A4 The BulleTin • Thursday, June 10, 2021
TODAY
Homeless
Today is Thursday, June 10, the
161st day of 2021. There are 204
days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On June 10, 1963, President
John F. Kennedy signed into law
the Equal Pay Act of 1963, aimed
at eliminating wage disparities
based on gender.
In 1692, the first execution re-
sulting from the Salem witch tri-
als in Massachusetts took place
as Bridget Bishop was hanged.
In 1922, singer-actor Judy
Garland was born Frances Ethel
Gumm in Grand Rapids, Min-
nesota.
In 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous
was founded in Akron, Ohio, by
Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith and
William Griffith Wilson.
In 1942, during World War II,
German forces massacred 173
male residents of Lidice, Czecho-
slovakia, in retaliation for the
killing of Nazi official Reinhard
Heydrich.
In 1944, German forces massa-
cred 642 residents of the French
village of Oradour-sur-Glane.
In 1967, six days of war in the
Mideast involving Israel, Syria,
Egypt, Jordan and Iraq ended as
Israel and Syria accepted a Unit-
ed Nations-mediated cease-fire.
In 1971, President Richard M.
Nixon lifted a two-decades-old
trade embargo on China.
In 1977, James Earl Ray, the
convicted assassin of civil rights
leader Martin Luther King Jr.,
escaped from Brushy Mountain
State Prison in Tennessee with
six others; he was recaptured
June 13.
In 1978, Affirmed, ridden by
Steve Cauthen, won the 110th
Belmont Stakes to claim horse
racing’s 11th Triple Crown.
In 1991, 11-year-old Jaycee
Dugard of South Lake Tahoe,
California, was abducted by Phil-
lip and Nancy Garrido; Jaycee
was held by the couple for 18
years before she was found by
authorities.
In 2004, singer-musician Ray
Charles died in Beverly Hills, Cali-
fornia, at age 73.
In 2013, jury selection began in
Sanford, Florida, in the trial of
neighborhood watch volunteer
George Zimmerman, charged
with second-degree murder in
the fatal shooting of 17-year-old
Trayvon Martin. (Zimmerman
was acquitted.)
Ten years ago: In a stern re-
buke, Defense Secretary Robert
Gates warned in Brussels that
the future of the historic NATO
military alliance was at risk
because of European penny
pinching and a distaste for front-
line combat.
Five years ago: Muhammad Ali
was laid to rest in his hometown
of Louisville, Kentucky, after an
all-day send-off. “Mr. Hockey”
Gordie Howe, who set scoring
records that stood for decades,
died in Sylvania, Ohio, at 88.
Singer Christina Grimmie, 22, a
finalist on NBC’s “The Voice,” was
shot to death during a meet-
and-greet after giving a concert
in Orlando, Florida, by an appar-
ently obsessed fan who then
killed himself. Actor Michael Jace
was sentenced in Los Angeles to
40 years to life in prison for fatal-
ly shooting his wife, April.
One year ago: Protesters pulled
down a century-old statue of
Confederate President Jefferson
Davis in Richmond, Virginia, the
former capital of the Confed-
eracy. President Donald Trump
said his administration would
“not even consider” changing
the name of any of the 10 Army
bases that were named for Con-
federate Army officers. NASCAR
announced that it was banning
the Confederate flag at all of its
races and venues. An interna-
tional economic report said the
virus crisis had triggered the
worst global recession in nearly
a century, with hundreds of mil-
lions of people losing jobs.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Alex-
andra Stewart is 82. Singer Shir-
ley Alston Reeves (The Shirelles)
is 80. Actor Jurgen Prochnow
is 80. Actor Frankie Faison is 72.
Football Hall of Famer Dan Fouts
is 70. Country singer-songwriter
Thom Schuyler is 69. Former
Sen. John Edwards is 68. Rock
musician Kim Deal is 60. Singer
Maxi Priest is 60. Actor Gina
Gershon is 59. Actor Jeanne Trip-
plehorn is 58. Actor Ben Daniels
is 57. Actor Kate Flannery is 57.
Model-actor Elizabeth Hurley is
56. Rock musician Joey Santiago
is 56. Actor Doug McKeon is 55.
Rapper The D.O.C. is 53. Rock
singer Mike Doughty is 51. R&B
singer Faith Evans is 48. Country
singer Lee Brice is 42. Singer
Hoku is 40. Actor Leelee Sobieski
is 39. Olympic gold medal figure
skater Tara Lipinski is 39. Actor
Titus Makin is 32. Actor Tristin
Mays is 31. Sasha Obama is 20.
Actor Eden McCoy is 18.
Continued from A1
— Associated Press
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Fire crews walk the perimeter of a prescribed burn along Forest Road 21 near La Pine on Wednesday. It was the Deschutes National Forest’s last
burn of spring. Meanwhile, Oregon forestry officials have declared an early start to the 2021 fire season.
Oregon reacting to drought, fire risks
In areas of the state’s
northeast corner,
where 2 blazes are
burning, snowpack
has melted away
BY ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
SALEM — In Northeast
Oregon’s Union County, the
snowpack is so thin that it has
completely melted away in
measurement sites. Rivers are
running lower, spelling bad
news for farmers. The wildfire
risk is high.
Given these conditions, the
county declared a drought
emergency Wednesday and an
early start to the fire season.
The conditions in Union
County, home to 27,000 people
spread out over 2,000 square
miles, mirror those in much of
the West Coast, where drought
is above or near record levels,
creating increased wildfire risk
and hurting farmers, ranchers
and fish species.
