The BulleTin • Thursday, June 24, 2021 A3
TODAY
Today is Thursday, June 24, the
175th day of 2021. There are 190
days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
In 1948, Communist forces cut
off all land and water routes
between West Germany and
West Berlin, prompting the
western allies to organize the
Berlin Airlift.
In 1497, the first recorded
sighting of North America by a
European took place as explorer
John Cabot spotted land, proba-
bly in present-day Canada.
In 1807, a grand jury in Rich-
mond, Virginia, indicted former
Vice President Aaron Burr on
charges of treason and high
misdemeanor.
In 1947, what’s regarded as the
first modern UFO sighting took
place as private pilot Kenneth
Arnold, an Idaho businessman,
reported seeing nine silvery
objects flying in a “weaving for-
mation” near Mount Rainier in
Washington.
In 1957, the U.S. Supreme Court,
in Roth v. United States, ruled
6-3 that obscene materials
were not protected by the First
Amendment.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon
concluded his summit with
the visiting leader of the Soviet
Union, Leonid Brezhnev, who
hailed the talks in an address on
American television.
In 1983, the space shuttle Chal-
lenger — carrying America’s
first woman in space, Sally K.
Ride — coasted to a safe land-
ing at Edwards Air Force Base in
California.
In 2015, a federal judge in Bos-
ton formally sentenced Boston
Marathon bomber Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev to death for the 2013
terror attacks. (A federal appeals
court later threw out the sen-
tence; the Supreme Court this
fall will consider reinstating it.)
In 2018, women in Saudi Arabia
were able to drive for the first
time, as the world’s last remain-
ing ban on female drivers was
lifted.
Ten years ago: A defiant U.S.
House voted overwhelmingly to
deny President Barack Obama
the authority to wage war
against Libya, but Republicans
fell short in an effort to actually
cut off funds for the operation.
Five years ago: President
Barack Obama created the first
national monument to gay
rights, designating the site of
the 1969 Stonewall riots in Man-
hattan.
One year ago: Three white
men were indicted on murder
charges in the killing of Ahmaud
Arbery, a Black man who was
shot while running in a neigh-
borhood near Georgia’s coast.
Today’s Birthdays: Rock singer
Arthur Brown is 79. Actor Mi-
chele Lee is 79. Actor-director
Georg Stanford Brown is 78. Rock
musician Jeff Beck is 77. Musician
Mick Fleetwood is 74. Actor
Peter Weller is 74. Rock musician
John Illsley (Dire Straits) is 72.
Actor Joe Penny is 65. R&B/pop
singer-songwriter Siedah Garrett
is 61. Actor Iain Glen is 60. Rock
singer Curt Smith is 60. Actor
Danielle Spencer is 56. Actor
Sherry Stringfield is 54. Singer
Glenn Medeiros is 51. Actor Carla
Gallo is 46. Actor Amir Talai (TV:
“LA to Vegas”) is 44. Actor-pro-
ducer Mindy Kaling is 42. Actor
Minka Kelly is 41. Actor Vanessa
Ray is 40. Actor Justin Hires is 36.
Actor Candice Patton is 36. Sing-
er Solange Knowles is 35. Actor
Max Ehrich is 30. Actor Beanie
Feldstein is 28.
— Associated Press
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
$195M wildfire
bill advances,
with some
reservations
BY TED SICKINGER • The Oregonian
A $195 million wildfire bill passed out of the Ways and
Means committee Tuesday on a party-line vote and now
heads to floor votes in the House and Senate amid criticism
by some lawmakers that it will hurt rural Oregonians.
Backers of Senate Bill 762
are calling it one of the most
important pieces of legislation
being considered this session
as the state seeks to ramp up
its fire suppression, prevention
and community preparedness
in the face of longer and more
severe wildfire seasons.
They expressed willing-
ness to consider a last-minute
amendment if it would bring
bipartisan support for the bill
and guarantee its passage. But
it was unclear whether there
is time for that process to play
out before the session’s end —
expected Friday or Saturday
— and the committee moved
the existing version in a 14 to
9 vote.
The legislation is something
of a Swiss Army knife, a multi-
pronged approach proposed by
the Wildfire Response Coun-
cil empaneled by the governor
to develop a holistic model for
wildfire prevention, prepared-
ness and response. The council
delivered a report in Novem-
ber 2019 with 37 recommen-
dations.
Among other things, SB 762
directs utilities to develop wild-
fire mitigation plans, which
must be approved by state regu-
lators. It provides money to bol-
ster state firefighting capacity;
establishes programs for clean
air shelters and smoke filtration
systems; adopts fire resistant
building codes; requires prop-
erty owners in high-risk zones
to establish buffers around their
homes and structures; creates
a permanent wildfire advisory
council and a state wildfire pro-
grams director, funds a youth
corps to work on commu-
nity preparedness; and makes
a down payment on the vast
backlog of forest restoration
work that many believe will be
critical to restoring forest health
and reducing wildfire severity.
