Klamath Basin News, Monday, Jan. 8 – Bonanza High School Offering Pre-Apprenticeship in Construction/Carpentry; Winter Storms And Snow To Hit Klamath Basin This Week

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Monday, January 8, 2024

Klamath Basin Weather

Winter Storm Watch in effect from Tuesday, January 9, 04:00 AM until Wednesday, January 10, 07:00 PM

Today’s Headlines

BONANZA JR./SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL TO OFFER PRE-APPRENTICESHIP IN CONSTRUCTION, CARPENTRY

Grant awards also will be used to renovate the high school shop, purchase equipment, supplies

Bonanza Junior/Senior High School is starting a two-year pre-apprenticeship training program in construction and carpentry and purchasing equipment to revitalize its shop thanks to nearly $500,000 in grants from the Bureau of Labor and Industries and Oregon Department of Education.

Students graduating from the two-year program will earn a pre-apprenticeship certificate that can be used to enter the skilled trades. Bonanza hired a construction and agriculture mechanics teacher and offered its first pre-apprenticeship class this fall. Plans are to offer three more classes in September 2024 under a state-registered program.

More than 60% of Bonanza’s senior class has shown an aptitude or interest in the skilled trades, said Bonanza Principal Jordan Osborn, and students have asked for help in getting the skills they need.

“They want jobs in the skilled trades, but need training in high school to help them get those jobs,” Osborn said. “This program is life changing for students in Bonanza.”

Klamath County School District started a state-registered pre-apprenticeship program in construction and carpentry at Henley High School in September 2023. With the $228,000 BOLI Future Ready Oregon grant, that program is expanding to Bonanza, operating in partnership with Klamath Community College, Southern Oregon Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee, and industry and trade organizations.

Henley is expected to graduate 12 to 15 students from its pre-apprenticeship program in 2025. Bonanza’s first pre-apprenticeship graduates will be in 2026.

At Henley, 25 high school students are currently taking pre-apprenticeship classes and 64 middle school students have started introductory classes in the new Construction Trades Building on the Henley campus. Projects include renovating the high school’s soccer field team shelters and building tiny homes in partnership with KCC’s carpentry apprenticeship team.

“The early success of the Henley program is inspiring the district and its partners to continue to pursue our joint goal of providing pre-apprenticeship at all Klamath County schools, no matter how remote,” said Adam Randall, CTE coordinator at Henley, who was instrumental in writing the BOLI grants for both Henley and Bonanza. “Students at Bonanza don’t have the ability to travel 60 miles roundtrip to take pre-apprenticeship classes at Henley or Klamath Community College. It is imperative that we equitably provide access to training to our rural students so they can access apprenticeship and the quality of life it provides.”

Bonanza also was awarded a $250,000 ODE CTE revitalization grant that will be used to renovate the shop and purchase needed equipment for the program and career and technical education classes. The renovated shop will host the pre-apprenticeship program and include new welding booths, a CNC machine, tool room, and small motors room where students will learn how to build, fix and operate small motors.

The grant also will enable Bonanza and Henley to purchase four trailers to support the transportation of supplies and construction and carpentry projects for both schools.

Bonanza expects to enroll 35 students in the program over the next year. All Bonanza high school students will be required to taken an introductory to CTE/construction/manufacturing class and junior high school students will take an exploratory class.

Osborn, who announced the grant awards and plans to the community last month, is excited to move forward. The two current grants are among $1.4 million in grants the school has received in the last two years to improve facilities and student opportunities.

“The trades are near and dear to my heart,” he said. “I come from a family that works in commercial concrete, and to be able to provide an avenue to change students’ lives by helping them get a high wage/high demand job in the trades is not only professionally gratifying, but also personally.”

Klamath County may be faced with a lawsuit after denying a sheriff’s office sergeant the opportunity to apply for a promotion to lieutenant.

