A variety of news around Oregon and the Northwest

NEWS VARIETY

Kulongoski to announce 2009-2011 budget proposals

SALEM — Oregon’s discretionary budget pie for the next biennium is worth about $16.1 billion, and on Monday Oregonians will get a better idea of who gets a slice and who gets sliced.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski will announce his proposed state budget for the coming two years.

The amount is $1 billion more than the current two-year budget, but more than $1 billion less than he expected to have available before the economic trainwreck.

Priorities will include alternative energy, education, transportation and children’s health

The Legislature will draw up and approve the final budget. But what Kulongoski says Monday will set the tone for the next session, which opens Jan. 12.

The governor has kept details of his budget quiet.

But The Oregonian has pieced together the broad outlines of his priorities, hurdles and options.

Priorities:

Education: The governor has said he wants no retreat from the gains made during the 2007 session in funding for public schools, colleges and universities, including a big increase in financial aid for college students.

Renewable and alternative energy: This is a legacy-building theme for Kulongoski, who sees green technology as the doorway to a robust economic future for Oregon. There likely will be new incentives to attract solar, wind and biofuel companies to the state and for cars that rely more heavily on electricity.

Transportation: Kulongoski already has outlined a $1 billion plan to boost spending on bridges, highways, railways and mass transit to reduce congestion and put people to work on construction projects. Controversial elements include a proposed 2-cent hike in gas taxes, a 2 1/2-cent tobacco tax increase and a shift in some lottery profits to transportation projects.

Children’s health care: Backed by a stronger Democratic majority in the Legislature, Kulongoski once again wants money to cover Oregon’s 100,000 kids under 19 who lack insurance. Voters rejected a tobacco tax increase to help fund it. this time Kulongoski wants to tax hospitals $700 million over the next two years.

However his budget is based on the most recent revenue forecast and some say the numbers cou.d drop by another $1 billion as the legislative session progresses, which would cause a restacking of priorities.

The proposed budget is about 7 percent bigger than the current two-year plan, not enough to cover much higher increases in caseloads, health care costs, negotiated salary increases and other pressures.

He has not yet spelled out how Oregon will pay the estimated $157 million in costs that will be run up by Measure 57, which requires longer prison sentences for property crimes and more drug and alcohol treatment for offenders.

The governor can expect opposition from hospitals, tobacco companies, truckers and industrial energy users. Some educators may think his budget comes up short for schools.

With Democratic supermajorities in both houses, this is the year to boost taxes if the governor wants to do it, and states could benefit from proposed federal stimulus payments.

Last session, lawmakers suspended corporate “kicker” rebates and put the money into a savings account. That and a separate savings account for public schools are projected to have about $900 million over the next two years. The governor has said he doesn’t want to tap those unless he has to.

Agencies not on the governor’s priority list could see sharp cuts.

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Oregon to advertise video gambling

SALEM — Beginning in December, a TV actor dressed as a knight will urge more Oregonians to try their hand at video gambling.

The Oregon Lottery is hoping more people venture into any of Oregon’s 2,353 video lottery retailers after a Jan. 1 smoking ban forces all the establishments to go smoke free.

It will be the first time in Oregon’s 16 years in the video gambling business that the Oregon Lottery advertises video poker and slot machine gaming.

Faced with the possible loss of tens of millions of dollars in lottery revenue because of the smoking ban, the lottery is ending its self-imposed practice of limiting advertising to promoting scratch tickets and lottery drawings.

However it puts the state in the position promoting a form of gaming that some consider highly addictive.

Until now the state has avoided advertising video poker and slots because of “the sensitivity of the product,” said lottery spokesman Chuck Baumann.

The state gradually has relaxed its marketing restrictions on video lottery since Oregon put its first poker game terminals in taverns in 1992. Initially, advertising signs were allowed only inside near the terminals themselves. Later, the state allowed retailers to put up banners and window signs.

The new ads begin Dec. 8 as lottery profits decline.

The Oregon Office of Economic Analysis has projected video lottery earnings to fall $35 million below projections for the current 2007-09 biennium and an additional $107 million for the 2009-11 biennia because of the souring economy and the smoking ban.

