Night Out
Month: March 2022
Cow Crash on I-5
By Savannah Eden | The Rose Cityian Rose City Live
A cattle trailer spilled more than 30 cows onto Interstate 5 near the Wilsonville Road exit Sunday afternoon, shutting down the freeway for three hours, according to Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue.
The State Police and the Department of Transportation helped firefighters and emergency crews herd the rogue cattle toward an off-ramp and into a different trailer, the agency said.
The last cow — who was hard to catch — was loaded into the trailer at 5 p.m., said Heath Carpenter, a public information officer for Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue.
The north and southbound lanes of I-5 reopened Sunday night about 5 p.m. after traffic had been stuck at a complete stand-still since 2 p.m..
Videos and photos on social media posted by people stuck on the freeway appear to show the trailer overturned on an overpass, where some of the dairy cows fell under the bridge below. Carpenter confirmed that the trailer crashed at the bridge, where its top half sheered off and some of the cows were killed on impact as they dropped into a grassy area below. There were 31 cows total in the trailer, but officials didn’t say how many were killed. A few of the injured cows were shot by the State Police to “put them out of their misery,” Carpenter said.
Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue said the truck driver was unharmed and didn’t need medical help.
It’s not clear what caused the accident and officials didn’t say where the trailer was going when it crashed.
Margulis Jewelers Closed
By Bill Goldberg | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live
Margulis Jewelers will close after 90 years as a downtown Rose City fixture.
Owner David Margulis announced the closure in a letter to customers March 3, citing a “perfect storm” that has hurt businesses like his, which occupies a prominent spot across the street from Pioneer Courthouse Square.
“This was an agonizing decision—it was never our plan to close our doors,” Margulis wrote. “But Rose City has experienced the perfect storm of adversity and independent businesses simply cannot withstand the economic forces which have caused the deterioration and resulting emptiness of Downtown Rose City.”
The closure comes three months after the family-owned fine jewelry shop held its first-ever sale — which it called a “survival sale” — in hopes of drawing new and old customers back to downtown after nearly two years of limited foot traffic and depressed sales. Margulis said he hoped people would see that downtown was still a positive place and “very safe during the day.”
Margulis told customers in his March 3 letter that the sale helped but wasn’t enough to sustain the business.
A person answering the phone at the jewelry business confirmed the closure but said Margulis was unavailable to speak with a reporter Wednesday.
It is unclear when the store will close for good. The letter advertised it was selling jewelry at a deep discount, between 40% and 70% off, through Saturday.
Margulis isn’t the first longtime downtown Rose City jeweler to close.
Last year, Goldmark Jewelers shuttered its Southwest 10th Avenue and Southwest Taylor Street store after 46 years downtown. Another longtime downtown jeweler, Kassab Jewelers, hasn’t reopened its downtown location since the store was looted during a riot in May 2020.
Downtown businesses have faced unique challenges over the last two years ever since the pandemic emptied out nearby office towers and brought tourism to a halt in the spring of 2020.
Many office towers remain mostly empty two years later. The downtown area has also seen a sharp rise in homeless camping during the pandemic, which business groups have complained keep customers away. Protests that sometimes turned violent or destructive drew national attention in 2020 and gave the city a reputation for upheaval that has been hard to shake as well. Some downtown buildings still remain boarded up, and business closures have left behind empty storefronts.
Margulis told The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live in December that downtown had improved considerably since earlier in the pandemic, but the negative press it received at the height of the pandemic was continuing to keep people away.
A February report, based on aggregated smartphone location data and published by the Rose City Business Alliance, found that the number of downtown visitors was still off by 40% as compared to pre-pandemic.
Live Scorpions illegally traded
By Stan Bernstein | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live
A 39-year-old Track Town man pleaded guilty Monday to illegally importing and exporting hundreds of live scorpions, sending or receiving them from other states and Germany in U.S. postal packages in violation of federal law.
In one shipment, a package of the live creatures was misleadingly labeled as containing “chocolates.”
In another received Dec. 22, 2017, 200 live scorpions arrived via U.S. mail from Michigan, according to court records.
The illegal smuggling occurred between September 2017 and March 21, 2018, without a required import-export license from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Darren Dennis Danny Drake, described in court records as a “scorpion enthusiast” who bought, sold and traded the predatory arachnids, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to commit violations of the Lacey Act, which bans trafficking in illegal wildlife, in federal court in Jackson County.
If he stays out of trouble and continues to accept responsibility, prosecutors will recommend he be sentenced to two years of probation, pay a $5,000 fine and complete 250 hours of community service, according to court records.
Prosecutors will also recommend that Drake’s community service involve research and homework imposed under the direction of Meredith L. Gore, a conservation social scientist who teaches at the University of Maryland and holds a doctorate degree in natural resource policy and management from Cornell University.
Drake, who previously lived in southern part of the state, is scheduled to be sentenced June 22 before the U.S. District Judge.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, responsible for protecting America’s wildlife from poaching, illegal commercialization and other crimes, along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, investigated the case.
Stuff toys stuff highway
By Kale Willy | The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live
A mysterious stuffed animal spill on Interstate 5 in Rose City left some drivers, and transportation officials, scratching their heads Wednesday morning.
About 300 of the stuffed toys — which included a Pooh Bear, a Minion and what appeared to be several My Little Ponies — were strewn across the interstate near the Burnside Bridge around 10:30 a.m., according to John Hamilton, a spokesperson for the State Department of Transportation.
Hamilton said most of the toys were off to the side and caused a minimal backup, though workers did close one lane to collect the cartoon creatures.
“It’s not often we get several hundred stuffed animals visiting our highways,” Hamilton said.
Where the fluffy critters came from was not immediately clear, though they would be taken to the North Rose City maintenance yard “for care and feeding,” Hamilton said.
Are you missing several hundred stuffed toys? The State Department of Transportation would like to speak with you.
Anyone missing approximately 300 colorful stuffed animals was encouraged to contact the department of transportation.
None of the stuffed animals were of the Teddy Ruxbin variety.