Cascade Healthcare will run Prineville's hospital

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 31. 2007 5:00AM PST

PRINEVILLE — The membership of Pioneer Memorial Hospital voted Monday night to accept a lease agreement that would hand over responsibility for running the hospital to Cascade Healthcare Community, the parent company of St. Charles Medical Centers in Bend and Redmond.

The deal leaves Pioneer Memorial with ownership of the hospital’s land, buildings and equipment. Cascade Healthcare will be in charge of the day-to-day operations of the hospital, including employing the staff.

Cascade Healthcare has had a management agreement with Pioneer Memorial since 2001, meaning that it employs the hospital’s top administrators. It has a similar arrangement with Mountain View Hospital in Madras.

The company’s monthly rent will be equal to what Pioneer has to pay each month for its long-term debt liability, according to the terms of the lease agreement. That number will fluctuate, but a consultant for the hospital said Monday that the figure is currently a little less than $100,000 per month. Cascade Healthcare also agreed to a minimum $200,000 capital investment in Pioneer Memorial each year. The lease runs for a 23-year term.

Mark Severson, chairman of Pioneer Memorial’s board of directors, said before the meeting Monday that the deal will provide more support for the small, rural facility. Pioneer Memorial has federal designation as a critical access hospital, which means it gets more Medicare dollars, and it will retain that designation under the new agreement.

“Pioneer Memorial Hospital is having a difficult time keeping up with technology and services to our local community because it’s just so expensive to provide that, so we’re looking for a way to keep PMH healthy and keep it providing the great health care it has in the past to the community,” Severson said. “This would create more of a regional health system, which is good for the patient and is good for the community.”

After the vote, Severson said he doesn’t think that patients will notice big changes right away. He said he doesn’t know whether fees will increase, but he thinks they will “stay competitive.”

“I think they’re going to see business as usual at first, and I think as time goes on there will be gradual transitioning, but I firmly believe what we’re doing here is going to improve health care,” he said.

Jim Diegel, CEO and president of Cascade Healthcare, said the level of services should stay the same in Prineville.

“Our intention is to maintain services that are currently in Prineville,” Diegel told the members.

“Some of you may have heard that services in Redmond have been reduced as part of the merger (in 2001) ... actually, there are more services that are offered now in Redmond than there were pre-merger.”

The hospital’s membership approved the agreement by a large margin, 51-15. Anyone who pays a $250 fee can become a member of Pioneer Memorial Hospital, and many of the members are hospital staff.

Under the terms of the agreement, the membership will stay in place and continue to elect the hospital board, which will act in an advisory role to Cascade Healthcare’s board.

All of Pioneer Memorial’s staff will be given jobs with Cascade Healthcare with at least their current salaries, according to the lease. Pioneer Memorial Hospital also will retain its current name, unlike when St. Charles Medical Center-Bend acquired the former Central Oregon Community Hospital in Redmond.

“I think in retrospect that was not the right thing to do,” said Diegel, who was the CEO of Central Oregon Community Hospital. “What we learned when we changed the name in Redmond, and that was very painful to those of us in Redmond at the time, when you change the name, you change the identity, you take away the history, you take away the pride.”

Diegel noted that the agreement with Pioneer Memorial is a lease rather than a merger of assets, which leaves more control with the Crook County community.

Thomas Matheson, a doctor at Pioneer Memorial, called the lease the “lesser of evils.”

“I’ve listened to a lot of fears and worries on this. I feel this is the only possible successful alternative,” Matheson said. “This may be a way to live in a time of a lot of changes, and those changes aren’t going away.”

Habitat’s production to increase

Group partners with American Legion post

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 30. 2007 5:00AM PST

Bend Area Habitat for Humanity is hoping to more than double the number of houses it builds this year from last year’s total, and it is looking for families who are hoping to become homeowners.

The organization also is partnering with the Bend post of the American Legion to encourage veterans to apply for a home.

Habitat for Humanity built four houses in Bend in the last fiscal year, Executive Director David Love said. Now, the group has set a goal of building 10 houses by July 2008.

“As you look at the affordable housing crisis in Bend, typically right now a house costs $347,000, a median-price house, and if you take someone at the median income, there’s not a house they can afford in town,” Love said. “We are expecting a 500 percent increase in families applying for our homes only because incomes aren’t rising as fast as the housing prices are.”

Love said that Habitat for Humanity focuses on people who earn between 35 percent and 75 percent of the area’s median income, which in 2006 was about $58,000 for a family of four, according to Economic Development for Central Oregon.

“There’s a lot of things going on for people with less income and things going on for people who are little bit higher than that,” he said.

“We’re not a homeless (housing organization). We’re not emergency crisis. We build homes for people who are living in substandard housing. They might be in a one-bedroom apartment with three children, let’s say, and we build homes for people with jobs who are not able to keep up with it,” Love continued.

Cynthia Jurgensen, development director for Bend Area Habitat, said the organization has been talking with Bend’s Stevens-Chute American Legion Post 4 for a couple of months about working to help a veteran family get involved with Habitat.

The group won’t set aside a house for a veteran family, Jurgensen added. Rather, if one is accepted through the regular application process, the American Legion will be a partner in the process.

“If we get a veteran, then (the American Legion) will engage with us and help us raise the money and they will engage veterans in the community to come out and build the home with us,” she said.

Jurgensen added that Habitat has nine homesites on Daggett Lane in northeast Bend, six of which already have families chosen for them. One of the other three could go to a veteran family. Crook County Habitat for Humanity also is looking for one family for a to-be-built house.

“Once we finish these nine homes, which should be done by end of fiscal year ’08 next July, we still have 10 more homes that we’re in the process of looking to purchase land for or get donated land, and I’m raising money for those homes,” she said.

“The goal of this American Legion partnership is we are looking for legacy partners to build a home with us every year.”

Jeff Lightburn, Stevens-Chute Post 4 commander, said the partnership makes sense for both groups.

“The legion is the nation’s largest veterans organization, and Habitat is the nation’s largest home builder and provider for affordable housing,” Lightburn said. “We’re mentoring veteran families who come forward, and we will help them through this process to be considered for affordable homes, so that’s kind of the first part of this journey.”

Lightburn said he thinks this is the first time in Oregon and maybe the country that the American Legion and Habitat for Humanity have formed a partnership. He added that helping veterans with homeownership is a way of reaching out to many segments of Central Oregon.

“They’re teachers; they are nurses; they are construction industry workers; they are retail workers; they are rest service industry workers. You think of it, a veteran works in all these professions and employment areas, so we’re really touching the entire community,” he said.

“We’re really supporting the community, but are giving an extra boost to people who served our country unselfishly, and when I talk about veterans, it’s not only people who have served in the past, (but) it could include current active-duty people whose families live here, or (people in the) National Guard.”

Habitat for Humanity is holding orientation meetings in late August, which are mandatory for anyone interested in applying for a house. The group is looking for 13 to 15 families in the Bend area and one family for a house in Crook County, Love said.

Jurgensen said that families or individuals who apply go through a credit check and home interview, and the application is then reviewed by a selection committee and Habitat’s board of directors. The time frame between orientation and move-in is usually from 16 to 18 months, according to Bend Area Habitat’s Web site.

“We have a very rigorous process that everyone has to go through and we’re not playing favorites with anyone,” she said. “The families are selected on a need basis — either income or there’s too many people living in a small, substandard living space.”

Prineville rebuilds its staff

‘In spite of the difficulties,’ city manager expects an improvement

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 29. 2007 5:00AM PST

PRINEVILLE — The city is rebuilding its public works department in the wake of administrative restructuring that eliminated the public works director’s position.

Jerry Brummer, a 15-year city employee, has been promoted from sewer and water superintendent to the newly created position of public works superintendent. The city also has appointed an “engineer in training” and is in the process of hiring a community development director, a job that formerly was called assistant city manager.

At the same time, officials have announced that a new test well at the Prineville Airport is producing plenty of high-quality water, after the city spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on three wells that did not produce drinkable water.

City Manager Robb Corbett said the goal of the changes was to make city government more efficient for Prineville residents as its population continues to expand, and the public works department takes on more infrastructure projects.

“I would hope that as people work with the city of Prineville, they would continually notice an improvement in the service that they receive, and a part of that requires us to continually examine what we’re doing and improve upon it,” Corbett said.

The administrative changes follow the departure of Public Works Director Jim Mole in January. Mole and former administrative assistant Samantha Waltjen are now suing the city, saying they were fired for raising concerns about potentially illegal financial practices. Corbett has maintained that Mole was laid off in an overall restructuring of city government.

The shake-up put then-Assistant City Manager Jerry Gillham in charge of the public works department. Gillham, whom some Prineville residents criticized for his role in dismissing Mole, resigned in February. The soon-to-be-hired community development director will oversee public works and report to Corbett.

“Just like everything I’ve learned in my life is once you get through painful experiences, you’re always a better human being, and I trust that we’ll be a better organization in spite of the difficulties of the last six months,” Corbett said.

Pat Hepperle, a city administrative assistant, said updated salary information for the new hires is not available. Brummer made about $50,000 a year as sewer and water superintendent, she said.

Brummer, 58, said his new role will focus more on the day-to-day operations of the public works department. The department has 12 employees, including Brummer.

“I’m more just in charge of the public works department itself,” he said. “The city is in the process of hiring a community development person, and as far as contracts and a lot of the environmental issues and stuff, that (person) will handle that part, so my duties are going to be more just to make sure we review plans and make sure the infrastructure gets put in properly and maintain it as we go.”

