Swinging in the rain
Fresh grocer
Lovejoy’s opens in Bend • BUSINESS, B1
Oregon Open second round contends with weather • SPORTS, D1
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THURSDAY
Partly cloudy High 68, Low 39 Page C6
• June 17, 2010 50¢
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Bend says hoteliers owe $340K in taxes
Bailout unlikely for state Test vote reveals little support for health provisions
By Cindy Powers The Bulletin
Depending on who you talk to, either six local hoteliers owe nearly $340,000 in room taxes or Bend city officials are suddenly changing the way the tax code has been interpreted for years in an attempt to bring in revenue. A recent audit of eight Bend properties to review a now-defunct section of the Bend code found the “tax delinquency,” according to information released by the city Wednesday.
By Keith Chu The Bulletin
WASHINGTON — Oregon’s state government, facing a $577 million deficit, saw its hopes for a federal answer to its problem set back on Wednesday, when a test vote on a bill aiding states failed. The $140 billion bill would have extended expiring unemployment benefits through November, temporarily reversed a more than 20 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors and included $24 billion to pay for a larger piece of states’ costs under the Medicaid program for low-income families. It also would have created $80 billion in federal debt. The Medicaid provision would have meant about $200 million for Oregon. Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate introduced a slimmer version of the bill after the initial bill failed 45-52. Sixty votes were needed to pass.
$100,000 delinquencies Photos by Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
Sami Fournier, 42, of Bend, looks over the shoulder of her young knitting friend, Ty Madrigal, 7, also from Bend, during the Worldwide Knit in Public Day in Drake Park next to the Farmers Market on Wednesday. Ty, who taught himself how to knit about six months ago, is knitting a scarf for his mom.
Going public
Knitters brave rain to participate in worldwide event Judy Paulsmeyer, of Bend, attempts to have a relaxing afternoon of knitting during the Worldwide Knit in Public Day. Her afternoon was cut short due to a rain shower. Temperatures are expected to increase throughout the week, but skies will remain cloudy. For the full forecast, see Page C6.
Not a popular idea The prospect of more spending and higher deficits aren’t popular at the moment, said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, when asked why the test vote failed. “It’s very expensive, too many taxes and a lot of spending,” Snowe told a group of reporters after the vote. The new version, introduced late Wednesday, cut $21 billion from the original bill. Most of the savings came from shortening the length of the Medicare payment rate increase for doctors and decreasing unemployment payments by $25 a week. See Aid / A5
Big oil spills are old hat for Nigerians By Adam Nossiter BODO, Nigeria — Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years, by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless. Perhaps no place on Earth has been as battered by oil, experts say, leaving residents here astonished at the nonstop attention paid to the gusher half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a few weeks ago, they say, that a burst pipe belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the mangroves was finally shut after flowing for two months. Now nothing living moves in a black-and-brown
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world once teeming with shrimp and crab. • Criminal Not far away, charges could there is still cost BP black crude on Gio Creek from • BP begins to an April spill, burn off oil and just across • Dawn dish the state line in soap gets Akwa Ibom the publicity in fishermen curse spill cleanup their oil-blackened nets, doubly Page A3 useless in a barren sea buffeted by a spill from an offshore Exxon Mobil pipe in May that lasted for weeks. The oil spews from rusted and aging pipes, unchecked by what analysts say is ineffectual or collusive regulation, and abetted by deficient maintenance and sabotage. See Nigeria / A5
Inside
New York Times News Service
Jane Hahn / New York Times News Service
Fishermen work in Ibeno, Nigeria. The Niger Delta has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50, years by some estimates.
Vol. 107, No. 168, 42 pages, 7 sections
INDEX Abby
E2
Business
B1-6
Calendar
E3
“My husband had a secret life that was unknown to me.” — Elizabeth McNeill, widow of Darrell McNeill
Devastating secret unlocked by killing of ‘little old man’ By Maria La Ganga Los Angeles Times
FORT BRAGG, Calif. — Twenty days before his planned storybook wedding in Yosemite National Park, Aaron Vargas got drunk on beer and vodka and pocketed a loaded revolver. Then he drove to a remote trailer and shot Darrell McNeill to death in front of the man’s horrified wife. McNeill’s death shocked residents of this small city on the rugged Northern California coast, and so did Vargas’ motive. But what came next might have been the biggest surprise of all. Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Norman describes McNeill, who was unarmed when he was killed, as “a little old man with Parkinson’s disease, who was in his little trailer home in his stockings, pants and T-shirt.” But Elizabeth McNeill, Darrell’s widow, tells a different story in court documents: “My husband had a secret life that was unknown to me. ... I believe my husband sexually molested Aaron when Aaron was a child and may have also molested other children in Fort Bragg.”
Community, victims rally behind accused murderer
The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper
The audit shows two hotel owners have delinquencies of more than $100,000 each for room taxes they collected but never remitted to the city. Hotel owners say those numbers contradict at least a decade of past annual audits on their properties that the city signed off on. See Audit / A5
Classified
G1-6
Health
F1-6
Obituaries
Crossword E5, G2
Local
C1-6
Outing
E1-6
TV listings
E2
Editorial
Movies
E3
Sports
D1-6
Weather
C6
C4
C5
Stocks
B4-5
Since Vargas, 32, pulled the trigger on that Sunday night 16 months ago, at least a dozen other alleged victims have come forward in a sexual abuse saga that some say stretches back decades. Among the alleged victims: McNeill’s stepson, a young man who eventually killed himself and another who tried to commit suicide. At first there was disbelief that the genial youth leader could have preyed on the town’s children. But as stories of the alleged victims began to trickle out, residents of Fort Bragg, a struggling former logging town of 6,855, did the unexpected. They rose up to support the accused murderer — a young man with a history of alcohol abuse who faced 50 years to life in prison for taking the law into his own hands. See Killing / A5
TOP NEWS INSIDE LIBIDO DEBATE: A drug said to heighten sex drive in women stirs controversy, Page A3