Auld Lang News

[December 28th, 2005] Before turning the lights out on 2005, WW presents three updates on cover stories from the year gone by:

^"Welcome to Gastoria," Sept. 28

Time has not cooled passions any over four proposed liquefied natural gas terminals in and around Astoria.

Safe to say that's still the area's most divisive issue, as plans for construction inch forward.

Proponents say LNG would be an economic boom and lower utility rates regionwide, while enviros and some residentsare worried about the impact on river life.

This month, Warrenton city commissioners OK'ed the rezoning of a site on the Skipanon Peninsula, allowing a subsidiary of California-based Calpine Corp. to move forward with its application to federal regulators. Calpine filed for bankruptcy protection Dec. 20, but it's unclear whether that means its project will be held up.

And Northern Star Natural Gas recently announced plans to build a power plant at its proposed site to warm the chilled fuel. Critics cried foul, saying the change warrants reopening public input.

Samantha Duncan of RiverVision, a renewable-energy advocacy group, says some feel a terminal is coming but others remain optimistic "because the people who live here, the fishermen and people who use the river, will never let it happen." —Ian Demsky

^"Doctors Inc.," Oct. 19

Physicians Hospital, Oregon's only doctor-owned hospital, faces a Dec. 31 deadline to come into compliance with the state agency that licenses hospitals.

"We are following up on the status of several outstanding waivers that we re-established as a condition of licensing the Hospital in December of 2004," wrote Mike McDermott of the Oregon Department of Human Services on Nov. 29 to Bill Houston, the hospital's CEO.

Earlier this year, Physicians, located in Northeast Portland's Gateway neighborhood, drew state regulators' attention for questionable safety practices and the puzzling death of a patient named Helen Wilson.

When Physicians got its license last year, inspectors noted several shortcomings, most of which were supposed to be fixed during 2005. Two of those items—ensuring that the hospital's medical gas lines are safe and that adequate "nurse call" capacity exists in various rooms—remain outstanding.

Ron Prinslow, who heads up healthcare licensure for the state, is growing impatient. "I hate to have waivers out there when I'm not sure the hospital is compliant," Prinslow says. Prinslow's group can jerk Physicians' license, although he says that's not imminent.

As for Wilson's family, they have an attorney and are trying to negotiate an out-of-court settlement. "We're hoping for an agreement that will put some safeguards in so what happened to my mom won't happen again," says Wilson's son, Mike, the pastor at Sellwood Baptist Church.

Physicians CEO Houston was unavailable for comment. —Nigel Jaquiss

^"Where's the Art?," May 18

Margaret Rosenborg, 82, has learned that righting one wrong doesn't necessarily make your life fall back into place.

Earlier in 2005, Rosenborg lost 58 of her late husband Ralph's abstract-expressionist paintings because she placed her trust in the wrong man. Richard Valencia, 67, had promised her he could sell the paintings.

And she says he also persuaded her to stop making payments on her house, which was reclaimed by her bank; then ran off with more than $21,000 he claimed would go to posthumously establishing Ralph Rosenborg as a major American painter.

Margaret got the paintings back in August, but her life remains a mess. Her attorney is holding onto four paintings—at a value, she claims, of $25,000—in collateral for her $3,000 legal bill. And since she ran out of money, Rosenborg has to live with her older sister. "I know I shouldn't complain," says Rosenborg, an active Buddhist. She's just annoyed that she keeps running into problems. "People aren't very honest, you know, they just aren't." —Angela Valdez