Grants Pass
4 M IC H
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P255/70 L IN L T X T IR
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Call 541- 18s, 85% trea S A S ra d ia ls ,
d, asking
218-7111
$150.
December 11, 2014
Thursday
75 cents
Government
funding deal
drops timber
payments
Weather
A few showers
Calm after the storm? We
may see just a few showers
on Friday. See Page 2A.
Overnight low
Friday’s high
By Jeff Barnard
Associated Press
42
52
What’s inside
Grocery break-in
Someone ransacked the
Southern Oregon Outreach
Foundation’s discount grocery store, stealing money
and merchandise and leaving behind a big mess.
Page 3A
TIMOTHY BULLARD/Daily Courier
Hottest movies
Two major film organizations
announced their awards
nominees this week — the
Golden Globes and Screen
Actors Guild. So we’re having a look at the top films of
the year and the coming
awards season.
ENTERTAINMENT / Page 1B
Carl Wilson watches as Lee Horn collects trash left in the bushes near Northwest F and Dimmick streets.
Horn says he has been living there for about a year. “I’m gonna start another burn pile,” Horn said. “I
clean up around here when no one else takes the time to pick up their stuff.”
Are we too friendly
toward street people?
Some believe wealth
of social services makes
it easy for transients to
set up camp in GP
By Jim Moore
Back in the swing
Former
North Valley
golf standout
Ryan Melnychuk is hoping to make
the cut in a
golf tournament in Hawaii after missing
it last year.
SPORTS / Page 5B
OSU gets a coach
Oregon State
hired Wisconsin’s Gary
Andersen to
replace Mike
Riley as its
new football
coach.
SPORTS / Page 5B
What’s online
Web highlights
Videos, photo galleries,
even a Fun Finder. There’s
always plenty going on at ...
thedailycourier.com
A look ahead
of the Daily Courier
Is it possible to be too generous? Do the various charitable services such as soup
kitchens, free clothing and
shelter that are available in
Grants Pass attract undesireable characters to town and
keep them here?
Depends on who you ask.
“They know we’re an easy
mark,” says City Councilor
Jim Williams, one of several
civic leaders who believes the
city’s panoply of social services are a magnet for street
people. “It’s amazing how the
word
gets
around.”
Carl Wilson, the owner and
general
manager
of
KAJO/KLDR Radio, agrees.
Wilson, who was recently
elected to the state Legislature, is also a member of the
Gospel Rescue Mission board
of directors.
“They have an intel network that would make the military blush,” he says of transients.
Carl Raskin owns a business called Elegance on Sixth
Street in the heart of downtown and has had plenty of
brushes with street people
over the years. He also volunteers every Monday at the St.
Vincent de Paul dining hall,
which is located on Southeast
Seventh Street in downtown
and is a busy place during
TIMOTHY BULLARD/Daily Courier
A volunteer makes his way towards the St. Vincent de Paul kitchen as people
wait outside for the lunch line to open so they can have a meal.
meal times.
Raskin believes transients
are aware of the services that
are available in Grants Pass
before they get here. “We treat
them pretty good and they
know that,” he says.
And just how do they know
that? “It’s a communication
thing. It’s passed along,” he
says.
City Council President Dan
DeYoung echoes the sentiment, although he’s not sure
of the mechanics of it.
“I don’t know whether there
is something on social media
or somewhere,” he says.
DeYoung says he recently
spoke to a man who was sleeping in a large
trash bin. “He
said he picked
Grants Pass
b e c a u s e
everybody
here is very
friendly and
giving.”
As much
DeYOUNG
as those four
men can read the pulse of the
town, there are others equally
in tune who have a different
perspective.
Grants Pass police Lt.
Todd Moran says an informal
survey conducted by city
police in 2012 determined that
the availability of services
does not attract transients to
town.
Officers spoke to 25 men
and women ages 19 to 70, none
of whom had a permanent residence or even any shelter
they could depend on.
The purpose of the survey
was to determine the reasons
people were on the streets so
that officers could guide them
to appropriate services.
Turn to FRIENDLY, Page 7A
More than 900 homeless in county
Pastor pauses
After 28 years at Bethany Presbyterian Church, the Rev.
Steve Parker is ending his
tenure with the congregation
and deciding on a next step.
FRIDAY
Where to find it
Abby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6A
Classified . . . . . . . . . .1-6C
Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . .8B
Entertainment . . . . . . .1-4B
Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . .3A
Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . .4A
Police . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5A
Sports . . . . . . . . . . . .5-7B
Stock markets . . . . . . . .8A
Call us at 541-474-3700
email [email protected]
Volume CV
No. 60 Issue 31542
3 Sections, 22 Pages
TODAY: Are social
services in Grants Pass
attracting street people?
FRIDAY: City’s social service net
explained; downtown merchants
weigh in
SUNDAY: Transient hot spots;
civic leaders offer solutions
Street people and the homeless are not
interchangeable terms.
