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Jefferson looks to tax increases to pay for jail Proposed levy would support facility operations for 5 years
Employment law faces test Political transition in DA office raises several legal issues By Erin Golden The Bulletin
Legal experts say the employment-related issues brewing in the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office could present an interesting test of state law when it
comes to public employees, political speech, and the ability of a district attorney to dismiss his or her deputies. In January, Bend attorney Patrick Flaherty will take over as the county’s top prosecutor, replacing
longtime District Attorney Mike Dugan, whom he unseated in the May election. But more than four months before the transition, the future employment of some of the 18 deputy district attorneys who currently
work in the office has become an issue. A group of prosecutors has filed a petition with the state to create a union — a move, some in the office say, to protect their jobs — and Flaherty has written a letter to one chief deputy, telling him he won’t have a job in January. See Transition / A5
By Lauren Dake The Bulletin
Since Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins took over the office earlier this year, inmates are eating smaller meals, three people working in the jail have been laid off, two other positions haven’t been filled and the lawns are being watered less. But it’s not enough, Adkins said. Jefferson County commissioners are expected to put a jail tax levy to voters on the November ballot which will go toward operating the Jefferson County Correctional Facility. The current jail levy will expire in June 2011. The new five-year levy would cost property owners $1.19 per $1,000 of assessed value. Over the five-year period, Inside the levy would raise about $8.3 • Local races million. and ballot The Jefferson County jail is measures, a 160-bed facility and with curPage C1 rent staffing can house about 90 inmates. The number of beds available fluctuates daily. Adkins said he has lowered the daily bed rental price to $60 a bed, from $76, per day, to keep the Crook County sheriffs business, and he’s recruiting new contracts with other agencies. Deschutes County also has a contract with Jefferson County on an as-needed basis for up to 10 beds. Adkins said currently the jail is running on reserve funds to operate. The jail is using about $400,000 a year from the reserve funds, which total about $1 million.
Mental treatment homes get green light
SALVAGED SIDING TO BENEFIT HABITAT
ELECTION
Rising utility, living costs He points to the rising costs of power, natural gas and all the costs associated with feeding, clothing and housing inmates. “I understand the economic situation Jefferson County is in and the world is in,” Adkins said. “Voters have a chance to maintain what they have.” Eventually, Adkins’ goal is to create permanent taxing districts to give the office stable funding, such as what exists in Deschutes County. Two separate, permanent taxing districts were created by Deschutes County voters in 2006 so the office would no longer be funded with short-term tax levies. See Jail levy / A4
By Hillary Borrud The Bulletin
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin
J
earn the Bend Area Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity volunteers, subcon-
cording to a news release from the nonprofit.
tractors and Sunwest Builders are working
The cedar siding was sold to a California
together to salvage cedar siding during an ex-
distributor that will re-mill the wood and use
tensive remodel of the resort condominiums.
it as interior paneling in high-end stores, ac-
ose Elias, front right, with Jacob White, 187,000 feet of salvaged material that will middle, and Brian Farmer pull nails
from cedar siding Monday afternoon approximately $30,000 and divert more than
at the Seventh Mountain Resort. Bend Area 125 tons of waste from Knott Landfill, ac-
The project is expected to yield more than cording to the release.
Two residential treatment homes for patients with mental illnesses in northeast Bend will move ahead despite the concerns of neighbors, state and Deschutes County officials said Tuesday afternoon. The officials held two meetings Tuesday, a closed-door meeting with the neighbors at 2 p.m. and a public meeting to take questions at 6 p.m. Neighbors who attended the earlier meeting asked officials to develop a process to decide where the treatment homes should be located, and then relocate the two new homes based on that procedure, said Dillon Schneider, who lives next to the house on Edgecliff. The state and county declined to do so, and wrote in a letter that “there is no legal basis to suspend operations at the two sites. There is no evidence of a negative impact of the sites. Furthermore, any delay in opening may not comply with federal and state law and will prevent clients from receiving critically needed services.” See Treatment / A4
Unlike Britain, U.S. shuns Stray bullets whizzing across the border salmonella vaccine for hens MEXICAN DRUG WAR
By Alicia Caldwell The Associated Press
EL PASO, Texas — The first bullets struck El Paso’s city hall at the end of a work day. The next ones hit a university building and closed a major highway. Shootouts in the drug war along the U.S.-Mexico border are sending bullets whizzing across the Rio Grande into one of the nation’s safest cities, where authorities worry it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or killed. At least eight bullets have been fired into El Paso in the last few weeks from the rising violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, one of the world’s most dangerous places. And all American police can do is shrug because they cannot legally intervene in a war in another country. The best they can do is warn people to stay inside. “There’s really not a lot you can
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do right now,” El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles said. “Those gun battles are breaking out everywhere, and some are breaking out right along the border.” Police say the rounds were not intentionally fired into the U.S. But wildly aimed gunfire has become common in Juarez, a sprawling city of shanty neighborhoods that once boomed with manufacturing plants. It’s ground zero in Mexico’s relentless drug war. More than 6,000 people have been killed there since 2008, when the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels started battling each other and Mexican authorities for control of the city and smuggling routes into the U.S. Nationwide, more than 28,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon launched his offensive against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006. See Bullets / A4
By William Neuman New York Times News Service
El Paso Times file photo
A bullet hole from a gun battle in Juarez is seen in the wall of El Paso Assistant City Manager Pat Adauto’s office in El Paso, Texas.
“Luck and good fortune are not effective border enforcement policies. The shocking reality of cross-border gunfire proves the cold reality: American lives are at risk.” — Greg Abbott, Texas Attorney General
The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper
Vol. 107, No. 237, 38 pages, 6 sections
Faced with a crisis more than a decade ago in which thousands of people were sickened from salmonella in infected eggs, farmers in Britain began vaccinating their hens against the bacteria. That simple but decisive step virtually wiped out the health threat. But when American regulators created new egg safety rules that went into effect last month, they declared that there was not enough evidence to conclude that vaccinating hens against salmonella would prevent people from getting sick. The Food and Drug Administration decided not to mandate vaccination of hens — a precaution that would cost less than a penny per a dozen eggs. Now, consumers have been
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shaken by one of the largest egg recalls ever, involving nearly 550 million eggs from two Iowa producers, after a nationwide outbreak of thousands of cases of salmonella was traced to eggs contaminated with the bacteria. The FDA has said that if its egg safety rules had gone into effect earlier, the crisis might have been averted. Those rules include regular testing for contamination, cleanliness standards for henhouses and refrigeration requirements, all of which experts say are necessary. However, many industry experts say the absence of mandatory vaccination greatly weakens the FDA rules, depriving them of a crucial step that could prevent future outbreaks. See Eggs / A4
TOP NEWS INSIDE PRIMARIES: McCain defends seat, Scott secures nomination, Page A3