Local Samaritan Health Announces Dozens of Layoffs
Samaritan Health Services announced that at the end of January they would be suspending home health services in Benton, Linn, and Lincoln Counties, and parts of Tillamook County by early March, laying off dozens of employees. Samaritan is the main provider of home health services in Benton, Linn, and Lincoln counties, and will be replaced by Signature Health at Home, a Wilsonville-based company with a presence across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Utah. One exception is hospice care in Lincoln County, which Samaritan intends to continue.
Representatives from Samaritan stated that employees being laid off will receive severance pay. They encouraged soon-to-be-former employees to apply for a new job with Signature, or to re-apply elsewhere within Samaritan. This approach was likely coordinated with Signature, whose President, Mary Kofstad, told reporters, “Our goal is to retain many of the current home health employees, to ensure continuity of care for patients with the professionals they know.”
Samaritan cited a decline in reimbursement from Medicare and other insurers as a reason for the layoffs. Recently, Samaritan completed construction of a $57 million addition to the Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital.
Multiple Sex Crimes in Corvallis
At least three high-profile sexual criminal incidents related to Corvallis occurred this week.
• As The Advocate reported last week, Edd Lahar, 30, was arrested on Thursday, Jan 31, and charged with 99 different counts of sexual abuse, including sexual abuse of an infant. On Friday, Feb 1, Lahar was arraigned on 25 counts of sexual abuse, pleading not guilty. Bail has been set at $10 million. Police are encouraging anyone with more information about this incident to contact Detective Greg Kantola at (541) 766-6781.
• The trial of Jose Gabriel Gonzalez-Merwin, a 49-year-old former OSU employee charged with five counts, including first degree rape against a student employee, finished a week of hearings on Friday, Feb 1. Nicolas Ortiz, representing Gonzalez-Merwin, argued in closing statements that the alleged victim’s story was inconsistent, and suggested that she falsified the allegations about the encounter after learning of Gonzalez-Merwin’s age. Prosecuting attorney Amie Matsuko closed by emphasizing her client’s consistency and credibility from hours of police testimony. The jury found Gonzalez-Merwin guilty.
• Muhammad Luftah Hasan, a Quran instructor from Corvallis, was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, Feb 1, after pleading guilty to sexual abuse and attempted sexual abuse of two children. The first victim came forward themselves, and met Hasan at the American Islamic Institution of the Holy Qu’ran in Tigard. Hasan worked across Oregon and Washington, and authorities fear there may be more victims. Washington County Senior Deputy District Attorney Megan Johnson told reporters those who came forward “showed great courage in coming forward because Hasan was deeply respected in their community.”
Vaccination Rates & Measles Outbreak
At the time of writing, there are at least 49 confirmed cases of measles in Clark County, Washington, the center of the outbreak which recently prompted Washington Governor Jay Inslee to declare a state of emergency there. 42 of those infected were not vaccinated against the disease.
Laws in Oregon and Washington allow vaccine exemptions at some of the highest rates in the country. According to reporting, 7.5% of Oregon kindergarteners in 2018 were missing vaccines for “non-medical reasons.” Children are among the groups most vulnerable to measles, and the majority of confirmed cases in Clark County are children under 10 years old.
Effective “herd immunity” from a disease like measles is a 95% community vaccination rate. Benton County currently has an 86% vaccination rate. Even in the face of this outbreak, calls on lawmakers in Washington to ban “philosophical” exemptions from vaccinations are met with tepid consideration of “individual rights against the needs of the community.”
The CDC stated in a 2014 study that they consider measles to be effectively eradicated in the U.S. from immunization efforts. Most modern cases are imported from abroad, where measles still affects approximately 20 million people each year. About half of those cases are unvaccinated Americans who bring the disease home.
The safest route, it seems, was summarized by Oregon Governor Kate Brown on Friday, Feb 1. “Please get your children vaccinated,” she said. “Holy smokes, this is basic science. It absolutely is.”
Call for Wildfire Aid, Land Use Reform
As wildfire seasons grow longer and more intense, Oregon is reviewing whether its current response systems are adequate to address the increasing danger, and looking to the federal government to do its share.
In Medford on Wednesday, January 30, Governor Kate Brown announced she is directing the Oregon Wildfire Response Council to evaluate the current state of Oregon’s wildfire preparedness. State Senate Minority Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. (R-Grants Pass), a former wildland firefighter, called it a “great first step,” but encouraged Brown to consider a 100-year plan for forests. Sen. Baertschiger has previously called for increased federal forest management funding, claiming state resources were exhausted. He has called on both the state and federal governments, however, to remove restrictions on harvesting natural resources as a means of easing the process of thinning overgrown forests.
The following day, in a conference call with reporters, Brown spoke about the need for the federal government to reform century-old land use policies and devote more resources to thinning forests on federal land. She referred specifically to the U.S. Forest Service, which manages 14 million acres of land in Oregon, about a quarter of the state.
Early in January, Brown, along with Governors Inslee and Newsom of Washington and California, wrote a letter to President Donald Trump requesting much more funding for forest management along the West Coast. Neither the White House or FEMA, to whom the letter was addressed, has issued a formal response, but the President did take to Twitter, threatening to order FEMA to stop sending relief funds to victims of fires like the Camp Fire in California last fall.
Dems Take on Cap and Trade Again
Oregon Democrats, now holding supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature as well as the governorship, published the first draft of their “Clean Energy Jobs” bill, aiming to sharply reduce Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It is part of an early push by Democrats to capitalize on their recent victories in the 2018 elections, and pass legislation previously held up by Republican opposition. The 2019 Clean Energy Jobs bill is a renewed attempt at a bill which failed last year.
The bill features the implementation of an emissions trading system, commonly known as “cap and trade.” Cap and trade systems involve a central authority, in this case the Oregon government, setting a “cap” on the amount of emissions allowed in Oregon in the form of emissions permits, effectively treating emissions as a commodity with a specifically limited quantity. Companies purchase these permits from the government at auction, and can also “trade” or buy and sell them among each other, ideally creating competitive pricing as well as a funding system for other climate change-mitigating projects.
The proposed bill aims to reduce Oregon’s emissions by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, with an interim goal of 45% emissions reduction by 2035.
There are notable carve-outs in the bill, such as a five-year exemption for Intel and other semiconductor manufacturers for fluorocarbons emissions, and a wholesale exemption of transportation emissions for aircraft, trains, or watercraft. Automobile emissions are still included in the proposed bill.
Republicans have attempted to slow the progress of this bill by contending that, because of the way cap and trade systems work, the bill qualifies as a “revenue-raising measure” and is therefore required to pass by a three-fifths majority vote rather than a two-thirds majority, a threshold Democrats would not be able to meet without at least some Republican votes. Democrats, of course, argue that it is not designed just to raise revenue. The ultimate decision will be made either on the floor in Salem or in the courts.
By Ian MacRonald
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