Attorney Sean Riddell, representative of Klamath County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Ryan Kaber, said that on Tuesday morning, the county was served with a notice for a possible tort claim.

In response to an unrelated circumstance which took place in June 2023, County Commissioner Derrick DeGroot filed an ethics complaint with Oregon Government Ethics Commission following Sheriff Chris Kaber’s lateral reassignment of his son, Sgt. Kaber, to his previous position as detective sergeant in addition to his latest assignment leading the K-9 division.

“On May 10, 2023, Amanda Van Riper with Klamath County HR reached out to [ethics] commission staff for advice concerning the sheriff’s son applying for the lieutenant position,” the preliminary review reads. “Commission staff indicated to Ms. Van Riper that there are no ethics laws that prohibit Ryan Kaber from applying for the position, but there are ethics laws that the sheriff needs to be aware of should his son apply.”

Medford Police Station now says the Oregon Health Authority have joined in the investigation of drug diversion claims at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, along with the FBI.

Drug diversion involves taking a drug from medical use and using it or stealing it.  Some sources say that as many as 9 patients have died, including the husband of a Klamath Falls woman last summer.

Karen Kobelski, the vice president and general manager at Wolters Kluwer Health, said it’s estimated that 10-15% of healthcare workers divert substances at some point in their career. 

Kobelski said that under the Controlled Substance Act, every health care place that has controlled substances needs to have screenings in place. The screenings often look for patterns in health care workers who administer the pharmaceuticals.

Nurses and other health care providers are often caught when coworkers notice a different, routine behavior or when paperwork shows a routine pattern that could hide diversions. 

Kobelski says “it’s not rare. Every hospital experiences it. Kobeski said that diverting drugs is stealing. The severity of the punishment depends on how many times someone has taken the drugs and if it starts to affect patient care. 

In this case, however, the prescribed drug was replaced with non-sterlie tap water which could be responsible for the deaths of patients who were critically ill, most in the ICU ward of the facility.

Kobelski said that it’s easier for traveling nurses to pick up their addiction and take it to another hospital, but addiction and diversion can happen in any health care facility and to any health care worker. 

The investigation could take several weeks or months. MPD will release information as it becomes available. 

A longstanding, independent nonprofit is offering a crash course on how to lead reflective conversations in Klamath Falls.

Affiliate of the federal government agency the National Endowment for the Humanities, Oregon Humanities, provides community training sessions per request of local organizations. The Conversations Project is intended to teach individuals and organizations how to conduct effective, constructive conversations on topics which may present as controversial.

Klamath Community College is set to host one such in-person session from 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 16, and Friday, May 17. 

To register for the local reflective conversations training session, visit tfaforms.com/5097261 to fill out the registration form.  There are still a handful of slots available, but registration is limited to 16 people at most.

For more information about the Oregon Humanities Conversations Project, send questions via email to juliana@oregonhumanities.org.

Klamath County will submit a $3.6 million request to the state Legislature this year to complete its Crimson Rose Project — a residential care center emphasizing drug and alcohol treatment, behavioral health care and educational services for youths.

Klamath County Juvenile Director Dan Golden presented Klamath County Commissioners at their Tuesday meeting the capital funding request to be submitted to the Legislature. The request was approved.

The KCR construction project is currently underway on the first residential facility that will be used for stabilization of juvenile clients as well as on a new education center that will be offering enhanced services for academic achievement, art and music, gardening, vocational training and recreation. The new buildings at the Klamath County Juvenile Department will replace the oldest juvenile detention building in Oregon.

Golden explained that in 2023, the project was downsized because of increased construction costs to meet the budget, and the decision was made to postpone the building of a second eight-bed transitional residential treatment facility.

The director said architectural and engineering plans have been completed as well as the initial site preparation, grading and utility relocation.

Since 2014, KCR has provided Oregon Youth Authority clients involved with residential care emphasizing drug and alcohol treatment, behavioral health care and educational services. The goal of KCR is to motivate clients from all over Oregon to succeed in returning to their communities rather than being placed in a correctional facility.

