Josephine County News

Oregon legislators on Monday continued to work on a bill allowing the imposition of emergency taxes in financially ailing counties struggling to maintain basic law enforcement services.

Ben Bergreen will retire as superintendent of the Phoenix-Talent School District this month, capping a 36-year career in education that saw him teaching students in lock-up, heading special education programs, and leading the district through more than a decade of financial challenges.

Jackson County's population has bumped up only slightly since 2010, but it still managed to rank sixth in the rate for population growth among Oregon counties, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Nearly half of Douglas County residents 16 years and older are not in the work force, the third-lowest participation rate in the state, according to a report released Thursday by the Oregon Employment Department.

Ever since quitting high school a quarter of a century ago, Medford resident Danny Brotton has taken whatever jobs were available.

The Register-Guard urges city councilors not to start tinkering immediately with the city's newly enacted ban on plastic shopping bags .

David Wechner has accepted the job as Island County's new planning head and is expected to report for work beginning next month.

I am trying to find the names of Indian Mary's children. I am also very curious about a friendship or blood relationship she must have had with Louvilla Hinman, to whom Mary gave some of the land now known as Indian Mary Park.

Authorities say a 51-year-old Grants Pass man drowned over the weekend as he was swimming in a turbulent section of the Rogue River.

Speaking to Monday's Chamber Forum in Medford, Jackson County Administrator Danny Jordan laid out the steps the county has taken to deal with a $6.8 million budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year.

It's hard to see a happy end to the budget problems that have Josephine and Curry counties on the brink of financial disaster.

Medford police have confirmed that a 1971 GMC pickup belonging to Chase Johnson Cook, 22, who last lived on Genesee Street in Medford, was found on a large property in Williams.

By Brendan Monaghan It's one of the first things we learn in civics class: Governments are instituted to secure the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Gov. John Kitzhaber is looking for a couple of local attorneys to fill two soon-to-be-vacant judicial positions on the Jackson County Circuit Court bench.

'Josephine County is broke,' wrote the commenter at Huffington Post. ' Armed citizen volunteers have taken over most patrol duties against the wishes of Sheriff Gilbertson.'

Looking for amazing arrogance coupled economic stupidity at the state government level? You can find it in Oregon where Governor Kitzhaber Demands Tax Hikes and Emergency Powers and Warns he Might Turn to National Guard , if the legislature does not see things his way.

Gov. John Kitzhaber warned Monday that he could be forced to mobilize the National Guard to police financially troubled timber counties if legislators and local officials can't agree on a rescue plan to provide basic law enforcement.

Seventy-five homeless veterans in southwestern Oregon soon will have a home they can call their own, thanks to rental vouchers provided by Uncle Sam.

Two prospectors who were lost in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness have been rescued by Josephine County Search and rescue workers, according to The Daily Courier in Grass Pass.

The Meyer Memorial Trust's board of trustees has awarded two grants totaling $620,000 to organizations in Jackson County.