To see a selection of Kirk`s award winning

www.tigardtimes.com
Dynamic Duo
Tiger at the Series
Bull Mountain brothers are
2012 Community Heroes
— See LIVING HERE, B1
Tigard grad Heidi Pizer shines at the
college softball World Series
— See SPORTS, A14
TheTimes
TIGARD | TUALATIN | SHERWOOD
THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2012 • AN EDITION OF TIMES NEWSPAPERS • VOLUME 57, NO. 23 • 75 CENTS
City Council opts
for special election
Veteran’s home comes together
Rebuilding Together
volunteers pitch in
on home makeover
Bill Mickley, a
Navy veteran,
sits in the living
room of his
home that is
currently being
restored by
Rebuilding
Together. Mickley
was swindled by
a contractor
who began
demolition.
By GEOFF PURSINGER
The Times
METZGER — For years,
William Mickley’s house was
torn apart.
The outside of the home was
an eye-sore, with the siding
torn off and bare insulation
showing everywhere.
TIMES PHOTO:
JAIME VALDEZ
By GEOFF PURSINGER
The Times
TIGARD — The search for
the city’s new mayor is under way.
At a special meeting Tuesday night, the Tigard City
Council approved a plan to
hold a special election in November to fill the seat.
The decision comes following weeks of speculation after
Tigard Mayor Craig Dirksen
ran for, and won, a seat on the
Metro Council, the regional
agency that oversees land-use
and transportation planning
in Washington, Clackamas
and Multnomah counties.
Dirksen, the longest sitting
mayor in the city’s history,
said he will resign in December to take the
position on
Jan. 1, leaving
two years before the end of
his current
term.
Dirksen ran
unopposed for
Metro Council,
HENDERSON winning the
seat in last
month’s primary election.
Metro officials have yet
to formally accept the numbers, which
they plan to do
this
WILSON l a t e r
month, but
city councilors
opted to plan for the impending departure before the numbers are finalized in order to
give potential candidates
enough time to file for the position.
The city had several options
about how to fill the seat: run
as a four-member council
without a sitting mayor, hold a
special election or appoint
someone to fill Dirksen’s seat
until the term expires in 2014.
That’s what City Councilor
Marland Henderson would
have preferred.
Henderson — who abstained
from voting on whether to
hold a special election — argued that the city should appoint either himself or City
Councilor Nick Wilson to
serve in Dirksen’s place for
the remainder of his term.
Both Henderson and Wilson
have announced they will run
for mayor.
With Henderson and Wilson
running for the mayor’s seat,
that leaves no incumbents for
their open City Council positions, which would also be
filled in November.
“I don’t think we just do the
status quo here,” Henderson
said. “I think this is outside
the status quo.”
Henderson said he was worried an election would leave a
new mayor and two new city
See ELECTION / Page A6
FOR HOME DELIVERY CALL, 503-620-9797
The street address was spray
painted across the front of the
house. Inside, wooden beams
showed little more than the
bare bones of walls and rooms.
“It was totally unlivable,”
said Mickley, 88.
It’s been this way since 2009,
Mickley said, after a contractor
swindled him out of thousands
of dollars.
The contractor was hired to
renovate the home that Mickley has owned for more than 30
years. Instead, they demol-
ished most of the house and
took off.
“They stole $58,000 and ran,”
said Mickley’s daughter Marlo.
Unable to live in the home,
Mickley moved in with Marlo
and her fiancé Kent Russell,
who has been working to put
the house back together ever
since.
It’s a process that’s taken
him years.
See MAKEOVER / Page A6
SOPHIE’S STEP FORWARD
■ Tualatin family invites community
to walk with them for tuberous sclerosis
Jami Flicker’s daughter was 2 months old
“It was like she would get excited about somewhen she had her first seizure.
thing and her brain would start to think about
“Her right side tightened, and you could see it something and it would trigger a seizure,” Flicker
work its way up her body,” Flicker said.
said.
A nurse, Flicker recognized the signs immediNow after two brain surgeries, the seizures
ately and rushed Sophie to the hospital that night, have subsided and 4-year-old Sophie is like nearly
where she was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis any other student in her preschool class.
complex, a rare genetic disorder
“She enjoys everything that
that causes benign tumors to
other children enjoy,” Flicker
grow in the brain and other or- Story by Geoff Pursinger said.
gans.
