STATE
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, April 6, 2022
A7
Zone change sought for farmland
By BRENNA VISSER
The Bulletin
TERREBONNE
—
Roughly 700 acres of land in
north Deschutes County has
the potential to be rezoned from
farmland to rural housing.
In April, a public hearings
offi cer will evaluate an appli-
cation to rezone the land, which
sits north of state Highway 126
adjacent to Lower Bridge Way
and Coyner Avenue. The prop-
erty is surrounded by farmland,
federal land and some nonfarm
dwellings in rural subdivisions,
according to Haleigh King, a
county associate planner.
It’s unclear what the plans
are for the land, other than a
request to change the zoning on
all 710 acres to rural residen-
tial housing, which allows for
no more than one dwelling per
10 acres. But the application has
already drawn opposition from
surrounding neighbors, farm-
ers and Central Oregon Land-
Watch, a land use advocacy
group.
“This is an irreplaceable
Map courtesy Deschutes County
Roughly 700 acres of land zoned for farming near Terrebonne
could be rezoned for rural residential use.
resource we have,” said Ed
Stabb, who has farmed the
land south of the property for
roughly 22 years. “It’s chang-
ing the historical character of
Deschutes County.”
The applicant, 710 Proper-
ties LLC, is registered to Rob-
ert Turner and Charles Thomas
III, according to the Oregon
Secretary of State’s Offi ce busi-
ness registry. Both have Sisters
addresses listed.
Mark Stockamp, a represen-
tative for the applicant, declined
an interview to answer why the
applicant was pursuing a zone
change for the land.
“We appreciate the interest
in this process and are excited
to share more about the proj-
ect soon,” Stockamp said in an
emailed statement.
A request to rezone this
amount of land at once is “rare
but not unprecedented” in
Deschutes County, said Peter
Gutowsky, the county’s com-
munity development director.
The next largest example hap-
pened in 2018 and 2011, when
the Department of State Lands
parcel referred to as Stevens
Ranch was rezoned in two parts
to make up 640 acres.
But some people have raised
concerns about the impact a
zone change could have on the
environment on and around
the land. While not offi cially
adopted yet by the county, the
700-acre tract is recognized
as mule deer winter migration
habitat, said Andrew Walch, a
district wildlife biologist with
the Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife.
“Certainly those larger tracts
of land provide more space and
less disturbance for wildlife,
and ODFW and wildlife advo-
cates certainly are concerned
every time these large zon-
ing changes happen and divide
land,” Walch told The Bulletin.
Ben Gordon, the executive
director of LandWatch, said
the organization is strongly
opposed to the potential rezon-
ing. He argued it will be hard for
the applicant to prove this land
is no good for agricultural pur-
poses when there are ranching
operations next door.
“Because the surround-
ing lands are being actively
ranched, we stand with the
farmers and ranchers in that
community trying to make a
livelihood,” Gordon said. “We
see this suburban development
as a very incompatible use.”
For farmers and ranch-
ers in the area, a chief concern
is water. Billy Buchanan is a
rancher who has raised Wagyu
and Angus cattle south of the
property for the past eight years.
Buchanan prides himself on
providing locally sourced beef
to businesses in Central Oregon.
He is worried about what
building potentially 70 homes
on 10-acre lots will do to an
aquifer that he relies on for his
farming operations. Several
neighbors have already had to
drill wells deeper amid a long-
standing drought.
“It does directly aff ect us,”
Buchanan said.
Buchanan also argues the
land has agricultural worth
regardless of irrigation. The
land could be used for hay stor-
age, for example, or to give cat-
tle more room to roam to keep
them from getting too fat on
irrigated pasture.
“If it can be farmable, I feel
you should keep those residen-
tial areas in other residential
areas,” he said.
According to Deschutes
County records, the applicant
argues other than a small por-
tion around a residence, the land
is not irrigated, which makes
agricultural practices diffi cult.
A soil study shows that 71% of
the soil that is deemed generally
unsuitable for farming, accord-
ing to county records.
The applicant says the
land has not been historically
farmed, at least in the last 20
years, according to county staff .
A public hearing on this
potential zone change has been
scheduled for April 19.