Golden is hopeful that the request, which will be fulfilled through the use of an Oregon Lottery grant, will be accepted by the Legislature.

At the meeting on Tuesday, the commission also approved the interim Klamath County IT Director Matt Severns to apply for two cybersecurity grants being offered by Oregon Emergency Management for managing and reducing systemic cyber risk.

One will be used to protect Klamath County from any unforeseen disaster recovery matters while the other will be used to assist the county in domain migration services as the Klamath County website transitions from .org to .gov.

And, the Klamath County Commissioners appointed people to several advisory boards: Del Fox to the Library Advisory Board; Echo Murray and Jennifer Fairfield to the Tourism Grant Review Panel; Janet George, Andre Campbell-Wessel and Brad Royle to the Klamath Vector Control Board; Jeanne Pickens, Shawn Blodgett and Norma Baugh to the Fair Board; Kevin Harter and Kristen Clark to the Planning Commission; Linda Weider to the Roads Advisory Board; Sarah Jones and Christie Wiles to the Local Alcohol and Drug Planning Commission; Jennifer Mayfield and Keith Fournier to the Klamath River Special Road District Board.

Around the state of Oregon

An Alaska Airlines flight made an emergency landing in Oregon on Friday after a window and chunk of its fuselage blew out in mid-air, media reports said.

 It was not immediately clear if anyone was injured. The airline said it was investigating what happened.  The company said it would share more information when it became available.

The flight left Portland at 4:52 p.m. but returned just before 5:30 p.m. The plane rose as high as 16,000 feet (4,876 meters) during the flight and then began descending, according to data on the flight tracking website FlightAware.

The Boeing 737-9 MAX rolled off the assembly line and received its certification just two months ago, according to online FAA records.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it was investigating an event on the flight and would post updates when they are available.

Oregon was lagging a bit behind most of the country, but now it’s experiencing a spike in flu and COVID cases.

From Dec. 16 through Dec. 23, flu cases nearly doubled in Oregon. COVID-19 test positivity jumped by more than 50% from Dec. 16 through Dec. 30.

And from last week to this week, adults in acute care hospital beds due to COVID jumped by 30%, according to the Oregon Health Authority.

RSV season has been underway since early November, but cases have stayed relatively flat at around 11% positivity.

Meanwhile, the past year saw a big drop in vaccinations in the state. Less than 14% of Oregonians got the latest COVID vaccine.

Dr. Paul Cieslak, medical director for communicable diseases and immunizations at the Oregon Health Authority’s Public Health Division, said people may have gotten tired of hearing and thinking about respiratory viruses, but the viruses are not going away.

COVID-19 cases are rising statewide, he added. As far as the flu, the biggest spikes right now are in southwestern Oregon. But that, too, has made its way to every part of the state.

Cieslak noted that nearly everyone qualifies for flu and COVID vaccines. He added that there are RSV medications for children, and RSV vaccines available for people who are over 60 years old or are pregnant.

And he said good respiratory hygiene — like staying home if you’re sick, covering your mouth when you cough and washing your hands often — can also help stop the spread of respiratory viruses.

An Eagle Point man has bailed out of jail after being arrested on Dec. 30 for sexually assaulting and kidnapping a 12-year-old girl in Fresno. 

According to a Facebook post from the Fresno Police Department, 51-year-old James Ellis met the girl on an app a month ago. 

“During their online communication, Ellis told the victim he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her,” the post said. “On December 30, 2023, Ellis picked the victim up from her home and took her to a parking lot where he sexually assaulted her.”

The victim’s family member tracked her location through her phone, the post said, and found his car in a parking lot. The family member allegedly demanded Ellis release the girl, but instead he drove off with the girl inside the car. 

Ellis was arrested for kidnapping with the intent to commit a specified sexual offense, communicating with a minor with the intent to commit sex acts, and “numerous charges related to the sexual assault of a child under 14.”

