Oregon Beach News, Monday 4/15 – Hiker Finds Human Remains in Campsite Near Newport & Other Local and Statewide News…

Today is Tax Day; File a return or extension by midnight

Governor Kotek announced Sunday that President Joe Biden approved a federal major disaster declaration for January’s winter weather emergency.

This declaration provides supplemental grants through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s Public Assistance Program. This funding will go to state, local and tribal governments to assist in their storm recovery and response.

“I am grateful to President Biden for answering our call for help,” Gov. Kotek said in a statement. “This opportunity for federal assistance will make a significant difference across communities that are still grappling with significant damage from the storm.”

The declaration includes Benton, Clackamas, Coos, Hood River, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Multnomah, Sherman, Tillamook and Wasco Counties and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. More information about the emergency and the major disaster declaration can be found here.

The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has scheduled an opportunity for public comments concerning the proposed merger of two major grocery store chains – Kroger and Albertsons.

This deal could impact more than 150 pharmacies in Oregon, accoring to a releas from the OHA

“The OHA is reviewing this planned transaction to understand how it might affect pharmacy services in Oregon,” a release from the OHA states.

OHA has convened a Community Review Board for this review. This board is hosting a public hearing from 1 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 24.

The public hearing will: Provide information about the transaction and OHA’s review, Allow representatives from Kroger and Albertsons to provide testimony and answer questions, Allow members of the public to provide comments.

The public can register to attend .

Kroger and Albertsons are the nation’s two largest grocery chains. In Oregon, the two corporations operate 176 stores, serving nearly every community in the state. Kroger operates 51 Fred Meyer and 4 QFC stores, while Albertsons operates 96 Safeway and 25 Albertsons stores.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has joined the Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from across the nation in acting to block the proposed $24.6 billion Kroger-Albertsons grocery chain merger.

“If big grocery stores are allowed to reduce competition this way.” Rosenblum said, “They can charge higher prices for food for no good reason and reduce services, including in their pharmacies. They can also slow the growth of employees’ wages, or even reduce some of those wages. Working conditions and employee benefits can suffer, as well. In short, there’s no good for consumers or workers in this proposed merger — and lots of bad.”

Oregon Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission investigators found compelling evidence that direct, head-to-head competition between Kroger and Albertsons has forced the two chains to compete vigorously against one another — both on price and on the quality of goods and services offered at their stores, according to Rosenblum.

Oregon, the FTC, and the other AGs filed to enjoin the merger in U.S. District Court in Portland following a vote by FTC commissioners Feb. 26.

It is the result of thorough investigations by the FTC and the states into the proposed merger’s anticipated effects, Rosenbaum said in a statement.

“We are doing this to protect Oregon consumers and workers,” Rosenblum said. “We believe this proposed merger would hurt both, and we’re doing our part to prevent it from going forward.”

To learn more about the OHA public hearing, visit https://www.oregon.gov/oha/hpa/hp/pages/health-care-market-oversight.aspx

Email hcmo.info@oha.oregon.gov with any questions. Read More at http://tillamookheadlightherald.com

April 30th is the deadline for people registering to vote in Oregon for the first time or for those who wish to change party affiliation.

The upcoming May 21st election is a closed-party primary election for registered Democrats and Republicans.
That means that Democrats will be voting for Democrat and nonpartisan candidates and measures and Republicans will be voting for Republican and nonpartisan candidates and measures.

Non-affiliated and all other voters will be voting on nonpartisan candidates and measures.

Oregon Online Voter Registration: https://sos.oregon.gov/voting/Pages/registration.aspx?lang=en

State Fire Marshal handing out $6 million to help local agencies fight wildfires

About two-thirds of the fire departments across Oregon – all smaller agencies – received up to $35,000 to hire more firefighters during the season

As Oregon approaches this year’s wildfire season, state officials are distributing $6 million in grants to help local fire agencies bolster their resources.

The State Fire Marshal, which announced the grants, said that 191 agencies across the state received up to $35,000. That’s about two-thirds of the 306 fire agencies in Oregon.

All of the agencies were eligible to apply for a grant, but most of the recipients are in rural or coastal areas, from Ontario to Oakridge and Christmas Valley to Seaside. The departments in the state’s biggest cities, including Portland, Salem, Eugene, Medford and Bend, are not on the list, mainly because the grant’s purpose is to help smaller jurisdictions – those whose annual property tax income does not exceed $2 million – that often rely on volunteers, according to John Hendricks, a spokesman for the fire marshal.

The grants are designed to help smaller agencies, such as the Fossil and Heppner fire departments, staff up with firefighters to be able to mobilize quickly.

Hendricks said in an email that the grants often allow agencies to hire two to three extra firefighters.

“Every agency is different, so their request may be different,” Hendricks said. “Some agencies pay current volunteers to take a shift, others bring on seasonal staff. It really depends.”

