Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (July 31, 2020)
The Columbia Press 6 Girl Scouts badges move toward ‘ambitious leadership’ Girl Scouts of America an- nounced this week 24 new badges available to girls. The badges are designed to foster “ambitious leadership” in crucial skills and job cat- egories, many of them still dominated by men. “In a year of unprecedented global change, our country’s need for strong, broad-mind- ed, and decisive leadership has never been greater,” ac- cording to a Girl Scout press release. Among the new badges: • Entrepreneurship (grades K–12). Girls develop an en- trepreneurial mindset as they engage in age-appropriate ex- ercises that help them create and pitch a product or service that solves a problem. They build their own business plan and think about topics like production, cost, profit, mar- keting, and competition. • STEM Career Explora- tion (grades 2–8). Girls ex- plore their career interests and connect them to STEM fields—particularly comput- er science, nature/environ- mental science, engineering, design, health, and agricul- ture—that can help them address the pressing issues of our time and change the world. • Automotive Engineer- ing (grades K–5). Girls learn about designing, engineer- ing, and manufacturing vehi- cles, as well as the future of mobility. They design their own ve- hicles, test prototypes, learn about design thinking, cre- ate their own assembly line manufacturing process, and more. Anxiety: UO curriculum could be national model Continued from Page 1 about mental health.” The curriculum, called At- tune-Ed, is based on a pilot project using a concept called “trauma-informed mind- fulness” funded by Oregon Community Foundation and which has been under way for three years at Lincoln Middle School in Cottage Grove. “We’re attempting to reach rural middle school students and teachers,” Kelly said. “The rates of trauma are not necessarily different in these areas, but their access to re- sources is more limited.” The grant will allow the team to adapt the written cur- riculum being used in Cottage Grove into a web-based mod- el in order to more efficient- ly disseminate it nationwide without requiring significant one-on-one instruction. “Trifioa is coming in with the technology lens, Lori and Shin Shin have developed this from a psychologist’s perspective, and I will con- duct the research,” Kelly said. The program teaches stu- dents to better read their emotions and determine when they are outside of their “window of tolerance,” which can include displays of anger or sadness or bouts of high energy. Teachers help students fig- ure out mindful steps they can take to get back “inside that window,” whether it’s getting some exercise, guided imagery, progressive muscle relaxation strategies or deep breathing. “We teach about self-aware- ness and what takes you out and what gets you back into your window,” Kelly said. It’s also meant for teachers to better manage their own stresses and hit a reset but- ton in their classroom. The trauma-informed com- ponent recognizes that many students and teachers have a history of trauma. The program isn’t meant to address that but instead rec- ognize it may be a source of what has pushed them out- side their window of toler- ance. Pandemic: Extra unemployment compensation ends Continued from Page 3 completed in close quarters. previous week. Clatsop shows a trend sim- ilar to other rural counties, such as Malheur, which have a low population base but high infection rate (192 per 10,000 people). Most of the statewide in- fections have come from out- breaks at processing plants, where much of the work is The Federal Pandemic Un- employment Compensation program ended July 25. The program was created through passage of the feder- al CARES Act, and gave Or- egonians eligible for unem- ployment benefits an extra $600 per week. Since the program began Extra benefits end March 29, the Oregon Em- ployment Department paid out more than $2 billion in extra pandemic benefits. “This is going to have a sig- nificant impact on Oregon families and communities,” said David Gerstenfeld, the department’s acting director. “Just last week, the depart- ment paid the extra $600 to more than 130,000 Orego- nians.” July 31, 2020 Letter to the editor Questions remain on flood control According to my records, the established history of the Eighth Street Dam is as fol- lows: The tide gates were perma- nently removed in 2015 and cannot be replaced as they originally were. In December 2015, there was flooding up to within a few inches of entering some of the homes located on the river inside Warrenton city limits. The Skipanon Water Con- trol District had a written charter that required them to prevent flooding above all other considerations. Oregon Water Control reg- ulations, which govern every water control district in Or- egon, specifically state that tide gates could not be left open (let alone permanent- ly removed) to facilitate fish passage on dams created to prevent property damage from flooding. The mayor of Warrenton stated at a public meeting that residents on the river were responsible to obtain insurance to protect them- selves from flooding as the city felt it had no responsi- bility for preventing flooding even though the Eight Street Dam is in the center of the city. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden sent me a letter that I forwarded to the city manager stating that the status of the Eighth Street Dam is a local issue that the federal government will not take any position on. The Skipanon Water Con- trol District is attempting to legally disband. Unresolved are the follow- ing issues: If a future flooding event inside the city limits of War- renton causes substantial damage to property along the river, who is responsible for repair/replacement? If removing the tide gates was illegal based on the Ski- panon Water Control District charter and Oregon Water Control Districts operating regulations, who has finan- cial liability if serious flood- ing occurs? FEMA denied many flood claims after Hurricane Sandy because property owners had made illegal property modifi- cations that invalidated their policies. Courts later upheld the denials. Skipanon Water Control District board members can be sued as individuals if they knowingly broke the law when taking actions that led to economic loss, according to Oregon law. Is the city free of economic responsibility since it could have challenged the Ski- panon Water Control District in court when commissioners disagreed with the removal of the tide gates after they saw what happened in December 2015? I do not know how many tort lawyers would want to dive into the potential legal swamp described above. We won’t know how the court will judge future liability until an actual legal case is brought by a property owner who suffers substantial economic loss be- cause FEMA declines to pay a claim. In my judgment, all par- ties have the potential to win or lose a court case. If there is no future flooding worse than December 2015, there is no need for anyone to be concerned. If there is a bad flooding event, then every- one mentioned in this memo should be concerned. Scott Widdicombe Warrenton