Oregon daily emerald., March 08, 1973, Page 5, Image 5

OSPIRG
fires
Impact
editor
By SHAWN ROSSITER
Of the Emerald
PORTLAND (Special) - OSPTRG (the Oregon
Student Public Interest Research Group) staff
member and public relations director John Bartels
was fired Monday because of his outside interests
and his “instinctive bend toward investigative
reporting,” according to Steve McCarthy, OSPTRG
director.
Bartels job involved editing OSPTRG’s month
ly ' tabloid, the OSPIRG Impact, which was
published as an outlet for student work throughout
the state, McCarthy said.
Bartels, who finds no fault in being “addicted to
investigative reporting,” published stories that he
had covered such as the facts about a shipment of
radioactive materials being trucked through
Portland.
His findings were not followed up by any other
staff members and Bartels was told by McCarthy
not to do that type of reporting again.
“Eventually, Bertels got bored with his job, and
it showed,” McCarthy said. “His intentions and
interests started to wander, and we received
complaints about the Impact.”
Bartels was also responsible for handling
OSPIRG’s public relations, a duty he felt created a
“canned” image of OSPIRG to people outside the
^-ganization.
To correct this, Bartels decided to let the staff
lawyers become their own public relations team
and work with them as an advisor.
Bartels was hired last May while OSPIRG was
waiting for the bar exams of prospective staff
lawyers to be held in August.
“Since August, one month before I became
Impact editor, I’ve had no say in OSPIRG policy,”
Bartels said. “I have objected very strongly to the
increasing rigidity of the organization’s
bureaucracy and to the salary system which pays
McCarthy and his assistant a total of $28,000 a
year.” (Bartels received $400 a month on a 90-day
baas.)
Because Bartels and his family could not live on
the salary, he said, that OSPIRG was paying him,
he took other part-time jobs, such as working on a
talk show for Wocdburn radio station KWRC-AM.
Bartels also began working for an Oregon
weekly newspaper called the North Coast Times
Eagle, which published out of a Wheeler, Oregon,
office.
Since his job ended with OSPIRG, Bartels will
become the Times Eagle’s publisher and a branch
office will be established in Portland for circulation,
distribution and news collection of the 18-month-old
newspaper.
The Times Eagle, listed at number 20 out of the
95 Oregon weeklies with a circulation of 4,700, is the
product of several recent University journalism
school graduates who live on a goat farm a few
miles from Wheeler.
Bartels’ former position at OSPIRG will be
taken over by Allan McCullough, who was associate
editor undo* Bartels. McCullough will be helped by
a volunteer, Bill VanDyke, according to Bartels.
“Being fired from OSPIRG came as a relief to
me. I expected to quit June 1 anyway because I was
told there would be no more work for me during the
summer,” Bartels said.
“It was ironic that I should be fired for a con
flict of interest though, when McCarthy left later
that day to attend a Tri-Met board of directors
' meeting.”
McCarthy was appointed to the Portland Tri
Met board of directors last Dec. 28 by Gov. Tom
McCall.
Cook claims tax plan conspiracy
Tax committee chairer fired
By NAN HENDERSON
Of the Emerald
SALEM (Special) — Senator
Vem Cook (D-Portland) said
Wednesday “there is a con
spiracy to keep the people of
Oregon in ignorance of the true
inpact of the Boe-McCall (school
finance) tax plan.” He said the
' nate Revenue Committee was
probing into the conspiracy when
he was fired as cnairer of the
committee Tuesday by Senate
president Jason Boe (D
Reedsport) who then appointed
himself to the position.
“The primary ingredient of
that conspiracy is speed in
submitting it (the plan) to the
people for a vote—have it voted
on before the people know its
effects,” Cook continued in a
morning news conference.
Cook called the conference, his
second in two days, to give his
reaction to being fired by Boe.
Tuesday morning he announced
during the first conference he did
not believe the Senate Revenue
Committee could act on the tax
plan in time for Its im
plementation during the 1973-74
school year, after which Boe
announced Cook was being
removed from his position of
committee chairer.
“There has been a massive
campaign of misinformation
coming from the Governor’s
office about his tax proposal,”
Cook continued Wednesday. “The
most significant of these was the
contention that his plan would
meet the test of providing equal
education for all of the children of
Oregon without regard to where
they happen to live.”
Cook said that under the plan
the poor districts would remain
poor and the rich districts would
become richer as the plan would
freeze expenditures for education
in each district at the present
level. And, he explained, the $2
per $1000 assessed true cash
value property tax which could
still be levied under the plan
would produce substantially
different amounts of revenue in
each school district depending on
the wealth of property in each
district.
“The main fear of those who
support the Boe-McCall tax plan
was that we would continue to
destroy the myths surrounding
the tax package and thereby
expose those who are pushing for
it so hard,” Cook said.
“They fear that further
research would show that many
of our wage earning middle class
and the backbone of our state, the
small businessman, will pay
more, not less taxes under this
program,” he continued.
Code stressed that the con
troversy over the plan is not a
personal matter. He said that be
in fact voted for Boe for Senate
president and until yesterday felt
Boe was a good Senate president.
But “It’s a sorry day for
democracy when the chairman of
a legislative committee cannot
disagree with the president of the
senate and still hold his position
and carry out his responsibility,”
Cook said.
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