Brummer, who used to be in charge of the city’s sewer and water system, said tests on a new well the city has dug at the airport show it should be a success. The well is temporarily hooked up to the municipal system for the rest of the peak irrigation season, after which the contractor will install a permanent pump house. It will be the city’s biggest well, pumping about 1,000 gallons per minute.

“We have a test pump in just to have it in case of an emergency,” he said. “It’s really good quality water, so that’s a bonus.”

He added that important upcoming public works projects include a bridge on Elm Street in Prineville and a new route through the city on Second Street.

Corbett said Brummer has been serving as interim public works director for about six months.

“Jerry is a great guy,” he said. “I just feel like we’re very fortunate that he was interested in taking the position.”

Corbett said the newly hired “engineer in training,” Eric Klann, will be the city’s first full-time engineer. In the past, the city has relied on consultants for its engineering needs.

Klann is still in training because although he has earned a degree in engineering, he must work with a qualified engineer for two years before he can take the engineer’s exam, Corbett said. Mike Wilson, an engineer who has been consulting for the city for about a year, will continue to mentor Klann. Wilson earns between $75 and $90 an hour working for the city, Hepperle said.

“We had been trying for over a year to hire a city engineer and were unable to find someone that we felt comfortable hiring as the engineer,” Corbett said. “So we made the decision, based on our research of the job market, that it might be easier for us to accomplish what we were trying to do, which was to get a city engineer, if we hired someone that had a degree in engineering but wasn’t licensed.”

Corbett said Klann’s responsibilities will include reviewing land use applications that involve public infrastructure to make sure they comply with city standards and working with the public works department on the installation of public projects.

The new community development director will oversee the public works department, the city engineer and planning staff, Corbett said. He added that he has made an offer on the position and is waiting for a response.

The main responsibility of the position will be “coordinating the efforts between planning, engineering and public works,” Corbett said. The position essentially is the same as what was previously called the assistant city manager, although Corbett said he has removed language from the job description saying that the assistant city manager is in charge in the absence of the city manager. Gillham had been Prineville’s first assistant city manager in a while.

“I think there might have been some concern about how the position was perceived in the public,” he said. “There were a lot of questions about whether or not the city needed an assistant city manager, and I guess I wanted to try and make a clean start as a part of the healing process.”

Multiple views at Bend UGB meeting

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 27. 2007 5:00AM PST

Hundreds of people packed a meeting room at the Deschutes County Services Center for a public hearing Thursday about Bend’s proposed urban growth boundary and urban reserve area expansion.

Representatives from Bend-La Pine Schools, Bend Metro Park and Recreation District and local irrigation districts, as well as local developers and residents spoke up to criticize and, in a handful of cases, praise the city’s proposals.

The city is proposing to expand the urban growth boundary by about 5,000 acres, almost exclusively in the area north of the current city limits. The concentration of property led some in attendance to pointedly accuse the city of drawing the UGB map to include 850 acres of the planned Juniper Ridge mixed-use development.

“It’s obvious by the size of the crowd in this room this is a matter of great interest to a lot of people. However, the appearance of the process is one of a preordained outcome and, because of that, it brings into question the lines on the map and whether the process falls under state statutes,” said Liz Dickson, the general counsel for the Central Oregon Irrigation District.

“It is of concern to COID that the appearance of the process is that the map was drawn before the analysis was done,” she said.

Juniper Ridge could eventually cover 1,500 acres northeast of Bend and include a university, research and development park, businesses and homes.

At the outset of the meeting, Deschutes County Planning Commissioner Mike Shirtcliff said he wanted those in attendance to understand the difference between the urban reserve and urban growth boundary. The public hearing was broken into two parts, with those interested in testifying about the urban reserve area speaking first and the UGB coming second.

“The urban reserve is a 50-year growth plan for the city,” said Peter Gutowsky, a senior planner with Deschutes County. “That is a noticeable distinction with the urban growth boundary, which is a 20-year growth plan for the city.”

About 10 years ago, Bend’s city limits expanded to fill out what was then its urban growth boundary. Officials have been working on expanding the boundary, which is intended to help the city manage growth, for several years.

Bend-La Pine Schools and park and recreation officials said they were worried that schools and parks were not taken into consideration in the urban reserve area and UGB process. John Rexford, an assistant superintendent of operations for the school district, said he was still “stunned and disappointed” with the UGB plans.

After an initial expansion proposal did not include land where the school district had intended to build a new elementary school, the city added about 80 acres on the west side of Bend to the UGB in order to meet the plans. But officials said Thursday the school is still up in the air because not all of the property is included in the proposed UGB.

In addition to various agencies’ officials, many residents in the affected areas questioned why their properties were or were not included in the urban reserve or UGB areas.

“I’m not in the (proposed) Bend urban reserve, and I’m not in the Bend urban growth boundary expansion, yet I border on both, so it’s sort of a unique situation,” Fred Boos said. “I’m kind of ambivalent which direction it goes, but the only thing I’m not ambivalent about is I want to make sure the property that’s surrounding my property is equivalent. I don’t want a subdivision on one side of me and an urban reserve property on the other side and I’m neither.”

D.C. Scofield added that he has been waiting for several years for his land to be brought into the UGB.

“I purchased in November 1991, 16 years ago, some property for the family — the intention was to make an investment property off of it so that they could have an education,” Scofield said. “I’ve waited 16 years for the UGB to come up, and I’ve been placed in the urban reserve area ... I feel that we should be in the urban growth area so that we could develop our property a little bit.”

Another public hearing on the city’s UGB expansion will take place at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 6 in the Deschutes County Services Center.

Prineville councilor steps down

Bobbi Young is second to resign from the City Council this year

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 25. 2007 5:00AM PST

PRINEVILLE — Councilor Bobbi Young announced her resignation at the Prineville City Council’s regular meeting Tuesday night.

Young, who has been on the council for about four years, said after the meeting that she is moving out of the city limits because she is getting married. City councilors are required to reside within Prineville’s borders.

Her resignation will be effective Sept. 30, or sooner if a new councilor is appointed, Young said.

“I don’t have exact dates when all of this is going to happen,” she said. “I thought I’d give them as much time as they needed.”

Young is the second Prineville city councilor to resign this year. After Tim Harris resigned in February, only two people filed applications to replace him, and one of them eventually withdrew. The other, Jack Seley, is now filling out the rest of Harris’ term.

According to the city charter, vacancies on the council are filled through appointment by the other City Council members. Interested candidates can contact the city at 447-5627. Councilors are required to be registered voters, at least 18 years old, and must have lived in the city for at least one year.

Young was appointed to fill a vacant position on the council in 2003, and she was elected to the position in 2004. Her term runs through Dec. 31, 2008.

She said she will miss aspects of being on the City Council but added, “This will be my first and last venture into the political world.”

“I’m going to stay involved in the different boards that I sit on, and I will continue that kind of volunteer work,” she said.

“There’s a lot of things that I’ll miss: the decision making; being a part of the growth; being a part of the body that effects change (and) protects citizens; the interaction of the different councilors.”

Young is a vice president at Prineville’s Bank of the Cascades branch. At Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor Mike Wendel said that her banking knowledge often has been useful for the city.

“Since you’ve been on the council, it’s always been a deal for me to every time we get to talking budgets or dollar amounts or we get to talking bonds, I always just look at you, and if you’re making some weird face, I think this must not be working very well, and if you’re happy as a clam then I think it must be working,” Wendel said. “Thank you very much for your service to us ... We will miss you greatly.”

Wendel jokingly added that Young should now be responsible for finding her replacement.

“I told Bobbi that it should be a policy that if you decide to resign, you should find somebody to fill your position,” he said.

Assignment: Fix aging schools in Crook County

Issue could come before voters as early as May

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 24. 2007 8:15AM PST

PRINEVILLE -- Many people know what it’s like to attend a crowded public school with too many students for too few classrooms and teachers.

In the Crook County School District, nearly all the students know that feeling. Officials there say that every school building is currently at or above capacity, at a time when Crook continues to be one of the fastest-growing counties in the state.

For months, a facilities review committee has been working on recommendations for the Crook County School Board about where, when and how to replace and renovate existing schools and construct new ones.

The committee’s recommendations should be finished by this fall and could result in a school bond on the ballot for the elections next May or November 2008, Superintendent Steve Swisher said.

This week, members of the facilities committee will be interviewing potential underwriters for the bond. Swisher said the process is in its early stages, and what would be included in the bond, as well as a dollar figure, is still up in the air.

“My best guess would be a May election, but a November election at the latest next year for some type of building project that would probably include major repair kind of issues for buildings and perhaps one or two (new) schools or an expansion of a school,” Swisher said.

Aging facilities

The newest school in the district is Crook County High School, which was completed in 1994. That school is crowded and could be one of the facilities looked at for expansion, Swisher said.

But the fact that the district’s newest building already is nearly 15 years old — at a time when the county has seen a steady increase in student numbers — “doesn’t really tell the whole story,” Swisher said.

“The next newest school built is the current Cecil Sly (Elementary School) and it was built as a middle school — it was built in 1962,” he said, adding that after that, the most recently built schools were in 1952 and 1946. “If you look at the dates here, (it’s) 50 years in the making … so we’re not going to solve it in one year.”

The schools with the most serious problems, Swisher and School Board member Mark Sev­erson said, are Powell Butte Elementary School, Ochoco Elementary School and

Crooked River Elementary School. The district also includes Cecil Sly Elementary School and Paulina Elementary School.

