GRANTS PASS, Oregon — A pickleball game in this leafy Oregon community was suddenly interrupted one rainy weekend morning by the arrival of an ambulance. Paramedics rushed through the park toward a tent, one of dozens illegally erected by the town’s hundreds of homeless people, then play resumed as though nothing had happened.

Myles Baida plays pickleball as emergency responders put a homeless person in an ambulance March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore. Relatives had called police and requested a welfare check. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

Mere feet away, volunteers helped dismantle tents to move an 80-year-old man and a woman blind in one eye, who risked being fined for staying too long. In the distance, a group of boys climbed on a jungle gym.

The scenes were emblematic of the crisis gripping the small, Oregon mountain town of Grants Pass, where a fierce fight over park space has become a battleground for a much larger, national debate on homelessness that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

A volunteer holds on to a wheelchair as Max Hartfelt is helped into his tent after being relocated from one park to another March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore. The rural community has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

The town’s case, set to be heard April 22, has broad implications for how not only Grants Pass, but communities nationwide address homelessness, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. It has made the town of 40,000 the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis, and further fueled the debate over how to deal with it.

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Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol visits Tussing Park on March 22 in Grants Pass, Ore. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

“I certainly wish this wasn’t what my town was known for,” Mayor Sara Bristol told The Associated Press last month. “It’s not the reason why I became mayor. And yet it has dominated every single thing that I’ve done for the last 3 ½ years.”

Officials across the political spectrum — from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, which has nearly 30% of the nation’s homeless population, to a group of 22 conservative-led states — have filed briefs in the case, saying lower court rulings have hamstrung their ability to deal with encampments.

Like many Western communities, Grants Pass has struggled for years with a burgeoning homeless population. A decade ago, City Council members discussed how to make it “uncomfortable enough … in our city so they will want to move on down the road.” From 2013 to 2018, the city said it issued 500 citations for camping or sleeping in public, including in vehicles, with fines that could reach hundreds of dollars.

A vehicle at left drives down Rogue River Highway as light shines on the area  March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

But a 2018 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals changed the calculus. The court, whose jurisdiction includes nine Western states, held that while communities are allowed to prohibit tents in public spaces, it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to give people criminal citations for sleeping outside when they had no place else to go.

Four years later, in a case challenging restrictions in Grants Pass, the court expanded that ruling, holding that civil citations also can be unconstitutional.

Civil rights groups and attorneys for the homeless residents who challenged the restrictions in 2018 insist people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing. Officials throughout the West have overstated the impact of the court decisions to distract from their own failings, they argued.

“For years, political leaders have chosen to tolerate encampments as an alternative to meaningfully addressing the western region’s severe housing shortage,” the attorneys wrote. “It is easier to blame the courts than to take responsibility for finding a solution.”

In Grants Pass, the town’s parks, many lining the picturesque Rogue River, are at the heart of the debate. Cherished for their open spaces, picnic tables, playgrounds and sports fields, they host everything from annual boat-racing festivals and vintage car shows to Easter egg hunts and summer concerts.

Brian Wright, center, prays during bible study at Gospel Rescue Mission on March 21 in Grants Pass, Ore. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

They’re also the sites of encampments blighted by illegal drug use and crime, including a shooting at a park last year that left one person dead. Tents cluster along riverbanks, next to tennis courts and jungle gyms, with tarps shielding belongings from the rain. When the sun comes out, clothes and blankets are strung across tree branches to dry. Used needles litter the ground.

Grants Pass has one overnight shelter for adults, the Gospel Rescue Mission. It has 138 beds, but rules including attendance at daily Christian services, no alcohol, drugs or smoking and no pets mean many won’t stay there.

Cassy Leach, a nurse, leads a volunteer group providing food, medical care and other basic goods to the town’s hundreds of homeless people. They help relocate their tents to comply with city rules.

Cassy Leach, a nurse who leads a group of volunteers who provide food, medical care and other basic goods to the hundreds of homeless people living in the parks, talks to Kimberly Marie, who is homeless and camping in Fruitdale Park on March 21 in Grants Pass, Ore. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

At one park last month, she checked on a man who burned his leg after falling on a torch lighter during a fentanyl overdose and brought him naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal medication. In another, she distributed cans of beans, peas and Chef Boyardee mini ravioli from a pickup truck.

“Love, hope, community and a safety net is really as important as a shower and water,” Leach said.

Dre Buetow, 48, from northern California, has been living in his car for three years after a bone cancer diagnosis and $450,000 in medical bills. The illness and treatment kept him from returning to his old tree-trimming job, he said.

Laura Gutowski’s husband died from a pulmonary embolism and she suddenly found herself, in her 50s, with no income. They didn’t have life insurance or savings and, within a month, she was sleeping outside.

“I used to love camping,” she said through tears. “And now I can’t stand it anymore.”

But some residents want to limit aid because of the trash left behind after encampment moves or food handouts. The City Council proposed requiring outreach groups to register with the city. The mayor vetoed it, laying bare the discord gripping Grants Pass.

Before the council attempted, unsuccessfully, to override the veto last month, a self-proclaimed “park watch” group rallied outside City Hall with signs reading, “Parks are for kids.” 

The group regularly posts images of trash, tents and homeless people on social media. On Sundays, they set up camp chairs in what they say is a bid to reclaim park space.

Brock Spurgeon says he used to take his grandkids to parks that were so full it was hard to find an available picnic table. Now, open drug use and discarded needles have scared families away, he said.

“That was taken away from us when the campers started using the parks,” he said.

Homeless encampment sweeps spike in cities across US as housing crisis grows

Michael Johnson gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.  

Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

Roxanne Simonson, 60, removes her long-sleeve shirt  July 27 after being told by Rapid Response Bio Clean that she has 72 hours to vacant her illegal campsite in Portland, Ore. Simonson has been homeless for two years. 

Craig Mitchelldyer

Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend July 27 before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore. Taylor says that he has had to move three times since becoming homeless. Tent encampments have long been a fixture of West Coast cities, but are now spreading visibly across the U.S. The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, driven by lack of affordable housing and a pandemic that economically wrecked households. 

Craig Mitchelldyer, Associated Press

Prohibited items that have been collected by Rapid Response Bio Clean while cleaning homeless camps sit on a table in the company warehouse in Portland, Ore., on July 27, 2023. Weapons, car parts and drug paraphernalia are not allowed to be returned to people whose items have been confiscated during a sweep.  

Craig Mitchelldyerr, Associated Press

A San Francisco Police Department vehicle drives through a homeless encampment being cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Records obtained by The Associated Press show attempts to clear encampments increased in cities from Los Angeles to New York as public pressure grew to address what are dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But despite tens of millions of dollars spent in recent years, there appears to be little reduction in the number of tents propped up on sidewalks, in parks and by freeway off-ramps.

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Members of the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team’s Encampment Resolution Team walk toward an encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023. 

Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

Two small stones that say “hope” and “peace” respectively and two flowers lay inside a circle of rocks on the ground in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The rock circle is next to the site of a former homeless encampment that was cleared several times over the course of the year. With homelessness on the rise in the U.S. and a lack of affordable housing, cities and states are cracking down on mushrooming tent encampments.  

Claire Rushr, Associated Press

Roughly 30 large boulders occupy the narrow strip of land between a sidewalk and a parking lot wall in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The boulders were installed sometime after late July at the site of a former homeless encampment to prevent tents from being set back up. The encampment was cleared several times over the course of the year.  

Claire Rushr, Associated Press

San Francisco Public Works crew load a truck while cleaning items from a homeless encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.  

Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Members of the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team’s Encampment Resolution Team speak with people at an encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

A San Francisco Public Works crew cleans items from a homeless encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023. 