This Sunday, Flicker and her
Photos by Jaime Valdez
Doctors discovered nearly a
husband, Kasey, are helping to
dozen separate tumors in her
put on a special walk at Cook
brain, another 10 in the ventricles, one on a kid- Park in Tigard to raise awareness of TSC and
ney and a few small ones on her face.
raise money for the TS Alliance, a group which
Sophie had seizures almost daily for two years, funds research to treat — and ultimately cure —
Flicker said, and the tumors in her brain stunted
See SOPHIE / Page A3
her speech development.
SOPHIE FLICKER
Livefire
Sherwood man held
in fatal hit and run
Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue crews hone
skills while burning down donated home
By GEOFF PURSINGER
The Times
TIGARD — Firefighters
with Tualatin Valley Fire &
Rescue are usually seen putting out fires, not starting
them.
But fire district crews let a
house in the 13000 block of 76th
Avenue in Tigard burn to the
ground Thursday, May 31, as
part of a rare training opportunity for firefighters.
The home, owned by the late
manufacturer and land owner
Fred Fields for decades, was
donated to the fire district several weeks ago. For nearly a
month, fire crews used the vacant house to conduct search
and rescue exercises, said
TVF&R spokesman Brian
Barker.
“It’s a great opportunity, and
we try to make the most of it,”
Barker said.
Thursday morning about 30
firefighters gathered outside
the house for more training as
crews lit small fires inside various rooms of the structure.
They broke up into teams with
a mix of new recruits and experienced veterans. Firefighters
worked to extinguish the small
fires while using air packs and
large hoses.
After running the scenario
several times, they lit one last
blaze at the end of the day and
let the brick and wood structure burn to its foundation.
Smoke and flames billowed
from the remains for about
three hours, drawing crowds of
The Intel Foundation
donates $200 for
every 20 hours Intel
employees volunteer
in Oregon
TIMES PHOTO: JONATHAN HOUSE
TVF&R firefighter Todd Herrington
picks up tools during a practice
burn in Tigard on Thursday.
neighbors who wanted to get a
closer look. Meanwhile, crews
kept a watchful eye on the final
fire’s progress.
“Fred was a big believer in
education, and we are continuing to put his money where his
mouth is,” said Richard Cana-
See BURN / Page A3
A 24-year-old Sherwood
man was arrested Tuesday
in connection with the
March 31 hit-and-run death
of Nancy Schoeffler on West
Burnside Street in Portland.
Investigators from the Portland Police Bureau’s Traffic Division arrested Josh Chavez at
his Sherwood home. He is the
brother of 23-year-old Ashley
Simone Chavez, who is charged
with the death of Schoeffler, 63.
Ashley Chavez was arrested
Friday by the U.S. Marshals
Service in Bellingham, Wash.
Police say she was the driver of
the car that allegedly struck
Schoeffler after a Portland Timbers game.
Josh Chavez was booked into
the Multnomah County Jail on
charges of hindering prosecution and tampering with physical evidence. He was not in the
car at the time of the accident.
Christopher Michael Rhea,
The result:
$2.2 million in
Donations to
870 Oregon schools
and community groups
for 2011
28, was booked
into the Multnomah County
Jail on charges
of hindering
prosecution
and tampering
with physical
evidence.
CHAVEZ
On Monday,
Portland police arrested 43-year-old Angela Dawn Kaps-Collins and
charged her with hindering
prosecution and tampering
with physical evidence. She
was being held at the Multnomah County Jail on $200,000
bail.
Kaps-Collins was a passenger in the car the night of the
crash.
Schoeffler was killed at about
11:20 p.m. in the 2800 block of
West Burnside Street as she apparently tried to cross the road
and was struck by a vehicle.
415476.060612
Tigard
will vote
on new
mayor in
November
www.tigardtimes.com
Bowmen best
Art imitates life
Paul Dodson tabbed
Sherwood High’s top athlete
— See SPORTS, A12
Isaac Lamb shares another love
story in ‘Sound of Music’
— See LIVING HERE, B1
TheTimes
TIGARD | TUALATIN | SHERWOOD
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2012 • AN EDITION OF TIMES NEWSPAPERS • VOLUME 57, NO. 26 • 75 CENTS
Former
doctor
accused
of abuse
Lawsuit claims man
abused teenage boy
for years in the ’90s
By GEOFF PURSINGER
The Times
A Beaverton man is suing
a former Tigard doctor for
allegedly sexually abusing
him when he was a teenager.