Severson said that the age of many of the district’s schools makes it difficult to upgrade them for new technology, which has an impact on the quality of education.

Ochoco Elementary School has structural problems as well as a poor location along a major highway, meaning that it is the most likely candidate for replacement, Severson said. Powell Butte could also be moved because of its dangerous location on state Highway 126.

“Ochoco has got a lot of issues with it — it’s the inability to upgrade the facility itself is the biggest problem, and then also the library, primarily, has a real foundation issue,” he said. “I don’t want to say it’s sinking, but you could place a basketball on one corner of that room and it will roll to another.”

Swisher said that a group of architects and engineers worked with the facilities committee to survey the buildings. They also targeted renovations, such as new flooring or ventilation systems, to extend the life of each school building.

“They’ve all basically said, you know, Ochoco school probably isn’t worth repairing … and they’ve said the same thing about Powell Butte school,” Swisher said. “Now, the third one eventually, although not as urgent as those two, is (that) Crooked River school is long and tired and perhaps it should be replaced, but it’s not in the same urgent category.”

The Crook County Court has expressed interest in donating a piece of land near the current Powell Butte school to the school district, which could form the site for a new school. Powell Butte Elementary School was built in 1930 and sits on Highway 126 between Bend and Redmond, an increasingly busy route. Ochoco Elementary also has a potentially dangerous location, on U.S. Highway 26 near where it intersects with 126 on the west side of Prineville.

Severson, who just started his first term on the school board, said that the facilities committee — which he previously sat on — has talked about using the Powell Butte and Crooked River buildings as community halls, rather than demolishing the structures.

“The facilities committee recognized the history and the culture that exists at Powell Butte,” Severson said. “The facilities committee felt that Crooked River was a school that has a lot of history in the community and that possibly it could be converted to a community hall or something, but stay in the school district or stay in the condition it is now used for various community events. I believe at that time, also, Ochoco was determined to be a school that could be torn down — it has a lot of structural issues.”

Public concerns

According to the results of a survey the facilities committee conducted earlier this year, Prine­ville residents also are worried about the state of the district’s school buildings. Three out of the top four issues that people said are the most serious ones facing the school district had to do with facilities and funding.

The top problem that respondents identified for the district was overcrowding, followed by lack of funding. After drugs and alcohol, “facilities in poor condition” is the fourth-largest problem facing the school district out of a total of nine issues, according to the survey.

The top two goals that those included in the survey named for the school district in the next five years also related to the facilities question: find funding for new schools and reduce class sizes.

Swisher said the district is expecting another increase in students this year.

“I’m interested to see what happens this Sept. 1,” he said. “The housing market’s cooled and all those things, so it’s hard to tell. Our preliminary indicators like kindergarten sign-ups and those kind of things indicate we have a surge coming, but it’s unknown right now — I hope we have a little bit of a cool off.”

Crook County’s school-age population is expected to double in the next 20 years, Swisher has said in the past. Without new or expanded buildings, the district could have to look at adding more modular classrooms — which are already in place at some schools — or switching to a staggered scheduling system, with students attending class at unusual hours of the day or in the summer.

Despite the facilities needs at several schools throughout the district, the committee’s recommendations and upcoming bond will probably address only the most urgent problems, Swisher said.

“It will be very measured and probably be (to) replace a school and build a new school for growth, and maybe do a little expansion on the high school,” he said. “That’s a guess right now, but what the plan will do is perhaps lay it out over the next 20 years — what the next step five to seven years after that will be, and the next step after that.”

Growth spurs look at raising impact fees

Higher development charges would boost area housing costs, critics say

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 23. 2007 5:00AM PST

When Prineville announced it might double its sewer system development charges last month, builders, developers and residents turned up at a City Council meeting to protest the move.

Raising the impact fees more than 100 percent, from $4,089 to $8,677 per single-family house, would make Prineville’s SDC rates the highest in Central Oregon and could negatively impact an already cooling housing market, several speakers said.

Eventually, the City Council decided to raise the sewer SDCs to $6,508 and phase in the rest of the charge in the next few years.

While Prineville may be experiencing a moment in the spotlight as the latest target of builders’ ire, it’s unlikely to hold that title for long. Redmond is also looking at doubling all of its SDC fees in the next few years in order to serve a rapidly growing population, according to the city’s public works director.

“All in all, the cost of growth is just becoming expensive, and we’re seeing that some of the other cities are adjusting their plans and coming up with higher SDCs,” Redmond Public Works Director Chris Doty said.

“Ours have not been updated since 2005, but this latest update will certainly bring them into current times with respect to the cost of construction and the number of projects that we’re anticipating to serve the new UGB expansion.”

SDC fees, which cities levy on new construction to pay for expanding municipal infrastructure, are a perennial topic of debate among Central Oregon’s developers, real estate agents, city planners and City Council members. But the charges — which homebuyers see in higher housing prices — fluctuate from city to city and are calculated in a variety of ways.

A state statute in 1989 set up the framework for SDCs, which can only be used to build new systems or increase capacity in an existing system, and can be levied for water, wastewater, stormwater, transportation, and parks and recreation. Since then, all of the largest incorporated cities in Central Oregon — Bend, Redmond, Prineville, Madras and Sisters — have implemented the fees.

Bend’s total fees are currently the highest in the region, at $13,440 for a new single-family house. With its recent increase, Prineville — traditionally thought of as a spot for lower housing prices — ranks second, at $13,142, for a single-family house. Redmond, which has a comparatively low rate of $7,908 per single-family residence, would jump into first place if it decides to double all of its fees.

“I don’t think (Redmond’s SDCs) have been significantly lower — I think they’ve been a little lower,” Doty said. “We’re just about ready to publicize new master plans that will reflect new projects and new project costs, so we all leapfrog each other as we update our various master plans.”

Determining SDC rates

Doty and Prineville City Manager Robb Corbett said cities determine SDC rates by making detailed master plans and creating lists of the projects needed to meet projected growth. Then planners figure out the cost of those projects and when they need to be on line.

“They’re definitely not arbitrary; they definitely differ from community to community depending upon the projects that are required, and so they’re very site specific,” Doty said. “For every dollar in SDCs that we receive, each dollar is broken up into dozens of projects that are on all of our capital improvement plans. It pays for just its incremental share of each to serve the whole system.”

Corbett added that some of the projects Prineville has identified as needing SDC dollars include expanding the wastewater system and making some road improvements.

“You identify specific projects that address failures in your transportation system because of all these people that have moved here, and then the cost of those projects are divided by the number of people or (equivalent dwelling units) that are going to be coming, and that’s how you come up with the rate,” Corbett said. “It’s more complicated than that — there’s more variables that go into it — but essentially that’s it.”

Most cities in Central Oregon base their rates on equivalent dwelling units, or the impact that one single-family house can be expected to have on the water, sewer, road and parks systems. But Sisters recently changed its formula to reflect the difference between a large house and a smaller one in terms of water and sewer use.

Planning and Community Development Director Brian Rankin said the city “decided it was the most equitable approach.”

“We just recently changed our methodologies from a flat fee to the fixture-unit approach, and the fixture-unit approach allows for a finer tuning of the development charge,” Rankin said. “A smaller house with fewer fixtures would have a lower system development charge than a bigger house with more fixture units, or a restaurant with, say, larger commercial washers (and) more sinks would be charged more than a small restaurant with, let’s just say, a takeout.”

Sisters’ overall fees are now about $9,389 for the average house. Madras, meanwhile, is the only city in the region that also charges a stormwater system development charge. Its total SDC rate is $9,841 per single-family residence, according to the city planning department.

Most people feel the effect of SDCs through higher housing prices — developers say they pass the costs along to buyers. But new commercial structures can face hefty fees.

Figuring out how many single-family houses, or equivalent dwelling units, are equal to one supermarket, for example, is a complicated process. Rankin said water and sewer charges for businesses in Sisters will be based on how many fixtures are included in their plans and a follow-up inspection to make sure that many were actually installed. But other cities have varied methods for determining how much of an impact businesses and factories have on local infrastructure.

Prineville’s SDC resolution spells out how to convert different structures into the equivalent of one single-family residence. Each unit in a multi-family house or mobile home park is equal to 80 percent of a single-family home. Motels and hotels are half a home for each room. A gas station with a convenience store is equivalent to two single-family residences.

When a developer applies for a building permit, the building department would take those figures and multiply them by the SDC charges, which are based on a single-family house. Most cities have a system for reimbursing developers if they decide to go ahead and build new roads or other systems using private money.

In Redmond, the transportation SDCs are based on the average number of afternoon rush-hour trips generated by each new building. A single-family house is equal to one trip, for an SDC charge of $2,877. But a park and ride lot with bus service would have to pay 43.75 times that base rate for every acre it covers. A movie theater, on the other hand, would be charged based on the number of seats it has, with each seat being equivalent to 14 percent of the SDC for a single-family home.

“How we calculate the p.m. peak-hour trips is based on studies that have been done and published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (in Washington, D.C.), so they know what a single-family dwelling unit generates in the peak hour versus an apartment unit or a condo unit, versus a 5,000-square-foot office building or a McDonald’s,” Doty said.

The development perspective

The varying SDC rates throughout the region can have a big impact on where developers choose to build, some local builders and economic development experts said.