Many recipients got the maximum, though a few were given much less. The smallest grant – $2,698 – went to Baker Rural Fire Protection District. Myrtle Creek Fire Department got $9,160, while Union Emergency Services received $9,463 and Corbett Fire District 24 received $12,315.

This is the third year in a row that the fire marshall has distributed money through the Wildfire Season Staffing Grant program, according to a news release. It said the grants last year – also $6 million  – allowed agencies to add more than 1,500 firefighters.

“These added resources allowed agencies to attack fires and keep them small and away from communities and added capacity to respond to other calls, ultimately saving lives,” the release said.

That help enabled the Cornelius Fire Department in the Portland area, for example, to dispatch two units to the scene of a brush fire last year within minutes. They quickly put it out, preventing the spread to nearby buildings.

In Jefferson County in central Oregon, funding helped the local fire department hire wildland firefighters who contained a high-risk brush fire last August to 1 acre, according to a report about last year’s grants. That fire had the potential to become big in a high-risk area, the fire chief said.

And in Sublimity in Marion County, the grant helped the local fire district add staff at the busiest time of the year, which it previously couldn’t do, the release said.

“This resulted in quicker responses with adequate staffing for not only our district, but our neighboring agencies,” Sublimity Fire District Chief Alan Hume said in the release. “Last year we had several fires in our area with the potential to develop into larger, extended duration fires. We were able, as (a) region, to keep those fires smaller.”

The grant is part of an initiative by the State Fire Marshal’s office, the Response Ready Oregon initiative, that’s designed to help modernize systems and technology, create mutual aid plans, hire coordinators and more. But that program lacks sustained funding, the release said.

The Oregon Legislature allocated $220 million for wildfires in 2021, but the Oregon Department of Forestry and State Fire Marshal’s Office received less than $90 million during the budget cycle that began last July and ends in mid-2025. Lawmakers had hoped this session to fill gaps in wildfire funding, with three bills to address landowner wildfire protection fees, home hardening, wildfire prevention and response and survivor compensation. But only one – on compensation – passed.

That prompted Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland and the author of one proposal to say legislators were “stumbling into the future” on wildfire funding. (SOURCE)

Oregon State Fire Marshal issues grants to boost staffing ahead of wildfire season

To boost the number of firefighters across Oregon before wildfire season, the Oregon State Fire Marshal (OSFM) announced it has awarded $6 million in grants to 191 local fire agencies across the state.

The 2024 Wildfire Season Staffing Grant program is in its third year. Local agencies in the Oregon structural fire service were eligible to apply for up to $35,000. The funding will allow agencies to bring on additional firefighters or increase on-duty hours during the 2024 fire season. A list of agencies awarded funding can be found here.

The 2023 Wildfire Season Staffing Grant program was integral to the success in protecting communities, adding more than 1,500 paid firefighters to the Oregon fire service. These added resources allowed agencies to attack fires and keep them small and away from communities and added capacity to respond to other calls, ultimately saving lives. Read about the successes here.

“The staffing grant program has been a huge success for the Oregon fire service and our district,” Sublimity Fire District Chief Alan Hume said. “It allowed us to staff our station during the busiest time of the year, which we previously couldn’t do. This resulted in quicker responses with adequate staffing for not only our district, but our neighboring agencies. Last year we had several fires in our area with the potential to develop into larger, extended duration fires. We were able, as region, to keep those fires smaller.”

“This grant has provided us the ability to respond to all requests for emergency services, including automatic and mutual aid requests in our district,” Crooked River Ranch Rural Fire Protection District Chief Sean Hartley said. “This program is instrumental in keeping fires in our community small and allowed us to respond to multiple calls for service at the same time.”

This 2024 Wildfire Season Staffing Grant program is part of a multi-pronged approach to combat wildfire in Oregon. Over the last three years, the OSFM has made strategic investments to modernize the Oregon Fire Mutual Aid System and help communities become more wildfire adapted.

This grant is part of the OSFM’s Response Ready Oregon initiative. The OSFM is looking for sustained funding for this program and is exploring all options to continue this highly successful grant in 2025 and beyond.ABOUT RESPONSE READY OREGON The OSFM’s Response Ready Oregon initiative was created to help boost capacity and modernize wildfire response within the Oregon Fire Mutual Aid System (OFMAS). The goal of Response Ready Oregon is to keep fires small and away from communities, reducing costly conflagrations.

Governor Kotek Signs Property Tax Reset For 2020 Wildfire Victims

Many of the Oregonians whose homes were destroyed in 2020 wildfires will soon be protected from potentially massive property tax increases after they rebuild if county leaders in their communities agree.