County Emergency Manager
Nick Vora went before county
commissioners to describe a
bleak situation.
Snowstorms built snowpack
in the mountains to above and
near normal levels in February,
but since then, “the precipita-
tion spigot essentially shut off,”
Vora said. On June 1, snow-
pack was 0% of normal, with
all the measurement sites com-
pletely melted off, he added.
“In June, normally things are
melting, but not that extreme,”
he told the commissioners.
Rivers are also running
lower this season, which “is
Bureau of Land Management
The Joseph Canyon Fire, pictured
over the weekend, is burning
along the Oregon-Washing-
ton border. As of Wednesday,
more than 7,600 acres had been
scorched.
likely to have some fairly sig-
nificant impacts agriculturally,”
he said. County farmers grow
wheat, hay, peppermint and
other crops.
The commissioners unani-
mously agreed to Vora’s request
to declare a drought emer-
gency and, effective June 15, an
early start to the fire season.
In Southern Oregon, where
the fire season has already be-
gun, drought conditions are at
historic levels.
In Klamath Falls, where a
fight over water rights has been
brewing, with right-wing mi-
litia supporters threatening
to take control of a reservoir’s
head gates, officials are urging
residents to conserve water.
City spokeswoman Kristina
Mainwaring said the city will
deploy a public education pro-
gram to advise residents how
to reduce water consumption.
With fires last year hav-
ing devastated some towns in
OBITUARY
Roderick Nelson Stark
May 27, 2021
Roderick Nelson Stark,
age 56, passed away
unexpectedly on Thursday
May 27, 2021. A father, a
brother, a son and uncle,
Rod will be missed by
many. A graduate of South
Eugene High School, class
of ‘82, Rod att ended Lane
Community College before
moving to Hawaii, where
he lived and worked for
several years. Rod was a
successful salesman of irrigati on systems for 20 years
before moving to Central Oregon, where he was living at
the ti me of his passing.
A pyrotechnics expert in his own right, Rod was also a
BBQ afi cionado, with the most boisterous, fun-loving
personality to bless any event or occasion.
Jan E. & William H. Stark, Rod’s late mother
and father, precede him in passing. Rod is
survived by his son Tylor Stark, as well as his
brother William R. Stark and wife Suzanne,
his nephew Ezra J. Stark, and grand-niece,
Charlie, his aunt Linda Douglas and
cousin Monica Schank, and many other
aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends too
numerous to list.
A celebrati on to honor Rod’s life,
family, and friends will
be announced at
a later date.
southwest Oregon, cities in
Jackson County are revising
emergency operations plans,
and several have established
new evacuation zones.
In Medford, a new interactive
map allows residents to identify
their zone and print out evacua-
tion routes and checklists in En-
glish or Spanish.
Meanwhile, two wildfires
continued to burn in Wallowa
County. As of Wednesday they
had burned almost 10,000
acres combined and were both
60% contained. Forest manag-
ers in the area declared an early
start to the 2021 fire season,
with conditions resembling
those that would be typical for
midsummer.
“We’ve been seeing fire con-
ditions and behavior that is
more indicative of mid- to late
July recently.” said Joe Hessel,
the Oregon Department of
Forestry’s district forester for
Northeast Oregon.
The fire season began at
12:01 a.m. Wednesday for ap-
proximately 2 million acres
of forest and range lands pro-
tected by the department.
That means debris burning is
prohibited, burn permits will
not be issued for burn barrels
or open burning, and logging
and other industrial operations
must have water supplies ready
to extinguish any fires.
“In a normal season, we
would have experienced spring
moisture which typically delays
the start of fire season until
later in June,” Hessel said. “This
season, significant amounts of
moisture have been absent.”
The Joseph Canyon Fire has
burned more than 7,600 acres
on the Oregon-Washington
border. Some 10 miles to the
southeast, the Dry Creek Fire,
burning in a remote and rug-
ged part of Hells Canyon near
Joseph, has scorched more
than 1,500 acres.
Alison McIntosh, pol-
icy director for the Ore-
gon Housing Alliance, said
in a letter supporting the
bill that Martin on its own
doesn’t provide clarity about
what public property peo-
ple are allowed to sleep on.
Also, she said, cities have
worked around Martin by
enforcing “no camping”
rules on some public prop-
erty while not enforcing it
on other public land.
“This does not solve the
problem, though, for either
people experiencing home-
lessness or law enforce-
ment,” she wrote. “It does
not provide people experi-
encing homelessness clear
guidance about where they
can or cannot sit or sleep.”
McIntosh said the bill is a
step in the right direction.
While the Martin case
could be overturned in the
future, the new law would
still protect unsheltered in-
dividuals sleeping on public
land.
The bill also goes a step
further than the court
case with the addition of
the demand to allow peo-
ple to engage in activities
necessary to “keep warm
and dry.” This could in-
clude things like pitching a
tent on public property to
stay protected from severe
weather.
Cities have until July 1,
2023, to update their ordi-
nance language.
Under these new rules,
cities can still decide what
is considered reasonable
enforcement. This means a
city could prevent someone
from sleeping on one piece
of land if it clearly makes
other public land available
for individuals experiencing
homelessness to sleep on. If
a city wants to completely
prohibit people from sleep-
ing on public land, the city
must first provide enough
housing or emergency shel-
ter beds for every person
who is experiencing home-
lessness within that juris-
diction.