The latest and most comprehensive coverage of local News, Sports, Business, and Community News stories in the Klamath Basin, Southern Oregon and around the state of Oregon from Wynne Broadcasting’s KFLS News/Talk 1450AM / 102.5FM, The Herald & News, and BasinLife.com, and powered by Mick Insurance.
Monday, July 20, 2020
Klamath Basin Weather
Today Sunny, with a high near 94. Light west winds at times. Overnight, clear with a low around 61.
Tuesday Sunny and hot, with a high near 97
Wednesday Sunny, with a high near 95. Overnight a 20% chance of showers or thundershowers, low of 57.
Thursday Sunny, with a high near 89.
Friday Sunny, with a high near 90.
Today’s Headlines
COVID-19 has claimed three more lives in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 260, the Oregon Health Authority reported this morning.
OHA reported 436 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 today bringing the state total to 14,579.
Presumptive cases are those without a positive diagnostic test who present COVID-19-like symptoms and had close contact with a confirmed case. County of residence for cases may change as new information becomes available.
The OHA lists no new cases for Klamath County, one in Lake County, and 16 new cases in Jackson County. It was the highest reported single day count of covid cases ever recorded for Jackson.
Fire crews continue to battle a wildfire northwest of Klamath Falls on Spence Mountain that sparked last Wednesday, which by Saturday afternoon had burned an estimated 80 acres, according to the South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership (SCOFMP).
Fire crews of over 150 personnel had been assigned to the fire as of Thursday. Today the fire is nearly 90% contained according to the latest reports. Smoke from the fire is expected to be visible for the next several days as crews wrap containment of the Spence Fire.
Americans facing hunger included 5.3 million seniors in 2018, according to a 2020 report by the nonprofit Feeding America, which also reported 63% of its seniors choosing between paying for food and paying for medical care. Thanks to generous supporters of Friends of the Children – Klamath Basin, struggling seniors in Klamath County recently received a new $2,000 safety net for groceries, medical co-pays, and utilities.
Grocery Outlet and Lithia Ford of Klamath Falls donated $1,000 in grocery cards and $1,000 in cash to a relief fund offered as a silent auction item during FOTC’s 2020 Friend Raiser fundraiser, held virtually on May 28.
The “Friends of the Grownups” package was purchased by an anonymous couple and will be distributed by Klamath Basin Behavioral Health to individuals in its Older Adult Special Populations Program, which serves more than 200.
In addition to the “Friends of the Grownups” package, FOTC’s auction items included “Over $300 worth of dog food for our local Humane Society” and three “20 Acts of Kindness in 2020” packages, donated by the football teams at Klamath Union High School, Henley High School, and Mazama High School.
Through telehealth appointments and Zoom chats, virtual music lessons and book club meetings, Americans with access to technology have found ways to stay healthy and social and to continue their education despite COVID-19 closures and restrictions.
Nearly 50 more children across Klamath County soon will have access to such opportunities, thanks to cloud service provider Opus Interactive and generous individual philanthropists.
Oregon-based Opus Interactive and an anonymous donor donated 45 Chromebooks to Friends of the Children – Klamath Basin, which provides professional mentoring for children facing multiple systemic obstacles. The Chromebooks, combined with those donated during Friends of the Children’s recent “Friend Raiser” fundraiser, will mean an at-home device for every child enrolled in the program.
That work is creating generational change by providing professional, one-on-one mentoring for youth for 12+ years, kindergarten through high school graduation. During COVID-19, the nonprofit’s 27-year mentoring model has become physically distant and virtual, but its support for youth has been more vital than ever.
Klamath County search and rescue teams were busy in the north county over the weekend after a 3 year old boy spent the night lost in the wood near Gilcrhrist.
Multiple agencies began searching for a 3-year-old boy who got lost while camping with his family. The search effort started Friday night around 8:30 and is continued Saturday when the boy was found late morning.
Klamath County Search and Rescue is led the search effort in an area northeast of Gilchrist. Search and rescue teams from Deschutes County, Crook County, Jefferson County, Lake County, Jackson County, and Siskiyou County werecalled into help. Air and ground resources from Oregon Air National Guard, Oregon State Police, U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management were also mobilized and deployed to the area. The Klamath County Sheriff’s Office says searchers used all the tools at their disposal including K9 teams, drones, tracking, and horseback searchers.
