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Independence, Monmouth win regional cooperative project Award See A2

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Wednesday March 13, 2024 | Volume 148, Issue 011

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Cyberattack knocks Central back ‘to like it’s 1985’ Staff still bringing systems back online By DAVID HAYES Itemizer-Observer

Central School District Superintendent Jennifer Kubista on March 5 was finally able to provide

details of a cyber-attack that successfully shut down technology district wide “to like it was 1985.” The administration discovered a ransomware attack by the group LockBit in the early morning hours of Feb. 7. All networks, access to printers and the community

communication tool PowerSchool went down. “By that afternoon, with the assistance of our cyber insurance carrier, Special District of Oregon, we were consulting with leading cyber security and digital forensic experts to safely restore our systems and investigate this incident,” Kubista said.

“We had, with our partners, already started communications with local, state, and federal law enforcement. “Our building principals were ready to support and make the move to learning like it’s 1985. Staff prepped for technology-free teaching and learning for at least two weeks,” she added.

Cemetery Saviors

With the help of local and state partners, the Central School District was able to slowly bring key systems back online. Limited access returned to PowerSchool by Feb. 9 and the following week, front office staff See CENTRAL, page A7

State forests plan passes on split vote Polk County likely to see small increase in yearly revenue By ALEX BAUMHARDT Oregon Capital Chronicle

PHOTOS BY DAVID HAYES

David Pinyerd and Bernadette Niederer of Historic Preservation Northwest work to return a tall grave marker to its full, upright position within the Dallas Cemetery. were called upon to set Duo from HPNW work Northwest right. Their business usually conwith local volunteers centrates only on restoration and preservation, not cleaning. to preserve Dallas “HPNW does little cleaning. Only enough to make sure it doesn’t interheadstones fere with reattachment,” Niederer By DAVID HAYES Itemizer-Observer

On a cold, misty morning March 5, David Pinyerd and Bernadette Niederer were fighting a winning battle against gravity. A tall gravestone from 1891 in the Dallas Cemetery had begun to lean dangerously. They set up a tripod around the stone, secured and removed the heavy top portion, then dug around the damp ground to reinforce the base with fresh gravel. “It’s got a 600-pound top half. Marble is 175 pounds per cubic foot. It moves surprisingly fast if you knock it down,” Pinyerd explained. “Every year we hear of somebody dying in a cemetery who knocked over a stone or had a stone fall on them.” It was one of 21 markers the duo from Historic Preservation

said. “We encourage volunteers to do the cleaning, we give training. And here at Dallas, they have a really good system for that.” That system is led by Sue Olmstead. A former member of the Dallas Cemetery District, Olmstead now leads a trio of volunteers, amateur genealogists if you will, including Pam Smith and Dennis Theisen, who document the cemetery stones, particularly pioneer rows, that others have started and never completed. “Pam, I and Dennis are cataloging all the stories where we can find it. Babies buried here we find parents to match them to,” Olmstead said. “It gives us a good feeling we know who the parents are, and we’ve linked them together.” Bernadette Niederer of Historic Preservation Northwest points out headstones she and partner David Pinyerd repaired at the Dallas Cemetery.

See SAVIORS, page A8

IN THIS ISSUE Voices Corrections Obituaries Puzzle Solutions Social Puzzles Classifieds Public Records

A4 A4 A6 B2 B2 B3 B7 B7

Following years of planning, tense negotiations and heated public comment, a landmark plan to reduce logging in Oregon’s western state forests to protect threatened species is nearing the finish line. The Oregon Board of Forestry on Thursday voted to advance the Western Oregon State Forests Habitat Conservation Plan. It next goes to federal agencies for approval, and is likely to be finalized by early 2025, according to Board Chair Jim Kelly. Kelly is among four of the seven board members who voted to advance the plan to federal agencies at the Thursday meeting. If implemented, it will regulate logging and conservation on about 630,000 thousand acres of state forests for the next 70 years to protect 17 threatened or endangered species. Among them are Northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets, salmon and steelhead, martens, red tree voles and torrent salamanders. The volume of wood permitted for harvest from those western state forests will drop by about 20%. On average, those forests would produce about 185 million board feet of timber each year rather than 225 million board feet currently produced. The plan has been decades in the making, but its development was accelerated around 2018, and again in 2023, following lawsuits over species loss in Oregon’s western forests. Officials say a habitat conservation plan approved by the federal government is necessary for the state to avoid lawsuits under the federal Endangered Species Act. “Going ahead with this habitat conservation plan is actually our only way to guarantee we have a future for logging in our state forests that does not shut them down,” Kelly said at the meeting. Over the last few decades, as fewer federal acres were allowed to be cut, logging companies turned to Oregon’s state forests, Kelly said. Today, state forests make up 3% of Oregon’s forestlands, but provide 10% of the total timber that’s harvested in the state each year. “That’s out of balance,” Kelly said. “At the end of the day, most Oregonians don’t want our state forests to be managed like a commercial tree farm.” Leaders in western Oregon timber counties, timber company representatives and representatives of the logging industry have railed against the plan. See FORESTS, page A7

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