Lynne Terry, Oregon Captial Chronicle

Oregon’s measles outbreak the biggest in five years

After only one measles case in Oregon last year, it now has six and could very well have more in the next few weeks.

The outbreak comes amid others also involving a preventable disease – pertussis or whooping cough – which has infected more than 350 people in just over a dozen counties this year.

The measles outbreak – the biggest in Oregon since 2019 – is centered in Marion County and emerged in mid-June, when the Oregon Health Authority announced that an unvaccinated adult and child in the same household became sick. They live in Clackamas County, but Oregon Health Authority officials said they were infected in Marion County.

County officials announced a separate case involving an unvaccinated child at the same time.

Within the past week, Marion County health officials said three more unvaccinated children have been infected. Melissa Gable, a county spokeswoman, said the cases involve children in separate households between the ages of 4 to 14 years old.

“Our communicable disease team is actively investigating all cases but currently there are no known connections between them,” Gable said.

That means others could be infected or that more cases could emerge, state officials said.

“I think we expect we will see more measles cases due to the infectiousness of the disease but we certainly hope we don’t,” said Jonathan Modie, a spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority.

The whooping cough outbreaks might not be over, either, health officials said. Modie said there have been 12 outbreaks in Lane, Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Deschutes, Jefferson, Josephine, Marion, Linn, Columbia, Hood River, Benton and Yamhill counties in descending order based on the number of cases, with more than 130 in Lane County.

Both diseases spread through the air when an infected individual coughs or sneezes, with measles particles able to stay airborne for two hours, making it especially infectious. It can cause a fever, cough, runny nose or red eyes and is usually associated with a rash that starts on the face and spreads to the rest of the body. It also can cause more severe symptoms, including ear infections, pneumonia, and, in rare instances, swelling of the brain.

Whooping cough spreads much the same way and is also associated with a cough, often violent and associated with a “whooping sound,” that can last for weeks or months. Other symptoms include sneezing, a running nose, fever and watery eyes.

People are contagious with whooping cough when they have cold-like symptoms and can remain so up to three weeks after they start coughing.

Patients with measles are contagious for four days before a rash appears and up to four days afterward.

Both diseases are preventable with vaccines. For whooping cough, doctors recommend five doses of the DTaP, or diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, for children and one for preteens. Full vaccination is about 85% effective in preventing disease while the measles vaccine is even more effective – 97%. Officials recommend two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella or MMR vaccine, first between when children are 12 to 15 months old and the second starting at 4 years though 6. People are considered immune to measles if they were born before 1957 before the widespread use of the vaccine, have been vaccinated or have been infected.

With widespread vaccine campaigns, the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. But it has reemerged, with people bringing the disease in from abroad and an increasing number of parents not getting their kids vaccinated.

Oregon has required children entering kindergarten since 1998 to have two doses of the measles-containing vaccine, though parents can opt-out by obtaining a medical or nonmedical exemption. Measles vaccination is also required for children attending child care facilities and for students in post-secondary colleges or universities.

There are currently measles outbreaks in 24 states, including Oregon, in the West, Midwest, East Coast and South, with nearly 170 people infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.

MAGA tilt in southern Oregon may not be tightly locked down

Conservative southern Oregon, often an afterthought for many other Oregonians, may be the most politically dynamic large area in Oregon.

Few other areas show as much potential for political change.

Consider a couple of large Medford-area events just a few miles apart and on the same day, June 22.

The Jackson County Fairgrounds was dominated by the Republican political rally called MOGA 2024, the acronym standing for “Make Oregon Great Again.” Its headliners included national figures, including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder and advocate for Donald Trump. This may be the only really large-scale Oregon event on this year’s Republican calendar, presented as “Come help us take back southern Oregon.” It was heavily promoted by the local Republican organization, by other groups around the region, and around the dial on area radio stations.

From a pro-Trump perspective, you might wonder if there’s much to take back in the southern Oregon area. Most of this large sector of the state already votes Republican.

But it may not be as locked-down as some may think. The Jackson-Josephine counties seem to be on the cusp of something subtle that events like MOGA could be critical in influencing: Deciding if the area becomes MAGA-dominated enough that other points of view are swamped, which hasn’t happened yet.

One piece of evidence in that argument is the second event held only a few miles from the MOGA event, over in Pear Blossom Park in Medford, where organizers were holding the well-attended 3rd annual Medford Pride event. One participant said, “It gives a space for young people to be free to express themselves however they want. And an opportunity in an area that’s not always the most accepting to really give an opportunity for our community to be queer.”