“We’ve had positive sales (growth) year after year after year ever since it began,” Baumann said. “We need to do something in order to continue that, and if going to advertising helps that product, then, yes, we’ll look at it.”

He described one of the new ads: A man has dozed off in his easy chair, the TV remote control still in his hand. The man awakens to see a stranger, dressed in armor, announcing himself as the “knight of fun.”

They then head off on horseback to a bar, where video lottery games are advertised in the window. Once inside, the video image of spinning slot machine reels appear. The idea is to introduce video lottery to those who haven’t played slots or poker, perhaps because they don’t like smoky bars.

The ad campaign will be watched closely, both by retailers and by those who worry about what some have called the crack cocaine of gambling: video lottery.

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Portland offers $12.5M incentive to wind-power co.

PORTLAND — Portland Mayor-elect Sam Adams says the city is offering $12.5 million in incentives to Vestas Wind Systems in hopes the world’s largest maker of wind turbines will expand its Portland operations.

City officials would like the Danish company to build a $250 million facility and add 850 white-collar jobs to its Portland work force.

Vestas’ North American headquarters are already in Portland, but the deal would help ensure the company stays put and expands its Portland work force from 350 to 1,200 employees.

Adams says city financial officials estimate Vestas would repay the city’s incentives through taxes and fees within four years.

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UO to upgrade physical plant

EUGENE — A $227 million basketball arena, set to open in two years, is the construction project getting most of the attention at the University of Oregon. But another project set to break ground will affect a greater number of students.

The university is upgrading the physical plant — the operation that provides heating, cooling and part of the electricity to almost every building on campus. Officials say the project will boost the capacity of the campus utility system while shrinking the school’s carbon footprint, a measure of greenhouse gases produced by human activity.

It will provide more steam and electricity at less cost and greater efficiency.

The first part of project — construction of a new chiller plant — is expected to begin in early December and be completed in about a year. The $34 million facility will supply the chilled water that provides air conditioning to campus.

The project also includes improvements to building electrical systems and a new electricity substation.

The second phase of the project, which still needs funding, would replace 1950s-era boilers originally heated by sawdust left over from lumber production. The plant eventually switched to natural gas, but the aging system doesn’t operate with the efficiency of modern equipment.

“Everything now focuses on efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint,” said George Hecht, director of campus operations. “We shouldn’t be using an old, inefficient boiler system.”

Sustainability, however, isn’t the sole reason for replacing the chillers and boilers. The UO campus is a much more high-tech environment than it was a half-century ago, and the equipment that comprises the backbone of research programs demands reliable energy. The science and computer facilities on campus now must be kept powered and cooled without failure or lifetimes of research could be lost, Hecht said.

Initial design work on the second phase has not been completed, but the cost could top $50 million. With a total cost of more than $80 million, upgrading the physical plant would be the third-most expensive project in UO history, trailing the new basketball arena and the expansion of the football stadium.

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Avista Corp. to put wind farm on hold

SPOKANE, Wash. — Avista Corp. plans to delay building a wind farm by at least two years, citing the high cost of the windmill-like turbines.

The $125 million wind farm, on a ridge five miles south of Reardan, is now planned to begin operating at the end of 2013. It will be part of the first wind-generation project built by the Spokane-based utility.

For now, there are cheaper ways to add energy to Avista’s portfolio, company spokesman Hugh Imhof told The Spokesman-Review.

Avista is retrofitting turbines at its Noxon Rapids Dam. For $48 million, the project will boost the dam’s output by 28 megawatts — enough electricity for 21,000 homes.

The wind farm will have capacity to produce 50 megawatts of power, but the variability of wind speeds reduces the turbines’ overall output.

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Seattle homeless camp on the move again

SEATTLE — A camp for homeless people in Seattle has been offered a new location to pitch its tents.

The encampment known as Nickelsville — a jab at Mayor Greg Nickels’ homelessness policies — has been located most recently in a parking lot belonging to University Christian Church.

But church officials have asked about 100 camp members to leave, because they need to use the lot.