The child has been reunited with family members and is safe.
Around the State of Oregon
On Saturday, July 18th, 2020, Oregon State Police Troopers and emergency personnel responded to a single vehicle crash on Hwy 22E near milepost 53.
Preliminary investigation revealed that a white 2003 Ford F-250 pickup (towing a boat), operated by Robert Smith (61) of Salem, was eastbound when it went off the roadway and struck a tree.
Smith sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced deceased.
Militarized federal agents deployed by the president to Portland, Oregon, fired tear gas against protesters again overnight as the city’s mayor demanded that the agents be removed and as the state’s attorney general vowed to seek a restraining order against them.
Federal agents, some wearing camouflage and some wearing dark Homeland Security uniforms, used tear gas at least twice to break up crowds late Friday night,
Protests against systemic racism and police brutality have been a nightly feature in deeply liberal Portland since Minneapolis police killed George Floyd on May 25. President Trump has decried the disorder and Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf blasted the protesters as “lawless anarchists” in a visit to the city, helping make the clashes between police and demonstrators a national focus.
The administration has enlisted federal agents, including the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and an elite U.S. Customs and Border Protection team based on the U.S.-Mexico border, to protect federal property.
The mayor of Oregon’s largest city said Sunday the presence of federal agents is exacerbating tensions in Portland, which has seen nearly two months of nightly protests since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Speaking on CNN’s ‘State of the Union,’ Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler said federal officers “are not wanted here. We haven’t asked them here. In fact, we want them to leave.”
Late Saturday, protesters broke into a building, set it on fire and started dumpster fires, police said.
The fire at the Portland Police Association building was put out a short time later, Portland police said on Twitter. The department declared the gathering a riot, and began working to clear the downtown area.
The Oregon Employment Department, in partnership with Google, has launched a new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) online form that will make it easier for Oregonians to apply. The form will also allow the more than 100,000 mostly self-employed Oregonians who have applied for PUA to get their weekly benefit payments faster.
“When I took on this role, I made fixing the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance application issue a top priority because we knew it was impacting our ability to get claims processed quickly,” said David Gerstenfeld, acting director of the Oregon Employment Department. “Although the PUA program was set up in just under a month, the temporary solution, a PDF application, was cumbersome and prone to errors. This new form will fix many of the previous issues and help get benefits into the hands of Oregonians more quickly.”
The three major improvements are:
- Speeding up weekly benefit processing. People seeking PUA benefits are required to submit a weekly certification to get benefits. Automating the weekly certification process will help get them processed faster and more accurately. The previous highly manual process was time- and resource-intensive and meant weeks of delays.
- Improved submission success. The fully automated form will ensure applications are received with complete information, which will speed up claims processing. The temporary PDF solution meant that some forms were mistakenly being submitted blank.
- Ensuring all required information is complete prior to submission. The form will give a warning notifying people that the information is required. This change will help us process claims faster and reduce delays in Oregonians receiving benefits due to missing information. Important information, such as the COVID-19 reason that makes an applicant eligible for PUA, is required, but has often been missing or left blank on the PDF forms.
People should resubmit their weekly claims through the new form if they have not already been paid for those weeks, though they do not have to. Doing so will speed up how quickly they get their benefits, and will let claims specialists focus on claims for people who have not yet received their benefits.
“This is an encouraging step forward for Oregonians who’ve been waiting for benefits, as well as for the Department. I am pleased we have made these changes and pledge that we will continue finding better ways to serve you,” Gerstenfeld said.
The Department is committed to ensuring equity for all Oregonians and will be translating the application into 15 different languages. Those translated applications will be available in the next week.
In addition to the new application, the Department launched a new informational website on July 10, unemployment.oregon.gov, which will also be available in 15 languages in the coming weeks. The application and the website are part of the Department’s efforts to significantly improve the overall customer service experience and improve the speed at which claims can be processed.
