Bulletin Daily Paper 10/07/10

Page 1

Mild hike, big trees

The fish’r jumpin’ Salmon on the Columbia

La Pine State Park offers several scenic trails• OUTING, E1

SPORTS, D1

WEATHER TODAY

THURSDAY

Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers High 66, Low 38 Page C6

• October 7, 2010 50¢

Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com

Bend nears decision on $73M water overhaul

GOVERNOR’S RACE

2 budget plans: lots of targets, few cuts

By Nick Grube The Bulletin

Bend City Councilors are poised to make a decision on whether to continue pursuing a $73 million overhaul of the Bridge Creek water system within the next several weeks. On Wednesday, councilors heard new financial information that showed upgrading the “I think Bridge Creek infrastructure we do our community would save be$372 mila disservice tween lion and $454 for the next million over the next 50 years 50 to 100 years if we when compared to switching to abandon an all-well sysour surface tem that would water.” pump groundwater to meet — Oran Bend’s water Teater, Bend demands. city councilor They were also given information about complex water rights issues that could threaten the city’s chances of being able to pump more groundwater if it gave up its surface water system. These issues made some councilors, in particular Mark Capell and Oran Teater, act as if upgrading the Bridge Creek system was the only option. “This is significantly more clear for me,” Councilor Oran Teater said after the more than an hour long presentation. “I think we do our community a disservice for the next 50 to 100 years if we abandon our surface water.” An upgrade to the Bridge Creek system has several components, including replacing 10 miles of aging pipelines and adding a high-tech filtration system that would protect against future wildfires and treat for dangerous bacteria and microorganisms, like Cryptosporidium. City officials also want to add a hydropower plant that would take advantage of Bridge Creek’s higher elevation and use gravity to generate electricity. When first proposed, the cost of the project was estimated at $71 million, and expected to generate $1.7 million in hydropower revenues in the first year of operation. See Bend / A5

By Nick Budnick The Bulletin

Rob Kerr / The Bulletin

Central Oregon Emergency Response Team members prepare to move into position during a Sept. 27 standoff at the Greenwood Manor apartment complex in northeast Bend. During the four-hour incident, negotiators spoke by phone with a man who had barricaded himself inside his apartment and was making threats about using guns and bombs.

BEND POLICE NEGOTIATORS

Fighting crime with words Following last week’s standoff, officers discuss aspects of job By Erin Golden The Bulletin

A

fter a Bend man made threats about violence and barricaded himself inside his northeast Bend apartment last week, dozens of police turned out to help get the situation under control. Curious onlookers who gathered along the sidewalks near the Greenwood Manor apartment complex watched as police cars and armored vehicles pulled up and SWAT team members put on their gear and surrounded the building. They saw officers monitoring the situation from a command center in a nearby parking lot. What they couldn’t see, however, was one of the most important parts of the entire operation: The police negotiators who spent nearly four hours talking to the man on the phone, trying to figure out what he planned to do and keep him from hurting himself or anyone else. The incident ended without any injuries when officers fired a Taser through a broken window and then took 52-year-old Mark Hipple into custody. Police had believed Hipple was armed with a rifle, but later found that he had no weapons in his apartment. See Negotiators / A4

Dean Guernsey / The Bulletin

Officer Kecia Weaver and Sgt. Dan Ritchie of the Bend Police Department stand inside the mobile command unit where negotiations are conducted during standoffs involving the Central Oregon Emergency Response Team. Weaver and Ritchie are two of the seven negotiators who work with the team.

“They’re trained and have the ability to talk to somebody, to make sense of the things that aren’t making sense.” — Lt. Paul Kansky, Bend Police Department

Stem cell case spells uncertainty for scientists By Amy Harmon New York Times News Service

CINCINNATI — Rushing to work at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center one recent morning, Dr. Jason Spence, 33, grabbed a moment during breakfast to type “stem cells” into Google and click for the last 24 hours of news. It is a routine he has performed daily in the six weeks since a U.S. District Court ruling put the future of his research in jeopardy. “It’s always at the front of my brain when I wake up,”

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said Spence, who has spent four years training to turn stem cells derived from human embryos into pancreatic tissue in the hope of helping diabetes patients. “You have this career plan to do all of this research, and the thought that they could just shut it off is pretty nerve-racking.” Perhaps more than any other field of science, the study of embryonic stem cells has been subject to ethical objections and shaped by political opinion. See Stem cells / A4

Dr. Ali Brivanlou, second from left, in his lab with colleagues who do research on stem cells at The Rockefeller University in New York. Jennifer S. Altman New York Times News Service

The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper

Vol. 107, No. 280, 46 pages, 7 sections

SALEM — Oregon’s next governor will inherit a projected hole of more than $3 billion in the 2011-13 two-year general fund budget. And whoever wins that job — Republican Chris Dudley or Democrat John Kitzhaber — won’t find it an easy task. While the governor is able to propose a budget, it’s the Legislature that approves it. And though the governor is tasked with negotiating labor contracts, the Legislature can influence that as well. Not only that, but there is a slew of entrenched interests, many with lobbyists, ready to do battle over state spending. “Every spending category has its own interest group, so I don’t think any of it’s easy money,” said Chuck Sheketoff of the Oregon Center for Public Policy, which tracks state spending. The likelihood of another large Chris Dudley stimulus boost from the federal government? “At the moment, close to zero,” says Bill Lunch, chairman of the Oregon State University political science department and an OPB commentator. So which gubernatorial candidate is better poised to tackle the next budget, and who has the John better plan? Kitzhaber First, the plans. Dudley, a former NBA player turned investment adviser, has proposed a budget plan that makes going after labor and pension costs of state employees a priority. For instance, he wants state employees to contribute one-sixth of their health care costs, and to reverse the state’s decision to pay for employees’ retirement contributions, which amount to 6 percent of payroll. He wants to undertake a variety of initiatives that create better budgeting, privatize state operations and look for waste in government. See Budget / A5

ELECTION

HEALTH CARE

Waivers used to counter dropped coverage in U.S. By Reed Abelson New York Times News Service

As Obama administration officials put into place the first major wave of changes under the health care legislation, they have tried to defuse stiffening resistance — from companies like McDonald’s and some insurers — by granting dozens of waivers to maintain even minimal coverage far below the new law’s standards. The waivers have been issued in the past several weeks as part of a broader strategic effort to stave off threats by some health insurers to abandon markets, drop out of the business altogether or refuse to sell certain policies. Among those that administration officials hoped to mollify with waivers were some big insurers, some smaller employers and McDonald’s, which went so far as to warn that the regulations could force it to strip workers of existing coverage. See Waivers / A5

INDEX Abby

E2

Business

B1-6

Calendar

E3

Classified

G1-6

Editorial

C4

Local

Comics

E4-5

Education

A2

Movies

E3

Outing

E1-8

TV listings

E2

Obituaries

C5

Sports

D1-6

Weather

C6

Crossword E5, G2

Health

F1-8

C1-6

Oregon

C3

Stocks

B4-5

TOP NEWS INSIDE SUPREME COURT: Church’s right to protest under scrutiny, Page A3


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