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Maurice Palmer waits with his possessions as a homeless encampment is cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Francis Zamora, of Department of Emergency Management, walks past a puddle near a homeless encampment being cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

A man pushes items while a homeless encampment is being cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Roughly 30 large boulders occupy the narrow strip of land between a sidewalk and a parking lot wall in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The boulders were installed sometime after late July at the site of a former homeless encampment to prevent tents from being set back up. The encampment was cleared several times over the course of the year. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.  

Claire Rushr, Associated Press

Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Clean cleans a homeless camp July 27 in Portland, Ore. 

Craig Mitchelldyer, Associated Press

Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend July 27 before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore.

Craig Mitchelldyer, Associated Press

Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore., July 27, 2023. T 

Craig Mitchelldyerr, Associated Press

Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Clean cleans a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., on July 27, 2023.  

Craig Mitchelldyerr, Associated Press

Amber Nastasia, left, and Jacob Miller from Rapid Response Bio Clean clean a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023.  

Craig Mitchelldyerr, Associated Press

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The post Supreme Court docket to resolve Oregon homelessness case appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

ENTERPRISE, Ore. — This small ranching town, surrounded by towering tree-topped mountains and a valley of rolling grass fields, sits tucked into the northeast corner of the state — both out of the way and right in the middle of a contentious debate.

At a meeting late last month, 25 people packed into a stuffy conference room in the Wallowa County Courthouse — 35 miles west of the Idaho state line and 260 miles east of Portland — to hear county commissioners debate a single agenda item: leaving Oregon.

The Greater Idaho movement, which wants to secede from the Beaver State and become a part of its neighbor to the east, had sputtered along for years, gaining little traction. But then, the coronavirus hit in the spring of 2020.

The global pandemic was “a blessing” for the movement, according to Mike McCarter, who took up the movement’s mantle in 2019. Quarantines and remote learning inflamed residents’ anger with the state government for shutting down schools and businesses. This tension invigorated the effort to join Idaho, a state whose government reacted wholly differently to COVID-19 than Oregon did.

“Our movement brings things to light, and it brings hope,” McCarter said. “I don’t want to see the guns picked up. I don’t want to see the battles. Why can’t we sit down and talk?”

Secession is a long shot that would require approval by Congress; so far, there have been ballot measures, and there has been a lot of talk. But the fact that the movement has gotten even this far illustrates the growing tear in the American fabric.

Greater Idaho has seen a success that other secessionist movements, regionally and in states such as California and Illinois, never reached. If supporters here achieve their goal, it could mean a paradigm shift nationally, proponents say, inspiring more states to split along cultural and political lines.

County by county, Eastern Oregonians have voted on similar measures over the past three years, securing much of the large rural region for the secessionist movement. In June, Wallowa County became the 12th to pass a ballot initiative in support of joining Idaho. The measure, to begin biannual discussions, won by just seven votes of the 3,497 that were cast.

In the stone courthouse last month, in a town square that honors the first settlers who came in the 1880s and the Nez Perce peoples who predated them, supporters argued that Democratic lawmakers, who control the capitol in Salem and were elected largely by Western Oregonians, have ignored the other side of the state and are hurting its way of life.

“I just feel unrepresented, completely,” said Rob DeSpain, standing tall in the back of the room, his white goatee pronounced under a black cap. “We just don’t have a voice. It’s very frustrating.”

Shaking his head at a series of pro-secession speakers who brought up transgender youth, urban decay and the struggle to protect cattle from wolves, another man, David Hayslip, finally raised his hand. There would be cuts in the minimum wage, he pointed out to his neighbors, and a new state sales tax and a potential decline in home values if they joined Idaho.

“If you want to go over there, U-Haul has really good deals,” Hayslip said after exhaling in frustration, looking up from the floor. “Don’t like it here? Hit the road. This is democracy, folks. You don’t like the results? You keep fighting in the democratic system.”

Other residents opposed to secession said they feared what would happen if they lost access to abortion rights, health care coverage, infrastructure funding, mail-in voting and marijuana. Some of them said that while they weren’t born in Oregon, they have lived in the state more years than not. They’re Oregonians and want to remain Oregonians.

The room was split, much like the county. But as in other small towns in America, people knew one another, greeting old friends and neighbors before tension filled the room.

Oregon is divided geographically, politically, economically and culturally. Beyond the Cascades, the population drops off with the elevation, as the terrain turns from the moist mountains of the coast and the fertile farmland and progressive population hubs of the Willamette Valley to the high desert, golden grasslands and craggy mountain ranges of the immense east.

Stateline traveled more than 1,000 miles of Eastern Oregon, where supporters of the movement to join Idaho said they feel unheard by the decisionmakers in Salem. Would-be secessionists freely recognize that their communities represent less than a tenth of the state’s population, but they also asked: Don’t we matter?

“You have two very different cultures that shouldn’t be sharing a state government,” said Matt McCaw, the spokesperson for the Greater Idaho movement and a resident of Powell Butte, an unincorporated town near the geographic center of Oregon.

Their grievances are many: They dislike rules that restrict tree-cutting, protect coyotes and promote electric vehicles. They oppose transgender rights, classroom discussions of gender and race, and limits on guns. They detest the taxes and regulations they believe have devastated the region’s economy. And they hate what became of Portland, a city many of them look back on with nostalgia.

For many Eastern Oregonians, there’s a sense of desperation, as if all options have been exhausted and all that remains is joining Idaho.

“I have people come at me and say, ‘Well, what can we do to change it?’” said McCarter, a deeply religious man and an Air Force veteran. “It’s gone too far over the top to change. It really has. It is a battle for our freedom and our self-sufficiency.”

Whether they can succeed is another story.

While they work to secure more wins at the ballot box — including in Crook County next May, and later Gilliam and Umatilla counties — supporters of the movement are beginning a broader effort to lobby the Idaho and Oregon legislatures to start an interstate dialogue to shift their border — a dialogue for which Oregon Democrats do not have an appetite.

A growing movement out of a divided state

Sitting on the front deck of his single-story green home in La Pine, a wooded city of 2,500 people who live past the lava fields south of tourism haven Bend, McCarter has two flags flying off his house: the American flag and the Idaho flag.

When the 76-year-old is not assisting with pastoral duties at his 30-person church, he fills his retired life with fixing old ham radios, getting back into long-distance running, teaching gun safety and leading the Greater Idaho movement.

Though McCarter lives in Deschutes County — which voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 with 53% support and has not voted to join Idaho — Oregon’s new border could follow the Deschutes River, he said, snaking to the west of his home and putting him within the new Idaho boundary.

Greater Idaho could encompass roughly 15 eastern counties, representing 65% of Oregon’s landmass and one congressional district. Each county handily voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020 with two-thirds or more of the vote. While the movement tried ballot initiatives in Douglas and Josephine counties, which are west of the Cascade Range, those failed in 2022.

A splintering of Oregon would mean new tax structures, a transfer of public debts, the loss of state parks and natural resources, and a fundamental shift in social program benefits. The details could take years to work out, but that’s a problem down the line, supporters say. Now, they just want the two states to start talking about a transition.

Supporters for the movement vote mostly Republican, but some are socially conservative while others are more economically libertarian. Some are not even registered to a political party.

“I have very deep roots in the state, or what used to be this state,” said Sandie Gilson, a fifth-generation Oregonian with ancestors who mined gold and operated sawmills. “I don’t recognize it.”

Over chicken Caesar salad at a Main Street eatery in John Day, a town in a high-desert canyon, Gilson described how she’s crisscrossed Grant County, even planning to speak at an upcoming Democratic Party meeting, to talk about the deterioration of Portland, how taxes and regulations stifle housing, and the unrealistic shift away from gas-powered cars for rural communities.

The policies of Salem don’t consider the commonsense requirements of life in the state’s east, she said.

Oregon hasn’t had a Republican governor since 1987; Democrats have held a trifecta for more than a decade, controlling the governor’s office as well as the state House and Senate.

