Bulletin Daily Paper 09/28/10

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Knitting a fuzzy farm

Gardening quiz Personality and landscaping

Bend woman creates yarn menagerie • COMMUNITY LIFE, E1

AT HOME, F1

WEATHER TODAY

TUESDAY

Unseasonably warm with abundant sunshine High 85, Low 46 Page C6

• September 28, 2010 50¢

Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com

Redmond educator signs on with Dudley campaign By Nick Budnick The Bulletin

SALEM — Vickie Fleming’s last day as Redmond School District superintendent was in June. But that doesn’t mean an end to her influence over Redmond schools. In fact, she may indirectly influence schools across the state in the coming years as her ideas have been embraced by not one, but both major-pa r t y gubernatorial candidates in the November election. Vickie Republican Fleming nominee Chris Dudley, a former NBA player whose sister is a teacher, calls Fleming “instrumental” in his education plan, which has gotten good marks from some education groups. The plan offered by Dudley’s opponent, John Kitzhaber, has also gotten good marks — in fact, you can find Fleming’s fingerprints on the Democrat’s plan as well. See Fleming / A5

Employers must pay much more into PERS Bulletin staff report State and local agencies and school districts around Oregon will see a spike in Public Employees Retirement System employer contribution rates to offset 2008’s huge pension investment losses. On average, public employers’ contribution rates will double, from 5.4 percent of payroll in the 2009-11 biennium to 10.8 per-

cent of payroll in the 2011-13 biennium.

Local impact The increases will affect some local agencies and school districts more than others, because rate changes vary by employer depending on its mix of employees and wages. For example, Bend-La Pine

Schools expects to see its rates increase about 8.5 percent. Deputy Superintendent John Rexford said that means for every dollar the district spends on payroll, it will pay 8.5 cents more on PERS. In total, that’s about $6 million the district will have to come up with in next year’s budget. See PERS / A5

On average, state PERS rates to double To make up for poor investment performance, the contributions by state and local governments to pay for employee retirement profits must double in many cases. State agency employees will see an average jump from 3.3 percent to 10.1 percent. School districts will see an average jump from 5.4 percent to 11.4 percent. Here’s a look at contribution increases for some local government bodies.

Rate increase for tier 1 / Tier 2 payroll City of Bend

BendLa Pine Schools

13 10 8.5

11.3

Jefferson County

20%

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BLACK BEAR SPOTTED, TRANQUILIZED IN BEND

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Vol. 107, No. 271, 42 pages, 7 sections

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Standoff with Bend gunman resolved

“(They said) we were making a terrible decision. I’m going to come back with my husband in a box.” — Shelly Lemmer, wife of heart transplant patient

A male black bear reacts to being shot by a tranquilizer dart after being spotted in the backyard of a Bend home Monday morning.

Just seeing what he can see Wildlife officials remove animal from Knott Road neighborhood The Bulletin

Horoscope

10.2

8.1

Residents return to homes after 4-hour confrontation between SWAT team and man barricaded in apartment Story C1, photos C6

By Kate Ramsayer

INDEX

14.2

12.7

Andy Zeigert / The Bulletin

Photos by Andy Tullis / The Bulletin

PAKISTAN: CIA expands drone bombing campaign, Page A3

COCC

Source: Oregon PERS

Correction

TOP NEWS INSIDE

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1.9

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ELECTION

In a story headlined “Governor candidates talk issues,” which appeared Sunday, Sept. 26, on Page A1, candidate John Kitzhaber’s position on statewide collective bargaining for schools was mischaracterized. He hopes to use statewide labor contracts as a benchmark for local school districts’ collective bargaining agreements. The Bulletin regrets the error.

Crook County

A young black bear spent several hours roaming the yards of a Southeast Bend neighborhood Monday morning, before wildlife biologists tranquilized the animal, tagged him and released him west of Crane Prairie Reservoir. Calls about a bear crossing Knott Road started coming in around 7 a.m., said Canyon Davis, community service officer with Bend Police Department. Officers tracked the bear as it wandered around the Alpine Village area. It finally stopped to rest in the backyard of a

house on Ambrosia Land, off of Country Club Drive. “He’s been circling this area since 7 (a.m.),” Davis said. With the bear settled in one place, Corey Heath, a wildlife biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, prepared a tranquilizer dart with a cocktail of telazol, xylazine and ketamine. Black bears are not very common in the Bend area, he said — they need berries, roots, and a range of habitat types. This part of Central Oregon doesn’t offer that diversity. See Bear / A4

By Maura Lerner (Minneapolis) Star Tribune

Wildlife biologist Corey Heath, left, and biologist Randy Lewis, both with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, carry a sedated male black bear to their truck. The bear was probably 15 or 16 months old, Heath said, and weighed about 50 pounds.

Zeal for dream drove scientist in secrets case By William J. Broad New York Times News Service

Many people who know P. Leonardo Mascheroni describe him as a maverick and a technology zealot. Now, the Justice Department will try to prove that he is dangerous, too — a man willing to sell atomic secrets in exchange for a chance to realize his dream.

Mascheroni, 75, is a nuclear scientist who has spent the 22 years since he left the Los Alamos National Laboratory trying to sell Congress, the scientific community, journalists — anyone who would listen, really — on his plan to build a giant laser for the achievement of nuclear fusion. His plan earned respect and

‘Medical tourist’ risks it all in India

high-level endorsements, but the government chose a different path. Rather than give up, Mascheroni redoubled his campaign, sending out lengthy technical documents from his home in New Mexico to try to coax Washington to finance his laser. “You’d get these fat FedEx

packages,” said Steven Aftergood, a security expert at the Federation of American Scientists. As he was snubbed by Congress and federal experts, Mascheroni, a naturalized citizen who was born in Argentina, grew increasingly frustrated and bitter. See Scientist / A4

MINNEAPOLIS — The phone call woke Ron Lemmer at half past midnight, Chennai time. “Where are you?” asked his doctor. “I’m five minutes away,” Lemmer replied. Stay put, the doctor said, and wait for my call. Everything was falling into place. Two hours later, Lemmer, of Prior Lake, Minn., walked alone through a gentle rain to a private hospital and became what is thought to be the first American recipient of a heart transplant in India. In Minnesota, Lemmer lives within a 90-minute drive of three world-class transplant centers. But this year he defied his hometown doctors to join the growing ranks of “medical tourists” seeking donor organs in the world’s poorest countries. It’s a journey fraught with moral and medical hazards, and his own doctors tried desperately to talk him out of it. “(They said) we were making a terrible decision,” said his wife, Shelly. “I’m going to come back with my husband in a box.” But once Ron Lemmer, 65, made up his mind, there was no looking back. See ‘Tourist’ / A4


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