Meanwhile, Grants Pass police estimate a
small minority of troublemakers cause most of
the problems associated with street people.
Regardless, what is often overlooked is the
sheer number of homeless people in Josephine
County.
The United Community Action Network
began its effort to count homeless in the county in 2007. That year the total was 326.
It jumped to 802 in 2008 (most likely in con-
junction with the beginning of the Great
Recession) and has hovered in that neighborhood since.
THE UCAN HOMELESS COUNTS
2007....................................................... 326
2008....................................................... 802
2009....................................................... 747
2010....................................................... 846
2012....................................................... 998
2013....................................................... 865
2014....................................................... 916
* No count was conducted in 2011
Congress won’t be giving timber counties more logging on federal lands or renewed federal
subsidies to make up for logging
cutbacks. And there will be no
grand bargain to solve the Klamath Basin’s water woes.
None of Oregon Democrat
Sen. Ron Wyden’s bills addressing those issues made it onto the
last major spending bill emerging
from a lame-duck session of Congress. That doesn’t mean the
issues are dead, and the political
bickering remains high.
Oregon Republican Rep. Greg
Walden said Wednesday that
House leaders have committed to
make each of them a priority in
the next session.
“If the Senate would have
acted on federal forest policy
reform, it would have gone a long
way toward providing a longterm solution to actively managing our forests to grow jobs and
revenue,” he said in a statement.
Wyden expressed outrage that
for the first time since he wrote
the Secure Rural Schools Act in
2000 giving subsidies to timber
counties, the House would be
linking its continuation to their
efforts to increase federal timber
harvests.
“Rural Oregonians deserve
better than to have politicians put
on hold their priorities,” he said.
The White House threatened a
veto on the last bill from House
Republicans calling for a sharp
increase in logging across all
national forests, saying it would
jeopardize the habitat of endangered species, increase lawsuits
and limit the president’s ability to
create national monuments.
It included a section from
members of the Oregon delegation to increase logging on the socalled O&C lands in western Oregon that would have taken half
the lands from of federal control.
Walden spokesman Andrew
Malcolm said they hoped to come
up with something that could
become law.
“I think it’s way too early to
get into any details, but you are
going to see proposals from both
the House and the Senate, and at
the same time recognizing the
White House opposition to the
(previous) bill. We want a viable
solution and are going to be looking for the best way forward,”
Malcolm said.
Secure Rural Schools has sent
a total of $2.8 billion to Oregon
timber counties since 2000,
including $107 million last year.
Some counties have struggled to
provide sheriff’s patrols and jails
since voters refused to approve
tax increases to make up for
declining payments under Secure
Rural Schools.
On the Klamath water deals,
Walden has said removing dams
from the Klamath River — a key
part of the agreements — is a
non-starter, though Malcolm said
some of the agreements could
move forward.
Wyden’s Klamath bill would
implement three different agreements.
It included one agreement
from dam owner PacifiCorp to
remove four dams from the Klamath River to help salmon. A surcharge on electric rates in Oregon
and a California water bond have
raised money to pay for it.
Ranchers and the Klamath
Tribes agreed to share water in
the Upper Klamath Basin during
drought. The agreement came
after ranchers lost irrigation when
the tribes exercised newly granted
water rights to protect fish.
A third agreement covers allocations of water to a federal irrigation project and endangered
fish during drought.
Stormy weather conditions
expected to last through today
By Jeff Duewel
of the Daily Courier
High winds and rain blew into Southern Oregon overnight, and even stronger
winds were expected to hit around midday today — especially in the mountains.
A 117 mph wind gust was recorded
this morning on Squaw Peak west of
Mount Ashland near Applegate Lake,
according to Tom Wright of the National
Weather Service.
“We’ve had reports of tree damage
and power outages all over the place,”
Wright said.
Widespread power outages began
Wednesday afternoon and continued this
morning, with more than 12,000 customers without power in Jackson County
and about 2,500 in Josephine County,
according to Monte Mendenhall of Pacific Power.
The crests of the Cascades and Siskiyous were expected to be hit with winds of
over 60 mph by 1 p.m. today, as forecasters issued a warning for a “damaging
wind event.”
Gusts could reach higher than 80
mph.
Two flights from Medford to San
Francisco were canceled this morning,
along with two more headed from San
Francisco to Medford, said Kim Stearns,
spokesperson for Rogue Valley International Medford Airport.
The problem was more San Francisco
than Medford, Stearns said, adding
“They’re taking a bigger beating down
there.”
She advised travelers to keep a close
eye on schedules online throughout the
day.
Turn to WEATHER, Page 5A
SHAUN HALL/Daily Courier
A car splashes through a pool of water Wednesday afternoon at J
and Mill streets. Today’s forecast called for rain and stronger winds,
especially in the mountains.