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In this Issue of C.O. Local BUZZ…

🌄Bend, OR Weather

📅 Lots and LOTS of Events

🥃4th annual Oregon Whiskey Festival

🎉New Event Calendar! Central Oregon Local Live!

📰Local News - What’s a Happening?

🛬🚫Redmond Airport Power Outages Cancel Flights Due to Weather System Failure

📰 The former parent company of Central Oregon newspapers is being sued by the U.S. Department of Labor

📰Little Lava Fire highlights importance of Sunriver fire mitigation program

📰COCC Hosts Public Forum To Discuss Search For New Leader

Central Oregon Fire Info

Updates of Oregon Fires

🚧 Road Closures & Construction

🔥⛑️Fire & Rescue News

💥Driver crashes car into Bend Central Oregon Veterans Outreach building

🚨 Crime News

⚖️Five Sentenced In Connection With 2021 Murder Of Bend Man

📰 Community News

 Got some news or know of news for our Community News Segment - share it with C.O. Local Buzz!

😁 MEME of the Day

🌆 On going Events

📲Sponsors & Partners

BEND

Events Sponsored By

Enjoy Bend Life Real Estate

What’s Up Central Oregon 

September 20th and 21st

It's time for the 4th annual Oregon Whiskey Festival!!

https://oregonwhiskeyfestival.com/

Redmond Airport Power Outages Cancel Flights Due to Weather System Failure

Two power outages at the Redmond Municipal Airport late Friday night shut down the automated weather station incoming pilots depend on for required weather reports, leading to cancellation of three late-night arrivals and also affected departing flights Saturday morning, an official said.

The airport has backup power for the terminal and other facilities at the city-owned airport, but there is no such backup for the Automated Weather Observation System (AWOS), which automatically updates weather conditions every 10 minutes. That system is owned by the National Weather Service, Airport Director Zachary Bass said Saturday.

Pacific Power spokesman Simon Gutierrez said "a problem with a cable" apparently caused the power outage, which lasted for about an hour.

The power outage and resulting AWOS outage have happened before, Bass explained - but the “uniqueness” this time was that a backup option was not available: an air traffic controller who is certified to read the weather information to incoming pilots from the control tower.

And that’s because the FAA-contracted control tower at Redmond Airport was at “ATC Zero,” meaning it was unstaffed, as it has been on weekends for the last few months, amid a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, the airport official said.

“That puts us in a quandary,” Bass said. “Wait for the power to come back on or find someone who is certified and can read the weather (report)” to pilots.

Without meeting that weather report requirement, three late-night flights could not take off for Redmond, which Bass said was “kind of unique – something we haven’t seen before.”

The outages were over and situation resolved by Saturday morning. But since those three planes didn’t come into Redmond, they were unavailable for morning outbound flights. Bass said he was unaware if any departures were canceled, more likely delayed. He also noted that departures from RDM were not affected by the outage, as the AWOS situation relates to incoming flights only.

The former parent company of Central Oregon newspapers is being sued by the U.S. Department of Labor

Pamplin Corporation was the parent company of Pamplin Media Group. That group owned the Madras Pioneer and the Central Oregonian, which focuses on Crook County news, along with about two dozen other newspapers. Pamplin Corporation announced in June it sold the media group.

But according to documents from the lawsuit, when Pamplin Corporation still owned the local media outlets, it jeopardized its employees' retirement funds by using their pension plans to acquire 20 of its properties.

The lawsuit states the Department of Labor wants all violations corrected and pension plans restored for the company's employees.

Here is the full announcement from the U.S. Department of Labor:

PORTLAND, OR – The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon against Dr. Robert B. Pamplin Jr. and R.B. Pamplin Corporation for jeopardizing millions of dollars in retirement funds for thousands of employees because of the unlawful acquisition of company-owned real estate by the R.B. Pamplin Corporation and Subsidiaries Pension Plan.

The department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration conducted an investigation and found that, beginning in 2019, the plan unlawfully acquired interests in more than 20 company-owned properties. These acquisitions exceeded the limit permitted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The department alleges that Dr. Pamplin instructed the pension plan to acquire the properties without regard for the limit set by federal law. 

The plan’s real estate holdings currently include rangeland, a vineyard, an island in a river once used for dredging, an office building and irrigated cropland. The department alleges some properties were not sold to the plan at fair market value or were unsuitable for multiple uses without significant improvements. Other properties had attached liens, unpaid leases, unpaid property taxes, environmental liabilities or were sold in fractional interests, diminishing their value.

The department’s enforcement efforts prior to the lawsuit resulted in Dr. Pamplin stepping down as plan trustee in September 2023 and the appointment in October 2023 of Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors LLC as the plan’s independent fiduciary and investment manager to liquidate excess real estate and achieve a prudent investment portfolio. Today’s lawsuit seeks to correct all identified violations, recover lost opportunity earnings, and permanently bar Dr. Pamplin from acting as an ERISA fiduciary. 

“Dr. Pamplin and R.B. Pamplin Corporation sold real estate to the company pension plan to raise cash for Pamplin’s struggling company, in direct violation of their fiduciary duty of loyalty to plan participants,” said EBSA Regional Director Klaus Placke in San Francisco. “These self-dealing activities have saddled the pension plan with low-performing and hard-to-sell real estate, causing tens of millions of dollars in losses to plan participants who will need that money in retirement.”