Members of University Congregational United Church of Christ voted Sunday to let camp members pitch tents for three months on its parking lot.

The camp gained attention in September after residents pitched 150 tents on city-owned land near the Duwamish River. City officials issued an eviction order.

Since then, camp residents have moved to a parking lot owned by the state, the city’s Discovery Park, and the University District.

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Police ID body found in Portland home

PORTLAND — Police identified a man found dead in a southeast Portland home as 54-year-old Roland J. Dir.

An autopsy determined that Dir died from homicidal violence.

No arrests have been made. Detectives declined to release more details about the cause of death, citing investigative reasons.

Dir’s body was found Saturday.

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Body found in Columbia River

ST. HELENS, Ore. — Columbia County authorities and the state medical examiner’s office are trying to identify a body discovered by a fisherman Sunday afternoon.

Undersheriff G.T. Simmons says a pair of deputies recovered the body that was floating in the Columbia River near St. Helens.

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Pipelines race out of the mountains; into yards

By SANDY SHORE
AP Energy Writer

DENVER — In the push toward more energy independence, massive infrastructure projects that will help to deliver it have clashed with cherished rights of land ownership.

Proven natural gas reserves have jumped 10 of the past 11 years, according to the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration, and thousands of miles of new pipelines have snaked in every direction.

In just the past 10 years alone, more than 20,000 miles of new natural gas pipelines have been built and brought on line. Those pipelines can carry more than 97 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day.

The owners of property over which new pipelines are planned are concerned about leaks into water and soil, land damaged by construction, land lost to a right of way and, in some cases, even loss of livelihood.

Those concerns range from a Midwestern horse farm which stands to lose grazing land, to Betty Wahle’s family vineyard in Yamhill, Ore.

Her land is actually ground zero for not one, but two pipelines. The developers would dig up chunks of rich dirt and some vines that have been nurtured for more than three decades, she said.

Those vines, said Wahle, 68, would not be restored to their current state in her lifetime.

“It’s just going to be devastating,” she said.

The bulk of the new natural gas supply is in the energy-rich Rockies and Texas. Producers are sinking traditional oil and gas wells and drilling into coal-bed methane reserves in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. In Texas, it’s the Barnett Shale, a 6,000-square-mile bedrock region of natural gas, and the Bossier Sands tight-gas formation.

Between 1998 and 2006, natural gas production in these two regions jumped 96 percent and proved natural gas reserves climbed 127 percent, government statistics show.

There are currently about 288,000 miles of gas pipelines with a capacity of 187 billion cubic feed per day.

From 2008 to 2010, about 200 projects have been proposed to add 10,100 more miles, according to the Energy Information Administration.

If all are finished, the nation’s natural gas capacity will jump by more than 38 percent, the EIA said, at an overall cost of about $28 billion.

But the massive expansion comes as energy use is decreasing, which could lead to its own bust and boom cycle on prices, said E. Russell Braziel, managing director of Bentek Energy, an energy markets information company based.

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Mild fall makes for fat deer in Eastern Oregon

BAKER CITY, Ore. — It’s fat city in the countryside of Eastern Oregon’s Baker County.

A moist and mild fall has turned the meadows green and the mule deer plump.

That’s a good sign for the deer and for the two-legged shooters who prey on them.

“It’s a phenomenal green-up,” said Brian Ratliff, a wildlife biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Baker City office. “The deer are set for a good winter.”

Once the snow comes, the deer not only expend more energy getting through the drifts, but also burn extra calories just to stay warm, he said.

When wintry weather fades into spring, every pound a deer adds during the fall means extra survival time.

Ratliff said he and district wildlife biologist Nick Myatt looked at dozens of deer that hunters killed during last month’s season.

Almost all the deer had ample fat reserves, Ratliff said.

The weather has been so benign, that many deer have yet to descend to winter range, where even during hard winters the snow doesn’t get too deep and the temperatures are at least slightly warmer than in the animals’ summer range high in the mountains.

“If they haven’t moved down yet, that means they’re finding what they need higher up,” Ratliff said.

That, too, is abnormal for Baker County.

