Bulletin Daily Paper 03/17/11

Page 1

Toddler needs transplant

Goody’s growing

Mia, a 2-year-old Bend girl, is waiting for a new heart and lung • HEALTH, F1

BUSINESS, B1

Bend candy store will expand

WEATHER TODAY

THURSDAY

Cloudy, cool and breezy High 48, Low 28 Page C6

• March 17, 2011 50¢

Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com

Charter fund bill draws ire

Commissioner wants to slash DA’s pay By Hillary Borrud The Bulletin

Deschutes County Commissioner Tony DeBone

Deschutes County District Attorney Patrick Flaherty

A Deschutes County commissioner wants to slash District Attorney Patrick Flaherty’s salary by 20 percent because he believes the prosecutor has run amok and is wasting taxpayer money.

“I feel like we’ve been pushed around,” Tony DeBone said during a County Commission meeting late Wednesday afternoon. “We’ve got to stop it, and stop it now.” After the meeting, DeBone said the idea is to reduce the district attorney’s salary to offset the cost of a grand jury investi-

gation that Flaherty’s office initiated in February. “We don’t have this in the budget for us to fight ourselves internally,” DeBone said. Flaherty did not return calls for comment on Wednesday evening. See DA / A5

By Lauren Dake The Bulletin

Missing woman’s husband found dead in Bend home John Meyer, 71, died of gunshot wound; weapon found at scene

PROGRESS ON THE SEARCH SANDRA MEYER, 72, has been missing for a week. Police have been following reports that she was last seen leaving her home in Mountain High, off China Hat Road, at 6:15 p.m. last Wednesday. She was supposed to have been going to a 7 p.m. meeting of her book club at Velvet in downtown Bend. Her husband reported her missing the following morning, at 8 a.m. At 11:30 a.m. that day, her car was found in the Old Mill District, parked near the theater. Since then, concerned . Columb family and friends have worked e v ia St. A do with authorities to search for her. ora Col

By Scott Hammers The Bulletin

Reed Market Rd.

BEND Old Mill District BUS 97

Bend Parkway Third St.

Powers Rd.

.

Murphy Rd

Meyer home 97 ina Ch d.

. t Rd

t Kno

tR Ha

SALEM — Lawmakers asked Crook County resident Lynn Lundquist on Wednesday morning why they should consider giving charter schools more money at a time when districts throughout the state are facing crippling cuts. Lundquist, a former legislator and Crook County commissioner, is behind a bill IN THE that would LEGISLATURE direct more money to charter schools and decrease the amount the sponsoring districts retain. The idea prompted education advocates, students and officials from all over the state to testify on Wednesday. For each student who chooses to attend a K-8 charter school, its parent district must pass through at least 80 percent of that student’s share of state funding. The district may keep the other 20 percent. For high schools, charter schools get 95 percent of the state funds. HB 3397 would place K-8 charter schools on par with secondary charters, requiring districts to pass through 95 percent of state per-pupil funding. The bill also would require districts to pass through all funding based on enrollment, including stimulus funding and grants given on a per-student basis. “I believe it’s the right thing to do and it’s the logical thing to do,” Lundquist said. “It’s money from the state that is supposed to go to kids. It’s not supposed to go to some kids. It’s supposed to go to all the kids.” But opponents of the bill said if charter schools want to change the funding model, they should expect less help from parent districts. Crook County Superintendent Ivan Hernandez took it one step further and said charters should “become their own entity.” See Charters / A5

Greg Cross / The Bulletin

AT RIGHT Sandra Meyer’s husband John was found dead of a gunshot wound at their home at 9 a.m. Wednesday, setting off a daylong search of the property. BELOW Meantime, search and rescue workers intensified their search for Sandra Meyer on Wednesday afternoon, focusing on the Deschutes River near where her car was found in the Old Mill. Karen Marcotte of Crook County Search and Rescue climbs through a fence along the Deschutes River with search dog Barry and Deschutes County Search and Rescue volunteer Sam Pronesti, left.

Ryan Brennecke / The Bulletin

TOP NEWS INSIDE LIBYA: 4 New York Times journalists are reported missing, Page A3

INDEX Abby

E2

Local

C1-6

Business

B1-6

Calendar

E3

Classified

G1-6

Oregon

Comics

E4-5

Outing

E1-6

Crossword E5, G2

Sports

D1-6

Editorial

C4

Stocks

B4-5

A2

TV listings

E2

Weather

C6

Education Health

F1-6

Movies

E3

Obituaries

C5 C3

We use recycled newsprint The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper

MON-SAT

Vol. 108, No. 76, 42 pages, 7 sections

U|xaIICGHy02329lz[

Rob Kerr / The Bulletin

The husband of a woman missing for the last week has been found dead of a gunshot wound at his home in Bend. Police said a call was placed to 911 shortly after 9 a.m. We d n e s d a y morning from the Mountain High home John Meyer of John Evert Meyer, 71, reporting he had been found dead. Detectives from the Bend Police Department and technicians from the Oregon State Police Crime Lab were at the house in the southeast Bend neighborhood throughout the day conducting a search of the residence and property, and would be continuing their search into the night, Capt. Jim Porter said Wednesday evening. Police could not say if the gunshot wound was self-inflicted, but Porter said a weapon was found at the scene. Arrangements are being made for an autopsy. On March 10, John Meyer reported the disappearance of his wife, Sandra Meyer, at around 8 a.m. Sandra Meyer, 72, had reportedly left their home the night before to go to a book club meeting at a downtown Bend bar. She did not make it to the meeting, and her vehicle was located in the parking lot of the movie theater in the Old Mill District. Bend Police, Deschutes County Search and Rescue, and volunteers conducted multiple searches of the surrounding area in the past week, including the Deschutes River, but have found no sign of Sandra Meyer. Porter said John Meyer’s death does not change the ongoing search for his wife. Searchers were on the river Wednesday with dogs and boats, Porter said, as well as a sonar unit used to scan the riverbed lent by the Klamath County Sheriff’s Office. See Missing / A5

U.S. calls Japan’s nuclear warnings insufficient By David E. Sanger, Matthew L. Wald and Hiroko Tabuchi New York Times News Service

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a far bleaker appraisal Wednesday of the threat posed by Japan’s nuclear crisis than the Japa-

nese government had offered. He said U.S. officials believed the damage to at least one crippled reactor was much more serious than Tokyo had acknowledged, and he advised Americans to stay much farther away from the plant than the perimeter established by Japanese authorities.

The announcement opened a new and ominous chapter in the five-daylong effort by Japanese engineers to bring the six side-by-side reactors under control after their cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and a tsunami Friday. It also suggested a serious split between

Washington and its closest Asian ally at an especially delicate moment. The congressional testimony by Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the commission, was the first time the Obama administration had given an assessment of the plant’s condition. See Japan / A6

Inside • Radiation likely to hit West Coast on Friday, Page A5 • In Tokyo, information hard to come by, Page A6


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.