This is one of the latest iterations of a debate over minority political representation that is as old as this nation’s founding, Gilson said. The U.S. Constitution was written to encourage consensus, she said; the Revolutionary War was fought because people were being taxed but not listened to. “Isn’t that our message?” she asked.

Stephen Piggott doesn’t see it that way.

“I totally understand their concerns,” said Piggott, the momentum program director for Western States Strategies, a Portland-based nonpartisan social welfare organization that campaigned against the ballot measure in Wallowa County. “But for Greater Idaho, there’s no other solution except to say, ‘We can’t find any common ground, so screw it, we’re going to just go up and leave.’”

And while it may not be espousing racist viewpoints, the movement is supported by white nationalists and militia leaders such as Ammon Bundy, Piggott said, harking back to Oregon’s racist founding, when Black people were banned from settling the land. Among the 15 counties that could be part of Greater Idaho, all but three have white populations above 75%, according to census numbers.

Greater Idaho proponents vehemently reject charges of racism or hatred, saying they can’t control the people who agree with their cause. And they say they are not seeking violence, but a peaceful political solution.

“I have people come to me and say, ‘But isn’t this movement kind of racist?’ Well, I had nothing to do with that,” McCarter said, the air around his home still thick with wildfire smoke. “In rural Oregon, if it’s predominantly white, so be it. And we make a point that we don’t get into that angle at all. That’s not what it’s about.”

Retired chimney sweep Grant Darrow said that letting a few counties join Idaho could be a “pressure relief valve” to avoid violence from people long frustrated with Oregon’s policies.

“People are fighting mad,” said Darrow, who sported a handlebar mustache and an “Awake Not Woke” T-shirt in his home in Cove, Oregon, a town nestled in an agricultural valley. “If you’re not moving in a direction that everybody thinks positive, it’s going to blow up.”

But to slice up states to reflect residents’ politics is not how the American political system works, regardless of an urban-rural divide that exists across the country, said Judy Stiegler, a former Oregon Democratic state representative who now is a political science instructor at Oregon State University-Cascades, located in Bend.

“We should be having conversations with each other,” Stiegler said. “The Greater Idaho movement is taking advantage of people’s frustrations. And I believe they’re not being honest about the real objective, which is power.”

The reality of the secession happening is “slim to none,” she said. She expects neither state Democrats nor Congress to endorse the move.

Can it pass the Idaho and Oregon legislatures?

When Idaho Republican state Rep. Barbara Ehardt first heard about Oregon’s movement to join her state, it just resonated with her. Why wouldn’t Idaho be interested in more land, more resources such as timber, minerals and water, and more like-minded people? she asked.

“You can only push people so far, demanding that they acquiesce to some of your non-constitutional whims before people push back,” Ehardt said.

In February, the Idaho House passed her bill to open a formal interstate dialogue with Oregon to secure those counties that want to secede. Although it didn’t move forward in the Senate, Ehardt is “hopeful and optimistic” she can get her bill passed in both the legislative bodies next year. For this to succeed, “it will involve the hand of the Lord.”

When the Oregon state legislature reconvenes next year, Republican state Sen. Dennis Linthicum plans on reintroducing legislation to let those 15 eastern counties secede and join Idaho. His bill died in committee earlier this year.

“I thought we were talking about tolerance and welcoming all ideas and welcoming other thoughts and perspectives, and it turns out none of that is true,” said Linthicum, who voted for the Klamath County ballot measure. “It’s a storyline. And that’s why Eastern Oregonians are fed up with it.”

While she “1,000% agrees” with the reasons why people are so frustrated with the policies coming out of Salem, freshman Republican state Rep. Emily McIntire worries about Eastern Oregonians who have superior health care, child care, food stamps and other state services than Idaho offers, including Oregon’s $14.20 minimum hourly wage compared with Idaho’s $7.25, the federal minimum wage.

“Everybody that’s working at a Walmart in a county in Eastern Oregon, that Walmart can go, ‘We’re going to drop you guys all down to eight bucks an hour,’” she said. “It’s not just like we flip the switch, you’re part of Idaho and everything stays as it is.”

In Enterprise, the meeting wrapped up after more than an hour of discussion involving those in the room and another 30 people who joined by Zoom. The county commissioners finally chimed in.

Though they are officially neutral on the question, all three said they understood the concerns expressed by both sides. Commissioner John Hillock said he’s submitted pieces of legislation, grant proposals for sewer and water projects and new funding requests for the county fairgrounds to lawmakers in Salem and been ignored. He gets it.

As does Commissioner Susan Roberts, who asked attendees to come up with ideas before they meet next in February on how to constructively move forward and get “our friends on the west side of the state” to have a dialogue.

“They don’t get us. On the other hand, I don’t get most of them. Most of the time, I can’t figure it out,” she said with a chuckle. “But that is the back-and-forth that we need.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2023 States Newsroom. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Oregon Episcopal School Athletic Center, Portland education building, USA sports architecture design photos

22 September 2023

Design: Hacker

Location: Portland, Oregon, USA

Photos by Lara Swimmer

Oregon Episcopal School Athletic Center, Portland

Oregon Episcopal School (OES) is an independent, co-ed college preparatory school of 800 students from Pre-K through 12th grade, located in southwest Portland, Oregon. The school’s identity is rooted in their Oregon home, with its natural beauty and diverse people and history.

The design for the new athletic center reflects the OES community’s desire for open spaces that encourage gathering and support interaction at different levels and scales; and a design that embraces nature and the outdoors as a teaching tool. The 22,000-square-foot renovation and 20,000-square-foot expansion of the athletic center is home to the physical education and athletic departments and serves the entire OES community as the primary multi-purpose gathering space.

The directive from OES was to create a safe and supportive experience for all students regardless of their interest or skill in sports by transforming an aging gymnasium building into a vibrant new athletics center to support varsity team sports and physical education classes. The Athletic Center features flexible student and faculty meeting spaces; dedicated team rooms that replace standard locker rooms; group collaboration spaces throughout; two full-size gymnasiums; and physical education and athletic department offices.

Centered Within Community

The site of the new Athletic Center anchors campus at the north and provides an additional accessible entry into the nexus of campus. The exterior envelope shares a common language with the recently completed lower school, where the vertical wood slats and texture reference the nearby campus woods. A south-facing elevated concourse with direct views into the forest serves as a multi-use commons, connecting peers and providing ample space for independent study or gathered sports viewing.

The design team’s engagement with OES students and athletic department staff heavily influenced the design process with intentional conversations focused on schedules and routines. A primary consideration for the Athletic Center is the accommodation of mixed-gender teams as well as coaches with differing gender from the student-athletes. Partnered in the commitment to be an inclusive, equitable, and future-forward campus hub, the design team and OES envisioned a space that replaces locker rooms with flexible, all-purpose team rooms allowing student-athletes and their coaches a mix of private and communal space. The design centers on the reclamation of underutilized spaces, replacing facilities like showers and lockers with flexible, all-purpose team rooms encouraging team building of their all-skill-level mixed-gender teams.

Beyond A Gym

While part of its focus serves as home to varsity sports and physical education classes, it also serves as a hub for activities and multi-purpose gatherings. Designed for resiliency, the OES Athletic Center meets stricter seismic criteria to provide shelter and support to OES and surrounding community after a seismic event.

With a highly efficient envelope, passive cooling strategy, and minimal mechanical conditioning, this building strives for high performance, meeting the Energy Trust of Oregon-Path to Net Zero and aligning with the Architecture 2030 Challenge goals. The Athletic Center has an 82% reduction in energy use from CBEC’s baseline with an EUI of 15kBtu/SF/Year.

