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Redmond may create stormwater utility What a Inside
By Patrick Cliff
• Redmond City Council weighs cuts to SDCs, Page C1
REDMOND — To deal with stormwater costs, the city of Redmond may create a new utility fee over the next five years. City staff peg the increasing costs to Redmond’s recent growth, aging infrastructure and regulatory requirements dating back to
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2001. Some of those costs are coming into play because a yearslong permitting process with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality could close in the next year. If the utility fee is approved, Redmond and Bend would be the only Central Oregon cities with separate stormwater utilities. The city’s proposal calls for phased-in increases
over the next five years. Typically, Redmond increases its waste water rates — which currently cover stormwater — 3 percent each year. Under the plan, Redmond would tack on 2 percent for each of the next five years. The money would be used to start up the stormwater utility. See Redmond / A5
Bend girl to show her style to nation
By Scott Hammers The Bulletin
Representatives of federal agencies with operations in Central Oregon largely declined to speculate on what a possible shutdown of the federal government might mean locally. But if Congress and the president are unable to come to a decision on a continuing budget resolution funding the federal government past Friday, some offices are likely to close, and some services will be unavailable. Decisions on what government functions will be affected are made by individual agencies in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget. Local representatives of agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Forest Service and the Internal Revenue Service, deferred questions to an OMB representative, who was unavailable late Tuesday. But a look at the guidelines ahead of a government shutdown, and at what has happened before during such an event, could provide clues to what happens locally if no agreement is reached. See Shutdown / A4
Design for bedroom leads to guest spot on TV show By Erik Hidle
As leaders spar, what’s ‘essential’ is up for debate
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I
t was a writing assignment at Cascade Middle School that turned 11-year-old Amy Daines’
spring break into a national television debut. Daines and her fellow language arts students were instructed to write a letter to a business and encouraged to mail their work. Daines has an interest in design, which she’s applying to a bedroom in the home her parents are now building. Just before the school’s winter break, she sent ideas for her new room to “The Nate Berkus Show,” a nationally syndicated daytime talk show that focuses on style and design. “I never expected we would see anything back,” said Daines’ mother, Heather. “It seemed like every day, though, that Amy would come home and ask if she had got a letter back. Then all of a sudden we got a phone call, and it was the show asking to speak to Amy.” The show had received her letter after it was forwarded and routed through other studios. Heather Daines said the show later told her they rarely get physical mail, and it was a near-miracle they actually got the letter. But when they read it they loved Amy’s enthusiasm for designing her room and wanted her to come on the show. “They called us on a Thursday, and by Sunday we were on a plane to New York for filming,” Heather Daines said. “It was spring break, so she ended up getting a pretty great opportunity to do all this.” See Design / A5
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg And Robert Pear New York Times News Service
Andy Tullis / The Bulletin
Amy Daines, a sixth-grader at Cascade Middle School in Bend, sits on her bed while holding plans she made for her new bedroom at her family’s home in Bend on March 20. After writing to “The Nate Berkus Show” to share her ideas and request advice on designing her new bedroom, Amy and her mother flew to New York City to be on the show. The episode in which Amy appears in scheduled to air in Bend on April 13 on ABC. To read Amy’s letter to “The Nate Berkus Show” and see photos from her trip, see Page A5.
“I don’t know exactly what I want to do when I grow up, but I do know I want to do something with design.” — Amy Daines, 11, who appeared on “The Nate Berkus Show” over spring break after writing to the show for a class writing assignment
Estrogen lowers heart, cancer risks By Tara Parker-Pope New York Times News Service
Ron Wurzer / New York Times News Service
Andrea LaCroix, a professor of epidemiology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, was the lead author of the study.
In a finding that challenges the conventional wisdom about the risks of some hormones used in menopause, a major government study has found that years after using estrogen-only therapy, certain women had a markedly reduced risk of breast cancer and heart attack. The research, part of the landmark Women’s Health Initiative study, is likely to surprise women and their doctors, who for years have heard frightening news about the risks of hormone therapy. But most of those fears are related to the use of a
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combination of two hormones, estrogen and progestin, which are prescribed to relieve hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause, and have been shown to increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer. The new findings, reported Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, come from 10,739 women in the Women’s Health Initiative study who had previously had a hysterectomy, the surgical removal of the uterus. Nationwide, about one-third of women in their 50s have had a hysterectomy. See Estrogen / A4
Correction
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In a story headlined “Public to be excluded from contract negotiations,” which appeared Saturday, April 2, on Page A1, the date of Bend Firefighters Association pay raises was reported incorrectly. Employees received a raise on July 1, 2010. The Bulletin regrets the error.
WASHINGTON — The National Zoo would close, but the lions and tigers will get fed; Yellowstone and other national parks will shut down. The Internal Revenue Service could stop issuing refund checks. Customs and Border Patrol agents training officials in Afghanistan might have to come home. And thousands of government-issued BlackBerries would go silent. This is what a government shutdown might look like. The reality of the first federal government shutdown in more than 15 years drew closer Tuesday as President Barack Obama and congressional leaders failed to make progress after back-to-back meetings at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Obama and Congress remained billions of dollars apart and at odds over where to find savings after an 80-minute West Wing meeting that included House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. In the meeting, Boehner floated the possibility that he may seek as much as Inside $40 billion in cuts, • How a $7 billion more than shutdown the two sides have would affect been discussing for the past week. various Growing irked by agencies the prolonged neand services, gotiations, Obama Page A4 demanded that the congressional leaders “act like grown-ups.” “If they can’t sort it out, then I want them back here tomorrow. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll invite them again the day after that,” Obama told reporters in the press room, hours after the meeting. With budget talks between Republicans and Democrats far from resolution, official Washington braced Tuesday for a replay of the Great Government Shutdowns of 1995 and 1996. See Essential / A4
TOP NEWS INSIDE JAPAN: Plant operator says it has contained 1 radioactive leak, Page A5