Bulletin Daily Paper 2/12/12

Page 1

MORE THAN

Travel: A bigger, more beautiful casino • C1

95

$

IN COUPONS INSIDE

FEBRUARY 12, 2012

SUNDAY $1.50

Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com

SNO-PARK

Wanoga out, Ellis in: The story behind the new name

Why not

• Tech giants are building data centers across the Northwest, including in Prineville

Juniper Ridge?

REDMOND

Low 4-year grad rate explained: 5th year is college level

By Dylan J. Darling

By Ben Botkin

The Bulletin

The Bulletin

The sno-park long known as Wanoga is Wanoga no more. In winter 2011, the U.S. Forest Service renamed the snowmobile side of the sno-park, southwest of Bend off Cascade Lakes Highway, the Frank Ellis Sno-park, though the nearby sledding hill is the Wanoga Snoplay Area. Although there are small signs indicating the Frank The new Ellis Snonamesake park, Marv of an old Lang, recsno-park, reation forA5 ester for the Deschutes National Forest, said the Forest Service may eventually add more. Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Transportation intends to replace signs that say Wanoga along the highway this summer. “When that happens, it will get a new sign,” Lang said. Installing new signs will be one of the last chores for road crews working on a project along nine miles of the highway, said Peter Murphy, ODOT spokesman in Bend. “It won’t be until the project is more or less complete,” he said. See Sno-park / A5

REDMOND — Redmond High School students don’t need to graduate in four years. Through the school’s advanced diploma program, they may opt instead for a fifth year of college-level courses, with the state picking up the tab. Students pursuing such a diploma take advanced, college-level classes during their extra year, graduating with 27 credits in hand from Central Oregon Community College. The program has been in place since 2007. Roughly 100 students take advantage of the program every year, and its popularity, paradoxically, erodes one measure of school performance: the school’s fouryear graduation rate. Redmond High School’s four-year rate is 47.5 percent, according to the Oregon Department of Education, significantly below the statewide average of 67.2 percent. Those numbers refer to students who entered high school in 2007 — the same year the advanced diploma program began. However, Redmond High’s five-year graduation rate topped the average. Statewide, 70.5 percent of students who entered high school in 2006 graduated within five years. Redmond High’s rate is 71.3 percent. “The idea behind the advanced diploma was, essentially, ‘Let’s ensure that students exit the high school and move on to postsecondary education prepared to be successful,’ ” said Jon Bullock, the district’s strategic planning director. See Redmond / A5

Swampy Virginia Lakes Meissner Sno-park Sno-park

46

97

Greg Cross / The Bulleti

45 DESCHUTES N AAndy T I OZeigert N A L F/ The O R Bulletin EST

the clang of metal and hum of diesel

engines fill the air. Along the horizon, a steel skeleton rises from the sagebrush. Facebook is expanding.

Photo by Rob Kerr / Background photo by Pete Erickson / The Bulletin

Facebook’s 333,400-square-foot data center in Prineville (above) employees about 55 people. The company is building another data center that could be just as large. That would seem to be one of the problems with siting such a facility at Bend’s Juniper Ridge business park (pictured in the background, in 2009).

Meanwhile, on the far northeast side of Bend, the silence is interrupted by the occasional whir of a car in a multilane

Juniper Ridge

roundabout. Yellow signs warn of dead ends.

It’s supposed to be a burgeoning business park, with a four-year university at its core and mixed-use, urban livability in its heart. Instead, it’s mostly vacant. Over the past several years, large companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook have built giant server farms throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest to store the little bits of data found in everything from online shopping carts to profile pictures. These facilities are likely to multiply, given the increasing

popularity of “cloud” computing — a trend in which data is stored on remote computer servers and accessed through the Internet. Oregon is well-positioned to lure the large-scale data centers companies like Facebook are building. They’re attracted to the state’s cheap power, lucrative tax breaks, and even the temperate climate in eastern and central Oregon, which can lower the cost of cooling the servers that fill data centers. Prineville has managed

to plug into this data center surge. But not the city of Bend, which simply can’t compete despite the glut of land at Juniper Ridge. There are several reasons for this, including a lack of infrastructure. But land prices, geology and tax incentives also play a role. There’s also a matter of fit. Would the city even want a Facebook-like data center in Juniper Ridge if it had the chance? Some say no. See Juniper Ridge / A6

BN SF Rai lwa y

Welcome to Juniper Ridge, the city’s 1,500-acre real estate gamble.

Dale Rd.

Findlay Ln.

97

Cooley Rd.

Les Schwab Tire Center

Deschutes Mkt. Rd.

BEND

O

n a plateau overlooking Prineville,

18th St.

Frank Ellis Sno-park, Wanoga Snoplay Area

By Nick Grube • The Bulletin

Yeoman Rd.

BEND

Mk t. Butler

Rd.

Andy Zeigert / The Bulletin

Andy Zeigert / The Bulletin

WHITNEY HOUSTON • 1963–2012

On eve of Grammys, a fallen superstar dies By Nekesa Mumbi Moody The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, died Saturday. She was 48. Beverly Hills Police Lt. Mark Rosen told reporters outside the Beverly Hilton that Houston was pronounced

SUNDAY

We use recycled newsprint

U|xaIICGHy02330rzu

Whitney Houston was one of the world’s best-selling artists in the 1980s and ’90s, but she became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use, and Houston (pictured in 2000) never truly realized a comeback in the way millions of fans believed possible.

dead at 3:55 p.m. in her room. Her body remained there, and Beverly Hills detectives were investigating. “There were no obvious signs of any criminal intent,” Rosen said. Paramedics who were already at the hotel because of a Grammy party — on the eve of the awards show — tried to resuscitate the singer, he said. Houston’s publicist, Kristen Foster, said the cause of death was unknown. See Houston / A8

The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper

Vol. 109, No. 43, 44 pages, 7 sections

Associated Press file photo

G1-6 F4-6 E1-4

Community C1-8 Crosswords C7, E2 Local News B1-6

Milestones Obituaries Opinion

By Binyamin Appelbaum and Robert Gebeloff New York Times News Service

LINDSTROM, Minn. — Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know he does not need any help from the federal government. But still, he gets it — in fact, he’s counting on it this year. The government safety net was created to keep Ameri-

TODAY’S WEATHER

INDEX Business Books Classified

Caught in the safety net, middle class joins the poor

C6 B4-5 F1-3

Sports D1-6 Stocks G4-5 TV & Movies C2

Mostly cloudy High 48, Low 25 Page B6

cans from abject poverty, but the poorest households no longer receive a majority of government benefits. A secondary mission has gradually become primary: maintaining the middle class from childhood through retirement. The share of benefits flowing to the least affluent households, the bottom fifth, has declined from 54 percent in 1979 to 36 percent in 2007, according to an official analysis published last year. See Safety net / A7

TOP NEWS CPAC: Republicans bash Obama, A3 Syria: Protests take violent turn, A3


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.