Oregon Episcopal School Athletic Center, Portland, USA – Building Information

Architecture and Interiors: Hacker
Contractor: Fortis
Landscape: Walker Macy
Civil Engineer: Cardno
Structural Engineer: DCI Engineering
Mechanical & Plumbing Engineer: PAE
Electrical Engineer: PAE
Lighting: O-
Acoustical Engineer: Listen Acoustics
Theatrical/AV: Listen Acoustics
Client: Oregon Episcopal School

Hacker design team:

Stefee Knudsen, Project Manager, Principal-in-Charge
David Keltner, Design Principal
Jennie Fowler, Interior Design Principal
Katherine Park, Interior Designer
Sarah Post-Holmberg, Project Architect
Marissa Sant, Architectural Designer
Daniel Childs, Architectural Designer
Vijayeta Davda,
Architectural Team: Caitie Vanhauer

Brands/Materials:

1. Emeco – Chairs and Counter Stools
2. Muuto – Tables and Counter Tables
3. EcoPDX – Side tables and coffee table
4. National – Lounge Chairs
5. Arnsberg – Wood Dome Pendant Light
6. Zumtobel – Gymnasium Lights

Photography: Lara Swimmer

Oregon Episcopal School Athletic Center, Portland information / images received 220923 from Hacker Architects USA

Location: Portland, Oregon, United States of America

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Design: Hacker

photography : Pete Eckert
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photo : David Papazian
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Design: John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects (JFAK)

photography : Benny Chan
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Comments / photos for the Oregon Episcopal School Athletic Center in Portland design by Hacker, United States of America, page welcome.

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GATES, Ore. (Reuters) – Intermittently heavy showers brought some relief to flame-stricken western Oregon on Friday, helping firefighters to further subdue deadly blazes that have ravaged much of the state and choked its air with smoke for the better part of two weeks.

Smoke rises from the Brattain Fire in the Fremont National Forest in Paisley, Oregon, U.S., September 18, 2020. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

Oregon was especially hard hit by scores of wind-driven wildfires that erupted all at once across the western United States earlier this month in the midst of catastrophic lightning storms, record-breaking heat and howling winds.

“We lost everything, but we will start all over again,” said Bill Kesselring, 73, pointing to the spot where the log cabin he shared with his wife had stood on the outskirts of Gates, Oregon, a Cascade Mountain village 80 miles south of Portland.

The cabin and a garage housing a beloved antique car Kesselring had just finished restoring were both reduced to charred rubble. Only the fireplace and chimney remained of the home.

“It breaks my heart. You work hard all your life and then get hit with a disaster like this,” he told Reuters.

Unaccustomed to the sheer scope and magnitude of the conflagrations, Oregon’s ill-equipped firefighters initially struggled for days to even keep pace with the blazes, before cooler, moister and less windy weather settled over the region, and reinforcements could arrive.

ANOTHER LIFE LOST IN CALIFORNIA

By Thursday, officials in Oregon, Washington state and California said they were making steady progress suppressing the fires. Brightening the outlook further, much-welcomed rains doused Oregon on Friday, even as the tri-state death toll from the fires rose to 35.

The U.S. Forest Service in California reported that a firefighter had perished on Thursday in a blaze still burning nearly two weeks after it was ignited by pyrotechnics at an outdoor gender-reveal party east of Los Angeles.

Authorities withheld the identify of the fallen firefighter pending notification of family members, and no details of the circumstances were released.

The death in the San Bernardino National Forest became the 26th fire-related fatality in California over the past month. That tally includes two other firefighters – a Forest Service contractor killed in a lightning-sparked fire in the Mendocino National Forest, and a private helicopter pilot whose chopper crashed on a water-dropping mission in Fresno County last month.

Wildfires have claimed at least eight other lives in Oregon and one in Washington state, all civilians.

Flames have blackened a record 3.2 million acres (1.3 million hectares) in California alone since mid-August. Another 1.7 million acres (650,000 hectares) have burned in Oregon and Washington state since Labor Day.

The blazes, described by scientists and officials as unprecedented in scope and ferocity, have largely incinerated several small towns, along with thousands of dwellings.

‘BEAUTY SCAR’

Thousands of evacuees, particularly in Oregon, remained huddled in emergency shelters, mobile trailers and hotel rooms. And Oregon emergency management officials have warned the death toll there could climb as search teams scour the ruins of homes engulfed in flames during chaotic evacuations early in the disaster.

Justin Gaskill, 28, a U.S. Army veteran leading a community watch organization that was also organizing food relief efforts, said residents in the fire-ravaged town of Estacada, Oregon, where he was born and raised, were still in a state of shock but resolved to rebuild.

“I like to say that this event is going to leave our community with a beauty scar,” he said. “We’ve been wounded but so many beautiful opportunities to share and show our strength as a town are coming out of this.”

Thundershowers brought drenching rains to the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains late Thursday and through Friday, helping a force of more than 6,000 firefighters make further headway against 10 major blazes still burning in Oregon.

The heavy rains also prompted flood and landslide warnings in areas where fire has stripped hillsides and canyons of vegetation.

Cooler, more favorable weather in the region since last week has already dispelled some of the smoky, polluted air and tempered the flames, enabling ground teams with axes and bulldozers to take the offensive while also allowing greater use of water-dropping helicopters and airplane tankers.

Higher humidity levels were likewise bolstering hopes for subduing blazes in the greater San Francisco Bay area.

“Milder weather is helping the fire fight as crews continue to gain ground on many of the major incidents,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Friday.

Reporting by Brad Brooks in Gates, Oregon; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman, Maria Caspani and Gabriella Borter; Writing by Will Dunham and Steve Gorman; Editing by Timothy Gardner, David Gregorio, Aurora Ellis and Daniel Wallis

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Chimney sweep Grant Darrow was a major supporter of the Greater Idaho movement.Nathan VanderKlippe/The Globe and Mail

When people describe the differences between eastern and western Oregon, they often speak in colors.

The rainy green of the coast contrasts sharply with the dunes of an arid interior and its expanses of sun-bleached wheat. Then there are the political shades: the blue to the west that has kept the Democrats in office for nearly 40 years, while east of the Cascade Mountains the Republican red runs so deep that in some counties four out of five voters backed Donald Trump a year 2020

Such geographic and political divisions are rife in the US, generating a resentment and disenchantment that have fueled frustrated undercurrents from the Tea Party to Trumpism.

In eastern Oregon, a group says they have a solution: Join Idaho, one of the US’s most dependable red states, by pushing the state line far west — a sort of extreme maneuver that would redraw the national map to include the Separate citizens by their political beliefs. The Greater Idaho Movement, as it is known, proposes taking over nearly two-thirds of Oregon’s land and bringing it under Boise’s rule.

Breakaway Counties in Oregon

In eastern Oregon, 11 counties have already voted to commit to joining Idaho

counties that voted

for joining Idaho

Counties voting next

about joining Idaho

The Globe and Mail, source: majoridaho.org

Breakaway Counties in Oregon

In eastern Oregon, 11 counties have already voted to commit to joining Idaho

counties that voted

for joining Idaho

Counties voting next

about joining Idaho

The Globe and Mail, source: majoridaho.org

Breakaway Counties in Oregon

In eastern Oregon, 11 counties have already voted to commit to joining Idaho

counties that voted

for joining Idaho

Counties voting next

about joining Idaho

The Globe and Mail, source: majoridaho.org

The concept, seductive to conservatives, is among the most palpable expressions of the ill will that permeates modern US politics, even if critics dismiss it as absurd. “I’m 76 years old and if I don’t die by the time I’m 111, it won’t be done,” said Susan Roberts, a Wallowa County councilwoman who has been in politics for 40 years. “If you want to move to Idaho or Kentucky or anywhere, you can do that.”

Some in eastern Oregon counter: Why uproot yourself when you can bring Idaho to you?

