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A2 The BulleTin • Wednesday, July 6, 2022 The Bulletin LOCAL, STATE & REGION how to reach us CIRCULATION didn’t receive your paper? start or stop subscription? 541-385-5800 PHONE HOURS 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday 7 a.m.-11 a.m. saturday-sunday and holidays GENERAL INFORMATION 541-382-1811 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. ONLINE www.bendbulletin.com EMAIL news@bendbulletin.com AFTER HOURS Newsroom ................................541-383-0348 Circulation ................................541-385-5800 NEWSROOM EMAIL Business ........business@bendbulletin.com City Desk .............news@bendbulletin.com Features.................................................................. communitylife@bendbulletin.com Sports ................. sports@bendbulletin.com NEWSROOM FAX 541-385-5804 OUR ADDRESS Street .............. 320 sW upper Terrace drive suite 200 Bend, OR 97702 Mailing ........... P.O. Box 6020 Bend, OR 97708 B ADMINISTRATION Publisher heidi Wright ..............................541-383-0341 Editor Gerry O’Brien .............................541-633-2166 DEPARTMENT HEADS Advertising Brian naplachowski .................541-383-0370 Circulation/Operations Maria Johnson ..........................541-617-7830 Finance Wendy dougherty ...541-383-0324 Human Resources ................541-383-0340 TALK TO AN EDITOR City Julie Johnson ...................541-383-0367 Business, Features, GO! Magazine Jody lawrence-Turner ............541-383-0308 Editorials Richard Coe ...........541-383-0353 News Tim doran .......................541-383-0360 Photos .........................................541-383-0366 Sports Mark Morical ...............541-383-0318 Multnomah County A bear that wandered into Baker City released noncitizens could be granted the vote in the Wallowas BY MAX EGENER Oregon Capital Bureau BY JAYSON JACOBY Baker City herald Baker City’s most famous black bear — or at least the most photographed — is likely roaming today some- where in the southern Wal- lowa Mountains. That is better bear habi- tat than a birch tree between two apartment buildings in a Baker City neighborhood. The bear, which ran through part of a golf course on Sunday morning then crossed a street and climbed the tree, ended up tranquil- ized and in a cage later that morning. Brian Ratliff, district wild- life biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Baker City office, fired the tranquilizer dart that gave the yearling male bear a temporary nap. A crowd of about 20 peo- ple who had watched the in- cident clapped and cheered, with yells of “good job” and “thank you” resounding as the episode concluded with no injuries. Ratliff said with a chuckle that it was his first standing ovation. The biologist released the bear in the Eagle Creek area northeast of Baker City. He suspects the bear, which weighed about 150 pounds, had separated from its mother, as bears tend to do after their first birthday. “I think it just wandered into town and got caught after daylight where it didn’t want to be,” Ratliff said. He said there were no re- ports of the bear nosing into garbage cans or other be- havior that could suggest the This yearling male bear recov- ered quickly from its ordeal in Baker City on Sunday and was released later in the day in the Wallowa Mountains. A Baker City Police officer stands beneath a birch tree in case the bear in the tree came down or fell, on Sunday. Jayson Jacoby photos/Baker City herald bear was comfortable around people. In those cases, ODFW offi- cials are likely to kill the bear rather than trap it and release it in the wild. TALK TO A REPORTER Bend/Deschutes Government ........................................................541-633-2160 Business suzanne Roig ............................541-633-2117 Calendar .....................................541-383-0304 Education Bryce dole .....................................541-617-7854 Fine Arts/Features david Jasper .................................541-383-0349 Health suzanne Roig ............................541-633-2117 La Pine ........................................541-383-0367 Public Lands/Environment Michael Kohn ............................541-617-7818 Public Safety Garrett andrews ......................541-383-0325 Redmond Joe siess..........................................541-617-7820 Salem/State Government .. 541-383-0367 Sisters .........................................541-383-0367 Sunriver .....................................541-383-0367 REDMOND BUREAU Mailing address ..................P.O. Box 6020 Bend, OR 97708 Phone ......................................... 541-617-7829 CORRECTIONS The Bulletin’s primary concern is that all stories are accurate. if you know of an error in a story, call us at 541-383-0367. TO SUBSCRIBE Call us ......................541-385-5800 • Home delivery and E-Edition ..........................$7 per week • By mail .................................$9.50 per week • E-Edition only ...................