TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalSome environmental groups oppose lower Snake River dam removal plan
BOISE, Idaho — A coalition of 17 environmental groups is speaking out against a key part of a sweeping plan to remove the lower Snake River dams to save salmon and steelhead.
The groups said in a letter to Democratic senators in Oregon and Washington that the 35-year moratorium on fish- and dam-related lawsuits included in Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson’s proposal in exchange for dam removal was too high a price to pay, the Idaho Statesman reported Saturday.
A years-long ban on lawsuits will make federal and state laws on clean water standards and species protections harder to enforce, the groups said in the letter to Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden.
The groups urged the lawmakers to oppose the proposal “as written,” but said they generally support the idea of breaching the dams and helping impacted communities. The letter argues that the reason salmon aren't yet extinct on the Snake River is because of lawsuits to protect their habitat under environmental laws that were enacted after the dams were already built.
Read more: https://www.registerguard.com/story/news/environment/2021/03/27/some-environmental-groups-oppose-lower-snake-river-dam-removal-plan/7033554002/
(Eugene Register Guard)
Oregon Legislature looks at giving people the right to repair their stuff
Blake Swensen remembers the day he fell in love with tinkering.
This was 50 years ago in Alaska, and the small plane his father was flying crashed. Swensen, 6 at the time, doesn’t know whether it was an unexpected gust or the plane was too full of caribou meat, but either way, they were now in the middle of nowhere, it was snowing, and cell phones had yet to be invented.
Still, Swensen’s dad found a way.
“I think there was a backpack that he strapped to the tail,” he said. “There was some duct tape involved and some wire. And I just remember it being so interesting in how he accomplished this feat of getting that plane back together and working, and we were able eventually to fly it home.”
Swensen now runs the Tinker Camp in Portland, a program that tries to teach kids that same lesson: “The challenge of it, the acquisition of knowledge. The thrill of doing something that not too many people do ... Those kinds of things get you really charged up.”
Read more: https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/oregon-legislature-looks-at-giving-people-the-right-to-repair-their-stuff/article_e876d130-8e4b-11eb-bf16-df3c9db1c246.html
Street in front of Dallas police headquarters renamed Botham Jean Boulevard in emotional ceremony
Calling it a bittersweet moment, Botham Jean’s family on Saturday unveiled a new street sign bearing his name south of downtown Dallas in an emotional ceremony commemorating the man killed by an off-duty police officer in September 2018.
The newly dubbed Botham Jean Boulevard encompasses about four miles of Lamar Street, where Botham, a 26-year-old accountant, lived and was killed when Officer Amber Guyger shot him after mistaking his apartment for her own. Nearby, the road runs in front of police headquarters.
The Jean family yanked off a black cloth covering the new sign about 1:15 p.m. and immediately embraced one another as cheers erupted from the audience. The moment followed an emotional hourlong ceremony.
“We want everyone to remember Botham, we want everyone to forever say his name, but for this sign to be up here it means he’s not,“ Allisa Findley, Botham’s sister, said tearfully in front of the crowd of around 200.
Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2021/03/27/street-in-front-of-dallas-police-headquarters-renamed-botham-jean-boulevard-in-emotional-ceremony/
'New era of understanding': Bastrop County begins process of relocating Confederate monuments
BASTROP — Sumai Lokumbe spoke with intensity and passion, well aware that she was becoming more emotional with each sentence.
Acting as the mistress of ceremony Saturday morning at the Bastrop County Courthouse, Lokumbe helped introduce speakers for an historic day in the city and county’s history.
The process of removing and relocating from the grounds of the courthouse a pair of Confederate monuments — an obelisk erected in 1910 by a local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and a granite headstone erected in 1964 by the state of Texas commemorating Joseph D. Sayers, a major in the Confederate army and Texas’ 22nd governor — formally began Saturday, with a ceremony marking the occasion.
The removal of the monuments is expected to begin in April.
Read more: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/03/27/bastrop-county-process-relocating-confederate-monuments-paul-pape-cheryl-lee/6974111002/
Clark County deputies involved in recent fatal shootings quickly returned to duties
Nearly all the deputies and detectives recently involved in killings of Black men in Clark County are back to work, and most of them spent less than a month on paid leave before they were back on the job.
According to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, five out of the six men and women have returned. None have been reassigned, instead they have resumed their duties as before, while prosecutors have not yet decided whether the shootings are justified or whether to press charges.
Dets. Robert Anderson and Jeremy Brown and Deputy Jon Feller, who each opened fire at 21-year-old Kevin Peterson Jr. during an attempted drug sting Oct. 29, all returned to work Nov. 24.
Peterson’s killing came after he fled detectives, including Anderson, who attempted to bust him for selling Xanax. The case is still under review by Pierce County’s top elected prosecutor. Peterson’s family has already taken the first steps in filing a wrongful death lawsuit.
Read more: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/03/25/clark-county-deputies-involved-in-recent-fatal-shootings-quickly-returned-to-duties/
Dorris case goes all the way to Supreme Court; Justices seem ready to rule against unions
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court appeared ready Monday to side with two Dorris agriculture businesses that want to bar labor organizers from their property, a case that could be another blow to unions.