A lawsuit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court
last month claims Raymond
Martin Johnson, a former doctor and member of Beaverton
Foursquare Church sexually
abused a then-teenage boy in
the
1990s,
when Johnson
volunteered at
the church.
The lawsuit
was filed by
Portland attorney
Ke l l y
Clark on May
21. Clark’s client, a Beaverton
man
known as M.D.
in the lawsuit,
said he was
s ex u a l ly
abused while
Johnson was a
member of the
Beaverton
Fouresquare
Ch u r c h o n
Southwest
Walker Road
in the 1990s.
Johnson,
— Kelly Clark, now 80, was a
attorney longtime Tigard medical
doctor, treating patients at Pacific Medical
Group on Pacific Highway until
his retirement in 2003.
According to the lawsuit,
Johnson often held Bible studies and youth group parties at
his home as a volunteer with
the church and often had underage people at his home for
church-approved activities and
events.
“If Mr.
Johnson
made
himself
accountable
and is doing
what he
needs to do
to make
sure that
he doesn’t
do anything
like this
again, that
really
matters to
victims.”
Matt Wingard comes under fire
State House Republican
will not seek re-election
By STEVE LAW
Pamplin Media Group
Two-term Oregon House member Matt Wingard, R-Wilsonville,
dropped out of his re-election
race for House District 26 Tuesday afternoon.
The district runs from Wilsonville, Sherwood, and parts of Bull
Mountain and King City westward
to Forest Grove.
Wingard has been enmeshed in
several controversies revolving
around his personal life and com-
Matt Wingard,
who represents
Sherwood, will
not seek
re-election to
his state House
seat after
accusations of
sexual
misconduct.
FILE PHOTO
bative style, and might have cost his
party a normally safe Republican
House seat had he stayed. Calls
came for him to abandon his re-election drive after the Willamette
Week newspaper reported that a
20-year-old former aide said Wingard provided her alcohol and then
had sex with her, among other allegations. Wingard denied some of
the allegations but acknowledged
having a sexual relationship with
the former aide, who is about half
his age.
That raised concerns among his
House Republican colleagues, who
hold a tenuous 30-30 tie with Democrats in that chamber. The loss of
one seat by either party in November will shift control next year.
Wingard cited concerns for his
family in announcing his decision
not to run, in a late-afternoon press
release.
Wingard was an effective champion for charter schools in the 2011
legislative session, but was criticized for blocking other bills, even
those with bipartisan support, to
pursue his agenda.
“I decided to run in 2008 because I
could not find an education reform
champion in the Oregon Legislature,” he wrote in his press release.
“I am very pleased that last year we
were able to pass the most comprehensive package of education re-
See WINGARD / Page A6
Jeff “Punk Rock” Martin
recently purchased the old
Joy Cinema on Pacific
Highway and will open it to
movie-goers on Friday.
Bringing back
JOY
THE
‘Time alone’
■ New Joy Theater owner brings
beer, babes and bikers to Tigard
Johnson befriended M.D.
and his family in 1992 or 1993,
when M.D. was 12 or 13 years
old, the lawsuit claimed. Johnson gained their trust and confidence and became a mentor
to the boy.
The two spent “substantial
periods of time alone” the lawsuit stated. And beginning
when the boy was 15 or 16,
Johnson reportedly began to
abuse the boy, often fondling,
hugging and kissing him in a
sexual manner. The lawsuit alleges that Johnson propositioned the teen for sex and
W
hen Jeff Martin was younger, he Cinema, taking over the one-screen movie thewanted to be a movie projection- ater on Pacific Highway that has been the
ist when he grew up.
town’s only second-run movie theater for
Now, Martin is making his years, offering films that recently left the muldreams come true.
tiplexes.
Martin, known professionalUntil recently, the theater
ly in Portland as Jeff “Punk Story by Geoff Pursinger showed Bollywood films
Rock” Martin, is a jack of all
from India. However, it
Photos by Jaime Valdez struggled financially and
trades, with a career in advertising, bassist for the Portland
has been shuttered for the
group Surf Trio, and running a small record last several months.
label, Blood Red Vinyl and Records.
Now Martin is the new owner of The Joy
See JOY / Page A6
See ABUSE / Page A6
Annual balloon fest marks start of summer
One Tigard mother
wouldn’t miss this
weekend’s big event
By GEOFF PURSINGER
The Times
TIMES PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ
Tiffany Bigej dances during last year’s Tigard Festival of Balloons. The
festival starts Friday and Bigej says she’ll be there, rain or shine.