The idea caught on. Eleven rural Oregon counties have already voted to begin discussions about joining Idaho. Politicians in Oregon and Idaho have prepared legislation to kick-start negotiations. Polls in both states show high levels of public support for the idea, and money is being raised to hire lobbyists.

“Time to split or succumb,” as Grant Darrow put it in a 2015 letter to the editor that helped spark the current movement. Mr. Darrow is a chimney sweep from eastern Oregon whose job once took him into homes in an area the size of New Jersey. Conversations in those living rooms, he says, prompted him to propose a change.

Matt McCaw, spokesman for the Greater Idaho movement, outside his home in Powell Butte.Nathan VanderKlippe/The Globe and Mail

“Everyone was upset about what was going on in Salem,” he said in the Oregon capital. “People were just angry.” The split from the Coastal Liberals just seemed to make sense.

“They don’t want us. We don’t want to be here,” he said. “And the people of Idaho agree with our cause.”

Idaho Republicans see the prospect of additional resources and a voting bloc that would cement their grip on an already conservative stronghold.

“We’re looking at this huge landmass over there in Oregon. Check out their resources, from water to wood to minerals. Why wouldn’t we at least have a chat?” said Barbara Ehardt, an Idaho representative who intends to draft a bill proposing a discussion about moving the state line.

In eastern Oregon, 11 counties have already voted to support a move to Idaho, pledging local commissioners to meet regularly to discuss the idea. These meetings are typically sparsely attended, and a recent drive through the region – with its wind-sculpted landscapes, mountain ranges and narrow river gorges – showed few signs of roadside support.

But complaints are widespread. People have resented elements of the state’s progressive policies, including minimum wage increases, climate-related measures, decriminalizing drug possession and more recently Measure 114, which will require new permits to buy a gun and ban the possession of magazines containing more than 10 rounds. (The measure is challenged by a lawsuit filed by Harney County, one of the 11 who voted for Greater Idaho.)

“We believe almost nothing like it on the West Side,” said Matt McCaw, a small business owner who is now a spokesman for Greater Idaho. He called state borders an imaginary line established at a very different time in history.

In 2015, Grant Darrow sent a letter to the editor proposing breaking off portions of Oregon, a notion that has become the Greater Idaho Movement today. Mr Darrow keeps the letter framed at his home in Cove.Nathan VanderKlippe/The Globe and Mail

Today, “where the state line runs makes no sense in this state. Because it’s not where the cultural, political and economic divide is.”

The pandemic in particular has roused dissatisfaction. “People in eastern Oregon didn’t like the lockdown,” McCaw said. “And it was forced upon us by the west side of the state.”

History, supporters say, is on their side. Other borders have been shifted, albeit slightly, in recent decades following an agreement between two states. The US Congress must approve such a change.

Still, no one needs to have a precise idea of ​​what Greater Idaho might cost just yet. Critics have suggested that Idaho would have to pay many billions of dollars in compensation. Proponents say the state’s eastern counties are home to 9 percent of the population, and therefore Idaho could be expected to shoulder 9 percent of the state’s debt.

Nonetheless, they say it’s much more viable than other self-government concepts like Jefferson State, an idea to create an entirely new West Coast state.

And the 11 county votes should be taken seriously, said Dennis Linthicum, an Oregon state senator.

“King George III. probably should have given it serious thought when 13 colonies pleaded for their freedom,” said Mr. Linthicum, who recently proposed legislation to open negotiations in the greater Idaho area. He calls Alberta’s recently passed sovereignty law “a bit inspiring”.

But even for him, actually redrawing the map isn’t a top priority.

“We get some conversation started and that’s the main thing,” he said. “Is it really pushing the line and that’s the be-all and end-all? I don’t believe.”

But for others, Greater Idaho’s very existence reflects a grim modern reality. Oregon author and commentator Robert Leo Heilman accuses leaders who have tracked social fractures for their own political gain.

“I blame the angry people less than the people who intentionally piss them off,” he said.

“In Dante’s Inferno, the discordants occupy the eighth ring of Hell. Just off the ground,” he added. “Hell, the lechers are on the second ring. Choose your sins wisely.”

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Listen to the article
4 mins

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Dive Brief:

• In Oregon, a switch to sales of only zero-emissions residential heating and cooling appliances by 2030 could nearly halve climate pollution by 2035 while increasing electricity demand from homes and buildings 13% by the middle of the century, according to a recent report from Synapse Energy Economics.
• The report, prepared for the Sierra Club, found that making this transition could lead to $1.1 billion in gas and electric system savings for the residential and commercial sector through 2050, with cost savings beginning in 2030.
• The city of Eugene is currently developing a local policy to wean developers off natural gas in new construction, making it the first in Oregon to do so. The state is aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050.

Dive Insight:

Meeting Oregon’s climate goals will mean reducing the carbon footprint of residential and commercial buildings, which currently produce 35% of the state’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to the report. One approach is to electrify building appliances and systems and switch to efficient electric heat pumps.

There are two types of heat pumps, according to Fred Heutte, senior policy associate with the NW Energy Coalition: those that can provide air heating and air conditioning and those that provide hot water.

“We’re poised to do a pretty big upward market transformation [with] both kinds of heat pumps in the next few years,” Heutte said, adding that the recent Synapse report builds on work that has been happening in the state for a long time. The transition to heat pumps represents a shift away from natural gas heating as well as older styles of electric resistance heating, he said, which tend to not be as efficient.

The report took a closer look at two electrification pathways: one that assumes a 100% market share for efficient electrical systems by 2025 and another that reaches that goal by 2030. The more-aggressive 2025 deadline would reduce carbon emissions by 56% by 2035, according to the report, while increasing electricity consumption 12% by 2030, and 13% by the middle of the century.

The 2030 pathway, meanwhile, would reduce emissions by 47% by 2035 while increasing electricity demand by 10% by 2030 and 13% by 2050. These efforts will likely lower energy system costs in both scenarios, the study found: The 2030 pathway is estimated to lead to $1.1 billion in savings through 2050, while the 2025 pathway saves around $1.7 billion in the same timeframe.

Heat pump technology can also help the power system by shifting load around, according to Heutte, because they can be scheduled to operate outside of peak electricity demand hours, essentially functioning like a kind of battery storage.

“In effect, what you’re doing is shifting the renewable energy from when it’s generated to when it’s needed,” he explained, by, for instance, pre-heating water or pre-cooling a house. “All those things are basically smart ways to manage the customer side of energy use.”

Moreover, the report shows that because of the high efficiency of heat pump technology, electricity consumption in residential buildings in Oregon would actually decrease even as the amount of homes using electricity for heating and water heating doubles, Dylan Plummer, senior campaign representative with Sierra Club , said in an email.

The main challenge standing in the way of widespread adoption of heat pump technology is ensuring that the financial burden of the transition does not fall on historically marginalized households, according to Plummer.

“That is why organizations across the State are working to put in place policies at all levels of government to fund targeted retrofit programs to ensure that the clean energy transition has values ​​of economic and racial equity at its core,” he said.

The post Switching to environment friendly, electrical HVAC home equipment may save Oregon $1.1B by way of 2050, research finds appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Listen to the article
4 mins

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

Dive Brief:

• In Oregon, a switch to sales of only zero-emissions residential heating and cooling appliances by 2030 could nearly halve climate pollution by 2035 while increasing electricity demand from homes and buildings 13% by the middle of the century, according to a recent report from Synapse Energy Economics.
• The report, prepared for the Sierra Club, found that making this transition could lead to $1.1 billion in gas and electric system savings for the residential and commercial sector through 2050, with cost savings beginning in 2030.
• The city of Eugene is currently developing a local policy to wean developers off natural gas in new construction, making it the first in Oregon to do so. The state is aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050.