The case before the justices involves Cedar Point Nursery in Dorris, which grows strawberry plants for commercial growers, as well as a farm in Fresno.
The justices were hearing arguments in a case involving a California labor regulation put in place in 1975, following the efforts of labor leader Cesar Chavez. The regulation grants unions access to farms and other agriculture businesses in order to organize workers for up to three hours per day, 120 days per year.
Businesses are supposed to be notified before organizers arrive, and organizers are supposed to come during non-work times like lunch and before and after work. But the court’s six conservative justices in particular suggested California’s regulation likely goes too far.
Read more: https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/dorris-case-goes-all-the-way-to-supreme-court-justices-seem-ready-to-rule-against/article_3a3bf868-1159-5b36-98e2-26a8bfac9bc5.html
(Klamath Falls Herald and News)
Medford approves homeless hotel
A motel being turned into a transitional housing project for fire survivors and homeless people received a $450,000 grant from the Medford Urban Renewal Agency Thursday night.
“It’s a great project,” said MURA board member Tim D’Alessandro. “It’s a step in the right direction.”
Rogue Retreat, a Medford homeless advocacy organization, bought The Redwood Inn, at 722 N. Riverside Ave., using a $2.35 million grant and has started converting it into 47 suites with kitchens.
The organization, with help from MURA, received the money to buy the hotel from a portion of the $30 million Project Turnkey state grant program designed to aid fire victims in Oregon.
Read more: https://www.mailtribune.com/top-stories/2021/03/26/city-approves-homeless-hotel/
(Medford Mail Tribune)
Former Oregon speaker set to back moving Oregon-Idaho border
Mark Simmons, a Republican former speaker of the Oregon House, was set to testify this week at the Idaho Legislature in favor of letting Eastern and Southern Oregon counties become part of Idaho.
But a not-so-funny thing happened in the Idaho Capitol. Nine new COVID-19 infections were reported there, and the Idaho Legislature abruptly decided last Friday to shut down for a few weeks.
Simmons, of Elgin in Union County, presided during the 2001-2002 legislative cycle. He was among a string of Republican House speakers. Now we have the longest-serving presiding officers in Oregon history, both Democrats, in Senate President Peter Courtney of Salem and House Speaker Tina Kotek of Portland.
Simmons’ testimony at the Idaho Legislature has been rescheduled for April 12. Mike McCarter, president of the newly formed Citizens for Greater Idaho and head of Move Oregon’s Border, said testimony would show that “moving the Oregon/Idaho border farther from Boise will protect Idahoans from the ill effects of Oregon’s new drug law,” an apparent reference to last fall’s passage of Ballot Measure 110.
Read more: https://www.oregoncapitalinsider.com/news/capitol-chatter-former-oregon-speaker-set-to-back-moving-oregon-idaho-border/article_4c5a574c-8dc2-11eb-a129-93db12c08fee.html
Oregon Legislature debates extending overtime pay to farmworkers
Much of the work at Blue Heron Farm happens in bursts.
Willy Dinsdale, co-owner of the farm located just outside Salem, described how on days when the spring rains let up, crews will venture into the fields to plant Christmas trees.
A 150 horsepower tractor pulls a tree transplanter that will insert the seedlings into the soil, he said. Three workers for each row walk behind the machine to make sure that the trees don’t go in at a bad angle. With a narrow window to get the trees planted, he said crews work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with a half-hour lunch and breaks.
He’s now preparing for another narrow window to plant 70 acres of strawberries that’ll also involve long work days.
Dinsdale is now worried about a bill advancing in the Oregon Legislature that, if passed, he said would cause him to drastically rethink what crops he plants and the hours his employees work. He said he “panicked” when he first heard about it.
Read more: https://www.salemreporter.com/posts/3890/oregon-legislature-debates-extending-overtime-pay-to-farmworkers
Oregon Senate votes to advance bill banning guns at Capitol, other state facilities
The Oregon Senate voted Thursday to advance a bill banning guns at the Capitol and other state facilities and letting cities, counties, schools and commercial airports decide whether to allow people into their buildings with concealed handgun licenses.
Despite four hours of discussion and overwhelming opposition by gun owners and Republicans, the bill passed, 16-7, and will be move to the House. Four GOP senators were absent from the floor, an increasingly common occurrence by the minority party in attempts to block Democratic priorities by denying quorum.
Besides exacerbating tensions between the parties, the bill also gained lots of attention from Oregonians — more than 2,000 people sent written testimony, most of which opposed the bill.
“People in the eastern part of our state and in the southern part of our state – some of the rural areas – may have a different view of guns than we have in the urban area,” said Sen. Ginny Burdick, a Portland Democrat. “Senate bill 554 gives (local jurisdictions) the option of whether to continue concealed license handgun holders to bring loaded guns into schools and public buildings. The school board gets to decide. That means the community gets to decide. Not just the gun owner.”
Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2021/03/oregon-senate-votes-to-advance-bill-banning-guns-at-capitol-other-state-facilities.html
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