“Dr. Pamplin must restore the pension plan to where it would be if not for his wrongdoing and make his employees’ pension plan whole,” said Regional Solicitor Marc Pilotin in San Francisco. “The Solicitor’s Office has already been engaged actively with Dr. Pamplin to determine how he will do so and the department will not relent in fighting for participants’ rights until he does.”

ERISA requires that fiduciaries operate employee benefit plans solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries. Employers and workers can reach EBSA toll-free at 866-444-3272 for help with problems related to private sector retirement and health plans.

Little Lava Fire highlights importance of Sunriver fire mitigation program

Colby Enebrad, Reporter

For the past 25 years, the Sunriver Owners Association (SROA) has implemented ladder fuel reduction. The SROA clears out low-hanging tree branches and vegetation, keeping any ignitions low to the ground.

"Essentially keeping the fire from spreading into the crown, so you don't have a crowning fire. That's where fires get really, really dangerous and spread really fast. We have the embers traveling up to a mile ahead from the fire. By keeping it on the ground, you're keeping a cooler fire, and you're better to manage and control it," SROA general manager James Lewis said.

Those efforts are carried throughout the entire 3,300 acres of the community.

"We do that on the common area that's administered by the SROA, as well as looking at private properties. Each individual 4,200 private property on at least an every two year basis," Lewis said.

The Innis family returned to their Sunriver home on Thursday from their trip to the coast. During their getaway, the Little Lava Fire raged just a few miles away from where they live.

"We've been though a lot of wildfires and this is the biggest ash we've ever come across," Karen Innis said. "We were concerned but we knew the homeowners association keeps us up to date. The Watch Duty app kept us up to date. We felt comfortable with the defensible space they've created with their ongoing seasonal attention to that."

It's also up to homeowners to do some of their own clearing, leaving out piles of yard debris and vegetation which the SROA will come pick up and dispose of once a month.

Lewis says the SROA spends $300,000 to $400,000 of Sunriver homeowners' money a year to continue the fire mitigation program. Lewis says it's well worth that amount to keep the community safe.

VIDEO

COCC Hosts Public Forum To Discuss Search For New Leader

BEND, OR -- Central Oregon Community College

is asking for input on what qualities the public wants to see in the school’s next president. COCC hosts a virtual forum Tuesday, for the Presidential Search Advisory Committee to hear from the community.

The forum is September 17, from noon to 1 p.m. and will be held on zoom. Those interested in attending can email VP of College Advancement Zak Boone for the meeting link. Laura Craska Cooper, COCC board chair and chair of the presidential search advisory committee, said in a statement, “We welcome public participation in this process and encourage community members from across our district to let us know what their priorities are for this important community leadership position.”

Last month, the committee narrowed down its priorities for the next school leader. The search is led by a Mississippi-based recruiting firm that partnered with COCC on its last presidential search.

Updates of Oregon Fires

Link to: Air Quality Index map

Another AQI Map

Link to: Northwest Large Fire Interactive Web Map

Driver crashes car into Bend Central Oregon Veterans Outreach building

An SUV crashed into the Bend offices of Central Oregon Veterans Outreach along South Highway 97 Friday morning, but no one was in the area that was struck and no injuries were reported, officials said.

The crash into a front window was reported shortly before 9 a.m. and prompted the city Building Department to send an inspector out to evaluate the structure’s safety, a fire official said.

No injuries were reported and no citations were issued, according to police.

“We had a bit of excitement this morning,” COVO, which helps area veterans and others in need, said in a post to its Facebook page. “No one was hurt is what matters most.”

“The driver walked away and no one was in the offices impacted by the crash,” the organization said.

No cause of the crash has been stated.

Five Sentenced In Connection With 2021 Murder Of Bend Man

GRESHAM, OR -- Five people were sentenced to a combined 65 years in prison for their involvement in the death of Andrew Sherrell (pictured), of Bend. Sherrell was killed, execution style, in Gresham, in September of 2021. Police found his body without shoes, his wallet or phone. Broken zip-ties were next to his arms and hands and the 34-year-old's positioning led investigators to believe he'd been kneeling on the curb when he was shot. 

The East County Major Crimes Team worked with Bend Police, Redmond Police and the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office, in addition to Portland-area detectives. Over the next few months, they learned Sherrell was a low-level drug dealer who owed money to his dealer, Cesar Estrada Nava. Estrada Nava also owed a substantial debt to his own supplier. According to Gresham Police, Estrada Nava enlisted Kassandra Kitchens, D'Sean Baker, CJ Wobbe and Andrew Bushnell to help kill Sherrell.

On the day of his death, Sherrell and a friend drove from Central Oregon to Portland's Lloyd District, unaware of the plot to kill him. Kitchens lured Sherrell to a parking lot with an offer of discount fentanyl. He got in her care and she drove him down the street to where the four men were waiting. 

Detective say Sherrell was assaulted, zip-tied and driven to various locations and eventually killed with a single gunshot on the sidewalk of an industrial area. 

Four of the five suspects were arrested in December 2021 and the fifth was taken into custoday after a pursuit with Portland Police in 2022. After years of motions, hearings and thousands of pages of documents, prosecutors settled the case with plea agreements this month. Estrada Nava and Baker were each sentenced to 20 years, Kitchens to 115 months, Bushnell to 100 months and Wobbe to 90 months.

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