While the post only identified Ellis as being from Oregon, the Fresno Police Department confirmed that he is from Eagle Point. 

Late last week the Oregon State Police responded to a multiple-vehicle crash on northbound Interstate 5, near milepost 35, in Jackson County. 

The preliminary investigation indicated that the Chevrolet Suburban, operated by Helen Marie Cain (64) of Central Point, crashed into the center wire barrier for unknown reasons. The initial crash led to multiple subsequent crashes within the same scene. A total of nine vehicles from the crash scene were damaged.

The operator of a Toyota Tercel, Douglas James Flood (81) of Gold Hill, was pronounced deceased following transport to a local hospital. Flood was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash.

The operator of the Chevrolet Suburban (Cain) and Courtney Marie Clark (38) of Grants Pass, the driver of a Ford Focus involved in the crash, were transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Six additional vehicles were damaged in the crash with no reported injuries:

• Mercedes Van operated by Darren Mitchell Brown (36) of Lebanon
• Honda CR-V operated by Brandi Lynn Teske Williams (56) of Grants Pass
• Ford F-150 operated by Leo Jackson (71) of Central Point
• Honda Civic operated by Frances Hammond (76) of Eugene
• Honda CR-V operated by Erich Martin Buer (53) of Grants Pass
• Ford Mustang operated by Kody Aaron Cox (47) of Grants Pass

The freeway was impacted, and traffic was detoured, for approximately five hours due to the crash.

OSP was assisted by the Jackson County Fire Department, Mercy Flights, Central Point Police Department, Jackson County District Attorney’s Office, and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

SALEM, Oregon— The Oregon Outdoor Recreation Advisory Council will meet Jan. 12 to discuss updates on current projects and next steps for the Oregon Office of Outdoor Recreation.

The virtual meeting will run from 2 to 3 p.m. and is open to the public. It can be viewed live at https://www.youtube.com/@oprddirectorsoffice5783/streams. A recording will be available at the same link shortly after the meeting.

The Office of Outdoor Recreation was established by HB 3350 in 2017 within the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. The mission of the office is to coordinate the state’s outdoor recreation policy across agencies, between public and private sectors, and in cooperation with organizations that have a vested interest in seeing Oregon’s outdoor recreation reach its fullest potential in every corner of the state.

The Oregon Outdoor Recreation Advisory Council, created in 2021, is a governor-appointed voluntary committee established to advise the Oregon Office of Outdoor Recreation (OREC) on statewide outdoor recreation policy.

The longtime leader of Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife is retiring after nearly 10 years at the helm and almost 40 at the state agency.

The agency announced Wednesday that Director Curt Melcher will step down by April 1. He was first hired as a temporary, seasonal employee at the department in 1985 when he was still in college.

Gov. Tina Kotek’s office has started a recruitment process that will wrap up by April, according to a news release from the department. A new director will be appointed by the state’s six-member Fish and Wildlife Commission in partnership with Kotek, the release said.

In it, Melcher described his job as an “honor and a privilege.”

He’s led the department since 2014, including approximately 1,000 employees and a two-year budget of more than $487 million. He went from serving as interim to director in 2015. He had previously spent seven years as deputy director.

Melcher took over the department in the midst of a budget crisis. It had for years relied too heavily on declining sales of hunting and fishing licenses for revenue, leading to a $32 million budget gap. Under his tenure, the agency maintained stable finances without raising fees on hunters and anglers, the release said.

Melcher is from northwest Oregon and graduated from the University of Oregon in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in biology. He started working seasonal jobs for the fish and wildlife agency during his studies, and continued to pick up temporary work there for nearly five years before being hired as a fisheries biologist in 1990, according to his LinkedIn profile. For more than a decade, he oversaw fish surveys on the Columbia and Willamette rivers and was an administrator in the agency’s fish division before ascending to deputy director.