$4.50 per week To sign up for our e-editions, visit www.bendbulletin.com to register. SHERIDAN Inmates at federal prison denied showers amid strike, lawyer states associated Press Prison officials at the Fed- eral Correctional Institution in Sheridan denied showers last month to those held in a unit where people were en- gaged in a hunger strike, ac- cording to a court filing. A court filing last week by a federal public defender says about 80 people housed in the detention center’s “J2 Unit” were protesting conditions inside the facility’s detention center. According to the Bu- reau of Prisons, on June 23 some of the men in custody at the prison southwest of Portland “did not accept their meals.” The following day, doc- uments say, prison Warden DeWayne Hendrix issued a memo to people in that unit saying showers were post- poned, Oregon Public Broad- casting reported. “The purpose of this mem- orandum is to inform each of you that showers are post- poned due to continued threats of assault to staff,” Hendrix wrote. “Enhanced security procedures due to ongoing disruptive behav- ior will continue through the weekend and will be reeval- uated on Monday. All issues brought to our attention are being reviewed.” Oregon Public Defender Lisa Hay noted in the court filing that temperatures in Sheridan reached 90 degrees when showers were withheld. The Bureau of Prisons didn’t answer questions from OPB about the memo or whether the water was cut off in an ef- fort to end the hunger strike. U.S. Department of Justice attorneys, who represent the federal prison, said in a court filing of their own last week “that no inmates are currently on a hunger strike.” Conditions inside the fed- eral prison have been the sub- ject of concern since the pan- demic took hold in 2020. Hay has in court filings detailed lockdowns that have lasted for days. In other filings, her office has documented poor medical and dental care that has left many suffering. Since the pandemic began, seven people have died at the facility. TO PLACE AN AD Classified ......................................541-385-5809 Other information ....................541-382-1811 OBITUARIES no death notices or obituaries are published Mondays. When submitting, please include your name, address and contact number. Call to ask about deadlines, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Phone ..........................................541-385-5809 email .......................obits@bendbulletin.com LEGAL NOTICES email .....................legals@bendbulletin.com OTHER SERVICES Back issues ..................................541-385-5800 Photo reprints ............................541-383-0366 apply for a job ..........................541-383-0340 all Bulletin payments are accepted at the drop box at City hall or at The Bulletin, P.O. Box 6020, Bend, OR 97708. Check payments may be converted to an electronic funds transfer. The Bulletin, usPs #552-520, is published daily by Central Oregon Media Group, 320 sW upper Terrace drive, Bend, OR 97702. Periodicals postage paid at Bend, OR. Postmaster: send address changes to The Bulletin circulation department, P.O. Box 6020, Bend, OR 97708. The Bulletin retains ownership and copyright protection of all staff-prepared news copy, advertising copy and news or ad illustrations. They may not be reproduced without explicit prior approval. LOCAL BRIEFING COVID-19 community levels for Central Oregon The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mon- itors community levels of COVID-19 to help commu- nities decide what prevention steps to take based on the latest data. Levels can be low, medium or high and are de- termined by looking at hos- pital beds being used, hospi- tal admissions and the total number of new COVID-19 cases in an area. As of Thursday, 24 Oregon counties had reached high levels of community spread. The CDC listed the follow- ing levels for Central Oregon: Deschutes County: High Crook County: High Jefferson County: High Precautions the CDC rec- The Centers for Disease Control and Preven- tion on Thurs- day raised the COVID-19 com- munity levels to high in Crook, De- schutes, Jefferson and 12 other Ore- gon counties. Or- ange equals high levels and yellow equals medium. CdC ommends for communities with high levels: • Wear a mask indoors in public • Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines. • Get tested if you have symptoms. • Additional precautions may be needed for people at high risk for severe illness. • Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines. — Bulletin staff report Voters in Multnomah County will see a ballot mea- sure this November that would expand voting rights to residents who are not U.S. citizens. Last month, a group re- viewing Multnomah Coun- ty’s charter — effectively a local constitution — unani- mously recommended add- ing language that would ex- tend voting rights to more groups, including people who are not citizens. If voters pass the measure, Multnomah County would be the first jurisdiction in Or- egon to grant the right to vote in local elections to “noncit- izens.” The county would be one of only a handful of ju- risdictions in the United States that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. Eleven cities in Maryland, two in Vermont and San Francisco currently allow voting by noncitizens. The Multnomah County Charter Review Committee was expected to vote on spe- cific charter language for the recommendation during its meeting Tuesday. The county convenes a