When hot-air balloons
decorate the sky Friday
morning, Tigard’s Tiffany
Bigej will be there.
Bigej has lived in Tigard for
18 years, and can count on one
hand the number of times she
has missed the Tigard Festival
of Balloons.
The first was when her husband had back surgery. The
second was when her mother
passed away.
That’s it.
“It seems like we’ve been
See for yourself
WHAT: Tigard Festival of
Balloons
WHEN: Friday through
Sunday, June 22-24
WHERE: Cook Park, 17005
S.W. 92nd Ave., in Tigard
HOW MUCH: $7 at the
gate for a day pass
MORE INFORMATION:
tigardballoon.org
going since the beginning of
time,” Bigej said.
The Tigard mother of two
has made a point of going to
the popular Tigard festival every year since she moved to
town nearly two decades ago.
“There’s a good community
feel to it,” Bigej said, sitting
with her 17-year-old son Zach-
ary and 11-year-old daughter
Hailey.
“We love the whole vibe and
the whole package.”
The Bigejs aren’t alone.
Thousands are expected to
turn up Friday, Saturday and
Sunday at Cook Park for the
three-day festival of balloons,
rides and music.
Living in the nearby Applewood neighborhood, Bigej said
she also attends the annual
Tigard Fourth of July celebration.
“We really like the whole
community feel of the festival,” she said. “Tigard has
come and gone with different
activities, but really beyond
the Fourth of July, the balloon
festival is really the only thing
I consider a community festival in Tigard that we have
maintained through the
years.”
That community feel is important, Bigej said, because as
her family grows, it still finds a
sense of place in town.
“It has something for all of
us to do,” she said. “It is great
for us because as the kids have
evolved and grown, there is
still a lot of fun and relevant
things for all of us.”
Bigej remembers attending
the festival before it moved to
Cook Park in the late 1990s,
and said she has no plans on
See BALLOON / Page A7
FOR HOME DELIVERY CALL, 503-620-9797
www.tigardtimes.com
‘Grant’s Getaways’
Top Timberwolf
Exploring Oregon with Grant
McOmie
— See BOOM!, Inside
Nathan Suyematsu was a three-sport
all-star as a Tualatin senior
— See SPORTS, A12
TheTimes
TIGARD | TUALATIN | SHERWOOD
THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2012 • AN EDITION OF TIMES NEWSPAPERS • VOLUME 57, NO. 28 • 75 CENTS
Driver
shot
during
traffic
stop
A FEAT
Rachael Harris is heading
to Indianapolis to compete
in U.S. Paralympic Trials
after sprinting for the first
time two months ago.
UNTO
TIMES PHOTO:
JAIME VALDEZ
ITSELF
Woman talked with
police hours before
she was killed
State troopers say
man shot himself
with a handgun
A 59-year-old man was in
fair condition Wednesday at
Oregon Health and Science
University Hospital after he
apparently shot himself during a traffic stop Tuesday
evening on Interstate 5 near
Nyberg Road in Tualatin.
Oregon State Police said
James Beaver, formerly of
Roseburg, suffered from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot
wound after he spoke with a
trooper about a traffic violation.
The incident closed all southbound lanes of I-5 for more than
an hour, snarling traffic while
Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue
medical personnel treated the
man and state troopers began
an investigation.
State police reported that
Beaver was driving a 1982 GMC
van south on I-5 near milepost
289 when he was pulled over by
a trooper at about 5:16 p.m.,
said Lt. Gregg Hastings, state
police spokesman.
Beaver was the only person
in the van and spoke with the
trooper.
Beaver was driving with a
suspended license, Hastings
said. The trooper returned to
his patrol car to write Beaver a
citation and order a tow truck
to impound the van.
When the tow truck arrived
at about 5:50 p.m., the trooper
returned to the van and found
Beaver with two self-inflicted
gunshot wounds to his neck. A
handgun was lying on the front
passenger seat, Hastings said.
Officers were able to get Beaver out of the van and took him
into custody. He was taken by
See HIGHWAY / Page A7
Man
faces
murder
charge in
stabbing
TUALATIN — A 45-year-old
Tualatin man has pleaded not
guilty to charges that he
stabbed his domestic partner
outside their apartment complex early Saturday morning.