Oregon’s Medicaid insurers are making a significant investment — $25 million — to provide more beds and psychiatrists for youths with the most intense needs.

The investment came at the request of Gov. Tina Kotek. The insurers, known as coordinated care organizations in Oregon’s unique Medicaid model, collectively made record profits during the pandemic, even as other parts of the health care system struggled with inflation, financial losses and service cuts.

“Oregon needs more treatment options to help young people in our state who are struggling with serious behavioral health issues,” Kotek said in a press release Thursday.

The governor’s office and CCOs have identified four projects that they said serve youth, meet the greatest need, and are geographically diverse.

Oregon has fewer inpatient beds available for youth with the most serious psychiatric needs than it did 20 years ago. Some experts say changes in Oregon’s Medicaid payment model contributed to that decline.

As a result, children in crisis often end up boarding in hospital emergency departments or in general pediatric hospital wings and struggle to find specialized care.

Some Oregon children on Medicaid even need to travel to other states for psychiatric care, according to a report this week from the Oregon Health Authority’s ombuds program.

The ombuds report found that from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2023, 1,923 Oregon Health Plan members under age 18 visited an emergency department with mental health concerns as their primary reason for the visit.

A judge in Oregon has rejected a U.S. Department of Justice request to dismiss a 2015 lawsuit brought by young people that alleges the federal government knew the dangers posed by carbon pollution but that it has continued through policies and subsidies to support the fossil fuel industry.

U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken said the parties “do not disagree that the climate crisis threatens our ability to survive on planet Earth. This catastrophe is the great emergency of our time and compels urgent action.”

“While facts remain to be proved, lawsuits like this highlight young people’s despair with the drawn-out pace of the unhurried, inchmeal, bureaucratic response to our most dire emergency,” she wrote in her decision late last week.

In a statement, Julia Olson, an attorney with the group Our Children’s Trust representing the plaintiffs, said she expects a trial in the case later this year.

In a similar lawsuit in Montana, a judge last year ruled the Montana Environmental Policy Act violates the plaintiffs’ state constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. The 1971 law requires state agencies to consider the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects and take public input before issuing permits. The state’s attorney general has appealed that decision.

The plaintiffs in the Oregon case argued the government has violated young people’s constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.

This year, the state of Oregon has a record $5.6 billion tax kicker refund for Oregonians that have filed their 2022 personal income tax return. The 2022 return must be filed because that is the amount the kicker is based off.

The tax kicker refund can be claimed while filing the 2023 return. Those 2023 forms will have special instructions on how to claim that money.

Tax kickers are the result of a budget surplus in the state during a given biennium. The $5.6 billion kicker is 44.28% of all personal income tax paid to Oregon in 2022.

In order to calculate a personal kicker, multiply the amount paid for 2022 by 44.28%.

Robin Maxey, a public information officer for the Oregon Department of Revenue, said that in order to get the kicker refund faster, residents should file earlier.

While Maxey urged Oregonians to file early, he also made it clear to not rush the filing too much. Make sure all information needed for tax returns is ready and available before filing.

To put this kicker in perspective, the kicker from the 2013-2015 biennium was only about $400 million. The most recent kicker from the 2019-2021 biennium was $1.89 billion. This biennium’s kicker is just under three times the amount from the 2019-2021 biennium.

Oregon Running Out Of Funds To Plow Major Roads and Highways

As winter weather hits the mountain passes hard this week, the Oregon Department of Transportation issued a warning: The state was running out of money to plow roads and could “no longer maintain the state’s transportation system at the same level as we have in the past.” Drivers would need to anticipate delays and prepare to be stranded in poor weather.

The outcry was swift, particularly in the snowiest parts of Oregon.

Among those skeptical of the agency’s approach was state Sen. Lynn Findley, a Republican who represents a sprawling, sparsely populated district that covers the entire southeast quadrant of the state. The warning reminded him of scare tactics the National Park Service used when budget cuts loomed, threatening to shut down popular tourist attractions, he told transportation officials at a November public hearing.