“Some commercial projects are paying upward of $80,000 to $100,000 in SDCs, and if you can go to Redmond and do it for $40,000 and save some money, that’s a significant savings,” said Andy High, director of government affairs for the Central Oregon Builders Association. “(It’s) definitely considered in where you’re locating, especially as you try to compete with the land prices the way they are right now.”

And at a time when Central Oregon and the rest of the country are experiencing a widespread slump in the housing market, higher SDCs or home prices could have more of an impact on buyers.

“You’re starting to see somewhat of a breaking point in the prices throughout Central Oregon — there’s a lot of inventory ... and we’re starting to see reductions in home prices,” High said. “SDCs do drive up the cost of housing across the board. Even if you build a bunch of new homes around an existing home and all those new homes sell for $300,000, it’s likely that that older home will sell for right around $300,000 as well.”

High pointed out that if homes are not selling and builders are not starting new projects, cities won’t see any income from SDCs.

While the system may not be perfect, planners and developers said they understand the need for “growth to pay for itself” — a common slogan in the SDC debate. Corbett, the Prineville city manager, said SDCs put the burden of the new systems needed because of growth on new residents in the community.

“Personally, I think that if a developer is looking out for the long-term interests of the community, I think that they would want to know that the city has a funding structure in place to ensure that the infrastructure is going to be there when they need it,” he said. “The alternative to SDCs is that all the ratepayers share in the cost of expanding the system, and that’s really kind of a difficult position for any elected body to be in — arguing that the (existing residents) ought to pay for growth.”

Roger Lee, executive director of Economic Development for Central Oregon, a nonprofit organization that promotes local economic growth, said SDC rates may be steadily increasing in Central Oregon, but they are still low enough to attract new businesses and homeowners from nearby states.

“We have so many companies and individuals locating here from larger areas ... In California, for example, they have something called impact fees and sometimes impact fees down there for residential can be in excess of $50,000 to $100,000 before they start building,” Lee said. “I think they look up here and think it’s pretty affordable, (but) if you go to the Midwest, they haven’t heard of this and look at some of those things and think it’s highway robbery.”

Madras schools declare contract impasse

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 17. 2007 5:00AM PST

After almost 15 months of bargaining over a new contract for teachers, the Madras Education Association and the Jefferson County School District have declared an official impasse in negotiations.

The parties are now in the middle of a 30-day “cooling-off” period and have submitted their final proposals to a mediator from the state Employment Relations Board. If they can’t reach an agreement by early August, the teachers’ union could go on strike — although both sides say they would prefer to avoid that outcome.

“We don’t want to go to the strike — we don’t want to go out in the community and push and ask for support that way,” said Julie Nisley, bargaining spokeswoman for the Madras Education Association, the teachers’ union. “We want a settlement — we really, really do — and that’s what we’ve said all along.”

The bargaining impasse comes at a time when the school district is experiencing a spate of problems.

Two vice principals at Jefferson County Middle School faced criminal charges after getting into a fight in April, and the School Board recently decided to suspend work on a new, 60-student school, the Willow Creek Community School. The district has also been without a permanent superintendent since April, when Guy Fisher resigned abruptly after less than two years on the job.

The union — which includes about 200 teachers — and the school district have agreed on a 3 percent cost-of-living increase in salaries for each year of the three-year contract, according to their proposals. But Interim Jefferson County Superintendent Kay Baker said that one main source of disagreement is the amount of the insurance cap the district will pay toward the teachers’ plans. The insurance cap is the amount of money the district pays toward each teacher’s insurance plan, so increasing the cap would reduce costs for teachers.

The school district is proposing to increase the cap by $30 in the first year of the contract and 5 percent for each year after that. The district currently pays $800 a month toward each teacher’s insurance plan. The teachers’ proposal includes a $50 per month increase in the first year, another $68 for the second year and $73 for the third year.

“The contract is already upping our budget by about $2.3 million over the three years, and this would increase it another $400,000, and that during a time when this district and the budget for next year just reduced staff by seven staff members and couldn’t open Willow Creek High School,” Baker said. “The board really feels that they have to balance. They want to give the teachers a competitive salary and insurance benefits, but they have to balance their responsibility to the taxpayers and the students.”

The employees pay the difference between the insurance cap and the cost of their premiums. The district has two plans that employees can select, one with a deductible and one without, and for next year the cost of the no-deductible plan will be about $1,080 a month, Baker said.

The new contract should have started in June 2006, Baker said, which means that teachers have essentially been working without a contract for a year. The agreed-upon increases will be retroactive, she added.

Nisley, who is a counselor at Madras High School, said she doesn’t think the sticking point is one particular financial issuebut rather an overall breakdown in communication between the two parties.

“Some might view it as certain issue, (but) we, as a bargaining unit and team, view it as a general lack of willingness to talk with us, ... in our view, an unwillingness on their part to be competitive with the rest of the schools in the area to keep good teachers,” she said. “It’s been a really frustrating process of the teachers.”

In addition to the 3 percent annual cost-of-living increase, the union and school district have also tentatively agreed to increase the tuition reimbursement for teachers’ continuing education classes from $35,000 to $45,000 a year for the whole district; award teachers who earn National Board Certification a one-time bonus of $1,000 and a $500 annual stipend; guarantee elementary school teachers at least 25 minutes of continuous preparation time during the school day; and add a half-day of report card preparation time for all teachers at the end of each grading period.

“I think we’ve made some really good progress,” Baker said. “Of course, it’s taken 14 months.”

Bob Nightingale, a mediator with the Employment Relations Board who has been working with the two parties since January, said once the 30-day cooling-off period runs out Aug. 8, the district and the union have several options. The school district could go ahead and implement its final proposal, and the union could give 10 days’ notice of its intent to strike. Or both sides could continue negotiating. Nightingale said he has another meeting with both parties tentatively scheduled for Aug. 1.

“Nothing has to happen at that point (when the 30 days is up),” Nightingale said. “The employer could implement all or part of their final offer, and the union would be allowed with proper notice to call a strike — of course, they’re in their summer hiatus, so I don’t know what their strategy would be.”

The first day of classes in the new school year is Sept. 7 for first- through ninth-graders and Sept. 10 for all other students.

Nightingale said that the Employment Relations Board handles 3,000 collective bargaining agreements for public employees throughout the state and settles 98 percent of its cases before a strike occurs.

Nisley and Baker said both sides want to keep negotiating for now.

“But we also want to take a stand that they need to bargain with us, that they need to offer a reasonable package to us to keep good teachers here,” Nisley said. “We hope it doesn’t go to something like a strike; we hope to get it settled.”

Park board looks at adaptive recreation

Meeting details ideas for people with disabilities

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 16. 2007 5:00AM PST

Beth Brown just moved to Central Oregon two weeks ago, but she was the only community member to show up at a Bend Metro Park and Recreation District meeting Sunday to discuss adaptive recreation, or programs for people with disabilities.

Despite the low turnout, ideas for how to help disabled people have more recreational opportunities were flying around the room at the Bend Senior Center on Sunday afternoon.

Brown brought along her two daughters, 6-year-old Kara, who has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and 3-year-old Jenna.

Brown, who lives in Tumalo with her husband and daughters, said she had stopped by Bend’s Juniper Swim & Fitness Center to sign up Jenna for swim lessons and find out about adaptive recreation classes for Kara when she saw a sign advertising Sunday’s meeting.

The ability to integrate Kara, who normally uses a stroller or walker, into more outdoor activities would make a big difference for her family, Brown said.

“We’ve had to be really creative in trying to find out ways for our life to be not a lot different than what it was beforehand, because we used to go camping and go boating,” she said. “We used to go camping all the time — we go once a year now because it’s so much work to take a kid with special needs.”

Brown, who is a triathlete, said that Kara has an adaptive tricycle and a special jogging stroller, but it would help to be able to borrow and try out more equipment. She uses an inflatable pool for Kara to sit in when they go to the beach and a mesh bath chair on their boat.

“Where are you going to put a wheelchair on the boat?” she asked. “Your environment is limiting what you can really do to make your life completely normal, so we’ve just worked really hard to do that as much as possible, and it’s usually using things that aren’t meant for special needs.”

Amber Blanchard, the therapeutic recreation coordinator for the BMPRD, said that she has $3,000 in her budget to buy more equipment for adaptive recreation, which was one of the reasons for Sunday’s meeting.

“That’s our goal, is to have a pool of the adaptive equipment,” Blanchard said. “I’m trying to figure out what to buy, and it’s the community’s money, so they need to tell me how to spend it.”

Blanchard added that Juniper Swim & Fitness already has a couple of adaptive flotation devices. Right now people with special needs can enroll in general park and rec programs, and the district just added a full-time therapeutic recreation specialist. There are also currently three college interns who are therapeutic recreation majors.

The meeting included a Power-Point presentation featuring different equipment people with disabilities can use for skiing, rock climbing, golfing, bicycling, kayaking and fishing.

“It was pretty much just our observations from being in Bend for the couple of months that we’ve been here, what people might be interested in,” said Ted Monroe, one of the district’s interns.

Brown suggested a program where the parents of kids with special needs could work out together while trained staffers looked after the children, and Blanchard said she would look into starting something similar at Juniper Swim & Fitness this winter.

“That’s a great idea for this community; this community rallies around recreation,” Blanchard said.

The BMPRD is asking those interested in adaptive recreation to fill out a survey about their needs. The survey can be found online at www.bendparksandrec.org or can be picked up at the district’s main office, Juniper Swim & Fitness Center or the Bend Senior Center.

