Bulletin Daily Paper 01/13/11

Page 1

For casual outdoorsmen

BCS: Looking back Covering the big game

Sunriver Nature Center an easy and cheap family trip • OUTING, E1

SPORTS, D1

WEATHER TODAY

THURSDAY

Mostly cloudy with widespread showers High 52, Low 36 Page C6

• January 13, 2011 50¢

Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com

THE PRESIDENT HONORS VICTIMS IN TUCSON

Bills introduced to tackle budget By Nick Budnick

Obama calls for civility in U.S. politics By Philip Rucker, Anne Kornblut and Dana Hedgpeth The Washington Post

“Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to ... remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.” — Barack Obama

TUCSON, Ariz. — President Barack Obama comforted a community suffused with grief and summoned the nation to recommit to a more civil public discourse as he delivered a eulogy Wednesday, urging Americans to talk with each other “in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.” The president spoke to a crowd of 14,000 people at the University of Arizona’s McKale Memorial Center. Evoking memories of the six killed here Saturday, Obama seized upon the mass shooting at a congresswoman’s supermarket meet-and-greet to tackle directly the subject of the nation’s harsh political dialogue. See Obama / A6

IN THE LEGISLATURE

The Bulletin

SALEM — Lawmakers have introduced a slew of bills to tackle Oregon’s historic budget crisis, ranging from cutting state employee benefits, to selling more state timber, to consolidating school districts or even merging county governments. More than 1,000 bills were introduced during the three-day “organizing session” held to kick off the 2011 Legislature. Now, lawmakers

will return to their home districts as other bills are introduced, until they return Feb. 1 to resume the session in earnest. Though just beginning his first term, Rep. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, has been named to sit on the budget-writing Ways and

Madras man’s electric delivery vehicle has city officials considering their options

Inside • State OKs Prineville land for business development, Page C1 Means Committee that he calls “the center of the storm” given his fellow members’ focus on the budget. “Everybody’s talking about it,” he said of the need for cuts, adding that while a lot of ideas have been introduced to tackle the budget sit-

Geno Burke, owner of Geno’s Italian Grill, makes a delivery in his street-legal golf cart in Madras on Wednesday. Pete Erickson The Bulletin

Madras going electric?

Miles Electric Vehicles produces a model with a flatbed truck which city staff believes may be beneficial for city maintenance crews.

What a St. Charles Bend technician believed to be a simple leak last fall turned out to be a much more serious error that put patients at risk of severe infection. Now, at least two of those patients have sued or are planning to sue the hospital for negligence. The incident was first noticed on Oct. 1, when a technician at St. Charles Bend saw fluid around the machine that cleans and sanitizes colonoscopes and endoscopes, probes used to see inside parts of the digestive system. The technician stopped using it that day. When a representative from the manufacturer came to look at the machine a few days later, that person discovered the machine had left the disinfection step out of its cleaning process. It had potentially exposed 18 patients who had colonoscopies or endoscopies on Sept. 29 or Sept. 30 at the hospital to an increased risk of serious infection, including HIV, Hepatitis A, B and C and helicobacter pylori, a bacteria that causes stomach infection and ulcers.

By Erik Hidle

Fixed on Oct. 6

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

LEBANON: Government collapses as Hezbollah members resign, Page A3

INDEX Abby

E2

Business

B1-4

Editorial

C4

Oregon

Education

A2

Outing

E1-6

C3

Calendar

E3

Health

F1-6

Sports

D1-4

Classified

G1-4

Local

C1-6

Stocks

B2-3

Comics

E4-5

Movies

E3

TV listings

E2

Obituaries

C5

Weather

C6

Crossword E5, G2

MON-SAT

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The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper

