June 29, 2019

How Berkeley's busing program changed Kamala Harris' life -- and the presidential race

BERKELEY — When Kamala Harris got on a Berkeley school bus for the first time five decades ago, she was taking part in one of the nation’s earliest efforts to use busing to integrate public schools. The yellow bus took her up from her home in the flatlands to Thousand Oaks Elementary in the hills, linking neighborhoods that were cleaved by race and income.

Now, Harris has turned that experience into a breakout moment for her presidential campaign. Her show-stopping confrontation with frontrunner Joe Biden in Thursday night’s debate over his history of opposing busing programs instantly reshaped the race for the Democratic nomination.

The moment resonated especially deeply with former Berkeley students who, like Harris, had experienced busing and were watching Thursday night.

“She was spot-on,” said Doris Alkebulan, 58, who was among the first black students bused to white schools during the city’s 1967 pilot program. “It gave me such joy and pride that I still have confidence in our country.”

Read more: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/06/28/kamala-harris-busing-integration-berkeley-joe-biden-debate/

June 29, 2019

$10 million gift to University of Oregon to help create joint cancer research center

The University of Oregon received a $10 million gift this week to partner with Oregon Health & Science University in Portland to help start a Center for Biomedical Data Science to research cancer and other diseases.

The UO announced the gift from Mary and Tim Boyle of Portland on Tuesday in an online post. Tim Boyle is the CEO of Columbia Sportswear.

The center would be an extension of scientific research between the UO’s Knight Campus and OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute. Both are supported by Phil and Penny Knight, who are known for Phil Knight’s founding of Nike. UO and OHSU entered into partnership for the center after the UO’s Board of Trustees Executive and Audit Committee approved the memorandum of understanding on June 14, according to UO spokesperson Molly Blancett.

The center’s main purpose is to combine efforts to “detect and fight deadly forms of cancer and other diseases,” according to the UO’s website about the partnership.

Read more: https://www.registerguard.com/news/20190623/10-million-gift-to-uo-to-help-create-joint-cancer-research-center
(Eugene Register Guard)

June 29, 2019

Misplaced decimal point means Oregon county's 911 system could be out millions

Columbia County’s 911 agency has learned the hard way that an errant decimal point can make an enormous difference.

The Columbia 9-1-1 Communications District -- the agency that fields emergency calls in the 52,000-person county -- asked voters in May to approve an operations levy taxing property owners “.29 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.”

The agency meant to ask for “29 cents” per $1,000.

Now, the agency is stuck with a tax rate that’s 1/100th of what was intended.

Nearly 74 percent of voters approved the levy, at the lower rate, just a fraction of a penny.

Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/06/misplaced-decimal-point-means-oregon-countys-911-system-could-be-out-millions.html

Isn't anyone checking the paperwork to catch these mistakes?

As for the people who are opposed to properly funding the 911 system, perhaps they should be put on the black list for responses by entities covered by 911.

June 29, 2019

Oregon State Hospital staff injuries spike as facility strains to admit new patients

Kimberly Thoma has injured her back, her head and her elbow throughout the course of her 10 years working with patients as a mental health technician at Oregon State Hospital in Salem.

She's had her hair pulled. She's fallen hard when running to intervene in a patient-on-patient assault. She had a patient and co-worker tumble on top of her. "As we were turning, he tripped me and I fell underneath him and at least one other staff member," she said. "They fell on my lower back and I strained my entire back."

Her experiences aren't unusual. Worker injuries from patient-related incidents at the state-run psychiatric hospital rose to a five year high in 2018, worker compensation data show.

Employees at the hospital filed 307 worker's compensation claims for injuries tied to patient assaults or patient control incidents in 2018. That's nearly a twofold increase from 2017, the Statesman Journal's analysis found.

Read more: https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/26/oregon-state-hospital-staff-injuries-rise-strain-to-admit-new-patients-salem-court-ordered/1420514001/
(Salem Statesman Journal)

June 29, 2019

Fears build that Amazon could vacuum up employees

SALEM -- If business is a jungle, Dean Craig sees a coming shakeup in Salem’s food chain.

One of the biggest companies in the world, Amazon, has landed. The Seattle-based online retailer is slated to open its 1-million-square-foot fulfillment center this summer. Company officials tell Salem Reporter that, any day now, applications will open for 1,000 new jobs.

Besides new jobs, the company is also bringing ripples of economic change. The labor market is tight, and workers are hard to find.

Craig said many businesses are wondering, where will Amazon’s new employees come from? Or from whose companies?

Read more: https://www.salemreporter.com/posts/914/fears-build-that-amazon-could-vacuum-up-employees

June 29, 2019

The Oregon agency that studies earthquakes could be abolished after going over budget

The state agency in charge of earthquake study and preparation, as well as monitoring mining efforts in Oregon, could be shut down after going over budget for the second time in four years.

The Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, widely known as DOGAMI, will lose three staff members and the Governor’s office is considering whether the agency should continue to exist in its current form given its financial woes.

For the 2013-2015 budget cycle, the agency needed an extra $800,000 from the general fund. For 2017-2019 cycle, it needed $650,000. Agencies needing more cash is unusual said John Terpening, a legislative analyst for the state who reviewed the budget proposal. Needing more cash twice in as many budget cycles is cause for concern.