“We have more people with special needs now coming in to Bend, so that’s why we wanted to do this, but I think a lot of people are really busy and especially on a beautiful Sunday afternoon,” Blanchard said. “We have to get a little bit more creative about getting people’s input.”

Sunriver to aid toads’ annual pilgrimage across the street

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 14. 2007 5:00AM PST

SUNRIVER — The rock on the western bank of Sunriver’s Aspen Lake was disintegrating. In every direction, little brown blobs flew into the air and landed in the grass at the water’s edge.

But the brown mass on the shore wasn’t a rock. It was a pile of 3-month-old Western toads, just emerging from the lake to start their annual migration into nearby forests and meadows.

Every year, adult Western toads lay their eggs in Aspen Lake, and a few months later, the toadlets emerge from the water. This year, however, researchers say they are seeing huge numbers of toads at Sunriver — probably the most in 14 years.

And as the thousands of toads start heading up from the bank and across nearby roads to reach dry land, researchers at Sunriver Nature Center & Observatory are hoping to avoid lines of squished animals. They are planning to move the toadlets across obstacles in buckets, and are asking for volunteers to help.

“If they want to disperse more so they have less competition for food, they’re going to find our parking lot (and) then the roads, so the goal is with the human-made hazards to try to get them past the hazards,” said Sue Manley-Hinton, a naturalist and manager at the Nature Center.

Staffers also are planning to use a leaf blower on the pavement in the Nature Center’s parking lot to encourage the toads to avoid the area, according to a news release from the center.

The toadlets probably will do most of their migrating during the cooler hours at night and early in the morning, Manley-Hinton said. These toadlets are young Western toads that have gone through their metamorphoses — changing from tadpoles to an animal with four legs and no tails — and are about 3/4 inch to 1 inch in length. Full-grown Western toads are about 3 to 4 inches long, Manley-Hinton said.

The toads will spend most of their adult lives out of the water, returning to ponds — possibly Aspen Lake — to breed in about four years, she said.

“That’s the difference between frogs and toads — frogs will spend their whole lives in water, versus toads (that) will live in dryer climates,” she said.

Jay Bowerman, the Nature Center’s principal researcher, said in recent years the lake has usually played host to tens of thousands of toads. This year, researchers think there could be hundreds of thousands getting ready to migrate. In the past, Bowerman said the toad migration has lasted for a few weeks.

“We won’t know now until this migration is finished whether we’ve got a couple hundred of thousand of toadlets that are spread out along a large area of shoreline, or whether we’ve got 10 times that many,” Bowerman said.

In 1993, he added, between 500,000 and 1 million toadlets emerged from the lake. A few decades ago, 1 million to 2 million animals was an average number, he said.

But officials at the Nature Center are still at a loss to explain why this year has turned up such a bumper crop.

“The proximate reason is that there were more adults that laid eggs, but why we had a really good breeding year this year is a surprise to me because I would have predicted it would have been a very low year this year,” Bowerman said. “We did not have particularly good winter conditions. We had three really cold spells, and we did not have much in the way of snow cover to provide insulation. … That plus we had very dry conditions during April and early May when they make their way to the lake to lay their eggs.”

Manley-Hinton said they currently have several theories about the surge. One possibility is that staffers dug out some of the shoreline vegetation earlier this year, which may have made the lake more appealing to the breeding toads.

“Those are sometimes the mysteries that we just formulate questions (for),” she said. “There’s so many variables — was it the temperature? Was it the number of adults migrating here to do the breeding? We sometimes just have to observe, ask questions and look and see if we can pinpoint any variable.”

Western toads are prevalent throughout the Western United States, Bowerman said, and also are known as boreal toads.

This week, signs at the Nature Center advised visitors about the toads, and many people taking a walk along the lake stopped to gawk at the animals hopping across their paths.

Cynthia Fox, who was visiting from Portland with her daughter and son, said they have visited the Nature Center several times in the past.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “Is that cool or what?”

Her 7-year-old son, Michael Malone, pointed out several toads as they hopped along the path.

“Wow, look at them all,” Michael said. “They look like little tiny ninjas, kind of.”

Ex-Prineville workers sue city over layoffs

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 13. 2007 5:00AM PST

PRINEVILLE — The former Prineville public works director and another employee who lost their jobs six months ago are suing the city, charging that they were fired for complaining about possibly unlawful practices like avoiding the public bidding process for million-dollar projects.

Former Public Works Director Jim Mole and former Public Works Administrative Assistant Samantha Waltjen are suing in Crook County Circuit Court for unlawful employment practices and wrongful discharge. They claim in the suit that their immediate dismissal in January was due to raising concerns about certain financial practices within the city government.

The plaintiffs are asking for at least $25,000 each in lost wages, benefits and bonuses; $150,000 each for “damages consisting of mental, emotional and physical distress”; and reinstatement to their former positions.

City officials have said in the past, and repeat in the city’s answer to the lawsuit, that Mole and Waltjen were laid off in an administrative restructuring that consolidated the public works department under what is now called the community development director’s position. The city’s filed response to the suit “denies each and every remaining allegation of plaintiffs’ Complaint and the whole thereof.”

Reached by phone Thursday, Mole said he filed the suit partly because he is still “completely in the dark” about why the decision was made to eliminate the jobs.

“I’ve always said that I really enjoyed working for the city of Prineville and, yeah, we would both like to have our jobs back,” Mole said. “We never really did understand why we were restructured to begin with — it was never explained to us.”

Mole added that he is now working as a project manager and estimator for a Bend corporation and still lives in Prineville.

Waltjen did not return calls for comment.

Mole and Waltjen’s attorney, Robert Hennagin, said they were acting as “whistle-blowers” when they brought up concerns with then-Assistant City Manager Jerry Gillham about transferring money within city departments and awarding large contracts without a public bidding process. Gillham is not a defendant in the lawsuit.

“It’s not only sad but shocking when I discover that public officials conduct themselves under a perception that they don’t have to follow the rules or abide by the law,” Hennagin said.

The lawsuit states that on two separate occasions Mole and Waltjen, who had regular weekly meetings with Gillham, disagreed with his position on certain practices. In November 2006, the suit says, Mole told Gillham that he thought it would violate city policies to transfer funds between city accounts in order to hire a new city employee. On Jan. 17, the day before Mole was let go, Gillham told Mole and Waltjen that he planned to divide a million-dollar public works project into different parts in order to avoid the public bidding process, the suit alleges.

State law requires that large public works projects include a competitive public bid process.

The project involved work on the city’s water supply, the suit states, and Gillham said he intended to split it up so that each part would include less than $100,000 of work “so that he could award the contract to a particular company without having to publish a public notice for competitive bids.”

Mole and Waltjen told him they thought that would violate state statutes regarding bidding procedures, according to the suit.

Mayor Mike Wendel, City Manager Robb Corbett and the city’s attorney for the lawsuit, Stan Legore, all said they cannot comment on the suit.

The city’s response to the lawsuit asserts that Mole and Waltjen were laid off, not fired, as part of “an administrative and budgetary departmental reorganization in mid-January.” It asks for a judgment in its favor, including the reimbursement of costs and attorneys’ fees.

Mole worked for the city between February 2003 and January, and Waltjen was his administrative assistant for about six months.

Gillham was hired as the city’s first assistant city manager in September 2006. He and other city officials have said he was the one to tell Mole on Jan. 18 that he no longer had a job. Gillham resigned in February after public outcry over his involvement in Mole’s dismissal and has since become city manager in Lakeport, Calif.

Mole made about $67,000 a year at the time his job was eliminated. Both he and Waltjen were offered severance packages of three months’ salary, they have said. Gillham had an annual salary of about $87,000 and before he resigned, he negotiated a severance package similar to Mole and Waltjen’s.

Hennagin, Mole and Waltjen’s attorney, said that a status conference in Crook County Circuit Court is scheduled for next week. He added that he is not sure when a trial would begin.

City Attorney Carl Dutli said that he is not aware of another time when former employees have sued Prineville over their termination.

“People can threaten, they can say all sorts of things and there have been occasions when people or former employees have done that, but nothing ever came out of it,” Dutli said. “I don’t recall any lawsuits, (and) I’ve been city attorney for 26-plus years.”

Museum president moves on

Rodgers sees challenges ahead, says it's time for some new blood

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 13. 2007 5:00AM PST

High Desert Museum President Forrest Rodgers announced his resignation Thursday after six years on the job.

Rodgers will continue in the position until Oct. 1, according to a news release from the High Desert Museum. He could leave earlier if the museum chooses a successor or he takes a new job.

Reached by phone, Rodgers said he thinks it's time for some new blood at the top.

"I really believe that the time is right for somebody else to take the lead," he said. "For me personally, it's time to renew myself, re-energize myself and look for new ways to put my talents to work."

Rodgers pointed to a recent rise in paid attendance after 12 years of declines, the hiring of more staff and a focus on more varied visitor programming as some of the major achievements during his tenure. In that time, the museum also finished a $23.5 million expansion and reduced its long-term debt from $3.3 million to $1.5 million, the release said.

The museum - which opened in 1982 and features historical displays as well as live-animal exhibits - counted about 82,000 paid admissions last year. Sitting on 135 acres south of Bend, it's considered a key attraction in Central Oregon for locals and visitors.

"This is a very important treasure for our community and it's an essential resource, and over seven years we've made a lot of accomplishments," Rodgers said.

After 20 years working in higher education, Rodgers, 55, became the museum's vice president for development and affairs in February 2000 and was promoted to president in July 2001, the release said.

