Hoops: Cougs vs. Storm • D1
BEER: Got good glassware? • E1 FEBRUARY 15, 2012
WEDNESDAY 75¢
Serving Central Oregon since 1903 www.bendbulletin.com
USFS revisits naming policy after blunder Which bills have a shot in Salem? THE SESSION SO FAR
By Lauren Dake
Wanoga Sno-park to the Frank Ellis Sno-park to honor a longtime Central Oregon snowmobile advocate, trail builder and groomer. On Monday, Nelson-Dean said forest officials learned that Ellis, who died in 2007 at age 74, was convicted in 1986 of sex abuse. Hours after learning about Ellis’ past, Forest Supervisor John Allen ordered the name of the sno-park be changed back to Wanoga Sno-park. See Naming / A4
By Dylan J. Darling The Bulletin
Deschutes National Forest officials are figuring out how they can avoid embarrassments after learning they had named a sno-park near Bend after a convicted sex offender. “We don’t want to have this happen again,” said Jean Nelson-Dean, a forest spokeswoman. In winter 2011, the Deschutes National Forest changed the name of
The Bulletin
IN SALEM
SALEM — Some bills were dead on arrival. Others died Tuesday, which marked the halfway point of the February legislative session and the deadline for bills to make it out of most policy committees. For some of the remaining bills to survive, local lawmakers will need to kick the
political maneuvering into high gear. Rep. Jason Conger, RBend, is still lobbying for his bill proposing changes to the state’s Public Employees Retirement System. “I’m still holding out hope,” he said. But, he said, he realizes the likelihood is slim. “I’m disappointed we can’t get a hearing, not even a
conversation,” he said. “But I’m not giving up. It’s too important.” Conger said he’s working with the governor’s staff on the bill. At this point, he’s hoping at the least a task force is formed to look at ways to slow the rise in the system’s cost and stabilize the account. See Legislature / A6
CASCADE LAKES HIGHWAY OUT, CALIFORNIA IN
Permit snag cancels Mercedes ad
Photo courtesy Doug Reynolds, location scout
The Cascade Lakes Highway, with Mount Bachelor in the background, was the proposed location for a TV commercial for Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicles. The commercial will be shot in California.
• A location scout blames the Forest Service; the Forest Service says the application was inadequate By Andrew Clevenger The Bulletin
WASHINGTON — A proposal to film a commercial for MercedesBenz in the Deschutes National Forest this week collapsed over the weekend when the commercial’s producers and the U.S. Forest Service couldn’t come to terms over the necessary permit. Doug Reynolds, the location scout hired by the Los Angelesbased production company Radical Media, said the shoot could
have injected more than $150,000 into the local economy. But Forest Service officials said that Reynolds’ permit application failed to address the safety concerns of bringing two cars and a helicopter into an area teeming with snowmobilers, snowshoers and crosscountry skiers. Reynolds, whose Portlandbased company Locations NW scouts possible sites throughout the region, said Mercedes wanted a beautiful, snowy road through
the mountains to showcase how the company’s ML class sport utility vehicles handle winter weather. He quickly zeroed in on the stretch between Dutchman Flat and Devils Lake on the Cascades Lakes Highway. “I’ve filmed on this road a number of times, with and without snow,” he said Tuesday. As he had done before, he secured a permit from Deschutes County, which authorized him to use a camera car and the “hero” car, as well as a helicopter, he said. All other vehicles had to have tracks instead of wheels. See Commercial / A4
Mercedes advertisement A proposal to film a commercial somewhere along a section of the Cascade Lakes Highway fell through when the producers and the U.S. Forest Service couldn’t come to terms on the necessary permit. Devils Lake Sparks Lake
Dutchman Flat
46
Elk Lake
New York Times News Service
OZARK, Mo. — As she listened to the outlandish story pour out, slightly slurred, from her new husband’s mouth, Jessica King dismissed the tale of his family’s two-decade run Maher from the law as the product of an overactive imagination and too many drinks. The couple had been married two months and now Lee King was telling her that his father, a balding local cable technician, was actually an international fugitive who had staged one of England’s most infamous bank heists. A few weeks later, on Dec. 28,
MON-SAT
We use recycled newsprint
U|xaIICGHy02329lz[
all doubts vanished. That night, she said, her father-in-law appeared at the newlyweds’ home, grabbed her arm and, leaning in to fix his eyes on hers, warned her to keep quiet. “I know you know,” she said he told her in his native British accent. “I will kill you. I will bloody kill you.” A day earlier, Jessica King, who recounted these conversations in an interview, had been shocked to discover that her husband’s claims might be true. Sitting at a computer with two friends — who confirmed her account — she discovered an article about a famous 1993 robbery in England with a picture of the suspect, an armored car driver accused of making off with the equivalent of $1.5 million and disappearing with
Vol. 109, No. 46, 30 pages, 6 sections
— Donald Land, a chemistry professor and medical marijuana testing lab founder
By Joe Mozingo Los Angeles Times
Steve Hebert / New York Times News Service
A bridge leads into the small town of Ozark, Mo., where Jessica King lived with her husband, Lee King, the son of runaway British bank robber Edward Maher, known as “Fast Eddie.” Earlier this month, Jessica King, increasingly terrified of her husband as well as his father, tipped off the local police about the family.
his wife and infant son. The man in the photo, identified as Edward Maher, was younger and thinner, with a full
head of dark hair, but he was unmistakably her father-in-law, whom she knew as Michael. See Fugitive / A4
INDEX Business Calendar Classified
“Labs are popping up in people’s vans. People are doing color tests and all kinds of stuff that’s not very accurate.”
Testing medical pot in a legal vacuum
The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper
45
Greg Cross / The Bulletin
19 years later, the British fugitive ‘Fast Eddie’ brought down by family By A.G. Sulzberger
Cascade Lakes Hwy.
46
B1-4 E3 F1-4
Comics E4-5 Crosswords E5, F2 Editorials
C4
Local News C1-6 Obituaries C5 Shopping E1-6
LOS ANGELES — The tech broke the bud of marijuana into small flakes, measuring 200 milligrams into a vial. He had picked up the strain, Ghost, earlier that day from a dispensary in the Valley and guessed by its pungency and visible resin glands that it was potent. He could have determined this the old-fashioned way, with a bong and a match. Instead, he began the meticulous process of preparing the
TODAY’S WEATHER Sports D1-4 Stocks B2-3 TV & Movies E2
Partly sunny High 43, Low 20 Page C6
sample for the high-pressure liquid chromatograph. His lab, called The Werc Shop, tests medical cannabis for levels of the psychoactive ingredient known as THC and a few dozen other compounds, as well as for contaminants like molds, bacteria and pesticides that marijuana advocates don’t much like to talk about. The strains that pass muster are labeled Certified Cannabaceuticals, a trademarked term. See Marijuana / A6
TOP NEWS SYRIA: Civil war feared, A3 THAILAND: Bomb blasts, arrests, A3