberts said. The
county is expected to make
that move soon, and the city
hopes to solicit a developer
starting early this summer,
he said.
But even if everything goes
perfectly smoothly, construc-
tion won’t start until early
summer 2022, Roberts said.
And even that might be a
stretch.
“I’d say early next summer
… but that’s an ambitious
timeline,” he said.
Katherine Austin, a Bend-
based architect who sits on
Bend’s affordable housing
committee, said the slow
timeline for Skyline Village
isn’t surprising. That’s mostly
due to the difficulty in find-
ing the necessary funding, so
the housing can actually be
affordable.
“What people have to re-
alize, it’s going to take a long
time for this to actually de-
velop,” Austin said. “It’s a
huge project, and there’s only
so much subsidy available
for affordable housing in one
year.”
Austin also had concerns
about Skyline Village being
located far away from cen-
tral Redmond. Although she
acknowledged there likely
wasn’t a better place to put it,
putting affordable housing
deep in the sprawl isn’t the
best solution, she said.
“When you put affordable
housing out on the periphery,
it requires people to own cars
to have people get to jobs, get
food,” Austin said. “The more
somebody needs a car, the
less affordable the housing is.”
Still, Austin acknowledged
that Central Oregon badly
needs more affordable hous-
ing.
“I think it’s a very helpful
thing,” she said of Skyline Vil-
lage. “The preference would
be more in-town, but this is
the next best thing.”
after receiving the vaccine
they should contact their
health care provider.
Federal officials already
were examining six reports of
the unusual clots, including a
death, out of more 8 million
Americans given the one-
dose vaccination so far.
The CDC also told Texas
health authorities Thursday
that a woman in that state
was hospitalized with possi-
ble blood clots associated with
J&J vaccine recipients.
A government advisory
committee on vaccines is ex-
pected to meet Friday and
could make a recommenda-
tion soon after on whether
and how to resume use of the
J&J vaccine.
Sharief said whether Ore-
gon resumes distribution of
the J&J vaccine will be a “re-
flection” of the committee’s
decision.
“We have the utmost confi-
dence that it would be a deci-
sion made with thorough in-
vestigation and consideration
of the potential benefits and
risks, in relation to each other,
as we go through this pan-
demic,” Sharief said.
Oregon health officials also
announced 989 new or pre-
sumptive COVID-19 cases
Wednesday, continuing the
troubling upward trajectory
seen across the state in recent
weeks.
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
jhogan@bendbulletin.com