RUNAWAY DUCKS
DIRECT ELECTION
Oregon simply too much in opener, B1
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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2014
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A different kind of kickoff BY TIM NOVOTNY The World
COOS BAY — One half of the next high school football season will already be in the books at North Bend Vic Adams Field, on Friday night, when another kind of kick-off will take place. United Way of Southwestern Oregon is using the occasion of the Bulldogs’ first football game Friday to launch its annual “Give Where You Live” fundraising campaign. Executive Director Bill Harsh says the high school football game environment is the perfect place to
United Way of Southwestern Oregon is launching their 2014-2015 campaign at North Bend on Friday night kick things off. “You know, it’s great,” Harsh said. “There is a lot of energy at the game, and we get the word out to a lot of people.” Two years ago, he said, the program rounded up about $199,000. This year they are looking to hit the end zone with $200,000. The campaign’s theme is “Give Where You Live,” to help remind people that money raised in Coos
and Curry counties stays here helping local people. To stress that, one point they are trying to keep hitting is that, for every dollar donated, 99 cents stays in the local community. The money also gets spread around the community, to help in a variety of ways. “You are not just giving to one program, you are helping many to make our community stronger and
more caring with just one gift,” Harsh added. “We have 20 member agencies providing a little over 50 servers in the community.” Among the programs supported are the Women’s Safety & Resource Service, Salvation Army services, food and shelter programs for the homeless and hungry, senior nutrition and health programs, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and programs for adults with mental and
physical disabilities.United Way also is known locally for its community service projects, including the Day of Caring held each spring that helps seniors and persons with disabilities by performing yard and household chores individuals can’t do themselves.There is also a Kids’Coats and Shoes program to help needy local elementary school children. So, Harsh said, the local United Way is asking businesses, employee groups, professionals and individuals to contribute to the effort. SEE UNITED | A8
Cold War documents
Art By The Bay
Alaskans trained as secret agents BY ROBERT BURNS The Associated Press
between two sullied candidates. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Oregon, but the party has struggled to get some supporters to cast a ballot in the midterm elections. “Right now, Republicans seem to be interested in the election
WASHINGTON — Fearing a Russian invasion and occupation of Alaska, the U.S. government in the early Cold War years recruited and trained fishermen, bush pilots, trappers and other private citizens across Alaska for a covert network to feed wartime intelligence to the military, newly declassified Air Force and FBI documents show. Invasion of Alaska? Yes. It seemed like a real possibility in 1950. “The military believes that it would be an airborne invasion involving bombing and the dropping of paratroopers,” one FBI memo said. The most likely targets were thought to be Nome, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Seward. So FBI director J. Edgar Hoover teamed up on a highly classified project, code-named “Washtub,” with the newly created Air Force Office of Special Investigations, headed by Hoover protege and former FBI official Joseph F. Carroll. The secret plan was to have citizen-agents in key locations in Alaska ready to hide from the invaders of what was then only a U.S. territory. The citizen-agents would find their way to survival caches of food, cold-weather gear, message-coding material and radios. In hiding they would transmit word of enemy movements. This was not civil defense of the sort that became common later in the Cold War as Americans built their own bomb shelters. This was an extraordinary enlistment of civilians as intelligence operatives on U.S. soil. This account of the “Washtub” project is based on hundreds of pages of formerly secret documents. The heavily censored records were provided to The by the Press Associated Government Attic, a website that publishes government documents it obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Russians never invaded, of course. So the covert cadre of “staybehind agents,” as they were known, was never activated to colwartime lect and report information from backwoods bunkers. It was an assignment that federal officials acknowledged (to each other, if not to the new agents) was highly dangerous, given that the Soviet Union’s military doctrine called for the elimination of local resistance in occupied territory.
SEE ELECTION | A8
SEE ALASKA | A8
By Lou Sennick, The World
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The Collins family, Brenda, Darrel, Isaac and Tristan, are visiting Winchester Bay on a vacation from Yreka, Calif., on Saturday. While here, they stopped at the Art By The Bay and watched as blacksmith Lynn Gledhill work on a piece of iron work. Gledhill is from Junction City and owns Iron Rose Forge.
Will low turnout plague November election?
INSIDE
SALEM — Oregon’s voter participation rate hit a near record low for the modern era in the May primary. That begs the question: Why? Did voters sit out because there weren’t many high-profile races, something that’s naturally fixed in a general election? Or are they turned off from politics and uninterested in engaging? The answer, and the likelihood that the campaigns can motivate people who agree with them, has implications in any of the races that have the potential to be close this November. Those include ballot measures to legalize pot and label genetically engineered food; top-of-the-ticket races for governor and U.S. Senate; and especially the much lower profile state legislative races that will determine control of the state Capitol. Just 36 percent of registered voters turned in a ballot in May, the lowest participation rate for a primary since Oregon eliminated polling places in 2000 and the second-lowest since 1960. By contrast, 42 percent of voters participated four years earlier. “There’s a lot of time spent trying to model and profile voters,” said Len Bergstein a political consultant who has worked on ballot measure campaigns. “You model who’s likely to come out for these various issues, and then what other
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issues are they likely to vote on.” Oregon has historically had among the highest voter turnout rates in the country, but the state this year is mirroring a national downward trend in participation. Campaign experts attribute the low participation in May in part to a boring election season. Aside from a marginally competitive Republican primary for U.S. Senate, there were no high-profile statewide races nudge voters to fill out their ballots. There were fewer television ads that remind voters it’s election season, and the campaigns didn’t have the aggressive statewide field operations to get their supporters to participate. “Getting voters to realize that there’s an election going on is part of the challenge,” said Stacey Dycus, a Democratic political consultant who’s worked on ballot measure and candidate campaigns. The general election, by contrast, has plenty to get people excited. The races for governor and Senate have the potential to be competitive. Ballot measures on marijuana legalization and labeling requirements for genetically modified crops both have the potential to motivate on-again, off-again voters. So does a referendum that would grant driving privileges to people in the country illegally. The pot and labeling ballot measure campaigns look to be well funded, which means they’ll have the cash for television ads and expensive get-out-the-vote
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5 things to know about Oregon’s 2014 elections SALEM (AP) — By the time Oregonians cast their ballots, the issues and candidates will be well-known. Gov. John Kitzhaber’s cowboy boots and Senate candidate Monica Wehby’s surgeon scrubs will be all over television. But here are five things you might now know about the upcoming election:
Under-the-radar ballot measure Oregon’s constitution says a single person can’t hold a position in more than one branch of government. The governor can’t be a legislator. The Senate president can’t sit on the Supreme Court. These separation of powers requirements, however, have led to some interesting consequences. Judges can teach at the efforts. Of course, television can be a double-edged sword. Effective ads can make an emotional connection with voters, Dycus said. But relentless negative advertising — as has already begun in the Senate race — can turn off voters who are fruswith politics or trated unenthusiastic about choosing
private Willamette University law school, but not the University of Oregon law school, which is an arm of the executive branch. They can’t serve for pay in the National Guard. Measure 87 would ease up on the separation of powers, allowing state judges to serve in the Guard or teach at a public university. The measure was put on the ballot by state lawmakers, not signature-collecting petitioners, and it’s received very little publicity.
Republicans and Democrats agree on something Another ballot measure is getting much more attention, in large part because it has monSEE OREGON | A8
Holding on Oregon State hasn’t had the best record in season openers, but Saturday the Beavers had enough to beat Portland State. Page B4
FORECAST
The Associated Press
DEATHS
BY JONATHAN J. COOPER
Mostly sunny 68/53 Weather | A8