KWSO News for Mon., Mar. 7, 2022

Tribal Offices continue to have limited phone service.  Warm Springs Telecom reports that they have exhausted efforts to repair their old switch that failed – taking out voice phone service to Warm Springs Telecom customers, including much of the Tribe. A team of engineers has worked to repair that system to no avail.  At the same time another team is working to complete installation of a new switch on a new network that will provide voice phone service.  Testing for both local and long distance service needs to be done as part of the installment process for the new system to get up and running.  Data entry and programming was worked on last week and this week they will need to “port” phone numbers over to the new system.  So phone service will continue to be limited for Tribal programs through next week.

Farmworkers in Oregon would earn overtime pay for the first time in the state under a bill that the Legislature has approved. More than 1,000 people submitted testimony, including farmworkers who said they’ve been taken advantage of for too long for their important labor. If Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, signs the bill, the state will be joining a handful of others, including neighboring California and Washington state, as well as New York state, in ensuring that farmworkers are not excluded from receiving overtime pay. The Oregon Senate passed the bill Thursday, two days after it passed the House. It now goes to Brown’s desk.

Lingering and historic drought conditions across Central Oregon have moved up the timeline for wildfire risk. As KLCC’s Brian Bull reports, officials are urging people to be extra cautious. “In Oregon alone, there are seven counties already experiencing their driest 2-year period ever, in a drought that’s continued since Fall 2019. Spring is also expected to be drier than normal, despite the recent “atmospheric river.” Eric Wise of the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center says Central Oregon is at the “above normal” wildfire risk category. Eric Wise: “Our fire season doesn’t really get going usually until the middle part of June. So our concern for May is more about backyard burning and project fires that might escape, especially on dry and windy days. So we aren’t expecting a lot of naturally-occurring fires to get going, but just are concerned about the dryness of the fuels around the ground.” Wise adds there’s fallen trees, branches, and other heavy fuels that are also very dry. That could make homeowner’s debris burns and fire crews’ prescribed burns tricky if safeguards aren’t in place. I’m Brian Bull reporting in Eugene.”

In Local Sports: The MHS Lady Buffs hosted Astoria Saturday afternoon in the first round of the 4A state playoffs. The Lady Buffs came away with a 51-36 victory over Astoria and are moving on to the Quarter finals of the State playoffs. MHS and Tri-Valley Coach of the Year Jerin Say recapped the game. “We had a lot of time to prepare for this one and we hadn’t run the zone all season long and this is the perfect game to throw it at them and nobody has film of that except for maybe tonight. But coming in to this game we wanted to throw it at them and those girls worked so stinking hard on that zone, blocking out, rotating, communicating. It was such an awesome thing for me to see as a coach is everything come together right there. You know we had slow practices Friday, Monday, Tuesday kinda leading up ramping up and then Wednesday Thursday and Friday we had super intense super aggressive practices and they came out and showed tonight it was just perfect, leading right into this game. The 4^th quarter got a little shaky you know I think they got a little tight but hey we’re working on things and they did enough to win in the 4^th quarter.” The Lady Buffs will face off against 2^nd ranked Cascade on Thursday night March 10^th. Cascade defeated La Grande Friday night 58-48 to move on from the 1^st round. Other notable 4A action from the weekend, Gladstone fell to Marist Catholic 54-46 and is eliminated from the playoffs while Corbett beat Banks to move on to the Quarterfinals.

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