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County Budget Committee
County will draw from ‘savings’ BY EMILY THORNTON
Planning for the future
The World
COQUILLE — County officials said this week they would continue to draw from the forestry fund, the county’s “savings account,” to balance the budget — just like they did last year. “For another year, maybe two, we’re going to have to take some funds out of the forestry fund to maintain our level of county services,” Commissioner John Sweet said. The Coos County Budget Committee continued talks this week with department heads. They hope to have a preliminary budget done by the end of April and may start cutting services as they finalize the budget. Sweet and Commissioner Melissa Cribbins said much of the fat had been cut from departments already. This year, they asked them to produce “bare bones” budgets. Such things as overtime, extra help and emergency funds could be added as needed, they said. Sweet and Cribbins — both of whom are up for re-election this year — said they expected to have revenue from places such as county timber sales, the Jordan Cove Energy Project and federal timber legislation. So they weren’t concerned with spending forestry funds. Commissioner Bob Main was a bit more cautious about getting more funding. “We will see what happens,” Main said. Main said the county would face the same problems as Polk, Curry, Klamath and Columbia counties eventually. Those counties were forced to make difficult cuts, such as shutting down jails. “2016-2017 will be the year that we really have some painful times,” Main said. Those times refer to when the county is projected to run out of its forestry funds. However, the amount in the forestry funds account could always change.
By Alysha Beck, The World
Jason Ray Dizick consults with his public defender, Ron Cox, during a hearing Friday morning in Judge Richard Barron’s courtroom at the Coos County Courthouse. Dizick pleaded guilty to robbery and attempted aggravated murder charges in 1993 and was sentenced to 68 years in prison. Dizick has been appealing to get an earlier date to apply for a parole board hearing.
Decades-old ‘slasher’ case returns to courtroom BY THOMAS MORIARTY AND TIM NOVOTNY The World
COQUILLE — One of the most shocking crimes perpetrated in Coos County took place in North Bend 21 years ago. On Friday, the man who pled guilty to that crime as a teenager was back in a Coos County courtroom as an adult. He was hoping to improve his chances of getting out of prison on parole in the near, rather than distant, future. The case of Jason Ray Dizick continues to leave people shaking their heads, over the senselessness of the crime as well as the confusing decades-long court battles following his sentencing.
The crime On Jan. 11, 1993, Dizick, then 19, walked into the Ammo Bunker, a gun store at 2135 Broadway Ave., now operated as Tidewater Shooting Supplies. He carried no weapons of his own, only a single shotgun shell in his pocket and a roll of duct tape. It was that cartridge that he loaded into a shotgun from the store’s racks, holding owner Stephen McMullan at gunpoint. When McMullan tried to escape, Dizick struck him with the butt of the gun.
McMullan’s friend, Jerry Weist, had no idea what was going on when he walked into the shop a few minutes later and was confronted by Dizick wielding an Uzi 9mm submachine gun. His friend had his hands bound behind his back with the duct tape. The robber ordered Weist onto his hands and knees and, taking a combat knife from the store’s display case, slit their throats. “Fortunately, he didn’t know his anatomy very well,” said Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier, then in his third year on the job as an assistant district attorney under Paul Burgett. According to Weist, who told The World he played dead as Dizick stood over him with the Uzi, the would-be killer seemed nonplused by what he had done. “It’s been fun,” Dizick allegedly said as he walked out the door. “But I’ve got to go now.” Along with the Uzi, he took a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol from the shop. Buddy Young, then a lieutenant of the North Bend Police Department, was one of the first officers at the scene. “There had been a light snow, and the footprints gave sort of a telltale sign of where (Dizick) had gone,” Young remembers.
Police got thousands of tips from all over the area, one of which eventually led detectives to Dizick. A drifter with a history of drug problems, Dizick had been living with his 16-year-old girlfriend and her 36-year-old mother in a home at 16th Street and Broadway. “He’d only gone four or five blocks up the street (from the scene),” Young said. Frasier said officers immediately brought Dizick back to the scene after his arrest, where they had him walk investigators through a reenactment of the crime. Under a plea agreement, Dizick pleaded guilty that March to two of the attempted aggravated murder counts, two counts of first-degree robbery with a firearm and two counts of first-degree assault.
The punishment Judge Richard Barron sentenced Dizick to 68 years in prison — 30 years each for the attempted aggravated murder charges and eight years for the robbery charges, with the assault sentences to be served concurrently with their respective attempted murder charges. It was that sentence, combined with a changing sentencing landscape in Oregon justice, that would SEE MURDER | A8
A financial contingency plan, which Coos County commissioners approved in December, intended to help identify what to cut. But, it won’t affect this year’s budget. Commissioners had hoped to have it ready for the 2015-2016 year, but they put it on hold while they finish strategic planning, which they hope to finish by summer. In strategic planning, commissioners eventually intend to ask residents what they think should be cut from the budget, if the need arises. Cribbins said they had one more department head to meet with before Vanessa Becker — a consultant they hired to oversee planning — came back to give an overview of what she thought needed to be cut. Then, they will go to county employees with both an online survey and face-toface meetings. After that, they will ask residents more finalized questions, Cribbins said. “We want something with meat on it for public input,” she said. The county changes the amount it sets aside in savings each year. County Treasurer Mary Barton said the county follows a formula that is supposed to stabilize “the ups and downs of the timber market.” The amount put in savings is usually based on a five-year average of money from timber sales, minus how much it takes to run the forestry department and how much the county needs to balance its budget. The $3.8 million taken from forestry last year was $1.2 milSEE BUDGET | A8
Money starts flowing Jordan Cove parent company looks at financing, ownership options, expansion
INSIDE
COOS BAY — Now that the Jordan Cove Energy Project has federal approval to export liquefied natural gas to non-Free Trade Agreement countries, parent company Veresen Inc. is making moves financially. Don Althoff, Veresen’s president and CEO, spoke with confidence during a conference call following
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the U.S. Department of Energy’s Monday announcement. “I don’t think this is going to be a problem to finance,” he said of the $7.7 billion project (approximately $1.1 billion of which is project financing, owner’s cost and interest incurred during the four-year construction period). Before Veresen can make a “final investment decision” in early 2015, it needs an Engineering, Procurement and Construction
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contract, all off-take contracts “signed with credit-worthy counterparties,” and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval.
Veresen looks for potential owners, partners Althoff wants Jordan Cove to be “completely sold out” by October or November. That means Veresen is analyzing “optimal ownership” and possibly bringing in partners. “What we’re going to decide
Claire Ellison, Langlois Clarence Downer, North Bend Roy Brannon, Coos Bay Claudia Skubon, Coos Bay Edward Holland, North Bend Uno Pullis, Coos Bay
over the next nine months is how much we want to own of the plant, and then how much more equity do I need to raise?” Althoff told The World this week. Today, Veresen owns 100 percent of Jordan Cove, including the proposed marine facility, liquefaction plants, storage tanks, gas treating facilities and South Dunes Power Plant. The LNG facility will run capital costs of $5.3 billion, Veresen estimates.
Evelyn Simons, Coos Bay Mary Hall, Coos Bay Diana Mills, North Bend
Obituaries | A5
FORECAST
The World
DEATHS
BY CHELSEA DAVIS
The Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline, which would feed natural gas to Jordan Cove through a 232mile, 36-inch pipeline from Malin, will incur capital costs of $1.5 billion. Veresen owns half of the pipeline; the other half is owned by Williams Companies, a U.S. natural gas processing and transportation company. “I think owning 100 percent of it SEE VERESEN | A8
Rain 55/43 Weather | A5
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