Bulletin Daily Paper 03/10/10 by Western Communications, Inc.

Chop to it

Fit like the pros? Tests for a golfer’s weaknesses

Finding the food processor that fits your needs • SAVVY SHOPPER, E1

SPORTS, D1

WEATHER TODAY

WEDNESDAY • March 10, 2010 50¢

Early snow; clearing in the afternoon High 43, Low 25 Page C6

Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com

State cuts lead COCC to seek tuition increase College also to ask for more staff today

ELECTION RESULTS

REDMOND: FAILED

MADRAS: FAILED

SISTERS: PASSED

Yes: 1,212, 26.2% • No: 3,405, 73.8% • 3 cents per gallon, starting January 2011 • Purpose: To fund ongoing road maintenance.

Yes: 244, 32.4% • No: 508, 67.6% • 1 cent per gallon starting January 2011; increases 1 penny each year, topping at 3 cents. • Purpose: To fund the paving of the city’s 10 miles of dirt roads and other maintenance.

Yes: 326, 59.8% • No: 219, 40.2% • 3 cents per gallon, starting as soon as the city can implement the tax collection. • Purpose: To fund road maintenance.

Source: County clerks; results as of 11 p.m. Tuesday

‘No’ to 2 of 3 gas tax hikes

By Sheila G. Miller The Bulletin

By Patrick Cliff

Central Oregon Community College hopes to raise its tuition by 6 percent for the 2010-11 school year and beyond, citing decreased state funding and its need to add more staff and instructors to assist with the college’s 85 percent enrollment increase over the past three years. COCC administrators will present to the board and budget committee its proposed 2010-11 budget today and will ask for money to hire more instructors and staff and to lease additional office and classroom space. “Enrollment growth has significantly strained institutional staff and resources,” President Jim Middleton wrote in his budget message. “Our service to students and dedication to quality cannot be sustained without allocating additional resources for staff and operations.” Thanks to COCC’s massive enrollment increases throughout the past three years, revenues at the college have risen, while state funding has decreased. See Tuition / A5

The Bulletin

Sisters became the first Central Oregon city to pass a local gas tax when voters appeared to approve a 3 cent tax Tuesday. But it looked as though voters in Redmond and Madras resoundingly rejected the proposed gas taxes before them.

Each of the three city councils passed their gas taxes in September to pay for road maintenance and upgrades. But all three cities soon ran into a challenge by the Oregon Petroleum Association, which led petition drives to place the taxes on Tuesday’s ballot. The run-up to the election was rela-

Inside: The next election • Which local candidates will appear on the May ballot? Page C1 tively quiet. In Redmond for example, just seven people showed up at a gas tax town hall last month. That made

Under fire: ‘temporary’ status of jobless pay

REDMOND’S NEW BIKE PARK

COCC tuition over the years Central Oregon Community College will present a proposed tuition increase to its board today. The tuition hike would be an additional $4 per credit for in-district students, while out-of-district, border state and out-of-state students would see larger jumps in tuition cost.

By Michael A. Fletcher and Dana Hedgpeth The Washington Post

Millions of Americans have been forced to rely on unemployment payments for extended periods as the nation struggles through its longest period of high joblessness in a generation, and critics are taking aim at the Depression-era program created as a temporary bridge for laid-off workers; it is turning, they say, into an expensive entitlement. About 11.4 million out-of-work people now collect unemployment compensation, at a cost of $10 billion a Inside month. Half • Area jobless of them have numbers dip, been receiving Page B1 payments for more than six months, the usual insurance limit. But under multiple extensions enacted by the federal government in response to the downturn, workers can collect the payments for as long as 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates — the longest period since the program’s inception. The unemployed say extensions help to tide them over in unusually difficult times when jobs are hard to come by. But complaints that extending unemployment payments discourages job-seeking have begun to bubble into the political debate. See Jobless / A4

Cost per credit hour since 1993 $80

$70

$66

$63

$60 $50 $40

Proposed for ’10-’11 tuition

$43 $32

$30 ’93’94

’95’96

’97’98

’99’00

’01’02

’03’04

’05’06

’07’08

’09-’10’10 ’11

Source: Central Oregon Community College Andy Zeigert / The Bulletin

A century of natural history, and still evolving By Jacqueline Trescott The Washington Post

You could say it was a hunting expedition that captured the whole world: In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt embarked on an East African safari, with financial help from the Smithsonian Institution, and ended up collecting more than a thousand specimens, including several hundred big game. This expedition would cause an upCourtesy Smithsonian Institution roar these days, but On March 17, its 100th back in Roosevelt’s anniversary, the Museum of time these trophies Natural History will unveil its were objects of Hall of Human Origins, covunabashed public ering the last 6 million years. curiosity. Around the same time, the Smithsonian was building a new museum to house its expanding collections. The Roosevelt bounty, including several Atlas lions, became one of the first exhibitions for the U.S. National Museum Building, now the National Museum of Natural History, when it opened in 1910. A hundred years later, it’s now the nation’s most popular museum, with 7.4 million visitors in 2009. See Museum / A4

MON-SAT

We use recycled newsprint

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A lithium chase Rob Kerr / The Bulletin

Cool stunts on a new course Alli McClain, 17, of Redmond, jumps his bike at the Bike Skills Course at Homestead Linear Park on Tuesday afternoon. The bike park was built after BMX riders petitioned the Redmond City Council to build it for Redmond’s BMX riders after they had been banned from another park in town. The bike park opened a few weeks ago.

The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper

Vol. 107, No. 69, 32 pages, 6 sections

it difficult for the cities to predict how residents would vote. But Sisters’ triumph could be short-lived. Paul Romain, the petroleum association’s executive director, vowed to take the city to court in an attempt to block the tax from being implemented. See Gas tax / A4

INDEX Abby

Business

B1-4

Calendar

Classified

F1-6

Editorial

Comics

E4-5

Local

Crossword E5, F2

Movies

C4 C1-6 E3

• For many years, few metals drew bigger yawns from mining executives than lithium, long associated mostly with mood-stabilizing drugs. Suddenly, the yawns are Thinkstock illustration being replaced by eurekas. As awareness spreads that lithium is a crucial ingredient for hybrid and electric cars, a global hunt is under way for new supplies. For story, see Page A5.