Most years, snow has driven deer down to their winter range by the middle of November.

The bountiful forage is especially vital for deer because they are more vulnerable to harsh winters than are elk, bighorn sheep and mountains goats, Ratliff said.

But, Ratliff said, other species such as chukars and other upland game birds are also fattening up during the benevolent weather and abundant grass.

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Students lie, cheat, steal, but say they’re good

By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer

NEW YORK — In the past year, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test, according to a new, large-scale survey suggesting that Americans are too apathetic about ethical standards.

Educators reacting to the findings questioned any suggestion that today’s young people are less honest than previous generations, but several agreed that intensified pressures are prompting many students to cut corners.

“The competition is greater, the pressures on kids have increased dramatically,” said Mel Riddle of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. “They have opportunities their predecessors didn’t have (to cheat). The temptation is greater.”

The Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute, surveyed 29,760 students at 100 randomly selected high schools nationwide, both public and private. All students in the selected schools were given the survey in class; their anonymity was assured.

Michael Josephson, the institute’s founder and president, said he was most dismayed by the findings about theft. The survey found that 35 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls — 30 percent overall — acknowledged stealing from a store within the past year. One-fifth said they stole something from a friend; 23 percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative.

“What is the social cost of that — not to mention the implication for the next generation of mortgage brokers?” Josephson remarked in an interview. “In a society drenched with cynicism, young people can look at it and say ’Why shouldn’t we? Everyone else does it.’”

Other findings from the survey:

• Cheating in school is rampant and getting worse. Sixty-four percent of students cheated on a test in the past year and 38 percent did so two or more times, up from 60 percent and 35 percent in a 2006 survey.
• Thirty-six percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, up from 33 percent in 2004.
• Forty-two percent said they sometimes lie to save money — 49 percent of the boys and 36 percent of the girls.

Despite such responses, 93 percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77 percent affirmed that “when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.”

Nijmie Dzurinko, executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union, said the findings were not at all reflective of the inner-city students she works with as an advocate for better curriculum and school funding.

“A lot of people like to blame society’s problems on young people, without recognizing that young people aren’t making the decisions about what’s happening in society,” said Dzurinko, 32. “They’re very easy to scapegoat.”

Peter Anderson, principal of Andover High School in Andover, Mass., said he and his colleagues had detected very little cheating on tests or Internet-based plagiarism. He has, however, noticed an uptick in students sharing homework in unauthorized ways.

“This generation is leading incredibly busy lives — involved in athletics, clubs, so many with part-time jobs, and — for seniors — an incredibly demanding and anxiety-producing college search,” he offered as an explanation.

Riddle, who for four decades was a high school teacher and principal in northern Virginia, agreed that more pressure could lead to more cheating, yet spoke in defense of today’s students.

“I would take these students over other generations,” he said. “I found them to be more responsive, more rewarding to work with, more appreciative of support that adults give them.

“We have to create situations where it’s easy for kids to do the right things,” he added. “We need to create classrooms where learning takes on more importance than having the right answer.”

On Long Island, an alliance of school superintendents and college presidents recently embarked on a campaign to draw attention to academic integrity problems and to crack down on plagiarism and cheating.

Roberta Gerold, superintendent of the Middle Country School District and a leader of the campaign, said parents and school officials need to be more diligent — for example, emphasizing to students the distinctions between original and borrowed work.

“You can reinforce the character trait of integrity,” she said. “We overload kids these days, and they look for ways to survive. ... It’s a flaw in our system that whatever we are doing as educators allows this to continue.”

Josephson contended that most Americans are too blase about ethical shortcomings among young people and in society at large.

“Adults are not taking this very seriously,” he said. “The schools are not doing even the most moderate thing. ... They don’t want to know. There’s a pervasive apathy.”

Josephson also addressed the argument that today’s youth are no less honest than their predecessors.

“In the end, the question is not whether things are worse, but whether they are bad enough to mobilize concern and concerted action,” he said.

“What we need to learn from these survey results is that our moral infrastructure is unsound and in serious need of repair. This is not a time to lament and whine but to take thoughtful, positive actions.”