Politicians pulled left and right in Oregon primary fi ghts
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — As Oregon’s
political campaigns head into
the fi nal stretch before the
May 17 primary, candidates
on the left and right are work-
ing for votes among their ideo-
logical base in order to win the
closed primaries. With only
party members able to vote
in partisan primary races, the
turnout is usually about half of
the general election.
Republicans are seeking
votes of Republican activists
who won’t skip the primary,
while Democrats go after the
progressive wing of their party
who turn out in large numbers
for primaries. It’s also a time
when lesser-known candidates
can make a splash and draw
the attention of the party faith-
ful. That’s been the story in
recent days in political action
around the state.
Baker City mayor speaks
at a right-wing rally
in Salem
Baker City Mayor Kerry
McQuisten, a Republican can-
didate for governor, appeared
at the Reawaken America
rally of radical conservatives
on Friday, April 1, near the
Capitol in the Salem suburb of
Keizer. The event was spon-
sored by The River Church in
Salem, a church active in con-
servative politics, and held at
Volcano Stadium, a former
minor league baseball park
near Interstate 5.
Originally scheduled to
be held in Bend, the event
was canceled due to ques-
tions involving the enforce-
ment of COVID-19 restric-
tions at the Deschutes County
fairgrounds.
The Salem Statesman-Jour-
nal reported Friday that stores
at Keizer Station mall next to
the ballpark decided to close
Friday and Saturday because
of the rally and expected
counterprotests.
Thielman
McLeod-Skinner
Keizer is the latest stop
on a national tour focusing
on debunked claims that the
2020 election was “stolen”
from former President Donald
Trump, and COVID-19 con-
spiracy theories.
Photos on Twitter showed
McQuisten with Morrow
County Sheriff Ken Matlack
and former Gen. Michael
Flynn, who was pardoned
by Trump of charges he lied
about contacts with Rus-
sian agents while working at
the White House. Flynn has
also appeared in a video tak-
ing “the QAnon Oath” of the
far-right political conspir-
acy group, which ends with
“Where we go one, we go all.”
McQuisten has made an
energetic bid to break through
the crowded Republican fi eld
for governor, which includes
former House Minority
Leader Christine Drazan,
Sandy Mayor Bill Pulliam and
2016 GOP nominee for gover-
nor Bud Pierce of Salem.
McQuisten was recently
endorsed by The Northwest
Observer, a popular conserva-
tive political blog in Oregon.
Other GOP candidates
taking a hard right
on campaign trail
Marc Thielman, a Repub-
lican candidate for gover-
nor who appeared with Sen-
ate candidate Darin Harbick
and Deschutes County Com-
missioner Patti Adair with
a QAnon-supporting pastor
at a Bend church last week,
gained notice while he was
superintendent of the Alsea
School District near Corval-
lis for refusing to enforce
state COVID-19 mandates.
He resigned in February. He’s
the subject of
a $3.7 mil-
lion lawsuit
against the
district
by
the princi-
pal of Alsea
Schrader
Elementary
School, who alleges a hos-
tile work environment, sex-
ual harassment, gender dis-
crimination and whistleblower
retaliation.
Willamette Week reports
Thielman is scheduled to
speak on April 15 at a fund-
raiser for Dan Tooze, a
Republican candidate for
House District 40 in the Ore-
gon City area. Tooze is a
self-described member of the
Proud Boys, a group involved
in riots in downtown Port-
land, the Oregon Capitol and
the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S.
Capitol. Tooze has not said he
was at any of those incidents.
Reed Christensen, an elec-
trical engineer from Hills-
boro, faces federal charges
for allegedly assaulting law
enforcement offi cers while
attempting to enter the U.S.
Capitol on Jan. 6. Christensen
has made his arrest the cen-
terpiece of his campaign for
governor, saying he was try-
ing to oppose “tyranny”
by taking part in the riot’s
attempt to stop the count of
electoral votes that Joe Biden
won the presidential election.
Jo Rae Perkins, a can-
didate for the U.S. Senate
seat held by U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden, D-Oregon, has also
taken the QAnon pledge. She
was the GOP nominee for the
U.S. Senate in 2020, losing
to incumbent U.S. Sen. Jeff
Merkley, D-Oregon.