“This type of thing should be very rare,” he told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/06/the-oregon-agency-that-studies-earthquakes-could-be-abolished-after-going-over-budget.html

June 29, 2019

Climate bill losing support in business community

Oregon truckers make themselves heard against climate bill in Salem

SALEM -- Hundreds of truckers rolled into the streets around the Oregon Capitol on Thursday morning to protest the climate bill that has divided the Oregon Legislature largely along party lines. The workers, mostly from rural Oregon, shared their concerns about how the legislation designed to cut carbon emissions could hurt their livelihoods and encouraged Republican senators to continue the walkout that has halted work in the state Senate since June 19.

Members of the Oregon Trucking Association, which had opposed earlier versions of a clean diesel bill awaiting a Senate vote but was ultimately neutral on it, passed out free donuts and bottled water. Log truck after log truck passed the Capitol building, where hundreds stood in the rain to protest. They unleashed clouds of diesel soot while blasting airhorns so loud the honks could be heard on the floor of the state Senate and throughout Senate offices.

Jess Choat, 65, a log truck driver from Newport, said he took the day off work to protest the climate bill because he worried about the damage that an increase in fuel prices would cause the timber industry.

“I just don’t want Oregon to become like California. And that’s where we’re headed,” he said. “I don’t mind passing bills that help the environment, but we’re not getting a vote in this. That’s not how democracy works.”

Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/06/oregon-truckers-make-themselves-heard-against-climate-bill-in-salem.html

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Local beer, coffee companies pull any support from Oregon’s controversial climate bill

Deschutes Brewery announced Wednesday afternoon it had canceled its membership in a climate-related business group and pulled any support of Oregon’s controversial carbon-reduction proposal, House Bill 2020.

With the announcement, the Bend-based craft brewer joined several other local companies, including Dutch Bros. Coffee of Grants Pass, which left the business group over the past week and announced they were neutral on the cap-and-trade bill.

A companion bill to the climate legislation would offer rebates of fuel price increases to agricultural and timber companies.

“I’m not saying that wouldn’t come through, but I’ve seen this before,” Choat said. “They promise you the moon and you don’t see nothing after they get it passed.”

Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/06/oregon-truckers-make-themselves-heard-against-climate-bill-in-salem.html

June 29, 2019

Oregon's public employers must have anti-harassment policies under new law

All Oregon public agencies, from the state Capitol to municipal governments, will need written workplace harassment policies starting next year under a new law signed by Gov. Kate Brown.

The law requires government officials to promptly investigate reports of harassment and follow up with employees who made the reports to determine if the harassment has stopped or if they experienced retaliation.

The law applies to reports of misconduct in a workplace, at a work-related event or at any other location if the incident involves employees, elected public officials, volunteers or interns.

Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, co-sponsored Senate Bill 479, which takes effect Jan. 1.

Gelser said the bill was partly inspired by a 2018 case in West Linn when a city volunteer publicly accused a city councilor of repeated and unwanted sexual advances. City officials said the city didn’t have any process for reporting and addressing harassment allegations against elected officials or volunteers.

Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/06/oregons-public-employers-must-have-anti-harassment-policies-under-new-law.html

June 29, 2019

Oregon Senate Republicans will return to work on Saturday, leader says

SALEM — Oregon Senate Republicans plan to return to the state Capitol and resume voting on bills Saturday morning, caucus leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. said on Friday.

Baertschiger, of Grants Pass, said lawmakers have an obligation to pass budget bills, and he believes lawmakers can complete that work by the midnight Sunday deadline for lawmakers to adjourn. Democrats have a slate of other policy bills they also want to pass, and Baertschiger would not say whether Republicans would waive procedural rules to allow votes on that legislation in the waning hours of the legislative session.

Altogether, more than a hundred bills and resolutions are still pending in the Legislature and need Senate approval.

"There’s no reason to have a special session,” Baertschiger said in a press conference at the Capitol. "If we have a special session, it’s because (Democratic) leadership chose to have a special session.”

Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/06/oregon-senate-republicans-will-return-to-work-on-saturday-leader-says.html

June 29, 2019

Metro will study MAX tunnel underneath downtown Portland and Willamette River

Metro and TriMet are taking concrete steps this summer to determine if it’s feasible to build a tunnel underneath downtown Portland and the Willamette River to speed up light rail trains and provide an alternative river crossing to the aging Steel Bridge.

The regional government quietly posted a new website this week dedicated to the MAX tunnel project, which would put MAX trains underground from roughly the Lloyd Center to Goose Hollow in Southwest Portland. The website includes a public survey asking for comments on the tunnel concept.

Right now, Metro officials stress they are just trying to study the idea, likening it to a plan for planning.

“The MAX Tunnel study is a feasibility exercise to determine what it would take to do the entire environmental (EIS) planning process and all the engineering and design necessary to build a project like this,” Eryn Kehe, a Metro spokeswoman, said in an email. “By this September when we finish this study, we should have a cost estimate for the planning/design process and an idea of how long it would take.”

Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2019/06/metro-studies-max-tunnel-underneath-downtown-portland-and-willamette-river.html