Dive Insight:

Meeting Oregon’s climate goals will mean reducing the carbon footprint of residential and commercial buildings, which currently produce 35% of the state’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to the report. One approach is to electrify building appliances and systems and switch to efficient electric heat pumps.

There are two types of heat pumps, according to Fred Heutte, senior policy associate with the NW Energy Coalition: those that can provide air heating and air conditioning and those that provide hot water.

“We’re poised to do a pretty big upward market transformation [with] both kinds of heat pumps in the next few years,” Heutte said, adding that the recent Synapse report builds on work that has been happening in the state for a long time. The transition to heat pumps represents a shift away from natural gas heating as well as older styles of electric resistance heating, he said, which tend to not be as efficient.

The report took a closer look at two electrification pathways: one that assumes a 100% market share for efficient electrical systems by 2025 and another that reaches that goal by 2030. The more-aggressive 2025 deadline would reduce carbon emissions by 56% by 2035, according to the report, while increasing electricity consumption 12% by 2030, and 13% by the middle of the century.

The 2030 pathway, meanwhile, would reduce emissions by 47% by 2035 while increasing electricity demand by 10% by 2030 and 13% by 2050. These efforts will likely lower energy system costs in both scenarios, the study found: The 2030 pathway is estimated to lead to $1.1 billion in savings through 2050, while the 2025 pathway saves around $1.7 billion in the same timeframe.

Heat pump technology can also help the power system by shifting load around, according to Heutte, because they can be scheduled to operate outside of peak electricity demand hours, essentially functioning like a kind of battery storage.

“In effect, what you’re doing is shifting the renewable energy from when it’s generated to when it’s needed,” he explained, by, for instance, pre-heating water or pre-cooling a house. “All those things are basically smart ways to manage the customer side of energy use.”

Moreover, the report shows that because of the high efficiency of heat pump technology, electricity consumption in residential buildings in Oregon would actually decrease even as the amount of homes using electricity for heating and water heating doubles, Dylan Plummer, senior campaign representative with Sierra Club , said in an email.

The main challenge standing in the way of widespread adoption of heat pump technology is ensuring that the financial burden of the transition does not fall on historically marginalized households, according to Plummer.

“That is why organizations across the State are working to put in place policies at all levels of government to fund targeted retrofit programs to ensure that the clean energy transition has values ​​of economic and racial equity at its core,” he said.

The post Switching to environment friendly, electrical HVAC home equipment may save Oregon $1.1B by means of 2050, examine finds appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/AP) — Schoolchildren in California, Oregon and Washington will no longer be required to wear masks as part of new indoor mask policies the Democratic governors of all three states announced jointly on Monday.

“With declining case rates and hospitalizations across the West, California, Oregon and Washington are moving together to update their masking guidance,” the governors said in a statement.

READ MORE: Former Juror Richelle Nice Grilled Over Book Deal, Prison Letters To Scott Peterson

The new guidance will make face coverings a recommendation rather than a requirement at most indoor places in California starting Tuesday and at schools on March 12, regardless of vaccination status. In Washington and Oregon, all the requirements will lift on March 12.

Federal mask requirements will still apply in high-risk indoor settings such as public transportation, airports and taxis. Rules for other high-risk indoor settings could also vary by state.

The milestone, two years in the making, comes as much of the country relaxes public health orders, including school mask mandates, in an effort to restore normalcy and boost economic recovery as Americans learn to live with the virus.

“California continues to adjust our policies based on the latest data and science, applying what we’ve learned over the past two years to guide our response to the pandemic,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement. “Masks are an effective tool to minimize spread of the virus and future variants, especially when transmission rates are high. We cannot predict the future of the virus, but we are better prepared for it and will continue to take measures rooted in science to keep California moving forward.”

“Two years ago today, we identified Oregon’s first case of COVID-19,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said in the statement. “On the West Coast our communities and economies are linked. Together, as we continue to recover from the Omicron surge, we will build resiliency and prepare for the next variant and the next pandemic.”

Earlier this month, California became the first state to formally shift to an endemic approach to the coronavirus with Newsom’s announcement of a plan that emphasizes prevention and quick reaction to outbreaks over mandated masking and business shutdowns.

Newsom has come under growing pressure from Republicans and other critics to ease the school mandate, which has increasingly become a polarizing issue among parents in California.

While many parents still support wearing masks in schools, others have questioned why it’s necessary when they no longer are required to do so in supermarkets and elsewhere. On Feb. 15 California ended an indoor mask requirement for vaccinated people, but at that time left the rule in place for the unvaccinated and for schoolchildren.

Starting Tuesday in California, masks will no longer be required but “strongly recommended” for unvaccinated individuals in most indoor settings. The same shift will apply to K-12 schools and childcare facilities starting March 12, the statement said.

A handful of California school districts have already dropped mask mandates for students in recent weeks in open defiance of the state mandate.

The West Coast announcements come after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased the federal mask guidance Friday, essentially saying the majority of Americans don’t need to wear masks in many indoor public places, including schools.

The new CDC guidance bases recommendations for restrictions such as masking on a new set of measures, with less focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals. Under the new system, the CDC said that more than 70% of Americans live in places where the coronavirus poses a low or medium threat to hospitals and therefore can stop wearing masks in most indoor places.

READ MORE: Woman Suffers Life-Threatening Injuries In Weekend Stabbing In San Francisco’s Visitation Valley

The CDC had endorsed universal masking in schools regardless of virus levels in the community since July, but it now recommends masks in schools only in counties at high risk.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said health officials will announce new guidance for schools next week to give them time to prepare.

“Many businesses and families will continue choosing to wear masks,” he said. “As we transition to this next phase, we will continue to move forward together carefully and cautiously.”

Despite rising criticism from parents and some school administrators, Newsom had left the school mask requirements in place in California.

On Sunday, children and parents of “Mask Choice” rallied at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, holding signs demanding the end of mask requirements in schools.

“It’s seen as this force field. It’s been given too much credit. It’s time to get our kids back to normal,” said Laura Fagan.

“The California DPH has been the most conservative, the most restrictive of all the state departments of public health in the United States,” said UCSF infectious diseases expert Dr. Monica Ghandi.

“I think we’re all in pretty much agreement that it’s appropriate to take masks off for a lot of people. It’s really a question of is it now or will it be in a couple weeks?” said UC Berkeley infectious diseases expert Dr. John Schwartzberg.

Under new CDC recommendations, the majority of school districts in California’s 58 counties would be allowed to remove masks falling under “low or medium” levels of transmission.

Nearly every Bay Area county meets the criteria too, with the exception of Napa and Solano counties, which are still in the red.

“We are doing so much better than five and six weeks ago. The surge has come down dramatically,” Swartzberg said.

In the latest UC Berkeley/IGS poll, 61 percent still support mask mandates in schools. Thirty-seven percent disapprove, with the remaining undecided.

MORE NEWS: Contra Costa Supes Consider Proposal To Build Condos On Former Palmer School Site

“Of course, we’d like to have the masks off with kids but it’s not dangerous, having them on,” Swartzberg said.

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YUROK RESERVATION, Calif. — The young mother had behaved erratically for months, hitchhiking and wandering naked through two Native American reservations and a small town clustered along Northern California’s rugged Lost Coast.

But things escalated when Emmilee Risling was charged with arson for igniting a fire in a cemetery. Her family hoped the case would force her into mental health and addiction services. Instead, she was released over the pleas of loved ones and a tribal police chief.

The 33-year-old college graduate — an accomplished traditional dancer with ancestry from three area tribes — was last seen soon after, walking across a bridge near a place marked End of Road, a far corner of the Yurok Reservation where the rutted pavement dissolves into thick woods.

Her disappearance is one of five instances in the past 18 months where Indigenous women have gone missing or been killed in this isolated expanse of Pacific coastline between San Francisco and Oregon, a region where the Yurok, Hupa, Karuk, Tolowa and Wiyot people have coexisted for millennia. Two other women died from what authorities say were overdoses despite relatives’ questions about severe bruises.