Rodgers said that his duties as president include fundraising and "lead(ing) the museum's strategic vision and day-to-day operating performance."

Both he and Cathy Carroll, the museum's communications and promotions manager, said that one of the new president's main responsibilities will be increasing the size of the endowment, which is currently at about $1.5 million. The museum relies entirely on admissions and donations for its operating funds, Carroll and Rodgers said.

"I will say that, in spite of all of our successes of the last seven years, the museum still is underfunded, underendowed and understaffed, and that can wear down the creative juices and the energy of anybody and, yes, I have felt the strain of the museum's financial circumstances for a long time," Rodgers said. "That's why I believe that new leadership energy is really essential at this particular time."

In April 2006, the museum's vice president of finance, the director of development and a planning manager announced their resignations and departed within two weeks of one another, citing personal reasons, according to earlier Bulletin reports. One of the employees said at the time that their resignations were unrelated to the museum's financial challenges.

Carroll said the museum will start working with an executive search firm, which has offered to work for free, to conduct a national search for a new president. That process will begin "as quickly as possible," she said.

As a leader, Rodgers has proven to be approachable as well as adept at seeing the big picture of the museum's mission, Carroll said.

"I think (Rodgers' accomplishments have been) the reinvention of the museum experience, the wisdom to see that the museum needs to constantly change and always offer a new experience, and he was able to do that along with staff and the board of trustees in offering new and exciting programs that have been proven to be popular with the community," she said.

Rodgers, who lives with his wife and three daughters in Bend, is not sure what he'll do next. Between now and October, he will focus on a 25th anniversary initiative that the museum plans to launch in the fall.

"I love the museum as a place - it is both beautiful and calming and, at the same time, it's energized by visitors and staff," he said. "Many people don't realize that the museum started from very modest beginnings, thanks to generous donors, and it has become a nationally regarded museum with an international reputation, and it will be important for this community to help support the museum as it grows and develops."

Train fatality leaves unanswered questions

Salem man struck and killed in Redmond

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 12. 2007 5:00AM PST

REDMOND — A Salem man was killed early Wednesday morning after being hit by a train near Evergreen Avenue in downtown Redmond, according to a news release from the Redmond Police Department.

The incident occurred at about 2 a.m. Wednesday, when a southbound Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway train hit Lamarkus Dwayne Petite, 33, of Salem, on the tracks south of the Evergreen Avenue railroad crossing, the release said.

Law enforcement officials found Petite dead at the scene, according to the release. Redmond Police Capt. Gary DeKorte said that it is still unclear why Petite was on the tracks at the time.

“We just want to do the best we can to answer all of those unanswered questions, but at this point he’s the one mainly with the knowledge of where he was going and why,” DeKorte said. “It may be just as simple as someone going from a store or business that may have been open to where they were staying, taking a short cut — sometimes those darn short cuts aren’t short cuts, but at best it would all be speculation at this point.”

Walking on or crossing train tracks outside of a street crossing is a crime of first-degree criminal trespass, DeKorte said.

DeKorte added that he does not know if drugs or alcohol were involved in the incident, but an autopsy will be performed. Officials also do not know whether Petite was trying to cross the tracks or was stationary on them at the time he was hit.

The spot where the train struck Petite is not a particularly dangerous one, DeKorte said.

“It’s no different than any other spot on the tracks. When you come to a grade crossing, like a roadway, your crossing is level and any place on the tracks you have something of an embankment coming up to the track level and then down again,” he said. “But there was nothing more or less unusual at that spot — it was one of those being at the wrong place at the wrong time (events).”

Gus Melonas, a spokesman for BNSF Railway, told The Bulletin that the conductors of the train, which was going about 32 mph at the time, tried to stop when they saw Petite on the tracks. The train was pulling 23 loaded freight cars and 10 empty cars, and was headed from Vancouver, Wash., to Riverbank, Calif., he said.

“This is an unfortunate situation for everyone involved,” Melonas said. He added that this was the first time this year in Oregon that someone had been killed while “trespassing” on train tracks, although there have been nine such fatalities this year in Washington.

DeKorte said he can remember a handful of other accidents involving people being hit by trains in Redmond in the last five to 10 years. In June, a man was hit by a train in Bend near the intersection of the Bend Parkway and Hawthorne Avenue and suffered severe injuries, according to earlier Bulletin reports.

“They happen every so often — fortunately, not that often,” he said.

In Wednesday’s accident, the train was held and the railroad crossing at Evergreen Avenue was closed for about 5½ hours, according to the news release. Morning traffic was affected for several hours, DeKorte said, since the Evergreen crossing is a main route through Redmond.

Law enforcement officials are still investigating why Petite would have been on the train tracks at that time and are asking anyone who might have seen someone at the crossing to contact the Redmond Police Department at 504-3400.

Crook County group discusses ways to improve health care

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 11. 2007 5:00AM PST

PRINEVILLE — The people around a table in the cafeteria at Crook County Middle School on Tuesday night sat thinking about how to describe what they like about health care in Crook County.

Tapping their pencils and furrowing their brows, they slowly filled up index cards with items such as the new building for the Crook County Health Department, the fact that Prineville has its own hospital and the availability of translators in the health department.

When it came to what they disliked about Crook County’s health care system, the ideas flowed more freely: the lack of services for uninsured and underinsured patients; high fees for health services as compared to Bend and Redmond; and low funding for mental health problems, and alcohol and drug addiction.

The group was participating in a forum put on by the Crook County Community Health Care Partnership, a program that is funded by the Oregon Office of Rural Health and housed at Prineville’s Pioneer Memorial Hospital.

The Office of Rural Health has supported Community Health Care Partnerships since 2001 in different Oregon cities, including Madras, in rural areas that have smaller and more crowded hospitals.

The purpose of Tuesday night’s meeting was to help the members of the Crook County partnership better understand the community’s health care needs, said Troy Soenen, director of field services with the Office of Rural Health.

“Our objective tonight is that each and every one of you will have the opportunity to participate and share your feelings,” Soenen told the group of about 40 people. Many of those at the meeting were involved with health care and social service agencies in Prineville, but members of the public also attended.

Soenen said that his office has $40,000 of federal money available for the Crook County program, some of which will go toward the issues people talked about on Tuesday.

After going over their likes and dislikes about health care in the county, the participants were asked to come up with methods for solving some of the problems.

“We’re looking for some solutions — we have some money that we want to put toward some solutions, but we want those solutions to be local,” Soenen said. “So I want you to really think about what can be done to make Crook County a healthier place to live.”

Lynda Kamerrer, Crook County’s prevention coordinator, said she thinks that reaching out even more to Crook County residents about their health needs would be helpful.

“This is some of us, but I’m not sure it’s a cross-sectional representation of the community,” Kamerrer said. “What I’m saying is, get consensus from the community on priorities. We’re taking one step (with this meeting), but not everyone’s here — we might need to go to them.”

Other suggestions included improving emergency services for outlying areas of the county like Paulina and Post, and setting up an in-patient treatment facility for adults coping with alcohol and drug addiction.

Mayra Salazar, a translator with the Crook County Health Department, said she thought the meeting Tuesday could have included more than creating lists of the problems and solutions.

“I thought we were going to do more,” she said, “like group discussion and that kind of thing.”

Ed and Marilyn Rosenbaum said they thought the meeting was a good start.

“I hope that something comes of it,” Marilyn Rosenbaum said. “I thought it was very informative.”

“You got to start someplace,” Ed Rosenbaum added. “If you wait around for someone else to do it, it won’t get done.

Residents watch, wait as fire nears containment

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 10. 2007 5:00AM PST

JUNIPER ACRES — As the Millican East Fire south of Prineville continued to burn Monday in another day of scorching High Desert heat, residents of the nearby Juniper Acres neighborhood kept a wary and watchful eye on the blaze.

The nearly horizontal line of fire was visible from most areas of the “sagebrush subdivision” about 25 miles south of Prineville, and a plane dropped bright-red plumes of flame retardant on the flames at midday Monday.

The houses in Juniper Acres, which are only accessible via rough dirt roads, are not covered by any fire district, Crook County Fire and Rescue Chief Bob Schnoor said.

That is one of the reasons that Crook County has limited development in the area to 150 structures overall and only issues 10 building permits a year, county officials have said in the past. Juniper Acres does not have any municipal power, water or sewer lines, so most residents use solar panels or wind generators and truck in water in tanks.

The dangerous and remote conditions may have made some residents nervous Sunday evening. Grant Kemp, emergency operations manager for the Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center, said that a few people decided to leave, even though the agency had not recommended evacuating.

“It was nothing that we initiated,” Kemp said. “There was no coordination with the sheriff, who usually initiates these things — they just felt a little bit threatened so they evacuated.”

As of 5 p.m. Monday, the fire was about 2,600 acres in size and 80 percent contained, Kemp said. It was burning mainly on BLM land and did not appear to be moving toward any houses, he said.

One Juniper Acres resident, Dana Howell, stood on her door stoop Monday surveying the hazy smoke rising on a butte to the south. Howell’s driveway featured an older Ford fire truck that could be called into service if the Millican East Fire starts threatening structures.

Howell, who is originally from Bend and lives in Juniper Acres with her husband and son, said she does not intend to evacuate unless an official order goes out to do so.

“We’re watching it and, yeah, we’re concerned about it,” she said. “I can’t speak for everybody else, but a lot of people are just sticking it out.”

One problem in a potential evacuation could be the number of cars suddenly pushed onto the main entrance-and-exit road for the neighborhood, Cascade Way.