These two events may fit into the larger picture of conservative southern Oregon as pieces of a puzzle shifting and developing.

The two big counties in the area are Jackson (where Medford is the county seat) and Josephine (Grants Pass).

Jackson leans Republican, but not by a great deal. In the last two decades, it has voted Democratic for president just once, in 2008, but no one has won its presidential vote by as much as 51% since 2004. Its legislative delegation has included mostly Republicans, and Republicans hold county government, but Democrats as well, including state Sen.Jeff Golden and state Rep. Pam Marsh, who represent a large share of the county’s voters. There are some indicators it has been moving gently away from hard right positions. It is one of 11 counties in Oregon to legalize therapeutic psilocybin. Hard-line positions on property taxes seem to have eased a little in recent years. Jackson shows no signs of becoming a blue county, but its tint seems to be shading gradually purple.

Josephine County is more solidly Republican. No Democrat has won its vote for the presidency since 1936, the longest such run of any Oregon county, and Trump just cleared 60% in both of his runs. Its state and local officials are Republicans, and there are no indications that will change in the near future.

Still, there are indicators of attitude shifts. Josephine has been one of the most rigorous anti-tax counties in Oregon, along with neighbors such as Curry and Douglas. Having experienced some deep austerity in local services, however, voters seem to have recentered on the subject.

Libraries are a good example. All libraries in the county were closed in May 2007 for lack of county funding, but since then libraries have been reopened, and a library funding measure was passed in 2017 with 53% of the vote. Law enforcement is another useful case study. Severely crunched funding during several years for the sheriff’s office was addressed in this decade with creation of a law enforcement taxing district, also approved by voters.

Both counties seem to have developed stronger tourism, recreation and wine industry sectors, which over time usually lead to a moderation in politics, and some of that seems to be playing out. That’s especially true in the well-known cultural and tourism centers at Ashland and Jacksonville, both growing and prospering, but also to a degree in both Medford and Grants Pass and several smaller communities.

Most of the more rural areas remain hard-right conservative, and the traditional “Don’t Tread on Me” and other similar signage is not hard to find outside the cities. These areas are a MAGA redoubt, and few people outside their tribe make themselves visible. That absence of a contrary culture allows for more sweeping adoption of the MAGA message.

But increasingly, alternative messages are becoming visible in some of the cities. They are not near changing the partisan lean of the area. But they may be enough to slow an overwhelming adoption in the region of support for Trump and his allies. Much depends on whether people are exposed more to one message or the other.

The margins are close. That is why events like the MOGA event and the Medford Pride activity, in their different ways, may have some real rippling effects.

Jan. 6 committee exposes the cowardice of Republicans like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz

Anyone who’s read George Orwell’s “1984,” the dystopian novel about life in the U.S. under an authoritarian regime, knows that to survive, one had to accept whatever Big Brother said no matter how big the lie. Proof you’d come to fully embrace the all-controlling Party was to believe without question that two plus two never equaled four but always the number five. Anyone who claimed otherwise was considered a traitor and treated as such.

I think of that now knowing that despite the hours of testimony and truckloads of evidence of President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election, much of it coming from Trump loyalists, the majority of House and Senate Republicans and many Republican voters, including 50% of them here in Oregon, still swallow and spew Trump’s lie, and consider those who do not parrot his prattle like Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, traitors. Both of these conservatives are central to the committee’s investigation and both were censured by Republican party brass for having the temerity to doubt Trump’s math.

Yet doubt is exactly what most Americans have.

One of the more damning pieces of evidence that has come out in the investigation is an audio recording of Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s closest advisers, telling a group of associates three days before the election that Trump would declare victory on election night no matter how the election was trending. “That doesn’t mean he’s a winner, but he is just gonna to say he is,” Bannon said. “That’s our strategy.” He explained to the group that Republicans generally vote on the day of election while Democrats favored mail-in ballots that are tallied later. Trump, said Bannon, would grab the momentum of the early tally and simply claim victory. “If Trump is losing by 10 or 11 o’clock, it’s going to be even crazier because he’s going to sit right there and say they stole it,” Bannon said. “Trump is going to do some crazy shit.”

He was right.

Around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 4, with a blue wave starting to gain steam and millions of votes yet to be counted, Trump took to the podium in the East Wing of the White House and declared himself the winner of the election.