charter review committee, comprising 16 appointed residents, every six years. Expecting controversy, committee members chose broad language for the char- ter amendment to maximize who could gain voting rights as well as to avoid potential legal troubles. “If we were to pursue one narrow declaration of who we would like to expand the vote to, if a court were to say, ‘No, you can’t do it that way,’ then there’s not as much recourse to really move this idea for- ward,” said Samantha Gladu, who helped draft the charter change and co-chairs the sub- committee that started dis- cussions about it. The language under con- sideration says the county shall extend the right to vote for county officers and mea- sures “to the fullest extent al- lowed by law.” At least one jurisdiction that tried to extend voting rights to noncitizens — New York City — saw the effort quashed by a court ruling. On June 27, a New York State Supreme Court justice struck down the measure approved by the City Council in De- cember, saying it violated the state’s constitution. Many states, including Oregon, allowed nonciti- zens to vote when they were founded. Racism and sexism were very explicit in the laws, said Juliet Stumpf, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School who studies immigration and criminal law. Early Western states al- lowed noncitizens to vote as a way to encourage settling specifically by white Euro- pean immigrants. In Ore- gon, white men who had resided in the state for six months prior to an election and declared an intent to become U.S. citizens could vote. People have long applied measures of groups’ contribu- tions to society as a means to decide whether they should be able to vote, Stumpf said. Literacy tests and proxies of taxation such as property ownership or residency were common qualifiers histori- cally. Charter review commit- tee members cited multiple reasons for expanding voting rights, including reducing taxation without represen- tation. Undocumented people in Multnomah County pay an estimated $19 million in state and local taxes annually, ac- cording to a report by the Or- egon Center for Public Pol- icy. About half of those taxes are property taxes and the other half are income taxes and excise taxes on goods like gas and alcohol, the report shows. Undocumented people ar- en’t eligible to access many of the social services to which they contribute, however. They can’t access Social Se- curity, Medicare, the Ore- gon Health Plan after age 18, federal food assistance pro- grams, and state and federal earned income tax credits, among others, the report states. Legal challenges Granting voting rights to noncitizens likely will face substantial legal barriers, Katherine Thomas, assistant Multnomah County attorney, told committee members in March. First, Oregon’s Constitu- tion requires citizenship for voting. State statutes related to voting refer to citizenship requirements, including one that says state voter registra- tion cards must indicate a person is a U.S. citizen. “Ultimately, it’s untested,” Thomas said. “I’m not aware that there is a local jurisdic- tion that has expanded vot- ing to noncitizens. We don’t know how a court would necessarily treat that kind of proposal if it was challenged in court.” The committee will pres- ent by Aug, 4 all of its recom- mended charter changes to the county board, which files the ballot title and other in- formation with the elections division. Any ballot title chal- lenges must be resolved by Sept. 8 to appear on the ballot for the Nov. 8 election. If the measure passes, county staff would consult with the board about how to implement an expansion of voting rights, said Ryan Yambra, spokesperson for the county. The committee also re- searched whether people un- der 18 and people currently prohibited from voting be- cause they’re serving a sen- tence for a felony conviction could gain voting rights. “The committee expects that the county will explore every possible avenue to ex- pand local voting access,” Yambra said. “The details of implementation would de- pend on a variety of factors, and so we can’t say at this time whether or what board action might be required.” Noncitizen residents in- clude multiple groups, such as temporary residents with certain visas, permanent res- idents who hold green cards and undocumented immi- grants. Tens of thousands of peo- ple in Multnomah County could be granted the right to vote if the measure passes. Seven percent of the county’s population — or more than 56,000 people — are non- citizen residents, according to data from the U.S. Cen- sus Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey. An es- timated 25,000 residents are undocumented, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. The recommendation has received support from the Portland-based nonprofit Coalition of Communities of Color. “The decisions of elected representatives impact ev- ery resident, regardless of whether they are eligible to vote,” Sol Mora, community engagement manager for the nonprofit, wrote in a letter to the committee. “This re- form to expand our democ- racy will have a meaningful and lasting impact on com- munities across Multnomah County to feel that they be- long and have a seat at the de- cision-making table.”
