Josephine County Clerk Officially Certifies Final Results of May 21st Primary Election
The Josephine County Clerk's Office has released its final tally of ballots and certified the results of the May 21st primary election. The official results show some slight changes in the overall numbers, but the initial winners and losers have not changed. In the race for Position #2 on the Josephine County Board of Commissioners, Chris Barnett captured 45.3% of the ballots. He will face fellow candidate Colene Martin in the November general election. She received 23.7% of the vote. In the race for Position #3 on the Board of Commissioners, Pat Fahey received 38.4% of the ballots. He will face fellow candidate Ron Smith in November. Smith grabbed 26.4% of the vote. All three ballot measures on the May ballot went down to defeat. Unofficial statewide results in the Republican race for Senate District #2 show Noah Robinson with a 61.1% to 38.6% victory over Christine Goodwin. In the Democratic race for State Representative District #3, Mark Seligman outdistanced Dustin Watkins 61.3% to 36.5%. He will take on Dwayne Yunker in November. Josephine County Clerk Rhiannon Henkels reported a 39.98% voter turnout as of Thursday. She said 27,913 out of 69,824 registered voters participated in the election. ...Read more

Grants Pass Porchfest 2024 Brings Free Family Fun Plus Necessary Street Closures
Porchfest returns to Grants Pass on Saturday. It's a fun, free and family-friendly music festival taking place on the front porches of vintage homes in the historic NW Washington Boulevard neighborhood. Porchfest features more than 20 musical acts volunteering to perform for your entertainment. The event also includes food vendors, an arts & crafts sale, and it benefits programs for Josephine County Youth. Rogue Gateway Rotary Club organizes Porchfest Grants Pass and uses funds raised from the event to underwrite its own youth programs. They also share a portion of those funds with several non-profit organizations that support Josephine County youth. From 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. tomorrow, several streets will be closed to through traffic to accommodate Porchfest. Detours will be in place on 4th Street between A Street and Evelyn Avenue, Washington Boulevard between Evelyn Avenue and Savage Street, Evelyn Avenue between Washington Boulevard and Lawnridge Avenue, Manzanita Avenue between Hawthorne and Washington, and Lawnridge between Savage and Evelyn. Motorists are advised to avoid the area and find alternate routes. Emergency vehicles will be allowed through. ...Read more

Grand Jury Indicts Former Nurse for Diverting Drugs from Asante Hospital ICU Patients

A Jackson County grand jury has indicted a former Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center nurse on 44 counts of felony assault for allegedly diverting drugs that affected patient health at the Medford hospital. The Medford Police Department reports detectives arrested 36-year-old Dani Marie Schofield in the 5,000-block of Rogue River Drive this afternoon. The seven-month-long investigation began after Asante officials contacted MPD in early December 2023. Asante had become concerned with a rising number of central line infection cases in patients while in their care. After an internal investigation, Asante provided MPD with information that all of the identified cases were isolated to patients in the Intensive Care Unit and occurred within a specific time frame. Based on records and interviews, detectives were able to determine that ICU nurse Schofield had access to each of the victims. There was concern that Schofield had been diverting patients' liquid fentanyl for her personal use and then replacing it with tap water, causing serious infections that may have led to some patients' deaths. Schofield left Asante in July 2023. MPD investigators made contact with Schofield early on in this investigation. They also spent months pouring through volumes of hospital records and interviewed nearly 100 people in this case including doctors, nurses, patients and families. Due to the magnitude of the case and its impact on victims, MPD dedicated multiple full-time detectives to the investigation. MPD provided results of the investigation to the Jackson County District Attorney's Office for review and prosecution. Following the indictment, Dani Schofield is being held without bail in the Jackson County Jail on 44 counts of Felony 2nd-Degree Assault under Measure 11. MPD consulted with multiple medical experts, who each agreed that questionable deaths associated with this case could not be directly attributed to the infections. ...Read more