It is unclear how many people live in Juniper Acres because of the number of illegal structures, but Planning Director Bill Zelenka estimated that there are about 100 legal and illegal homes on the subdivision’s 500 10-acre parcels.

Zelenka said that, since the fire started, he has received an e-mail from one Juniper Acres resident saying that “this points out that we need to have that access.”

Another resident, Lee Smock, agreed that the condition of Cascade Way raises concern about what would happen in the event of an evacuation. In January, Crook County set up a task force to analyze a number of issues in Juniper Acres — including the roads, emergency access and the cap on building permits — and Lee Smock is one of the resident representatives who sits on the committee.

Smock said that Juniper Acres is bordered on the west side by Bureau of Land Management property and on the east side by private land, which makes negotiating for another road difficult. He added that one of the local roads, Maple Lane, offers another evacuation route, but it is only a dirt track and could be closed depending on the location of the fire.

Smock said he did not know of anyone who had evacuated because of the Millican East Fire.

“I know that there were a few people way down on the south end there on Walnut (Lane) that were very concerned,” he said. “You could just barely see it coming over west of the butte, and I estimated probably four or five miles away, but the thing is with a good wind, why, it could be in Juniper Acres pretty quick. But as far as I know, no one really packed up a bunch of stuff and left.”

Smock said he thinks an evacuation would result in a “bottleneck” and “traffic jams” on Cascade Way. He added that some people who have their own firefighting equipment would probably stay to try to protect the houses. Some residents are trying to form a rangeland fire protection association, which would be managed by the local property owners in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Forestry, Smock said.

Schnoor, the fire chief, said that Crook County has one main fire district, which covers Prineville, Juniper Canyon and Powell Butte.

Juniper Acres is not included in the district because of its distance from Prineville.

If the Millican East Fire, which is currently mostly in Deschutes County, advances into Crook, Schnoor said the BLM would still be in charge of the fire and could request additional resources from Crook County Fire and Rescue. For now, Schnoor said, Juniper Acres residents should continue to take a “wait and see” approach to the fire.

“They should probably wait until they get official notice from the emergency manager of Crook County (before evacuating),” he said.

Jefferson subdivision project stirs M37 debate

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 07. 2007 5:00AM PST

MADRAS — A new, 60-unit subdivision is in the works northeast of Madras through one of the first Measure 37 claims filed in Jefferson County.

William and Darlene Hoffman filed their claim in April 2005 for the 190-acre farm that they bought in 1972. More than two years later, the county and state have waived the land use regulations on their property, but the Hoffmans are still going through the process of applying for a subdivision.

The project has some neighbors up in arms over the idea of 60 houses in the middle of farmland.

William Hoffman said he is planning to put in 60 lots of at least 2 acres in size, but he is waiting for the county to approve his plat, or chart, for the subdivision. According to an appraisal prepared for his Measure 37 claim, each lot could be worth between $60,000 and $75,000, putting the property’s total value at $3.6 million to $4.5 million.

Last week, Jefferson County issued a stop work order on an ornamental gate that the Hoffmans were erecting at the entrance to the property.

Hoffman said he was not aware that he needed a building permit to put up a gateway.

“Until my plat’s signed, I still have farmland, so I didn’t figure that I need a permit,” he said.

Jefferson County Counsel David Allen said a gate taller than 6 feet is considered to be a structure and, therefore, needs a building permit. He added that Hoffman obtained the permit this week.

Hoffman, 78, said he has done some farming on about 50 acres of his land in the past, but his career was as a builder. He said he has been working on putting roads in the property.

Allen said that caused some concern with the county when it looked like Hoffman has pushed some dirt into a canyon with a creek at the bottom, which led to a visit from staff with the Department of State Lands. But he added that it is legal for Hoffman to begin grading roads and moving dirt around before the county has approved his subdivision plat.

“He has the appropriate county permit to do some grading … We’re going to need to approve where the roads do go based on design criteria of slopes and width and run-outs before you access county roads,” Allen said. “I’ve explained to Mr. Hoffman that he needs to be somewhat careful that he does not get ahead of himself. If he was laying out gravel or asphalt, we might be a little bit more concerned.”

The subdivision application has had an initial review that led to some concerns — mostly concerning roads — that the county sent back to Hoffman, Allen said.

The voter-approved property rights law said governments either must compensate landowners when land use laws hurt their property value, or else waive restrictions and allow development to occur. Because of criticism that the bill was poorly written, the Legislature is floating a more-restrictive version of Measure 37 that will go before voters this fall.

Allen said the county has decided to handle Measure 37 claims involving subdivisions in the same way as it handles other subdivisions that developers apply to build in Jefferson County.

“We have taken the position that they still need to come through our subdivision committee and comply with health and safety regulations before their plat can be approved,” he said.

Hoffman said he thinks the process for obtaining the subdivision approval should have been straightforward once the land use regulations were waived under Measure 37.

“I’m just following the rules — health and safety’s all that I’m supposed to be meeting — and my project, so far it’s all been laid out for safety. The intersections are squared off and everything, (the) stop signs aren’t in yet, but they’ll be going in at the proper places,” he said. “They are handling it just like a regular subdivision — I’ve been a builder for 50 years, I know what’s going on.”

Jarold Ramsey, who owns property adjacent to Hoffman’s, sent a letter to the county and state along with other family members calling the proposed subdivision “unacceptable on economic, social, agricultural and environmental grounds.” In an interview this week, Ramsey said it seems that Hoffman is proceeding with construction before he has received all the proper approvals from the county.

“It looks as if he’s going right ahead with all the preparations to get this project finished well before he has his final application reviewed and approved by the county,” Ramsey said. He added that he intends to speak up in opposition to the development when the county holds public hearings on it.

Ramsey added that he is concerned about the number of cars a 60-house subdivision would add to the local access road, as well as the location of septic systems for the subdivision.

“I don’t plan to live with a town of 60 lots over my back fence in what has been historically farmland — my family has had this land since 1938,” said Ramsey, who added that he moved back to the area after retiring as a professor at the University of Rochester in New York. “If something like Hoffmans’ is approved then that land will be withdrawn from farming and any other use of the sagebrush land, including just leaving it alone, you know, will be lost forever, there’s no doubt about it.”

Hoffman said that the drawn-out process of filing the Measure 37 claim and applying for a subdivision has been “frustrating,” but he hopes to proceed with construction soon.

“The thing of it is, the people that have these Measure 37 claims are all older people,” he said. “They just are not listening to Measure 37 … So that’s the reason I just said, ‘To heck with it, I’m just going to go ahead .’”

Family seeking to erect billboards on U.S. 97

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 05. 2007 5:00AM PST

MADRAS — In addition to mountain vistas, drivers on U.S. Highway 97 between Redmond and Madras might start seeing commercial billboards in farmland as part of one family’s Measure 37 claim.

Roger and Patricia Cunningham, who live on a farm near Crooked River Ranch in Jefferson County, and Marie Cunningham, Roger Cunningham’s mother, have filed a Measure 37 claim to subdivide their 325-acre property and put up a few billboards on the part of their land along the highway.

Jefferson County has waived all the regulations on the property, which Marie Cunningham has owned since 1961.

But the process could be held up by a state hold on Measure 37 claims and another state referendum to possibly amend the ballot measure that will go to voters this fall.

Although there were no county land use regulations in place in 1961, state rules govern highway billboards, so the Cunninghams will have to wait for a state waiver, said Sandy Mathewson, a senior planner with Jefferson County Community Development. Mathewson added that she is not aware of any other highway billboards in Jefferson County outside of Madras city limits.

She hasn’t heard much feedback about the prospect.

“I don’t think that crossed anyone’s mind. Of course, Measure 37, it’s pretty much wide open — if somebody acquired their property early enough, they can pretty much do whatever they want with it,” Mathewson said. “Once (people are) driving down the highway and see a bunch of big billboards sprouting up, we’ll probably get a lot of calls, but that’s if they can get the necessary state permits.”

Patricia Cunningham, 59, said her husband Roger, 61, has lived on the farm about eight miles north of Terrebonne “since he was in kindergarten.” Her mother-in-law, Marie Cunningham, now lives in Madras and, according to the text of their claim, Roger and Patricia Cunningham have owned a one-third interest in the farm since 1978.

The Cunninghams originally filed the claim in 2005 to subdivide the property, Patricia Cunningham said, and then decided to ask for an additional waiver to put up billboards.

“We just saw that as an opportunity maybe to gain a little revenue along that piece of the Measure 37 claim there, along the highway,” she said.

According to an estimate done for the Cunninghams’ Measure 37 claim, four two-sided billboards with triangular rotating images could be worth as much as $1 million.

Cunningham said that she and her husband have hay, grain, carrot seed and cattle on their farm, but are thinking about retirement in the next few years.

“Roger will be 62 here pretty soon, so, you know, we’re just looking at gearing back,” she said. “We were looking ahead and we thought the timing was right to make some changes and slow our pace down a little bit and, of course, things didn’t go as planned (with the Legislature’s decision to put a new referendum before voters).”

She added that she has not heard any complaints from neighbors about the billboard proposal, even though they have been notified.

“We don’t want to totally destroy our neighborhood because we’d like to still stay here if possible,” she said.

Mathewson said that the county sent letters June 13 to everyone with property within 750 feet of the Cunninghams’ notifying them of the Measure 37 claim. She added that neighbors would have had 15 days to appeal the county’s decision, but no one has spoken up about the proposal.