In 2016, Trump once told a crowd that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” What he was saying was that as long as he convinced enough people that he was the only candidate with the chutzpah to return the American Dream back to its “rightful owners,” he would be forgiven for any behavior, whether it was shooting someone or killing a democracy.

I don’t fault Trump supporters for their commitment to the man. History is littered with the debris of people who had fallen under the spell of charlatans. And, quite frankly, I don’t even fault Trump for his mercenary attacks on our democracy. The man is exactly what he’s always been, a megalomaniac, obsessed with power. He even warned us back in 2016 that he would never accept a loss. He was a cheater and a liar as a businessman, and he is a cheater and a liar as a politician.

Who I find fault with are those in leadership who lack the spine to say “Trump is dead wrong.” Sycophants such as Sens. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, people joined at the hip to Trump and his lies because of their own selfish desires for power and their fear of retribution by the very voters they and Trump have cultivated.

The Jan. 6 committee has shown that Trump planned to retain the presidency no matter what. It showed how he used his office to intimidate election workers and politicians who would not do his bidding, and how he brokered his grand lie into a money-making scheme, collecting almost a quarter of a billion dollars in donations to “Stop the Steal.” They showed how Trump intentionally riled armed supporters into a frenzy, urging them to go to the Capitol to give his vice president and others the “courage to do the right thing.” And they showed that while lawmakers and staff were running for their lives in our nation’s Capitol building, Trump sat comfortably in his private dining room watching Fox News and choosing to do nothing to stop the attack. Yet those very people who were escaping Trump’s armed insurrection are now trying to punish those Republicans who’ve provided evidence of the president’s seditious acts.

In Orwell’s fictionalized world, an all-controlling Party successfully chiseled away truth, and as a result dignity and personal autonomy were lost.

In our world today, the truth continues to be chiseled away by Trump and his lackeys. Attempting to overthrow an election is not a justifiable act; it’s treasonous. A violent attack on the Capitol is not heroic; it’s criminal. And refusing to accept an election loss is not patriotic; it’s pathetic.

Trump lost the election. I’m thankful the Jan. 6 committee is showing the world there are truths to be spoken, and that real patriots know two plus two will always equal four.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Justice Clarence Thomas under increasing pressure as senator demands he recuse himself from any cases related to the Jan. 6 attack

Oregon’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, lashed out at U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday, insinuating that he is “corrupt.”

“In light of new reporting from numerous outlets, Justice Thomas’ conduct on the Supreme Court looks increasingly corrupt,” Wyden said in a statement. He called on Thomas, one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court, to recuse himself from any cases related to the Jan. 6 investigation of the insurrection against the U.S. Capitol. He also said Thomas should not be involved in any cases related to the 2024 election if former President Donald Trump runs again.

“Extraordinary conflicts of interest on the nation’s highest court regarding domestic terrorists attacking democracy and people scheming to overturn an election demand a clear response from anybody who’s taken an oath to uphold the rule of law,” Wyden said in a statement to the Capital Chronicle.

This is the first time Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has criticized a Supreme Court justice, Wyden spokesman Hank Stern told the Capital Chronicle. Stern said it followed several news reports about Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas.

On Thursday the Washington Post revealed that Ginni Thomas had repeatedly pressed Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in text messages to overturn the 2020 election results at a time when Trump and his allies said they would try to get the Supreme Court to negate the election results.

According to the news report, on Nov. 10, after media organizations said Joe Biden would win the presidency, Ginni Thomas wrote to Meadows: “‘Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!…You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.’”

Ginni Thomas attended a Trump rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before ralliers breached the U.S. Capitol . During the rally, Trump urged the crowd to march to Congress and pressure lawmakers not to confirm Biden’s win. News reports have said the House select committee investigating the insurrection has evidence that Trump and some of his associates may have engaged in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

There have been stories for months questioning Thomas’ conservative activism and her influence on her husband.

“Judges are obligated to recuse themselves when their participation in a case would create even the appearance of a conflict of interest. A person with an ounce of common sense could see that bar is met here,” Wyden said in a statement.

Emily Flitter, a New York Times reporter, said in a tweet on Friday that Thomas has recused himself before. “When his son worked for Wachovia, he stepped back from a slew of bank-regulatory cases that reached the Court. NOT doing it now looks like breaking precedent,” Flitter said in the tweet.

Thomas was the lone dissenter in January when the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s bid to withhold documents from the investigating panel.

“Justice Thomas participated in cases related to Donald Trump’s efforts to rig and then overturn the 2020 election, while his wife was pushing to do the same,” Wyden said.

