Murmurs: SAIF CEO Targeted by Gunfire

SAIF CEO TARGETED BY GUNFIRE: The more than 1,000 employees at the workers’ compensation insurer SAIF Corp. are on pins and needles after a Feb. 21 shooting incident at SAIF CEO Chip Terhune’s Lake Oswego home. Terhune told police three bullets ripped through his front door at about 4 am that day. Although nobody was hurt, Terhune subsequently told SAIF employees in an email that the company, by far the state’s largest workers’ comp insurer, had received an email from someone purporting to be the shooter, listing the names and addresses of other employees. “Law enforcement is working diligently to investigate this matter and asked that we not share any additional specific information about the actual email,” Terhune told staff. SAIF and Gov. Tina Kotek, who appoints the insurer’s five-member board, have declined to comment, citing the ongoing criminal investigation, as has the lead investigative agency, the Lake Oswego Police Department.

METRO PRESIDENT FLAMES COUNTY: Metro President Lynn Peterson pulled no punches in criticizing Multnomah County for surprising her with a $104 million budget shortfall at the Joint Office for Homeless Services, the county-run partnership with the city that gets much of its funding from Metro’s supportive housing service tax. At a Feb. 21 press conference, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson pleaded for more money from Metro and the state to fill the hole and keep county shelters open. “I want you all to know that I was shocked by her request and by the depth of the budget hole that the Joint Office finds itself in,” Peterson replied at Feb. 24 Metro meeting that included Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and Multnomah County Commissioners Julia Brim-Edwards and Shannon Singleton. “County staff and county commissioners have worked so hard to get to this point, only to be undermined by this admission of negligence.” Peterson said Multnomah County must answer “so many questions” before Metro considers giving the county any more money from the SHS tax. Among them: If much of the money was for one-time uses, why was the county coming up short for future budgets? Other elected officials piled on. “We’re surprised, we’re flat-footed, and we don’t believe that this is how partnership and collaboration should be forged,” Wilson said at the meeting. Brim-Edwards said she and other commissioners got news of the shortfall just an hour before Friday’s news conference. A county spokesperson fired back at Peterson on Feb. 25, writing in an email to WW: “How could President Peterson be surprised? We reported our SHS financial situation to Metro just over a week ago in our report, just like we do each quarter. In addition, the chair called President Peterson the day before we made this public. It was the Metro forecast that has so dramatically changed our financial outlook. We should not be playing politics and casting blame.”

PRESCHOOL FOR ALL TAKES INPUT FROM PROVIDERS: Multnomah County’s Preschool for All program will establish a preschool provider advisory committee this year, with applications opening sometime this spring. The committee will include 10 to 15 members who operate schools participating in the county’s universal preschool program, county spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti says. The group will focus primarily on policy development and refinement, including advising the county on requirements and expectations for providers. Its formation comes as the county relies on folding about 7,000 private preschool slots into the program to meet its goal of enrolling 11,000 preschoolers by 2030. In October, WW raised questions to the county after private providers expressed concerns that providing Preschool for All at their locations would drive them out of business, citing high standards imposed by the county that were unsustainable financially (“In Timeout,” Oct. 23, 2024). Since then, current and prospective providers have complained that their input was going unheard. “The provider advisory committee will offer an opportunity to collaborate with providers through a more formalized structure,” Sullivan-Springhetti says.

GROCERS WANT CANNED COCKTAILS: Unlike 31 other states, Oregon prohibits grocery stores from selling canned cocktails made with distilled spirits, although state law does allow grocers to sell beer, wine, wine-based cocktails and hard seltzer. The difference is the base: Beer and wine are fermented while hard liquor is distilled. On Feb. 24, however, a new bill advanced the quest of the Northwest Grocery Retail Association to grab a piece of the market for canned cocktails—which, unlike those for hard liquor and wine, is booming. House Bill 3730 would allow the state’s nearly 800 grocery stores to sell canned cocktails containing up to 14% alcohol by volume. To gain favor with the revenue-hungry Democrats who control the Capitol, grocers say the product will carry a tax of $8 per gallon, more than twice the tax California collects. The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland), says the bill “gives our homegrown businesses greater market access, expanding consumer choice, and generating new tax revenue that will directly fund youth alcohol and drug addiction prevention and treatment programs.” Oregon’s beer and wine industries are likely to oppose the bill.