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Monday • February 21, 2022
OREGON | VALUES AND BELIEFS CENTER
Survey finds optimism is in short supply
By SUZannE RoIG
The Bulletin
Optimism is in short supply these
days, according to a survey of Orego-
nians by the Values and Beliefs Center.
And more than half those sur-
veyed feel Oregon is headed down the
wrong path, according to the survey
of 1,400 residents from Jan. 13-20.
“It is sad that people are unhappy,”
said Amaury Vogel, Oregon Values
and Beliefs Center associate executive
director. “I think it’s more sad that they
are not hopeful that things are going
to get better and that they feel their
elected officials are not going to make
progress in making things better.”
“(Lawmakers) will be able to make significant progress in benefitting
the opinions of Portlanders, but certainly not the whole Oregon, which is
largely at odds with Portland and its politics.”
— Savannah Singleton, a deschutes County resident, in a written response
to an oregon Values and Beliefs Center survey
Rising prices, two years of pan-
demic related restrictions and a dis-
trust for politicians are contributing to
the amount of optimism people feel.
The emotional climate of Orego-
nians is a complex issue, said Peter
Sparks, Oregon State University-Cas-
cades senior instructor and program
coordinator for the Psychology Pro-
gram.
“There is likely to be many complex
issues that have led people to be pes-
simistic and helping people become
more optimistic will be difficult,”
Sparks said of the survey results.
According to the survey, 53% of
those surveyed say they’re optimistic
about 2022, compared to roughly the
same period in 2021 when 59% sur-
veyed said they were very or some-
what optimistic.
More than half those surveyed also
felt that the state was headed in the
wrong direction, a feeling that is about
the same as it was in February 2021,
according to the results.
“They (lawmakers) will be able to
make significant progress in bene-
fitting the opinions of Portlanders,
but certainly not the whole Oregon,
which is largely at odds with Portland
and its politics,” wrote Savannah Sin-
gleton, a Deschutes County resident,
in a response to a survey question.
A deeper dive into the results shows
that 62% of those surveyed are not
optimistic that the Legislature and
the governor will be able to make any
progress on key issues during the cur-
rent legislative session.
“Despite a nearly two-thirds major-
ity in the Legislature, somehow I sus-
pect that the nut job whiney third will
find some way to draw attention to
themselves and how they’re being per-
sonally oppressed instead of doing any
meaningful Democratic debates,” wrote
Brenda Pace, a Deschutes County resi-
dent, who responded to the survey.
See Survey / A4
PORTLAND | SATURDAY NIGHT
DEADLY SHOOTOUT AT PARK
WHERE MARCH WAS PLANNED
Alaska Premier Auctions and Appraisals via AP
one of the largest opals in the world
has been sold.
Oregon man
once had a
huge opal;
it’s been sold
for big bucks
Associated Press
Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian
Portland Police responded around 8 p.m. Saturday to a shooting in the area of normandale Park in northeast Portland. one person was killed and five injured.
One person killed; 50 people
disrupt police briefing Sunday
as city’s record gun violence
shows little sign of letting up
Associated Press
PORTLAND — One person was killed and
five others were wounded in a shooting Satur-
day night at a Portland park where a march was
planned to protest police violence.
Officers responding to a report of shots fired
at Normandale Park found one woman dead, ac-
cording to the Portland Police Bureau. Two men
and three other women were taken to the hospi-
tal. Their conditions were not released.
Social media flyers show that at the same time
as the shooting, a march was planned for Amir
Locke, a Black man who was fatally shot by police
in Minneapolis, KOIN-TV reported.
Police said Sunday the shooting came amid an
apparent confrontation between demonstrators
and an armed neighbor, according to a report
from The Oregonian. A Sunday morning press
conference where police officials planned to ad-
dress multiple shootings in the city Saturday was
disrupted by about 50 demonstrators, according
to the report.
Two people were taken into custody after Sat-
urday night’s deadly shooting, according to Ore-
gon Public Broadcasting.
“When officers arrived they located a female
victim who was deceased,” the Portland Police
Bureau said in a press statement.
Portland saw months of nightly protests in
2020 that often spiraled into violence following
the murder by police of George Floyd in Minne-
apolis. Portland became the center of the move-
ment to defund the police, but the sustained pro-
tests in the city have largely faded away.
The city is now dealing with a plague of gun
violence.
Police responded to six shootings within a nine-
hour span between Thursday night and early
Friday. Shortly before Saturday night’s shooting
at Normandale Park, police who were called to a
separate disturbance were involved in a shooting
that left one person dead. It wasn’t immediately
clear if the person died by police gunfire.
Although last year was marked by record-high
numbers of gun violence in Portland, the number
of shooting incidents during the first month of 2022
outpaced January 2021, according to police data.
During January alone, police recorded 127 shootings.
Police and city officials say the increase in vi-
olence, which disproportionately affected Port-
land’s Black community, was fueled by gang-re-
lated arguments, drug deals gone wrong and
disputes among homeless people. The situation
was exacerbated by the pandemic, economic
hardships and mental health crises.
The number of homicides in Portland last year
surpassed more populous cities such as San Fran-
cisco and Boston and was more than double the
number of slayings in Seattle, Portland’s larger
Northwest neighbor. Portland recorded 90 homi-
cides in 2021 amid a surge in gun violence, shat-
tering the city’s previous high of 66 set more than
three decades ago.
JUNEAU, Alaska — A gem-
stone, billed as one of the largest
gem-quality opals in existence,
was sold for $143,750 at auction in
Alaska on Sunday.
The opal, dubbed the “Americus
Australis,” weighs more than 11,800
carats, according to the auction
house Alaska Premier Auctions &
Appraisals. It also has a long history.
Most recently, it was kept in a
linen closet in a home in Big Lake,
north of Anchorage, by Fred von
Brandt, who mines for gold in
Alaska and whose family has deep
roots in the gem and rock business.
The opal is larger than a brick
and is broken into two pieces,
which von Brandt said was a prac-
tice used decades ago to prove gem
quality.
Von Brandt said the stone has
been in his family since the late
1950s, when his grandfather bought
it from an Australian opal dealer
named John Altmann.
Von Brandt said the opal for de-
cades was in the care of his father,
Guy von Brandt, who decided it
had been “locked up long enough,
that it’s time to put it back out in the
world and see what interest it can
generate.”
“He entrusted me to figure out
which direction we wanted to go
to part with the stone,” von Brandt
told The Associated Press.
The family, with roots in Cali-
fornia, exhibited the stone at gem
shows for years, until the early
1980s, he said. His father then
branched out into furniture and
displayed it at his shop. Guy von
Brandt eventually moved to Or-
egon and kept the stone “kind of
tucked away” for many years, von
Brandt said.
Von Brandt said he brought it
with him to Alaska over a year ago
as he weighed the best approach to
a possible sale.
TODAY’S
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High 39, Low 14
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