The crisis has spurred the Yurok Tribe to issue an emergency declaration and brought increased urgency to efforts to build California’s first database of such cases and regain sovereignty over key services.

“I came to this issue as both a researcher and a learner, but just in this last year, I knew three of the women who have gone missing or were murdered — and we shared so much in common,” said Blythe George, a Yurok tribal member who consults on a project documenting the problem. “You can’t help but see yourself in those people.”

___

The recent cases spotlight an epidemic that is difficult to quantify but has long disproportionately plagued Native Americans.

A 2021 report by a government watchdog found the true number of missing and murdered Indigenous women is unknown due to reporting problems, distrust of law enforcement and jurisdictional conflicts. But Native women face murder rates almost three times those of white women overall — and up to 10 times the national average in certain locations, according to a 2021 summary of the existing research by the National Congress of American Indians. More than 80% have experienced violence.

In this area peppered with illegal marijuana farms and defined by wilderness, almost everyone knows someone who has vanished.

Missing person posters flutter from gas station doors and road signs. Even the tribal police chief isn’t untouched: He took in the daughter of one missing woman, and Emmilee — an enrolled Hoopa Valley tribal member with Yurok and Karuk blood — babysat his children.

In California alone, the Yurok Tribe and the Sovereign Bodies Institute, an Indigenous-run research and advocacy group, uncovered 18 cases of missing or slain Native American women in roughly the past year — a number they consider a vast undercount. An estimated 62% of those cases are not listed in state or federal databases for missing persons.

Hupa citizen Brandice Davis attended school with the daughters of a woman who disappeared in 1991 and now has daughters of her own, ages 9 and 13.

“Here, we’re all related, in a sense,” she said of the place where many families are connected by marriage or community ties.

She cautions her daughters about what it means to be female, Native American and growing up on a reservation: “You’re a statistic. But we have to keep going. We have to show people we’re still here.”

___

Like countless cases involving Indigenous women, Emmilee’s disappearance has gotten no attention from the outside world.

But many here see in her story the ugly intersection of generations of trauma inflicted on Native Americans by their white colonizers, the marginalization of Native peoples and tribal law enforcement’s lack of authority over many crimes committed on their land.

Virtually all of the area’s Indigenous residents, including Emmilee, have ancestors who were shipped to boarding schools as children and forced to give up their language and culture as part of a federal assimilation campaign. Further back, Yurok people spent years away from home as indentured servants for colonizers, said Judge Abby Abinanti, the tribe’s chief judge.

The trauma caused by those removals echoes among the Yurok in the form of drug abuse and domestic violence, which trickles down to the youth, she said. About 110 Yurok children are in foster care.

“You say, ‘OK, how did we get to this situation where we’re losing our children?’” said Abinanti. “There were big gaps in knowledge, including parenting, and generationally those play out.”

An analysis of cases by the Yurok and Sovereign Bodies found most of the region’s missing women had either been in foster care themselves or had children taken from them by the state. An analysis of jail bookings also showed Yurok citizens in the two-county region are 11 times more likely to go to jail in a given year — and half those arrested are female, usually for low-level crimes. That’s an arrest rate for Yurok women roughly five times the rate of female incarcerations nationwide, said George, the University of California, Merced sociologist consulting with the tribe.

The Yurok run a tribal wellness court for addiction and operate one of the country’s only state-certified tribal domestic violence perpetrator programs. They also recently hired a tribal prosecutor, another step toward building an Indigenous justice system that would ultimately handle all but the most serious felonies.

The Yurok also are working to reclaim supervision over foster care and hope to transfer their first foster family from state court within months, said Jessica Carter, the Yurok Tribal Court director. A tribal-run guardianship court follows another 50 children who live with relatives.

The long-term plan — mostly funded by grants — is a massive undertaking that will take years to accomplish, but the Yurok see regaining sovereignty over these systems as the only way to end the cycle of loss that’s taken the greatest toll on their women.

“If we are successful, we can use that as a gift to other tribes to say, ‘Here’s the steps we took,’” said Rosemary Deck, the newly hired tribal prosecutor. “‘You can take this as a blueprint and assert your own sovereignty.’”

___

Emmilee was born into a prominent Native family, and a bright future beckoned.

Starting at a young age, she was groomed to one day lead the intricate dances that knit the modern-day people to generations of tradition nearly broken by colonization. Her family, a “dance family,” has the rare distinction of owning enough regalia that it can outfit the brush, jump and flower dances without borrowing a single piece.

At 15, Emmilee paraded down the National Mall with other tribal members at the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. The Washington Post published a front-page photo of her in a Karuk dress of dried bear grass, a woven basket cap and a white leather sash adorned with Pileated woodpecker scalps.

The straight-A student earned a scholarship to the University of Oregon, where she helped lead a prominent Native students’ group. Her success, however, was darkened by the first sign of trouble: an abusive relationship with a Native man whom, her mother believes, she felt she could save through her positive influence.

Later, Emmilee dated another man, became pregnant and returned home to have the baby before finishing her degree.

She then worked with disadvantaged Native families and eventually got accepted into a master’s program. She helped coach her son’s T-ball team and signed him up for swim lessons.

But over time, her family says, they noticed changes.

Emmilee was uncharacteristically tardy for work and grew more combative. She often dropped off her son with family, and she fell in with another abusive boyfriend. Her son was removed from her care when he was 5; a girl born in 2020 was taken away as a newborn as Emmilee’s behavior deteriorated.

Her parents remain bewildered by her rapid decline and think she developed a mental illness — possibly postpartum psychosis — compounded by drugs and the trauma of domestic abuse. At first, she would see a doctor or therapist at her family’s insistence but eventually rebuffed all help.

After her daughter’s birth, Emmilee spiraled rapidly, “like a light switched,” and she began to let go of the Native identity that had been her defining force, said her sister, Mary.

“That was her life, and when you let that go, when you don’t have your kids … what are you?” she said.

___

In the months before she vanished, Emmilee was frequently seen walking naked in public, talking to herself. She was picked up many times by sheriff’s deputies and tribal police but never charged.

The only in-patient psychiatric facility within 300 miles was always too full to admit her. Once, she was taken to the emergency room and fled barefoot in her hospital gown.

“People tended to look the other way. They didn’t really help her. In less than 24 hours, she was just back on the street, literally on the street,” said Judy Risling, her mother. “There were just no services for her.”

In September, Emmilee was arrested after she was found dancing around a small fire in the Hoopa Valley Reservation cemetery.

Then-Hoopa Valley Tribal Police Chief Bob Kane appeared in a Humboldt County court by video and explained her repeated police contacts and mental health problems. Emmilee mumbled during the hearing then shouted out that she didn’t set the fire.

She was released with an order to appear again in 12 days after her public defender argued she had no criminal convictions and the court couldn’t hold her on the basis of her mental health.

Then, Emmilee disappeared.

“We had predicted that something like this may … happen in the future,” said Kane. “And you know, now we’re here.”

____

If Emmilee fell through the cracks before she went missing, she has become even more invisible in her absence.

One of the biggest hurdles in Indian Country once a woman is reported missing is unraveling a confusing jumble of federal, state, local and tribal agencies that must coordinate. Poor communication and oversights can result in overlooked evidence or delayed investigations.

The problem is more acute in rural regions like the one where Emmilee disappeared, said Abigail Echo-Hawk, citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and director of the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle.

“Particularly in reservations and in village areas, there is a maze of jurisdictions, of policies, of procedures of who investigates what,” she said.

Moreover, many cases aren’t logged in federal missing persons databases, and medical examiners sometimes misclassify Native women as white or Asian, said Gretta Goodwin, of the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s homeland security and justice team.