The public may have been “snow plowed,” but the tactic worked. By early December, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and legislative leaders, all Democrats, announced plans to boost the Oregon Department of Transportation budget by $19 million to pay for winter maintenance service. Next up? Revamping how the state pays for all its transportation needs.

Across the country, state transportation departments are warning that public safety is at risk if lawmakers don’t overhaul how road maintenance gets funded. Like other states facing shortfalls in their transportation maintenance budgets, Oregon blames declining gas tax revenues from more efficient cars and the wider adoption of electric vehicles, structural funding issues that limit how federal and state highway money can be spent, and inflation-driven cost increases.

States are trying creative new ways to fill the gap, from road use charges to delivery fees. And critics say states must stop prioritizing major new projects over basic maintenance needs.

Grants Pass Downs announced its race schedules for the 2024 Summer and Fall season, though it’ll be a little while before it’s warm enough to hit the track.

The summer racing season kicks off June 15, with races every Saturday and Sunday ending on the Fourth of July. The fall season kicks off September 8 with races every Saturday and Sunday.

The final race day will be October 14.

Going into a big election year, staffing at elections offices in Oregon is an issue, according to a study.

Staff-to-voter ratios vary widely between counties depending on their size but average about one staff member per 27-thousand voters statewide. Paul Manson with Portland State University helped conduct the research and says there are warning signs flashing as this election year ramps up. He says it’s a challenge for election offices to find workers in this politically charged environment.

Manson says low pay also makes it hard to recruit and retain people to work in elections offices. He says the county level funding model, which is tied to the real estate market, presents challenges as well.

He also says another pressure on workers is a growing list of public records requests, which offices have deadlines to respond to. He says there are a few ways the state could help election staff.

For Oregon, 2023 was a year of emergencies — from a worsening addiction crisis, to an ongoing housing shortage, to an inability to staff core services like public defense.

Here are some notable new laws that are now in place for 2024:

Speed cameras throughout Oregon: Autonomous “photo radar” units have, until now, only been legal in 10 cities in Oregon. But with speeding and other unsafe driving increasing since COVID-19, the Legislature is now letting every city in the state get in on the action. House Bill 2095 eased limitations on when and where speed cameras can be installed, offering them as an option as long as cities foot the bill to run them.

• Changes to DUII law:It’s long been illegal to drive drunk or under the influence of illicit drugs, but that didn’t necessarily encompass some substances that can impact driving ability, such as kratom, a herbal substance that can produce opioid- and stimulant-like effects.
• Tweaks to Measure 110:These days, much of the discussion over Oregon’s pioneering drug decriminalization law centers around whether the state should reverse course as overdoses soar. But during this year’s session,
• New tax breaks for kids:Beginning this year, low-income families can pursue a new tax credit aimed at combating early childhood poverty.
• Laws targeting “paramilitary activity” and “domestic terrorism”:With violent clashes on the streets of Portland in recent years and a spate of attacks on the Pacific Northwest’s power grid, lawmakers were concerned about extremism in 2023. House Bill 2572 allows the attorney general to investigate organized paramilitary activity and to petition a judge to block planned paramilitary activities that aim to intimidate others or infringe on free speech. It also creates a right to sue for anyone injured by a paramilitary group.
• Cracking down on shoplifting: Changes to laws against organized retail theft included in Senate Bill 340 make it easier for prosecutors to charge repeat shoplifters and to seek higher penalties.

Streamlining housing conversions: As Gov. Tina Kotek sets lofty goals for ratcheting up housing production and development in Oregon, lawmakers have been looking for ways to help. House Bill 2984 is one idea. It requires local governments to greenlight the conversion of commercial buildings into housing without throwing up the normal bureaucratic hurdles.

• Insurance immunity for wildfire maps:The state saw intense backlash in 2022 when it released a map showing areas that were most prone to wildfire risk.

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