PUA applications, also known as initial claims, will still need to be reviewed by a claims specialist; that will now be easier to do. Claims require review to ensure applicants are eligible under the federal CARES Act and to determine a person’s weekly benefit amount. Weekly PUA claims filed through the new online form will auto-process, sending a person either the $205 per week minimum benefit, or a higher weekly benefit amount–up to a maximum of $648 per week.
To get more than $205 per week, a person must have earned more than $16,480 in the 2019 tax year. They have to provide proof of income for their most recently completed tax year (2019 for most people). A PUA benefits calculator can be found here.
Oregonians who are applying for or receiving benefits can access the new PUA online claim form by going to the Employment Department’s Online Claim System and clicking on the blue “Pandemic Unemployment Assistance” button–the same place they went previously to upload their PDF claim forms.
People can continue submitting their initial application and weekly certifications by PDF upload, mail, fax or phone if they wish. These will take longer to process than the online claim form.
Most Oregon educators furloughed last spring have begun receiving their jobless benefits after many weeks of delay.
Portland Public Schools and several other districts furloughed teachers and other staff one day a week last spring to save money in anticipation of fall budget cuts triggered by the nascent coronavirus recession. The districts capitalized on a federally funded state program, Work Share, which compensated educators for their reduced paychecks – in most cases providing employees with a temporary raise.
The department has struggled to pay all manner of claims throughout the pandemic – more than 50,000 self-employed workers who are newly eligible benefits are waiting for their claims. Some have gone without income for months.
Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) is accepting public comments on proposed changes to rules governing how the state protects important historical places.
The state is proposing updates to the Oregon Administrative Rules that govern how the state administers the federal National Register of Historic Places Program, which lists buildings, districts and other sites important to local, state or national history. The Oregon State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) — an office of OPRD — administers the local program, which is run by the National Park Service.
In the last several years, several high-profile, controversial nominations exposed problems with the National Register process, including determining owner consent and public involvement. Proposed changes seek to establish a fair and transparent process in alignment with federal requirements.
“We’re moving to fix those issues and refine the state rules to work better for Oregonians,” said Ian Johnson, associate deputy state historic preservation officer.
OPRD developed draft rules with the help of a committee of appointed members from state, county and local governments; preservation and natural resource organizations; and citizens with an interest in the National Register program.
OPRD will accept public comments on the proposed changes through 5 p.m. August 14, 2020. Comments can be made online, in writing or via email:
- Online: oregon.gov/oprd/PRP/Pages/PRP-rulemaking.aspx
- In writing: Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, attn. Katie Gauthier, 725 Summer St NE, Suite C, Salem OR 97301
- Email: OPRD.publiccomment@oregon.gov
- Via video or telephone in one of three virtual public hearings:
- July 23 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
- July 28 at 7 p.m.
- Information on registering to provide comments during the public hearing is at: oregon.gov/oprd/PRP/Pages/PRP-rulemaking.aspx
After reviewing public comments, OPRD staff plan to present a final recommended rule for consideration to the Oregon State Parks and Recreation Commission.
Eight farms and ranches will be honored this year as Century Farms or Ranches for 2020, and one farm reached Sesquicentennial status from 7 different Oregon Counties, bringing the total number of Oregon Century Farms and Ranches to 1,235 & Sesquicentennial to 47.
The Century Farm and Ranch families being honored in 2020 are:
Blackman Ranch: Founded in Klamath County in 1919 by Thomas Walter Blackman. Applicant is Rodney & Virginia Blackman
Marx Farm: Founded in Polk County in 1920 by Julius & Luise Marx. Applicant is Merle Marx
Paysinger Family Farm: Founded in Yamhill County in 1920 by George & Lizzie Shelburne. Applicant is David and Theresa Paysinger
Starvation Farms: Founded in Morrow County in 1918 by Chris Moehnke. Applicant is Chris and Kathy Rauch
Roy Family Farm: Founded in 1920 by Alfred Luke Roy. Applicant is Carol A. Roy
Ward Ranches: Founded in 1919 by Levi ‘Clyde’ Ward. Applicants are Craig, Mark, Kathy, & Ralph Ward
JW Ranch: Founded in 1920 by John Calahan. Applicant is John W. Wells
Fir Villa Farm: Founded in 1911 by Solomon S. and Susan Ediger. Applicants are Melvin & Esther Ediger
The Sesquicentennial Award program began in 2008 in honor of Oregon’s 150th birthday celebration. Sesquicentennial awards recognize Oregon families who have continuously farmed portions of their original family acreage for 150 years or more. Forty-seven (47) families have now received this prestigious sesquicentennial award.