Clarence Thomas was released Friday morning from a week-long hospital stay for an infection and did not respond to reporters’ requests seeking comment on this latest story about his wife.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Les Zaitz for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

NOW WATCH: GOP's Kevin McCarthy rejects calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse from Jan. 6 cases despite wife's involvement

GOP's Kevin McCarthy rejects calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse from Jan. 6 cases despite wifewww.youtube.com

Lawmakers urge DEA to allow terminally ill to use psilocybin

A bipartisan group of six U.S. lawmakers, including one from Oregon, have called on the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to allow terminal patients to use psilocybin to ease anxieties or depression.

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Portland, a longtime advocate of decriminalizing drugs, spearheaded the letter sent this week to the agency’s administrator, Anne Milgram.

“Research demonstrates that psilocybin provides immediate, substantial and sustained relief from debilitating anxiety and depression in individuals with terminal illnesses,” the lawmakers wrote on Tuesday. “Individuals with advanced cancer that are also suffering from treatment-resistant anxiety and/or depression have been found to experience significant reductions in both anxiety and depression, and improvements in mood, following a single guided session of psilocybin-assisted therapy, with no safety concerns or clinically significant adverse effects.”

The agency has classified psilocybin as a Schedule 1 drug, which means it has no accepted medical benefit and has a high potential for abuse. Cannabis, heroin, LSD and peyote are also Schedule 1 drugs. The letter didn’t ask the agency to change its designation; rather it said the DEA should essentially turn a blind eye to its use by terminally ill patients.

The agency has blocked the use of psilocybin by patients of a Seattle clinic that specializes in alternative treatments, the letter said. The lawmakers said magic mushrooms should be allowed under Right-To-Try laws, which allow the use of experimental drugs in clinical trials.

Oregon and 40 other states and the federal government have Right-To-Try laws.

“We therefore urge you to take quick action to ensure that the DEA follows duly enacted RTT law and accommodates constituents with terminal illnesses in receiving psilocybin for therapeutic use,” the letter said.

U.S. Reps. Don Bacon, R-Wisconsin, Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, Andy Biggs, R-Wisconsin, Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, Dean Philips, D-Minnesota, and Madeleine Dean, D-Pennsylvania, also signed the letter.

DEA officials in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved dozens of clinical studies considering psilocybin to treat depression or symptoms from Alzheimers or Parkinsons disease.

In 2020, Oregon voters approved using psilocybin in mental health therapy in clinics; the Oregon Health Authority is crafting rules to put that program into place.

Oregon also has a tradition of palliative care, Blumenauer said.

“We have a long tradition in Oregon of giving end-of-life patients access to choose from a full variety of treatment options,” Blumenauer said in a statement to the Capital Chronicle. “These patients deserve to be able to discuss treatments with their doctors that researchers are finding provide immediate, substantial, and sustained relief from anxiety and depression for people battling terminal illness.”

Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, which has led research into psilocybin, found in a 2016 study that psilocybin gave patients “substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety.”

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Les Zaitz for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Oregon deploying 1,200 National Guard to help overwhelmed hospitals

In less than a week, Gov. Kate Brown has more than doubled the number of Oregon National Guard members being deployed to Oregon hospitals.

“Our hospitals are under extreme pressure,” Brown said in a tweet on Wednesday. “Fueled by the omicron variant, current hospitalizations are over 700 and daily Covid-19 case counts are alarmingly high.”

She said in the tweet she was adding 700 National Guard members to the 500 mobilized last Friday.

Brown decided to increase the deployment following an update from the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Military Department, Elizabeth Merah, Brown’s press secretary, said in an email.

READ: Marjorie Taylor Greene shrugs off surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations: 'We can't live forever'

“Since the governor’s announcement that there would be an initial deployment of up to 500 Oregon National Guard members, the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Military Department have been working with the hospital systems to monitor ongoing need and determine additional deployments as necessary,” Merah wrote. “Through this collaboration, it became clear that additional support was necessary.”

Officials at the Oregon Health Authority didn’t respond to a request for comment by Wednesday late afternoon.

Hospitalizations have skyrocketed since the beginning of the year. On Jan. 3, 498 people with Covid-19 were hospitalized in Oregon. That number jumped to 756 on Wednesday, a 50% increase in just over a week. The tally of patients with Covid-19 in intensive care jumped from 104 on Jan. 3 to 146 on Wednesday, a rise of 40%. In northwestern Oregon, only 2% of regular adult beds are available, and in western Oregon from Benton, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Polk and Yamhill counties to the California border, only 3% of intensive care beds are free.

