POLICE SHOOTINGS
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Dallas tries to bridge gap with community, A6
15-year-old wins U.S. Open match, B1
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2014
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County considers public works merger BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COQUILLE — Coos County is brainstorming whether merging three of its departments into one overarching public works department would save some overhead costs. The number of employees in each of the parks, roads and solid waste departments has dwindled over the years — Commissioner John Sweet said there will only be
four solid waste staff by January. Roads operates on a $10 million budget, solid waste on $3.5 million and parks on $1.5 million, according to the county’s 2014-2015 budget. “It seemed inefficient to have three different department heads for three different departments that were that size,” Sweet said. “So we thought perhaps we could consolidate some of the management, administrative and clerical functions into one department.” The decision will ultimately
come from the three department heads, who will make a recommendation to the board of commissioners. “We don’t have a strict timeline to do this, but we certainly want to move ahead with it,” Sweet said. Since the current solid waste site operations manager is planning to move into the roads department anyway, the roads and parks leaders will have to work out how to fold staff in to the new department, he said.
The roads department is funded through public works fund revenue, about 40 percent of which comes from motor vehicle fuel taxes. Those revenues are then allocated to road survey, road maintenance, fleet services, capital projects, Oregon Resource Corp. road maintenance and an operating contingency; 21 percent of revenues go to personnel. Solid waste gets its funding from the waste disposal fund, and spends 13 percent on personnel. The majority of parks funding
comes from park fees and RV registration and more than a third of its budget is spent on personnel. At this time, no other county departments are considering a merger. “We’ll take small bites at this and see how this works out and comes together,” Sweet said. Reporter Chelsea Davis can be reached at 541-269-1222, ext. 239, or by email at chelsea.davis@theworldlink.com. Follow her on Twitter: @ChelseaLeeDavis.
Cell phone records may prove case
Enjoying the sunshine
Investigators look to phone records, DNA in North Bend community center shooting ■
BY THOMAS MORIARTY The World
By Lou Sennick, The World
A flock of cormorants soak up the Tuesday afternoon sunshine on the pilings of a training jetty on the North Spit. The jetty is near the North Spit Boat Ramp looking toward the Roseburg Forest Products chip dock where the ship Dynagreen is loading.
Consumer confidence at 7-year high BY CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — U.S. consumer confidence this month reached its highest point in nearly seven years, boosted by strong job gains. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its confidence index rose for a fourth straight month to 92.4 from 90.3 in July. The August reading is the highest since October 2007, two months before the Great Recession officially began. The optimism suggests that Americans will be more likely to spend in the months ahead, an important boost to the economy. Consumer spending drives about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity. “Enthusiastic households are more likely to open their wallets in the coming months and support solid output growth
in the second half of the year,” said Gregory Daco, an economist at Oxford Economics. The survey found that Americans’ outlook on the job market brightened considerably. The percentage of respondents who said jobs were “plentiful” rose to 18.2 percent from 15.6 percent in July. That’s the highest level since 2008. Consumers’ perceptions generally track the unemployment rate over time. The “substantial improvement in August points to another strong employment report next week,” said Ted Wieseman, an economist at Morgan Stanley. The government’s jobs report for August, to be released next week, will show whether hiring was strong for a seventh straight month. Steady and solid hiring this year has
provided more Americans with paychecks to spend. Employers have added an average of 230,000 jobs a month this year, up from about 195,000 a month in 2013. Average monthly job gains since February have produced the best six-month stretch since 2006. The unemployment rate ticked up to 6.2 percent in July from 6.1 percent in June. But that was because more Americans began looking for work. Most didn’t immediately find jobs, but the increase in people looking for work suggests that they are more confident about their prospects. Lower gasoline prices have also likely helped. The average price of a gallon of gas nationwide Monday was $3.44, the lowest in nearly six months, according to AAA. That leaves Americans with more money to spend on other goods and services.