Insurgent Democrat
beats incumbent in nod
for Congress
Jamie
McLeod-Skin-
ner has been endorsed in the
Democratic primary for the
5th Congressional District by
Our Revolution, a nationwide
St. Charles changes visitor policy
Bulletin staff report
BEND — As of Monday,
April 4, St. Charles Health Sys-
tem is making a number of vis-
itor policy changes related to
COVID-19 in its hospitals.
Visitors to the hospitals will
no longer be required to show
proof of vaccination, but masks
will still be mandatory. New
signs will be posted at hospital
entrances encouraging certain
visitors to leave the building,
including people with respi-
ratory symptoms, those with
a pending COVID-19 test, or
those who have been in contact
with a person suspected of hav-
ing COVID-19 in the past 14
days, St. Charles Health Sys-
tem said Thursday in a news
release.
Visitor screening will not
apply to those seeking med-
ical treatment or COVID-19
testing.
Another policy change
will allow patients who have
COVID-19 two visitors at a
time. They may come and go
Ryan Brennecke/Bulletin fi le
network of activists that grew
out of the presidential cam-
paigns of Sen. Bernie Sand-
ers, I-Vt.
McLeod-Skinner,
who
lives in Crooked River Ranch
in Central Oregon, is running
in the May 17 primary against
U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader,
D-Canby. Schrader fi rst won
election to Congress in 2008.
But the district was sig-
nifi cantly redrawn in redis-
tricting for 2022, shifting to
the east, including a portion
that crosses the Cascades to
take in the northern parts of
Deschutes County.
The district includes less
than half of Schrader’s cur-
rent constituents.
McLeod-Skinner has cam-
paigned on the theme that
Schrader has been a speed
bump on President Biden’s
Build Back Better legisla-
tion of aid for recovery from
the ongoing COVID-19
pandemic.
“A proud progressive
Democrat, Jamie has focused
her career on rebuilding com-
munities and protecting our
natural resources,” the group
said in its endorsement state-
ment, released Monday. “Her
mom, a schoolteacher, taught
her to ‘always leave a place
better than you found it.’”
Schrader, the most mod-
erate of Oregon’s four Dem-
ocratic members of the U.S.
House, has said he supports
the party’s position in most
matters, but is not in lock-
step with House leadership.
He was one of the few Dem-
ocrats to oppose the nomi-
nation of U.S. Rep. Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., when she
sought to return to the House
speakership when Democrats
won a majority of seats in
2018.
The winner of the Dem-
ocratic primary will face a
Republican challenger from
a primary slate that includes
Bend entrepreneur Jimmy
Crumpacker, former Happy
Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-
DeRemer and Wilsonville
physician John DiPaola.
Our Revolution says it is
“organizing a down-ballot
bench of progressive candi-
dates from city halls to the
halls of Congress.”
In Oregon, the group
helped elect school board
candidates in Portland, Cor-
vallis, Salem-Keizer and
Centennial.
In areas east of the Cas-
cades, it worked to elect Mar-
cus LeGrand and Janet Sarai
Llerandi to the Bend-La Pine
School Board.
The Retreat
The Retreat is Hiring!
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Resources
An entrance to St. Charles Bend, seen in September 2020.
from the hospital as needed.
There will be an exception
related to patients in the emer-
gency department, where only
one visitor will be allowed.
In some cases, visitors may
be required to wear additional
personal protective equipment
for their safety.
“Two years ago, we insti-
tuted visitor restrictions to keep
our caregivers and patients
safe,” said Debbie Robinson,
the chief nursing offi cer at St.
Charles Bend. “We’re in a dif-
ferent place now. The number
of COVID-19 cases and hospi-
talizations are low in our com-
munity, and we have vaccines
and many eff ective treatments
available.”
Door screeners will con-
tinue to be posted at hospital
entrances through April 8 to
help educate the community as
the transition unfolds, the health
system added.
On Thursday, St. Charles
Bend reported eight patients
with COVID-19, none of whom
was in the ICU.
St. Charles Health System
operates hospitals in Bend, Red-
mond, Prineville and Madras.
For information call
Molly or Sean:
541-573-5150
or email jobs@silvies.us