Billboards are not allowed on highways in Jefferson County unless the property owner can obtain authorization from the state, Mathewson said.

“The state is really the one who regulates billboards,” she said. “She is still subject to the state regulations pertaining to billboards because she hasn’t obtained a state waiver for those, so one of the conditions of our approval requires that she either get a waiver from the state or get the necessary permits from the state to allow her to have the billboards.”

Madras allows up to 18 billboards within city boundaries, but the total number is currently over that limit because of adjustments in the urban growth boundary, according to the city community development department. Billboards are prohibited in the city’s residential zones, according to Madras’ sign ordinance.

County Commissioner Mike Ahern said he is not sure the state will grant the Cunninghams’ waiver because state billboard laws are governed by the federal Highway Beautification Act, which was passed in 1965 and is also known as the Lady Bird Johnson Act.

“Personally, to be really honest, I don’t want to see it happen," Ahern said, "but it’s not our battle.”

Soon, a Web site will track status of projects in Crook

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 05. 2007 5:00AM PST

In its ongoing push to offer more services online, Crook County is launching a new system to offer residents, developers and contractors a way to track building permits and inspections.

Crook County continues to be one of the state’s fastest-growing areas, and the new system will streamline interactions between departments and developers and building officials.

Officials plan to begin implementing new software to tie together Crook County’s and Prineville’s building and planning permits work flow this week. Sim Ogle, the county’s information technology director, said the system should be ready for public use by early October.

“You start building up a fully electronic way of communicating between the departments — that’s the idea,” Ogle said.

Once the system is up and running, people will be able to search the county’s Web site with a specific address and find out what permits the property owners have filed.

“It’s kind of basic information, but you can see if you’ve filed a building permit or planning permit, you can see where it’s at in the process,” Ogle said.

He added that there will be a more detailed, password-protected Web site for contractors and developers to follow the status of their projects online or schedule an inspection.

If the contractor supplies a cell phone number, the system can send a text message saying when a permit has been approved or if it has been held up for some reason.

“So it will be the first time where contractors are able to work really closely as part of the process, instead of just being bystanders to it once they initially submit their permit,” he said.

The software for the county cost about $86,500, Ogle said, which was paid for out of the county’s software reserve fund.

In addition to providing a service to the public, the new software will cut down on paperwork for the building and planning departments. Ogle said the same system has been used in Molalla and some counties in Washington, but he believes this is the first time in Oregon that a county and city have joined their systems electronically.

Deschutes County’s Web site allows people to monitor permits online, a service that has been offered for several years.

“Deschutes is an example unto itself because they financially are so solvent, they have some fantastic services they offer,” Ogle said. “I work very closely with my counterparts over there, and there’s no doubt I spend a lot of time looking at how they deliver information.”

Ogle is Crook County’s first IT director and started in the role in January. He previously served as manager of the county’s Geographic Information Systems and continues in that role. He said he hopes to ultimately hook up the online permit system with GIS so that people doing map research would also see information on building permits and inspections.

“It really shows that not only do the (county) commissioners support technological advancement here and provide the finances to do that, but I think with the growth we’re experiencing … the citizens expect service to be online too,” he said. “We’ve got the support and we’ve got the demand to put things online, so this is really just the start of a lot of things that have to happen.”

Powell Butte tops Crook's transportation challenges

By Rachael Scarborough King / The Bulletin
Published: July 03. 2007 5:00AM PST

PRINEVILLE — In Powell Butte, the signs of growth are everywhere.

Mounds of dirt line one corner that crews are straightening on the Powell Butte Highway. Orange construction signs slow traffic at part of state Highway 126. And the increasingly busy highway is often clogged with rush-hour traffic on its way between Prineville and Redmond.

There is no question that Powell Butte’s roads will have many more cars on them in the next few years and could require major infrastructure investments on the part of both Crook County and developers. But officials say that the rapid residential growth in the area — which currently has three destination resorts in the works — may take attention away from other areas in the county with serious transportation issues.

“I think that because of the destination resorts, they’ve driven a lot of that discussion because there’s been opportunities (for road improvements),” County Judge Scott Cooper said. “I don’t think Powell Butte gets more than its fair share — Powell Butte’s a hot real estate area right now so it gets a lot of attention.”

Pressing roads concerns

The Crook County Court has spent many meetings in recent months discussing aspects of road improvements in Powell Butte, including fixing dangerous corners on the Powell Butte Highway between Prineville and Bend and working out agreements with destination resorts to fund the work. But it has given comparatively little consideration to what Commissioner Lynn Lundquist called the “most pressing” road problem in the county: finding a second access point for the Juniper Canyon area.

Juniper Canyon is a rural area south of Prineville that, like the rest of the county, has seen an increase in subdivision development in recent years. The area is essentially a long cul-de-sac extending down to the Prineville Reservoir, with Juniper Canyon Road serving as the only route in and out for residents, all of whom have to drive through downtown Prineville to get to a highway.

That raises safety concerns in the case of a wildfire or other emergency that could block the exit route. At a recent Sheriff’s Office Town Hall in Juniper Canyon, residents and Sheriff Rodd Clark expressed concern about the state of affairs.

Lundquist also said last week that he is worried about the situation.

“We have to get another access out of there for fire, and I’m getting a little impatient about that,” Lundquist said.

Cooper said that the County Court has asked the planning department to review four different options for another road in the area, which faces difficulty because of sensitive wildlife areas and the fact that much of the surrounding land is owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Cooper added that there is a small, seasonally open road that could serve as an evacuation route in case of emergency.

One Juniper Canyon resident, Newell Clarno, recently appeared before the County Court to discuss a transportation plan for the area, which he is now developing and will include an inventory of the area’s roads and possible solutions for the exit issue. Clarno estimated that about 4,000 people live in Juniper Canyon.

“Another issue is road maintenance — a lot of the subdivisions were put in before that was a consideration,” Clarno said.

Frank Porfily, who said he owns land in Juniper Canyon, also spoke to the County Court recently about finding another access road.

“That one there is more of a critical issue I think because Powell Butte doesn’t have access problems, it has capacity problems,” Porfily said. “I suppose they go where the money’s at, and that’s where it’s at.”

Cooper said the county has set aside $700,000 for a second road out of Juniper Canyon. He added that the development of destination resorts in Powell Butte has led the County Court to focus on that area because the county is able to work out agreements with the resorts to fund some of the improvements.

Crook County does not levy any system development charges for transportation, and funding considerations have become more important given the uncertainty surrounding the county timber payments plan. The county road department’s total annual operating revenue was about $4.2 million last year, $2.5 million of which came from county timber payments.

“What we want to build is the road that makes the most sense, but sense means cost effective, it means fits with the terrain and it means that it’s far enough away from the existing road that we’re not likely to have both roads shut down,” Cooper said. “In Powell Butte, you have very large developers with deep pockets; in Juniper Canyon you have small developers with skinny pockets, and you can’t tax any one developer for systemwide improvements.”

In addition to these transportation projects, Cooper said, he is concerned about the conditions of state Highway 26 and the roads around the community of Lone Pine.

Taking a step back

Lundquist, who lives on one of the main roads in Powell Butte that will be affected by Brasada Ranch destination resort, said one of the main reasons he ran for County Court in November was to address transportation issues. Before running for the court, he was a member of a committee that recommended ways to fix the sight distances on certain corners on the Powell Butte Highway.

He has played an active role in the debate when the topic of Powell Butte’s roads have come up in County Court meetings, as it has done frequently the past few months, and has voted in opposition of the other two commissioners on the question of whether to allow Brasada Ranch to fix only one of the two main curves on the Powell Butte Highway.

Lundquist has suggested revisiting the county’s transportation system plan, which he said the Court will probably do later this summer. The plan, which was only completed a few years ago, is already not being adhered to with the projects in Powell Butte, Lundquist said last week.

“To me, the single biggest transportation issue is taking a timeout to look at how the county and the community wants their infrastructure to look,” he said. “As we have this great influx of people coming in here, is it appropriate that we just take our present road system that we have and we’re just going to funnel everyone down these same roads, or do we take a timeout and say, ‘Let’s plan for the future of it?’”

In an interview last week, Lundquist expressed the same idea, saying that he thinks the county needs to take a step back to look at the overall transportation picture. He added that he thinks the rapid development in Powell Butte has put that area in the spotlight.

“Juniper Canyon has developed at a slower pace, you know, it’s growing and growing and growing, and I don’t think you have the big change like we see in Powell Butte now,” he said. “When we have literally a new city — the three resorts are as big as Prine-ville is — and so when you have the great potential growth at one time, I think you’re hearing more about Powell Butte.”

Cooper said that more conversations about Powell Butte may happen at the County Court level, but discussions about the county’s other roads issues are happening as well.

“I think every elected official has a responsibility to represent what he perceives to be his or her constituency,” Cooper said. “Lynn happens to be very passionate about the Powell Butte area.”

He added that he thinks the county’s traffic issues and those of Powell Butte in particular get a lot of attention from county government, but there are many pressing concerns for the commissioners.

“I always have to look at it in perspective too. Yes, we have our problems and, yes, we deal with them every day, (but) drive to Bend, drive to Portland, and tell me we have traffic problems,” he said. “Transportation is important, and we do talk about it a lot, but so is making sure that you don’t come down with West Nile virus, so is making sure that we lock up the bad guys, so is making sure that the courts are able to hear your case in a timely fashion. It’s one of 23 separate department functions that we operate — it gets an awful lot of time.”