NORTH BEND — The arrest of the suspect in July’s fatal shooting at the North Bend Community Center came after police lured him to Walmart via text message, court documents show. Now, investigators are looking to the contents of his cellphone to convict him. Miguel Alejandro Iniguez, 29, faces 25 years in prison without parole if convicted of murder in the July 13 shooting of 21-year-old Luis Mario Castillo Murillo. Castillo Murillo was shot and killed around 1 a.m. after a dispute in the community center’s back parking lot. A quinceañera — a coming-ofage celebration for 15-year-old Latina girls — was being held in the building at the time. According to a July 16 search warrant affidavit authored by Detective Jon Bohanan of the North Bend Police Department, one of the witnesses contacted by police was a man Iniguez, a California resident, had been staying with. The man told police that Iniguez, who had also been at the party, was now missing. Also missing was a .45-caliber semiIniguez automatic pistol, identified in other documents as a Vega 1911. As the man spoke to police, they noticed blood on his shirt. He gave officers Iniguez’s cell phone number. “Deputy Gil Datan of the Coos County Sheriff’s Office was assigned to see if he could get the defendant, either by text messaging or by calling the cell phone of the defendant, to reveal his location so police could arrest him,” Bohanan wrote. Datan texted Iniguez, claiming to be a friend of his host and offering help. Iniguez agreed to meet him at the Burger King in the Walmart parking lot. He’d be in custody before he could ever meet the deputy face-to-face. Police arrested Iniguez outside Walmart around 7 a.m. when they responded to a report of a tattooed man in blood-spattered clothes who had bought a new wardrobe and changed into it in a store bathroom. Iniguez had been talking on his phone when he was spotted outside the store. After his arrest, police got a warrant to search its contents. Because Iniguez used the phone while evading capture, Bohanan wrote, there was probable cause to believe it may contain text messages or call data SEE INIGUEZ | A8
American woman is being held hostage in Syria
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group, which kidnapped him in November 2012. Foley, 40, had worked in a number of conflict zones across the Mideast, including Iraq, Libya and Syria. He was in northern Syria on assignment for Agence France-Press and the Boston-based news organization GlobalPost when the car he was riding in was stopped by four militants in a contested battle zone that both Sunni rebel fighters and government forces were trying to control. The Islamic State video of Foley’s beheading also showed
Robert Burns, Coos Bay MaryAnn Wilson, Coquille Emilio Rodriguez, North Bend Cameron Warner, North Bend Dorothy Leach, Reedsport
another of the missing American journalists, Steven Sotloff, and warned he would be killed next if U.S. airstrikes continued. U.S. officials believe the video was made days before its release and have grown increasingly worried about Sotloff’s fate. Other American hostages have been held by other militant groups, including Peter Curtis from Boston, who was recently released by al-Nusra Front, a rival Sunni extremist group. Another U.S. freelance journalist, Austin Tice of Houston, disappeared in Syria in
Harry Lindmark, Winchester Bay Shirley Schmidt, Coquille
Obituaries | A5
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WASHINGTON — The Islamic State militant group is holding hostage a young American woman who was doing humanitarian aid work in Syria, a family representative said Tuesday. The 26-year-old woman is the third American known to have been kidnapped by the militant group. The Islamic State group recently threatened to kill American hostages to avenge the crushing airstrikes in Iraq against militants
advancing on Mount Sinjar and the Kurdish capital of Irbil. The 26-year-old woman was captured last year while working with three humanitarian groups in Syria. A representative for the family and U.S. officials asked that the woman not be identified out of fear for her safety. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. More than a week ago, freelance journalist James Foley of Rochester, New Hampshire, was beheaded by the Islamic State
DEATHS
BY LARA JAKES The Associated Press
August 2012 and is believed to be held by the Syrian government. Tice was working for The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers and other media outlets when he was kidnapped. The Islamic State militant group is seeking to create a caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq. The militant group is so ruthless in its attacks against all people they consider heretics or infidels that it has been disowned by al-Qaida’s leaders.
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SEE HOSTAGE | A8