Recent efforts at the state and federal level seek to address what advocates say have been decades of neglect regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Former President Donald Trump signed a bill that required federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement agencies to create or update their protocols for handling such cases. And in November, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to set up guidelines between the federal government and tribal police that would help track, solve and prevent crimes against all Native Americans.

A number of states, including California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona, are also taking on the crisis with greater funding to tribes, studies of the problem or proposals to create Amber Alert-style notifications.

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Emmilee’s case illustrates some of the challenges. She was a citizen of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and was arrested on its reservation, but she is presumed missing on the neighboring Yurok Tribe’s reservation.

The Yurok police are in charge of the missing persons probe, but the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office will decide when to declare the case cold, which could trigger federal help.

The remote terrain where Emmilee was last seen — two hours from the nearest town — created hurdles common on reservations.

Law enforcement determined there wasn’t enough information to launch a formal search and rescue operation in such a vast, mountainous area. The Yurok police opted to forgo their own search because of liability concerns and a lack of training, said Yurok Tribal Police Chief Greg O’Rourke.

Instead, Yurok and Hoopa Valley police and sheriff’s deputies plied the rain-swollen Klamath River by boat and drove back roads.

Emmilee’s father, Gary Risling, says the sheriff’s office failed to act on anonymous tips, was slow to follow up on possible sightings and focused more resources on other missing person’s cases, including a wayward hunter and a kayaker lost at sea.

“I don’t want to seem like I’m picking on them, but that effort is sure not put forward when it becomes a missing Indian woman,” he said.

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal declined interview requests, saying the Yurok are in charge and there are no signs of foul play. O’Rourke said the tips aren’t enough for a search warrant and there’s nothing further the tribal police can do.

The police chief, who knew Emmilee well, says his work is frequently stymied by a broader system that discounts tribal sovereignty.

“The role of police is protect the vulnerable. As tribal police, we’re doing that in a system that’s broken,” he said. “I think that is the reason that Native women get all but dismissed.”

Emmilee’s family, meanwhile, is struggling to shield her children, now 10 and almost 2, from the trauma of their mother’s disappearance — trauma they worry could trigger another generational cycle of loss.

The boy has been having nightmares and recently spoke everyone’s worst fear.

“It’s real difficult when you deal with the grandkids, and the grandkid says, ‘Grandpa, can you take me down the river and can we look for my mama?’ What do you tell him? ‘We’re looking, we’re looking every day,’” said Gary Risling, choking back tears.

“And then he says, ‘What happens if we can’t find her?’”

–Gillian Flaccus/The Associated Press

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Julie Levitch wasn’t arrested until a sweaty evening in August 2020 when a neighbor heard broken glass and called the police.

Levitch, a 52-year-old mother of two, had gone to her boyfriend’s house to return his phone. The doorbell was broken, so she knocked on the window. It had cracked, and when she tapped the glass, her hand broke right through, leaving a bloody wound, she said. When the Phoenix police arrived, the couple stated there was nothing wrong – but officers arrested Levitch and charged her with criminal harm through misdemeanor.

She spent the night in jail, where she says she was sexually molested, the cave was searched and put in solitary confinement for 16 hours. Three months later, prosecutors agreed to drop the charges.

Now Levitch is suing – not for her arrest and detention, but because the county jail posted her mug shot online. Like many law enforcement agencies, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office routinely releases photos of people admitted to the local detention center, potentially permanently devastating their lives before they were convicted.

“That photo will be out there forever,” Levitch told me, worrying about how it would affect everything from job openings in her job as a technical writer to new friendships. “We live in a society where you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but I was found guilty the minute the mug shot showed up.”

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has not yet responded to Levitch’s lawsuit, and a spokeswoman declined to comment on pending litigation.

In the digital age, those images of people’s worst days lurk forever as internet clickbait. Many news outlets have stopped posting mug photos – or at least so many of the photos – but some states and cities are starting to grapple with a more fundamental problem: Why are police posting mug photos – and should they be allowed to?

“If you see a mug shot, you are suspecting crime,” said Imani Gandy, a law and court journalist and a vocal critic of the representation of colored people in the news media.

In Oregon, after January 1, law enforcement officials may only release booking photos under certain circumstances, such as trying to find a fugitive.

***

The first time I saw my own mug shot was the day after I was jailed in New York state for heroin. It was December 2010, and I was still on the high of drugs, when the other women in the cell block woke me up to point out my frowning face on the evening news.

With scabby cheeks and a red nose, I looked worse in this photo than any other I’d ever seen of myself. I had no idea then how stubbornly it would follow me. Long after I stopped getting high, articles about my arrest – with that “faces of meth” -like picture attached – were the first results when I typed my name into Google, like a digital ball and a chain to me connects with a previous life.

Still, I was fortunate and privileged to be given a second chance, unlike so many others. When I started working as a reporter, it was part of my job to add mug shots to dozens of local news and crime stories. Media has long been posting the images that drive web traffic and, with it, advertising money.

It wasn’t until some editorial offices began to abandon this practice that I began to wonder why we had ever done this and urged my own editorial team to stop. (The Oregonian / OregonLive has severely restricted the use of mug shots in recent years.)

***

It was only recently that I began to ask why the police had to publish mug shots in the first place.

Some law enforcement agencies are asking themselves this question as well. The Justice Department has repeatedly refused to post mug shots, arguing in a federal appeals court that there is no public safety interest in posting images that represent a “permanent picture of one of the most difficult episodes in a person’s life.”

Last year the San Francisco Police Department also suspended their release.

“The widespread publication of police posting photos in the news and on social media creates an illusory correlation for viewers that encourages racial prejudice and vastly overestimates the propensity of black and brown men to commit criminal behavior,” said Chief Bill Scott at the time.

Now the department only publishes arrest photos if they have a clear law enforcement purpose – such as finding a suspect or missing person. Last month, Newark, New Jersey police announced a similar policy change.

At least three states have gone a step further and have banned some mug shots from being published. In 2019, New York changed its Open Records Act to prohibit posting of mug shots unless it helps law enforcement. That year, California banned police from posting the pictures on social media, and Utah banned mug shots from posting until after the conviction.

The changes generated some resistance, particularly from civil rights groups and journalists. At a February hearing, Salt Lake City investigative reporter Nate Carlisle asked lawmakers to reject Utah law, pointing out that mug shots are sometimes the only evidence of police brutality during an arrest.

“I just don’t think it’s good public policy to hand out fewer government documents,” he told me a few weeks ago. “Whether journalists should publish them is another discussion.”

Since mug shots are often viewed as public records rather than criminal records – the latter of which are considered too personal in many states to release – it’s hard to win a lawsuit like Levitch’s.

“These lawsuits are usually dismissed because the agency says, ‘It’s a public record and we have the right to publish it,'” said Sarah Lageson, a Rutgers sociologist who studies mug shots.

There are a few exceptions, she said. A 2016 court ruling allowed the Department of Justice to withhold mug shots, and in a Pennsylvania case, ex-prisoners were awarded cash damages when a federal jury ruled that releasing mug shots was against the Open Records Act.

“It should be a change in the law and then we wouldn’t have to rely on judicial interpretation of what is publicly available in the digital age,” said Lageson.

Some law enforcement say that posting mug shots can encourage other victims to come forward, and others claim – without evidence – that threating a mug shot can help deter crime.

But for people who have publicly posted their mug shots, it seems like the practice also discourages rebuilding a life. Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the exact damage because when a would-be job or a landlord or date pops up after discovering a stigmatizing picture online, we usually never know. To Levitch, this seems to undermine the basic protections our justice system should have.

“Is it constitutional to publish mug shots that damage the reputation of people when they are still innocent?” Said Levite. “It just seems naturally unfair and not American to do this.”

Keri Blakinger is a salaried writer whose work has focused on prisons and prisons.

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