La Pine’s big gamble • C1
Horner goes back to the Tour D1 •
JUNE 19, 2012
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Murder trial puts Tetherow owners get six-month extension videos on stand Subdivisions sell, but lots vacant
By Hillary Borrud The Bulletin
Deschutes County commissioners decided Monday to give the owners of a portion of the distressed Tetherow resort outside Bend six more months to complete foreclosure and clarify who owns
what, before they must build roads and utilities. Developer TD Cascade Highlands LLC is already a year late building roads, sewers and other infrastructure, as required by an agreement with the county. In March, the New York-based
equity capital firm iStar Financial filed notices of default against TD Cascade Highlands LLC for 191 residential lots and some common areas at Tetherow. The infrastructure work was supposed to be completed by June 2011. The deadline was set
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by a 2008 agreement, in which the county allowed TD Cascade Highlands LLC to subdivide land into plots for single-family homes and put up a $2.2 million bond to guarantee it would finish the infrastructure work later. See Tetherow / A4
SNOW LINGERS AT THE HIGH LAKES
Andy Tullis / The Bulletin
Devil’s Lake brought a surprise to vacationers Rebecca Cornella, left, and her husband, Dante, of Stillwater, N.J., Monday afternoon. The couple didn’t expect to find a scene of winter during a break from their tour of the Cascade Lakes Highway. “ I didn’t expect this much snow this late in the year,” said Dante. “It’s beautiful.”
Taliban halts polio shots in Pakistan
By Dylan J. Darling The Bulletin
New York Times News Service
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Last week, jurors in a local murder trial watched as one of the prosecution’s key witnesses quietly cried while reading aloud her ex-boyfriend’s journal entries that detailed his desire to kill her. The defendant watched those tears fall twice, once in person and once as the jury saw them, projected on a screen in the courtroom. That’s because six core witnesses in the trial of accused murderer Richard Ward Clarke have taken the stand through prerecorded video testimony, a practice not commonly seen in criminal litigation. Clarke is accused of beating Clarke his roommate, Matt Fitzhenry, to death with a pink baseball bat at their Northwest Georgia Avenue home in October 2010. The trial, entering its third week Wednesday at the Deschutes County Circuit Court, was scheduled to begin in January. But on the first day of the original trial, the defense counsel asked for a postponement in order to have more time to test DNA evidence. Deputy District Attorney Van McIver said wrangling witnesses for the original trial was not easy. The group is a mix of transients and individuals with histories of drug abuse. One individual moved to Mexico and the state had already spent money to bring her back the first time. Delaying the trial was a “gamble” because the individuals scheduled to testify are not “people that are stable in the community with 9-to-5 jobs,” he said. “Would I rather have those people in person? Yes. But at the time I had to weigh that against whether I would get them at all, whether they remained cooperative,” McIver said. “It was sort of a balancing test and I decided it was more valuable to (pursue video testimony) while I knew where they were located.” See Video / A4
Firefighters prep for a ‘normal’ season’s work
By Declan Walsh
ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani Taliban commander has banned polio vaccinations in North Waziristan in the tribal belt, days before 161,000 children were due to be vaccinated. He linked the ban to U.S. drone strikes and fears that the CIA could use the polio campaign as cover for espionage, much as it did with Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who helped track Osama bin Laden. The commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, said polio vaccinations would be banned until the CIA stopped its drone campaign, which has been largely focused on North Waziristan. Bahadur said the decision had been taken by the shura-e-mujahedeen, a council that unites the myriad jihadi factions in the area. See Taliban / A4
By Holly Pablo
Ryan Brennecke / The Bulletin file photo
Keith Fields, engine captain of Forest Service engine 637, throws a shovel of dirt to knock down a hot spot while working on the Spring River prescribed burn in 2011.
A fresh group of 55 firefighters with state and federal agencies around Central Oregon are in Redmond this week to learn what it’s like to live at a fire camp and fight a blaze. “So it’s not a total shock when they go out on their first fire,” said Heather Fisher, fire prevention technician with the Newberry Division Initial Attack for the Deschutes National Forest and Prineville Bureau of Land Management. The firefighters are taking part in the annual guard school, through which they earn their certification to
work on the fireline, Fisher said. Once completed they’ll join more than 300 state and federal firefighters already set to work in Central Oregon this summer. Wildfires should start for real next month, when thunderstorms will likely start, fire officials said. They expect the upcoming fire season here to be a normal one. Over the last 10 years, wildfires in Central Oregon have averaged about 400 per year, said Mark Rapp, fuels management specialist for the Deschutes National Forest. Typically, 60 percent are caused by lightning and 40 percent by people. Most occur
in July and August. Hot temperatures, low humidity and winds in those summer months set the stage for fires, he said. How large they become depends on the weather and how quickly firefighters are able to respond. “It’s just not one thing that drives the fire season,” he said. Rapp said there are usually three or four rounds of thunderstorms each fire season. The National Weather Service is calling for a slight chance of thunderstorms near Bend Thursday, but it’s also calling for rain showers to possibly follow Thursday night. See Fire / A4
Mild winter, early spring brings out homeless bees by the swarm By Emily S. Rueb New York Times News Service
NEW YORK — One swarm covered the side-view mirror of a Volvo station wagon in a lot by the Hudson River, trapping a family of
three inside. Another humming cluster the size of a watermelon bent a tree branch in front of a Chase Bank in Manhattan, attracting a crowd of gasping onlookers. And for several hours,
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thousands of bees carpeted a 2-foot tall red standpipe on the patio of a South Street Seaport restaurant, sending would-be outdoor diners elsewhere. This spring in New York
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E1-4 B3 G1-6
Comics B4-5 Community B1-6 CrosswordsB5, G2
Editorials C4 Local News C1-6 Obituaries C5
City, clumps of homeless bees have turned up at nearly double the rate of past years. A warm winter followed by an early spring, experts say, have created optimal breeding conditions for the insects.
TODAY’S WEATHER Oregon News C3 Sports D1-6 Stocks E2-3
Partly cloudy High 66, Low 36 Page C6
That may have caught some beekeepers off guard, especially the less experienced generation of keepers who have taken up the practice in recent years. See Bees / A4
TOP NEWS EGYPT: Uncertainty remains, A3 FIRES: Colorado’s inferno, A4