On Monday, the bill took a
rhetorical beating from a small
group of lawmakers in the Cap-
ital Construction Subcommit-
tee of Ways and Means, and
the full committee heard the
same message Tuesday. Among
the criticism: the bill is overly
prescriptive; it was developed
without enough input from the
public; it puts so much money
into the troubled state Depart-
ment of Forestry; and that too
many important details and
definitions are being left to
agencies to hash out in subse-
quent rulemaking processes.
The sharpest feedback cen-
ters on the bill’s provisions re-
quiring the Oregon State Fire
Marshal to establish enforce-
able requirements for property
owners to manage combustible
vegetation around homes and
other structures in areas where
wildfire risk is classified as high
and extreme.
Underlying that debate is
how the bill defines the so-
called wildland urban interface
— the area where most of those
restrictions would apply and
property owners would bear
the potential cost and aesthetic
impacts.
A number of Republican
lawmakers as well as Sen. Betsy
Johnson, D-Scappoose, ex-
pressed concerns about how
those rules would apply to
ranchers, wheat farmers and
rural property owners, and
whether it would require their
constituents to denude their
properties and bulldoze crops
to comply. Others questioned
whether wildfire risk desig-
nations at the property level
would affect insurance costs or
property values.
Senate Republican Leader
Fred Girod, R-Stayton, reiter-
ated many of the criticisms he
offered in Monday’s hearing
when he said he would “proba-
bly rate this as the worst bill of
the session” and suggested that
most of the support is coming
from lawmakers from urban
centers. He said that fire resis-
tant building codes could add
$50,000 to $100,000 to the price
of a home.
“This is a terrible bill, and I
really resent the fact that we’re
passing it in the midst of all
these people trying to rebuild,”
said Girod, who lost his own
home in last year’s Santiam
Canyon fires.
Fire science experts and fire-
fighters say that a statewide,
mandatory approach to defen-
sible space and building codes
are critical and cost-effective el-
Andy Nelson/Register-Guard file
A statue of a girl reading sits in September near where the library in Blue River stood before it was destroyed
in the Holiday Farm Fire.
ements of a unified plan. Roger
Johnson, chief of the Sisters
Camp Sherman Fire District,
said more people are building
homes in high risk areas, and
that a voluntary program won’t
work.
Rep. Pam Marsh, D-South-
ern Jackson County, said in an
interview Tuesday that the costs
Girod cited are wildly out of
step with those estimated when
the state’s Building Codes Di-
vision was developing wildfire
mitigation code standards in
2018. At the time, the Building
Codes Division estimated the
provisions in the code would
add approximately $2,500 to
$3,000 to the existing cost of a
typical 1,200-square-foot, sin-
gle-family home.
Marsh said there are a variety
of exceptional costs that come
with building in those envi-
ronments, including wells and
septic fields, and when wildfire
arrives, homeowners would be
happy they’d spent the money.
Likewise, Sen. Jeff Golden,
D-Ashland, told Ways and
Means members Tuesday that
the dystopian vision of rural
Oregonians being required
to clear-cut old trees on their
properties, rip out ornamental
vegetation and raze crops was
not going to happen.
Golden said that extensive
public input in the rulemak-
ing process had been purpose-
fully built into the bill. It also
includes an appeals process for
property owners if their prop-
erty is designated as high or ex-
treme risk for wildfire.
That was a mantra for Dem-
ocratic lawmakers in support
of the bill. They acknowledged
that it may not be perfect, but
that public accountability was
built in and would be extensive
as rules are drafted.
Republican members
urged sponsors to consider
a last-minute amendment
drafted by Rep. Mark Owens,
R-Crane, that addresses the
definition of the wildland ur-
ban interface. They said adopt-
ing it might attract bipartisan
support when the bill reaches
the floor of the Senate and the
House. Johnson said she sup-
ported that effort, but it would
probably take expedited ac-
tion by one of the Legislature’s
presiding officers to make that
happen.
Rep. Dacia Grayber, D-Ti-
gard and a firefighter for Tuala-
tin Valley Fire & Rescue, said
she was disappointed that the
bill, the product of extensive
negotiations and input from
many stakeholder groups over
a two-year period, had be-
come so partisan in the last few
weeks.
“Campaign season is com-
ing up and nothing plays better
than the urban-rural divide,”
she said. “As a firefighter, what
I need is for people to come to-
gether on this. This is personal
to me, it’s not just politics. … If
we don’t start somewhere we’re
going to be doomed to repeat
this cycle. Not to be alarmist,
but the building is on fire.
LAST CALL FOR PHOTOS!
We want your historic
photos for our upcoming
Hello Bend! pictorial history book.
We’re looking for group photos from the 1950s
to 2000s such as class reunions or work crews
in Central Oregon. We will scan your photos and
hand them back to you at the event.
For details, email: gobrien@bendbulletin.com
Bring in your photos for a chance to win a FREE
copy of the Hello Bend! pictorial history book!
SCANNING SESSIONS
June 24-25 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.,
or by appointment until July 16.
email: gobrien@bendbulletin.com or call 541-383-0341