Bulletin Daily Paper 01/19/11

Page 1

Solving the earbud enigma Having trouble keeping iPod earbuds in your ears? You’re not alone • SHOPPING, E1

Bend tourism set for boost in 2011 BUSINESS, B1

WEATHER TODAY

WEDNESDAY

Party cloudy, chilly tonight High 42, Low 19 Page C6

• January 19, 2011 50¢

Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com

OREGON’S ‘KICKER’ LAW

Aspen Lakes to file Chapter 11 Despite state’s Holding company that owns land under $3B shortfall, corporate tax refunds await By Nick Budnick The Bulletin

SALEM — If state projections hold steady, Oregon will refund nearly $24 million in corporate taxes even as a projected tax shortfall has lawmakers planning roughly $3 billion in cuts to the budget for prisons, social services and schools. And if that seeming non sequitur makes you scratch your head, you now know why Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend, is ready to do what some Republicans would consider unthinkable. “We may not win a lot of votes on this, I may lose a few constituents,” she said. “But I just think IN THE it’s the right thing to do.” LEGISLATURE Telfer is ready to sign on with Democrats and some other Republican lawmakers to reform Oregon’s unique tax rebate law, called the “kicker.” Besieged by rising property taxes, voters approved the government-spending curb in 1980 and then put it into the state Constitution in 2000. The kicker law requires that if either the state’s corporate or personal income tax revenue in a twoyear budget cycle exceed expectations by 2 percent, anything above that will be “kicked” back to taxpayers. See Kicker / A5

Sisters golf course set to restructure debt By Zack Hall The Bulletin

The holding company that owns the clubhouse and land under Aspen Lakes Golf Course in Sisters is planning to file for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week. Wildhorse Meadows LLC, which is owned by Sisters’ Cyrus family, is expected to file Thursday to allow the company to re-

structure $4.6 million in debt, coowner Matt Cyrus said Tuesday. The Cyrus family also owns the golf course, which does business as a separate entity, Aspen Lakes Golf Course LLC. Wildhorse Meadows acts as Aspen Lakes’ landlord. “This gives us stability and the ability to move forward and know where we are at for

the summer,” Cyrus said of the bankruptcy filing. Chapter 11 will allow the golf course and restaurant to continue with “business as usual,” Cyrus said, adding that he hopes a reorganization plan is in place by midsummer. Golfers should not notice a difference in the course’s operation this season, he said. See Aspen Lakes / A5

Moonlit Meissner Night skiers brave cold for sno-park trek

By Erik Hidle The Bulletin

Jefferson County officials say nearly $8,000 missing from an inmate trust fund is still unaccounted for and may remain that way due to poor bookkeeping at the Jefferson County Treasurer’s Office. When people are arrested and placed in the jail, their money is collected and placed into accounts that they can use for items for sale inside the jail. Friends and family can also put money into the account of an inmate. Over the course of three years, a sum of $7,993 is unaccounted for from the account. Jefferson County Commission Chair Mike Ahern said county staff has done their best to account for the missing funds but poor record keeping has them without any leads to follow. “It’s a big deal to us but the truth is it’s just missing,” Ahern said. “We had the Department of Justice look at the situation but they found nothing. The records system is so bad that it’s hard to tell where it is or went.”

By Eric Gorski The Associated Press

You are told that to make it in life, you must go to college. You work hard to get there. You or your parents drain savings or take out huge loans to pay for it all. And you end up learning ... not much. A study of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years. Not much is asked of students, either. Half did not take a single course requiring 20 pages of writing during their prior semester, and one-third did not take a single course requiring even 40 pages of reading per week. The findings are in a new book, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” by sociologists Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia. An accompanying report argues against federal mandates holding schools accountable, a prospect long feared in American higher education. See College / A5

Treasurer investigated

Photos by Rob Kerr / The Bulletin

Under light snowfall, outdoor enthusiasts gather in the Virginia Meissner Sno-park shelter Tuesday night. A moonlight ski to Elk Lake is scheduled for tomorrow’s full moon, while a Luminaria ski will be put on by the Tumalo Langlauf Club on Jan. 27 at Virginia Meissner Sno-park.

TUCSON SHOOTINGS: Surveillance video captured rampage, Page A4

Tests show promise for detecting Alzheimer’s

INDEX Abby

E2

Crossword E5, F2

Movies

E3

Editorial

C4

Obituaries

C5

Environment

A2

Sports

D1-4

E5

Stocks

B2-3

Business

B1-4

Calendar

E3

Classified

F1-6

Horoscope

Comics

E4-5

Local

C1-6

MON-SAT

We use recycled newsprint

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TV listings

E2

The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper

Vol. 108, No. 19, 32 pages, 6 sections

• Juniper’s new course managers won’t make big changes, Page C1

Jefferson Treasurer’s Office loses $8,000

College students lack critical thinking skills, study finds

TOP NEWS INSIDE

Inside

By Gina Kolata New York Times News Service

Researchers are reporting major advances toward resolving two underlying problems involving Alzheimer’s disease: How do you know if someone who is demented has it? And how can you screen the general population to see who is at risk? One study, reported in The New York Times in June, evaluated a new type of brain scan that can detect plaques that are uniquely character-

istic of Alzheimer’s disease. On Thursday, an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration will review it and make a recommendation on whether to approve the test for marketing. The second study asked whether a blood test could detect beta amyloid, the protein fragment that makes up Alzheimer’s plaque, and whether blood levels of beta amyloid were associated with a risk of memory problems. The answer was yes, but the test

is not ready to be used for screening. Both studies are to be published in The Journal of the American Medical Association today. “These are two very important papers, and I don’t always say that,” said Neil Buckholtz, chief of the Dementias of Aging Branch of the National Institute on Aging. The new brain scan involved a dye developed by Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, now owned by Eli Lilly. See Alzheimer’s / A4

Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins said the money is collected by his office and then delivered to the Treasurer’s Office to be managed. When he took office last year, a county staff member brought the missing funds to his attention and he asked the Department of Justice to investigate the office of Jefferson County Treasurer Deena Goss. “There was a discrepancy in the funds,” Adkins said. “I asked them to look at both the Treasurer’s Office and at our own office. Since the treasurer is an elected official, we needed to get the DOJ involved.” On Oct. 19, 2010 the Department of Justice wrote to Adkins saying: “There is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Deena Goss committed any crimes. See Treasurer / A4

Correction In an article headlined “Merkley proposes mortgage change,” which appeared on Tuesday, Jan. 18, on page A1, a quote by Saadia McConville, of Economic Fairness Oregon, that “It’s going to be tough to get the banks to sign on to that,” was attributed to the wrong person. Additionally, McConville said she was referring to only a portion of Merkley’s proposal, not the plan as a whole. The Bulletin regrets the error.


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