Lujar Philippo faces one count
of murder after police say he
stabbed 31-year-old Kiorinta Edmond. Her body was found on a
grassy lawn in
the front of the
Tualatin Meadows Apartments, 18755
S.W. 90th Ave.,
near Southwest
Tualatin Road
and Herman
Road, at about
PHILLIPPO 5:23 a.m. on Saturday.
Police were called to the complex by neighbors who reported
a disturbance; according to Tualatin police spokesman Lt. Greg
Pickering.
Pickering said officers found
See MURDER / Page A7
■ Runner
tries to
fund new
prosthetic
leg while
chasing
Paralympic
dreams
TIMES PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ
Oregon State Police investigate
the scene where a man apparently
shot himself during a traffic stop
along Interstate 5 under the
Southwest Nyberg Road overpass
in Tualatin.
E
ight weeks ago, Rachael
“I didn’t think it was going to happen,”
Harris hadn’t really done she said. “It has always been a dream of
mine to go to the Olympics. The first time
much running.
I saw Nadia Comaneci, that was the birth
Now, the 43-year-old
of my gymnastic career dream.”
mother of two is on her way to InThat all changed in
April, after she helped a
dianapolis to try out for the Lonwoman out of a car that
don Paralympic Games later this “I put my
crashed near her house.
summer.
shoes on
“There was a car that
Harris lost her left leg to a med- and told him flipped and landed on its
ical condition more than 20 years
right outside the
to call 911. I top
house,” said Harris, in her
ago and now walks with a proswas booking home off Southwest Durthetic leg.
ham Road. “I heard it, and
it out the
When Harris was 16, she lost
my son said there was a
her ability to walk. A mass of ar- door to
car on its roof. I put my
teries and vessels in her left heel help.”
shoes on and told him to
call 911. And, I was bookled doctors to perform nearly 30
— Rachael Harris, ing it out the door to
surgeries. Her leg was eventually
athlete help.”
amputated when she was 19.
A former nurse for 15
A gymnast since she was 6 years old,
Harris said she has always wanted to go to
the Olympics, but gave up on those
dreams after losing her leg.
years, Harris is no stranger to running to help patients in need. But
as she ran to help the driver, she realized
she was doing something incredible.
See PARALYMPIC / Page A6
Metro’s
survey
gathers
ideas
Opinions in online
program helps guide
regional decisions
By JIM REDDEN
The Times
What should Metro do
with the thousands of acres
of open spaces it has acquired in recent years —
preserve them in their natural states or open them for
activities such as hiking,
biking, walking and other
recreation?
The regional government’s
elected leaders are considering that question as they ponder whether to put a property
tax measure on the May 2013
See METRO / Page A6
Rain grounds hot-air balloons at festival
Pilots, spectators say
they will return next
year for lift off
By GEOFF PURSINGER
The Times
TIMES PHOTO_ JAIME VALDEZ
Amber Temple of Hillsboro stands with her daughter, Haelee, 11, and
nieces, Alex Saunders, 7, and Hanna Saunders, 9, during the Festival of
Balloons. Rains stopped the balloons, and the big crowds, from coming
to this years festival.
This year’s Tigard Festival
of Balloons had all the elements that have traditionally
drawn the crowds for the
past 28 years.
Rides, booths, live music,
Twilight Run and Sunday car
show were all there. What it
didn’t have much of, however,
were any of the festival’s namesake.
Rain kept the festival from
launching the 21 scheduled balloons any day during the threeday festival last weekend.
Jim Smith, a balloon pilot
and director of the balloon
launch for the festival said it
was the first year he can remember when the balloons
didn’t fly at all.
“In the past, we have had
years where it rained on maybe
one or two days. But since we
moved the date back, this is the
first year that I can remember
where we missed all of the
flights.”
Weather in mid-June is seldom reliable, and the festival is
no stranger to rainy mornings
and grounded balloons.
“There isn’t anybody more
disappointed than the pilots,”
Smith said. “It feels terrible
when they are not able to perform for the group, but we have
to go with what the weather
gives us.”
After years of poor weather,
festival officials in 2010 pushed
the festival back a week in the
hopes of more agreeable
weather.
This year was the first since
the move that the balloons
didn’t fly. Smith said 2012 has
been a strange one for predictable weather.
“This has been an extraordinary year for us, weatherwise,” Smith said. “In the
Northwest, this is the wettest
spring we have ever had since
they started recording weather
information. This is different
than it has been in the past.”
The festival’s bread and but-
See BALLOON / Page A7
FOR HOME DELIVERY CALL, 503-620-9797