The 1,200 soldiers will be deployed in Oregon hospitals by the end of the month, according to Ursulla Bischoff, chief of civic engagement with the Oregon Military Department.

READ: Mike Lindell says he has 'enough evidence' to put '300 million' Americans in jail for election fraud

The peak in the current surge of omicron cases is expected by Jan. 27, based on the latest forecast by Peter Graven at Oregon Health & Science University. He predicted that more than 1,600 patients with Covid will need a hospital bed then. That compares with the peak in hospitalizations during the delta surge this summer: They topped 1,200 in early September, causing some hospitals to run out of beds on certain days.

The deployment will include just over 50 hospitals around the state, from Asante Ashland Community Hospital in Ashland to Curry General Hospital in Gold Beach and Good Shepherd Health Care System in Hermiston to Blue Mountain Hospital in John Day. The deployment includes just over 15 hospitals in Portland. The first 500 guard members will be on the job by next Tuesday, Bischoff said.

Most of the soldiers are volunteers and include members of both the Oregon Air Guard and Army Guard. Some also were part of the mobilization last year of 1,500 soldiers.

Though the hospitals themselves didn’t ask for the help, they welcomed it.

“We’re incredibly grateful,” David Northfield, a spokesman for the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, told the Capital Chronicle. “The number of hospitalizations are not what they were yet for the peak of the delta surge but they’re creeping up and we’re still in the midst of a severe staffing shortage.”

Besides the shortage, Oregon hospitals are still strapped with patients ready for discharge who have no place to go because there isn’t enough staff in long-term care facilities and skilled nursing homes.

The Oregon Health Authority said last week it was hiring 1,000 critical care staff to help nursing teams around the state. The soldiers will be filling administrative, cleaning, transport and logistical roles, just as they did last year when they were called up to help with vaccinations and then worked in hospitals between August through December.

“The guard provided really important support,” Northfield said. “They were changing beds, they were working in food service, they were checking people in – they were doing things that clinical people had to be doing because of the staffing shortage. When they showed up, it freed them up to return to the clinical work that they’re trained to do.”

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Les Zaitz for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Overwhelming majority of Kaiser Permanente union members vote to strike

An overwhelming majority of nurses, physician assistants, lab specialists and others have voted to strike at Kaiser Permanente.

Nine out of 10 Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals participated in the days-long vote, with 96% endorsing a walkout.

Shane Burley, spokesman for the union, called the endorsement unprecedented.

“I've never seen a strike authorization vote like this," Burley told the Capital Chronicle. “It's astounding."

The union represents 3,400 employees at Kaiser Permanente, which has two hospitals and clinics in the Portland area as well as clinics in McMinnville and the Salem area.

Burley said the union hopes the vote will spur Kaiser to finalize a new contract to replace one that expired Sept. 30.

For a strike to happen, the union has to set a date for a walkout, giving Kaiser 10 days notice. The earliest the union could strike would be Oct. 22.

In February, the union called for a strike of technicians at the St. Charles Health System in central Oregon. After nine days, the two sides agreed to a proposal by a federal mediator and the technicians returned to work.

Burley said some of those workers won raises of 70%.

At Kaiser, the union is asking for raises around 3 to 4%, He said Kaiser has proposed 1%.

Arlene Peasnall, senior vice president of human resources at Kaiser Permanente, released a statement following the union vote.

“We strongly believe that differences in bargaining are best worked out at the bargaining table, and we have a 24-year history of union partnership which proves that point," the statement said. “We will continue to work collaboratively with OFNHP to reach an agreement that meets the interests of both parties."

Kaiser Permanente cared for the first hospitalized Covid-19 patient in Oregon. It's not clear whether any are in its hospitals now.

“In the event of any kind of work stoppage, our facilities will be staffed by our physicians along with trained and experienced managers and contingency staff," Kaiser said in its statement.

The last time workers at Kaiser Permanente in Oregon walked out was in 1988, Burley said.

Besides the wage increase, the union is worried about a Kaiser proposal to create a two-tier system in which new employees would start at a lower rate. Burley said over time that would have a “disastrous effect on the entire industry" by bringing down wages.

Kaiser Permanente also faces potential walkouts among tens of thousands of workers in four other states where union members have voted for a strike.

In Oregon, Burley said the federation plans to keep negotiating.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Les Zaitz for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.