Vol. 108, No. 13, 36 pages, 7 sections

Machine’s error puts patients at risk for infection The Bulletin

By Tony Pugh

TOP NEWS INSIDE

ST. CHARLES BEND

By Betsy Q. Cliff

Good, bad guys prize Glock, gun used in Arizona WASHINGTON — Glorified by rappers, institutionalized by law enforcement and vilified by guncontrol advocates, Glock semi-automatic pistols are just the latest iconic firearm to strike blows for good and for evil in the U.S. Inside The .45-caliber Colt pistol that • Sarah Palin’s helped lawmen tame the West comments was also the gun of choice for scrutinized, many outlaws in the past. Page A6 Prohibition-era gangsters, and the G-men who chased them, • Giffords both preferred Thompson subimproving, machine guns, or “Tommy guns.” Page A6 And after violent drug smugglers began using UZI submachine guns in the 1980s, narcotics officers followed suit to increase their firepower. Glock pistols may not have a similar niche in U.S. criminal justice lore, but they have built a strong reputation with the military and police worldwide. See Glock / A6

uation, he thinks they are just “the low-hanging fruit” and there’s more to come. “We’ve got to cut government,” he said. “We can’t afford the size of the government we have.” On paper, the state faces a $3.5 billion hole in its next General Fund budget. That’s the difference between projected tax and lottery income and projected costs and needs, from the previous 2009-11 budget. See Shortfall / A4

Submitted

This compact electric car model by Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) is one option the city of Madras is considering for use in navigating city streets and paved trails.

The Bulletin

MADRAS — A business owner in Madras has come up with a way to save money on pizza deliveries and as a result has city officials discussing the merits of the city purchasing it’s first electric car. The idea of the city going green with an electric vehicle to use for maintenance projects came about when Gene Burke, owner of Geno’s Italian Grill, purchased a golf cart and added headlights, turn signals, brake lights, seat belts and a horn to the vehicle. His intent was to deliver pizzas and food from his downtown restaurant in the golf cart. He hoped it would reduce his delivery costs in the face of rising gas prices. He paid $6,000 for the vehicle and to get it street-legal and estimates it costs him $1 to charge each day. “When you add everything to it, then it’s not a golf cart anymore,” Burke said. “It becomes an electric car which needs to be licensed, insured and operated by a licensed driver to be street legal. But in the end you find you’re saving money. I’m paying $30 a month to power the thing. It’s been a great deal.” Before Burke undertook the project of introducing the first electric

Submitted

vehicle to Madras streets, he ran the idea by city officials to ensure it was legal according to city code. The city found that not only is the vehicle legal for statewide roads where the speed limit is under 35 mph, but discovered that it may also be interested in owning an electric vehicle. “It costs less to purchase and it costs less to power,” said Madras City Manager Mike Morgan. “It also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions which is something we are continuing to hear is a priority from the state.” Morgan took the idea to the City

Council last August and it returned with a proclamation endorsing the use of low-speed electric vehicles in the city. “The proclamation basically shows that we’re looking to be proactive in investigating this technology for city use,” Morgan said. “About 95 percent of the city’s roads have a speed limit under 35 miles per hour, which means you can get almost anywhere in Madras in an electric vehicle.” Madras Public Works Director Gus Burril said the city would be looking at a vehicle more elaborate than a golf cart with additional features. See Madras / A5

The machine was fixed on Oct. 6 and no additional patients are at risk, said Jay Henry, CEO of St. Charles Bend. The hospital said it was unaware of any patients who had developed infections as a result of the mistake. One lawsuit was filed last week. Jennifer Coughlin, a Bend attorney who is representing at least two affected patients, said she planned to file the second lawsuit as early as next week. The first lawsuit was filed by a woman in her early 20s who has Crohn’s disease, a digestive disorder, said Coughlin. She is identified in the suit as Jane Doe to protect her privacy. “She is stressed out and really scared,” said Coughlin. “It doesn’t really matter to her that other steps were taken if the disinfection step was not.” That lawsuit asks for $250,000 in non-economic damages plus $20,000 for medical bills. Though a manual cleaning is done in every case, and was done in these cases, it is usually followed up by a machine that disinfects the scopes. See St. Charles / A4


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