Attend a soccer game at Providence Park and you may hear people chanting, “We are the Rose City, the mighty PTFC!” Thousands of supporters flock to the park on match days to watch the Portland Timbers and the Portland Thorns take to the pitch, competing in a sport that is beloved by many in the Pacific Northwest.
From the athletes, to the fans, to the many events that have shaped “Soccer City USA,” We are the Rose City! A History of Soccer in Portland, opening at the Oregon Historical Society (1200 SW Park Avenue, Portland) on July 24, explores the history of professional soccer in Portland and the cultural context of the game.
Portland entered the professional soccer world in 1975, when the Timbers took to the field at Civic Stadium for the first time — and the city fell in love. 2020 marks the tenth anniversary of the Timbers joining Major League Soccer (MLS), and Portland’s love continues to grow. The two-time National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) champion Portland Thorns played their first season in 2013. The Thorns boast an impressive history, sending multiple players to represent the U.S. in the Olympics and the World Cup.
One of the most iconic aspects of Portland’s soccer culture are the fans — including the Timbers Army and the Rose City Riveters — that fill Providence Park with a deafening roar on match days. This is an exhibit about soccer, but it is also one about community — the community of Portland and its love of the world’s game.
“We are thrilled to partner with the Oregon Historical Society to provide visitors an immersive, unique, and one-of-a-kind experience on the history of Soccer City USA,” said Mike Golub, Timbers president of business. “As both the Timbers and Thorns return to play this month, this exhibit is a great reminder why Portland is a soccer city second to none.”
Through storytelling and rare objects loaned by the clubs and fans, visitors to the exhibit will learn about the many milestones in Portland’s 45 years professional soccer history. Highlights include:
- A photo op with a chainsaw on loan from Timber Joey and a log slice that is a portion of the Victory Log from the 2019 season.
- Nearly 300 hanging scarves of unique design, and the original sketch designing the iconic No Pity scarf.
- An original tifo banner featuring the exhibit title made by the 107IST.
- The form distributed in newspapers statewide to nominate the name for what became the Timbers in 1975.
- The NASL certificate that granted the Timbers a franchise.
- A Diego Valeri-autographed ball from the Timbers’ 2015 championship game, in which he scored a goal in the first 27 seconds of the game. He donated the ball to the 107IST.
- Rings from soccer legend Clive Charles (signifying his coaching the 2000 Summer Olympics U.S. men’s team and the University of Portland championship women’s soccer team in 2002).
- Objects from Gisele Currier, a longtime Timbers supporter who was ever-present in the Timbers Army, along with her sister, Paula.
- Artifacts from nine semi-professional and professional teams.
- Soccer Universe graphic, showing the interconnectivity of more than 600 soccer entities, including youth, high school, college, semi-professional, and professional teams across the state.
- Objects from the early days of the Timbers Army.
After nearly four months closed, the Oregon Historical Society successfully re-opened its museum to the public on Saturday, July 11, 2020. Following the guidance and requirements of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) for cultural attractions and museums, the Oregon Historical Society has implemented important health and safety enhancements for staff and visitors; visitors are encouraged to visit ohs.org/reopening ahead of their visit to read about safety protocols, from required facial coverings to one-way pathways to increased hand sanitizer stations.
“While we may not be able to cheer on our home teams in person, We are the Rose City! will give fans, both in Portland and beyond, the opportunity to celebrate the many milestones Portland soccer has marked both on and off the pitch,” said OHS Executive Director Kerry Tymchuk.
We are the Rose City! A History of Soccer in Portland will be on exhibit July 24, 2020, through April 11, 2021. The Oregon Historical Society’s museum is open five days a week, Wednesday – Saturday from 10am – 5pm and Sunday from 12pm – 5pm. Admission is $10, with discounts for students, seniors, teachers, and youth. Admission is free every day for OHS members and Multnomah County residents.
ODOT.
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