About 4,000 homes were destroyed in wildfires across the state in September 2020 — most of them in Santiam Canyon or Southern Oregon’s Jackson County. Already, thousands of those properties have been rebuilt — and many homeowners have faced an unwelcome surprise when taxes came due.

Under Oregon law, a home’s assessed value can go up by no more than 3% each year, except when there’s new construction or significant upgrades. That’s left people rebuilding from the 2020 wildfires facing thousands of dollars in higher yearly taxes.

Mia Mohr, a resident of Lyon in the Santiam Canyon whose house was destroyed by the fires, testified in support of the property tax reset during the recent legislative session.

“Victims of the 2020 wildfires, particularly those who could least afford to rebuild, have experienced many challenges and hardships since losing everything in the devastating wildfire,” she said in written testimony. “…I didn’t have the option to replace my home built in 1968 with a 1968-valued home. I could only replace it with a same square-foot new home.”

The unexpected property tax increase she and other community members have faced has been a significant burden, she said.

Marion County Commissioner Kevin Cameron told OPB that the tax reset approved in this year’s legislative session is part of an ongoing effort to respond to the financial and personal hardships people have faced since the September 2020 wildfires.

“One of the first things we realized, right after the wildfires, is that property tax statements were going out in September, October of 2020 — and people were going to get a property tax statement when they have no house,” he said.

Leaders in hard-hit counties set up programs that allowed people to reduce their tax bills if they’d lost their homes —but it was not an automatic process.

Then, as residents started to rebuild, many were shocked by their new property tax statements. “Their property tax statements would double or in some cases even triple,” Cameron said.

State Sen. Frank Girod, a Republican from Stayton, began pushing for a property tax reset in the 2023 legislative session, but it took until this year for it to pass as Senate Bill 1545.

The bill, which Gov. Tina Kotek signed into law this month, essentially resets the tax rate to 2020-21 levels for these homes, as long as they’re built to the same square footage as before the fire. Commissioners in the eight Oregon counties where the fires caused widespread damage will need to opt in for their constituents to receive these protections.

Cameron said he expects Marion County commissioners to approve the tax reset, and to work hard to communicate with eligible home owners about the program in affected communities. People will have to apply to qualify.

The property tax reset is temporary and limited. When houses are rebuilt larger than the home that was burned, that additional square footage will be assessed based on its value at the time of construction. When owners sell their rebuilt homes, those properties will be assessed based on market value at that time.

And only homes that are occupied full-time are eligible, which means people’s second homes around Detroit Lake are not qualified for the tax reset, Cameron said. “They will have to pay regular property taxes,” he said. “This is to encourage those who were living here to come back and rebuild. (SOURCE)

Babies, baby chicks don’t mix: OHA article highlights Salmonella risks of backyard poultry for newborns

PORTLAND, Ore. — Outbreaks of Salmonella infection linked to backyard poultry have been well documented, but a recent Oregon public health investigation highlights the risks of home chicken flocks for newborn babies.

An Oregon Health Authority (OHA) report in today’s edition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) details an investigation into a case of salmonellosis – the disease caused by Salmonella bacteria – in a newborn whose parents kept backyard poultry.

OHA and Crook County epidemiologists investigated the case as part of a routine, multi-state review of backyard poultry-associated salmonellosis outbreaks reported to CDC from across the country during 2023.

According to the report, the baby boy was born at a hospital about 150 miles away from his parents’ home. The newborn was discharged with his mother to a relative’s home the day after his birth, but four days later was readmitted to a second hospital with bloody stool and lethargy, prompting health care providers to collect a stool sample for analysis. The sample tested positive for a strain of Salmonella known as Thompson.

Neither parent had symptoms of salmonellosis, nor had they been diagnosed with the disease. However, the baby’s father, who tended the family’s backyard poultry at the family’s home 150 miles away, was present at the hospital during the child’s birth and stayed with the child and the child’s mother at the relative’s home when the baby fell ill.

The newborn had not traveled to the home where the backyard poultry were kept during the time between his birth and his hospital admission for his illness.

Nearly a month after the newborn was admitted to the hospital with salmonellosis symptoms, state and county epidemiologists collected environmental samples from the chicken bedding in the family’s backyard poultry coop, where the child’s father had previously had contact. Two of the samples matched the Salmonella Thompson strain found in the child.

Paul Cieslak, M.D., medical director for communicable diseases and immunizations at OHA’s Public Health Division and co-author of the MMWR article, said epidemiologists don’t know the exact mechanism by which the newborn was exposed to the Salmonella Thompson strain. But it’s telling that the newborn’s family started keeping backyard poultry only about a month before the child’s birth.

“It’s possible one of the parents was shedding the organism even though they weren’t showing symptoms and exposed the baby during or after his birth,” Cieslak said. “The bacteria also could have been carried from the family home to the newborn on clothes, shoes or other belongings. Once it’s on surfaces, it can be transported and transmitted fairly easily.”

