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Deschutes mulls renting beds to avoid overcrowding at county jail
WARM SPRINGS
Boom!
Gorge casino could face more delays Interior undersecretary to begin lengthy processing of tribal gaming applications
By Erin Golden The Bulletin
Six weeks after voters turned down a $44 million jail expansion bond, Deschutes County Sheriff Larry Blanton said he’s not dwelling on the bond’s defeat — but he’s still worried about what he’ll do if the county ends up with more inmates than jail beds. The average daily inmate population at the 228-bed jail has been steadily increasing this spring, and in some cases, the facility has come close to capacity. Over the first weekend of June, the population hit 216, and a week later, there were 227 inmates. In the lead-up to the election, Blanton warned that overcrowding could force him to return to a process known as “matrixing,” in which lower-risk inmates were released early to make way for new arrivals. Now, he said he plans to avoid that situation by renting additional jail beds in Jefferson County, and potentially in The Dalles. The Sheriff’s Office has set aside $228,000 in its 2010-11 fiscal year budget to rent additional beds at the Jefferson County jail. The agreement between the counties allows Deschutes to pay for the beds on an as-needed basis at a rate of $80 per day.
By Keith Chu The Bulletin
WASHINGTON — A memo urging the federal government to move ahead on American Indian gaming applications — such as the Cascade Locks casino proposed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs — might not be good news for the Gorge casino. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar directed Undersecretary Larry Echo Hawk to process tribal casino applications, in a memo released this week. While some Indian tribes called the announcement a victory, the order itself warned that there could be “some delay” in crafting a new policy toward off-reservation casino requests, like the Warm Springs proposal, while a top American Indian gaming expert warned that the memo makes few promises. For a tribe that is racing to move through the regulatory process this year, before Gov. Ted Kulongoski leaves office, that delay could be fatal for their casino hopes. See Casino / A5
Survey: 26% of Americans clueless about U.S. history
Dalles facility
By Valerie Strauss
Meanwhile, Blanton is working on a separate agreement with officials at Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facilities, or NORCOR, a regional jail in The Dalles that serves a four-county area. He said he’d only use beds at that facility if Jefferson County ran out of space or didn’t have the staffing to handle additional Deschutes County inmates. The Deschutes County jail had an average of 193 inmates per day in April, 203 in May and 206 in June. Lt. Tracy Jones said the actual capacity of the jail can fluctuate, based on the inmates. See Jail / A4
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — A new poll gauging American knowledge on a basic question about the nation’s history — “From which country did the United States win its independence?” — is either good news or bad news, depending on your expectations: Twenty-six percent of those surveyed did not know that the United States achieved its independence from Great Britain, according to the poll, conducted by the nonprofit Marist Institute for Public Opinion. Six percent named a different country, including France, China, Japan, Mexico and Spain. Twenty percent said they weren’t sure.
Numbers by region
TOP NEWS INSIDE Ryan Brenencke / The Bulletin
SOLAR: Regulators stonewall on energy program, Page A3
Fireworks fill the sky over Pilot Butte and the Old Mill District during the Fourth of July celebration Sunday in Bend.
Mexican security minister can’t trust her own police
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Vol. 107, No. 186, 30 pages, 5 sections
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The pollsters broke down the numbers and found gaps in knowledge according to region: 32 percent of Southerners weren’t sure or named the wrong country; 26 percent of Midwesterners were in the same category, as were 25 percent of Westerners and 16 percent of Northeasterners. More depressing results — depending on your expectations — were found in a 2007 poll conducted by the U.S. Mint. It showed that only 7 percent of those surveyed could name the first four presidents in order: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
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By Tracy Wilkinson Los Angeles Times
MORELIA, Mexico — As dozens of gunmen fired more than 2,700 deafening rounds of ammunition, Minerva Bautista crouched on the floor of her heavily armored SUV, screaming into her radio for backup and thinking one thing: “I know help will come.” But when the minister of security for Michoacan state heard the rounds begin to penetrate her car’s armor, sending pieces of metal into her back “like fiery sparks,” her faith faltered. And when one of her badly injured bodyguards asked her to take care of his family, she lost hope. “They didn’t just want to kill us,” she said later. “They want-
ed to destroy us.” A seemingly interminable 15 minutes after the attack began in a narrow highway pass that night in April, rescuers finally arrived. It was one of the most brazen assaults on a top state official in President Felipe Calderon’s nearly 4-year-old offensive against drug cartels. But there is an even darker side to the story, one that exposes a fundamental flaw in the war: So deep is drug-financed corruption, the lead suspects in the attack on Bautista are the very police she commands. Four people were killed, but Bautista, 36, suffered only relatively minor wounds. See Mexico / A4
Jesus Ernesto Chavez, known as “El Camello,” second from left, is guarded by federal police officers during a news conference, in Mexico City on Friday. Carlos Jasso The Associated Press