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LEGAL NOTICES AND THE LAW Editor's note:This report
is part of an occasional series about the legality
of profits being made from the publication of foreclosurenotices,as well as the roles of banks, trustees and the courts in this state-mandated process.Follow along at www.bendbulletin. com/foreclosures.
By Elon Glucklich •The Bulletin oreclosure cases are rapidly filling the dockets in the Deschutes County Circuit Court, adding hundreds of new cases and increasing the workload on a court in its fourth year of budget cuts and staff reductions. The court received 537case filings for initial foreclosure hearings against Deschutes County homeownerslastyear — compared with the 158 filed in 2011 and 50 in 2010. And if January's filing numbers hold steady throughout this year, the court would end 2013 with more than 1,200 cases. For years,foreclosures in Oregon were handled almost entirely outside the court system, through a nonjudicial process created in 1959. But in the second half of last year, lenders shifted to the courts, prompted
TODAY'S READERBOARD
by a new foreclosure mediation program that started in July and an Oregon Court of Appeals ruling issued the same month. The Deschutes County Circuit Court has felt the strain from the increased caseload, said Presiding Judge Alta Brady, one of the court's two judges who hear civil cases. "Just in terms of processing the pretrial conferences (for foreclosure cases), it's having a time impact" onthe court, Brady said."It's just that many more cases we are responding to.u Many civil cases, like divorce and child custody hearings, personal injury claims and contract disputes, can take a year to 15 months from start to finish, Brady said. But foreclosurecases can drag on two years or longer, said David Ambrose, a foreclosure attorney who works in the Bend and Portland areas. SeeForeclosures/A4
Shift to judicial foreclosures The shift by mortgage lenders from a nonjudicial foreclosure process to a judicial one hasled to ... ... an increasein foreclosurecasesin DeschutesCounty Circuit Court...
... and moreproperty auctionsbythe DeschutesCounty Sheriff's Office.
600
12o
537
Because of that, the filings of notices of default — the first step in a nonjudicial foreclosure — have nearly vanished. OeschutesCountynotices of default bymonthin 2012:
120
150 143 120
400
95
80
60
39~3
158
Foreclosuremediation program tookeffect July11
90
36 30
0
1 139 5 4 2010 2011 2012
2010 2011 2012
0 January
Sources: Deschutes County Circuit Court, Deschutes County Shenff's Office, Deschutes County Clerk's Office
June
December
Greg Cross/The Bulletin
Obama Onine channels education Bush on expanding secrecy in region
h
Wild ride fordighornsheep > — Yep, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife bags them
up and flies them out to anew home, promoting genetic diversity
among herds that are geographically separated. This helicopter relocation happened near the lower Deschutes River late last
year. There are two species native to Oregon, one being the Rocky Mountain bighorn, below.
By Peter Baker
By Ben Botkin
New York Times News Service
The Bulletin
WASHINGTON — If President Barack Obama tuned in to the past week's bracing debate on Capitol Hill about terrorism, executive power, secrecy and due process, he might have recognized the
By leaps and bounds, online education is growing in Central Oregon this year as schools look beyond the traditional classroom to offer options. There are similarities among the programs: All have certified teachers and increased flexibility compared with traditional classes. But there is no one, singular way for online education to unfold. In Bend-La Pine Schools, more than 1,100 students are taking online courses, typically as a supplement to other traditional classroom instruction. An online charter school started this school year in Crook County School District, drawing most of its students from outside the district. Redmond Proficiency Academy, anothercharter school, put an online curriculum in place last month. At Bend-La Pine Schools, online courses are available for students of all grades. SeeOnline/A5
ANALYSIS arguments his critics were making: He once made some of them himself. Four years into his tenure, the onetime critic of his predecessorfinds himself cast as a present-day George W. Bush, justifying the muscular application of force in the defense of the nation while detractors complain that he has sacrificed the country's values in the name of security. Today's debate is not an exact parallel. But in broad terms, the conversation generated by last week's CIA confirmation hearing underscored the degree to which Obama has embraced some of Bush's approach to counterterrorism, right down to a secret legal memo. See President/A6
One more shocker: In Oregon, wild sheep management is funded in part by the auction of one hunting tag per year. A California
man got the 2013tag — for the record-breaking price of $135,000. Story onB1
Snow dusiness —Snowsports are part of why many of us live in Oregon. But what do they do for
our economy? It had beenalmost a quarter-century since the last report on the state's ski industry. The latest numbers, from the
2010-11 season, show:
1.9 million visits to Oregon ski areas
S482 million generated by the industry
6,772 jobs supported by the industry
EDITOR'SCHOICE
Story on E1
ManY2011budgetcut but itte rea-wor
Plus: TheGreat Nordeen — For the11th time, cross-coun-
try skiers raced from Bachelor to Wanoga early Saturday.D1
By David A. Fahrenthold
State of the Union — A
The Washington Post
preview of what President Obama
Late on the night of April 8, 2011, Washington's leaders announced they'd just done something extraordinary. They had agreed to cut the federal budget — and cut it big. "The largest annual spending cut in our history," President Barack Obama called it in a televisedspeech. To prevent a government shutdown, the parties had agreed to slash $37.8 billion: more than the
may say Tuesday.A3
Journalism, andplagiarism — The publication of the hacked
Bush emails and photos raises media ethics questions.A6 ... and the resignation of an al-
leged copycat education minister in Germany shines alight on the national fascination with doctorates and "title arousal."AS
. Ier - , > a eaptfr sa
rr tefe4ftstefeeee~
budgets of the Labor and Commerce departmentscombined. At the Capitol, Republicans savored a win for austerity. There would be "deep, but responsible, reductions in virtually all areas of government," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold
Rogers, R-Ky., promised before the deal passed. But nearly two years later, these landmark cuts have fallen far short of their promises. SeeSpending/A7
Photoscourtesy ODFW
And a Wed exclusiveWhy can't the U.S. Postal Service m ake money likeUPS orFedEx?Two
words: monopolyandcomplacency. bendbulletin.com/extras
TODAY'S WEATHER Mostly clear High 42, Low19
Page B6
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