The case is a strong reminder about the importance of hygiene when tending backyard poultry, “especially when persons at risk for exposure are newborns and young infants whose intestinal flora and immune systems are still developing,” the article’s authors wrote. “In addition to adhering to recommended hygiene practices, families contemplating raising backyard poultry should consider the potential risk to newborns and young infants living in the household.”

The CDC has the following recommendations for backyard flock owners:

• Always wash hands with soap and water immediately after touching backyard poultry, their eggs or anything in the area where they live and roam. Use hand sanitizer if soap and water are not readily available. Consider having hand sanitizer at your coop.
• Don’t kiss or snuggle backyard poultry, and don’t eat or drink around them. This can spread Salmonella germs to your mouth and make you sick. Keep your backyard flock and supplies you use to care for them (such as feed containers and shoes you wear in the coop) outside of the house. You should also clean the supplies outside the house.
• Always supervise children around backyard poultry and make sure they wash their hands properly Don’t let children younger than 5 touch chicks, ducklings or other backyard poultry. Young children are more likely to get sick from germs such as Salmonella.
• Collect eggs often. Eggs that sit in the nest can become dirty or break. Throw away cracked eggs. Germs on the shell can more easily enter the egg through a cracked shell. Rub off dirt on eggs with fine sandpaper, a brush, or a cloth. Don’t wash eggs because colder water can pull germs into the egg. Refrigerate eggs to keep them fresh and slow the growth of germs. Cook eggs until both the yolk and white are firm, and cook egg dishes to an internal temperature of 160°F to kill all germs.
• Call your health care provider right away if you have any of these severe symptoms:
  • Diarrhea and a fever higher than 102°F.
  • Diarrhea for more than three days that is not improving.
  • Bloody diarrhea.
  • So much vomiting that you cannot keep liquids down.
  • Signs of dehydration, such as not peeing much, dry mouth and throat, and feeling dizzy when standing up.

The article’s lead author was Stephen Ladd-Wilson, Acute and Communicable Disease Prevention Section, OHA. Other co-authors included Karen Yeargain, Crook County Health Department; Samuel Myoda, Ph.D., and Mansour Samadpour, Ph.D., Institute for Environmental Health Laboratories, Seattle; and Karim Morey, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory, OHA.

ODOT Reminding The Public That Political Signs Posted Incorrectly Will Be Removed

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) would like to remind the public that political signs posted incorrectly will be removed.

During election season ODOT tells us they receive complaints from the public and candidates regarding the improper placement of political signs on the state highway rights of way, where only official traffic control devices are allowed. Improperly placed signs can distract drivers and block road safety messages.

Wrongly placed signs will be taken down and held at a nearby ODOT district maintenance office for 30 days. To reclaim signs, go here to find the nearest ODOT maintenance office.

Signs are prohibited on trees, utility poles, fence posts and natural features within highway right-of-ways, ODOT tells us. They also are prohibited within view of a designated scenic area.

State highway width rights of way can vary considerably depending on the location. Check with your local ODOT district maintenance office to determine whether placing a sign is on private property or highway right of way. Local municipalities may also regulate the placement of political signs.

Political signs are allowed on private property within view of state highways with the following restrictions:

• Signs are limited to 12 square feet but can be up to 32 square feet with a variance from our Oregon Advertising Sign program
• Signs cannot have flashing or intermittent lights, or animated or moving parts
• Signs must not imitate official highway signs or devices
• Signs are not allowed in scenic corridors
• No payment or compensation of any kind can be exchanged for either the placement of or the message on temporary signs, including political signs, which are visible to a state highway

For more information go to ODOT’s Outdoor Advertising Sign Program.

Oregon Offers Electric Car Rebates Again – Apply Now Until June 3rd

Due to high demand and limited funding, OCVRP will be open for a short time in 2024. Vehicles must be purchased or leased between April 3, 2024, to June 3, 2024, to be eligible for a rebate.

Applicants have six months from their date of purchase or lease to apply. Low- and moderate-income households can prequalify for the $5,000 Charge Ahead rebate by completing the application now at https://apps.oregon.gov/DEQ/Voucher/apply.

Oregon to Honor Fallen Law Enforcement Officers May 7th, 2024

Every year, the Oregon Law Enforcement Memorial Ceremony honors the state’s law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. This year’s ceremony will be held Tuesday, May 7 at 1 p.m. at the Oregon Public Safety Academy in Salem.

The annual event commemorates the more than 190 fallen officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the state of Oregon since the 1860s. This includes law enforcement, corrections, and parole and probation officers from city, county, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies.

The Department of Public Safety Standards and Training is proud to host the ceremony in partnership with the Oregon Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, Oregon Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.), Oregon Fallen Badge Foundation, and various statewide law enforcement associations.