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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 2020)
SPORTS Inside Police take on distracted drivers, 2A Tunesmith Night, in Go! Tigers tripped up Follow us on the web WEDNESDAY • January 8, 2020 • $1.50 Census not high priority locally ■ Union County, La Grande give little help in 2020 Census By Sabrina Thompson The Observer LA GRANDE — Recruit- ment of 2020 Census takers is underway in La Grande. But neither Union County nor the city of La Grande are doing much about obtain- ing an accurate count of the population even with chunks of federal funding at stake. Census 2020 offi cials have visited with Union County commissioners and the La Grande City Council to encourage local involvement with recruiting census tak- ers and informing residents about the importance of the census. La Grande’s Cook Memorial Library, which received a $2,000 grant from the American Library Association to bolster library services to help achieve a complete count in the 2020 Census, hosted a job fair Tuesday to inform residents about the upcoming count of the local population and to fi nd people interested in helping with that count. Some communities in Ore- gon have formed county-wide complete count committees to help the United States Census Bureau at the local level. Union County, however, has no county-wide complete count committee. Union County administra- tive offi cer Shelley Burgess said the county chose to direct the efforts to the cities because the county believed it would be more advantageous to work at the city level. La Grande City Manager Robert Strope said the city is not making any direct efforts for helping with the census, however conduct- ing it is important for city funding. “We are not obligated to work on conducting the census,” Strope said. “We also aren’t staffed and do not have the resources at this time to help do that.” Good day to our valued subscriber Larry Nice of La Grande Union County School buses getting a grip on winter roads By Dick Mason, The Observer LA GRANDE — Getting a grip on winter is sometimes as easy as fl ipping a switch for Daniel Bolen, an agriculture sciences teacher at Elgin High School who doubles as a substitute school bus driver. Oregon struggles with housing ■ Home affordability worsened in last decade with low construction rates By Jake Thomas Oregon Capital Bureau Many of the buses in the Elgin School District’s fl eet Bolen drives are equipped with automatic chains, ones that are activated with little more than the press of a button on a control panel. “They work well on packed snow and ice,” Bolen said. Chris Greenlee, the lead technician for Mid Colum- bia Bus Company’s La Grande station, which has many buses equipped with automatic chains, agreed the devices are a great tool. “They provide an extra vote of confi dence (for bus drivers). If their wheels start spinning they can have traction right away,” Greenlee said. Kathaleen Maley, location manager for Mid Colum- bia in La Grande, which serves the La Grande, Cove, North Powder, Union, Burnt River and Long Creek school districts, also likes the chains. “They let you quickly get out of trouble spots,” Maley said. Staff photo by Dick Mason Mid Columbia Bus Company uses this automatic chain system on its schools buses to help get around in winter conditions. Still, automatic chains are not a silver bullet for ad- dressing all of the challenges school bus drivers face in the winter. “On soft snow they are not as effective because they get gummed up,” Bolen said. Another drawback is the chains do not work well for long distances because they wear out and will damage the walls of tires, Maley said. The automatic chains, which local school buses have been using for a number of years, only work at speeds between 5-30 mph and cannot be activated when the See Buses / Page 5A Staff photo by Dick Mason Ernest Boudreau, a technician at the La Grande station of the Mid Columbia Bus Company, examines the automatic chain system of one of its buses Monday. See Census / Page 5A SALEM — Despite Or- egon’s widespread housing shortage, the amount of housing built in the state during the last decade reached a record low. That was one of the unexpected conclusions state economist Josh Lehner included in a blog post on the last day of 2019. “On a population growth- adjusted basis, Oregon built fewer new housing units this decade than we have since at least World War II,” wrote Lehner. “With data going back nearly 60 years, never have we built fewer new units on a sustained basis than we did in the 2010s.” In a follow-up email, Lehner said between 2010 and 2019 Oregon permitted 37 new housing units per 100 new residents. Between 1960 and 2009, Oregon permitted 47 per 100. Roughly speak- ing, he said that’s as if the state went from building one new housing unit for every two new people, to building one new unit for every three newcomers. Lehner wrote housing affordability has worsened throughout the last de- cade, making it harder for residents to make ends meet and for young, working-age households to move to Or- egon. He said the root of the problem is the low levels of housing construction. In 2017, the median rent in Oregon rose to $1,079 in 2017 up from $816 in 2010, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. According to a report from the Oregon Center for Public Policy, one in three Oregon households struggle to afford housing. During the last legislative session, Oregon became the fi rst state to pass statewide rent control. Lawmakers also passed House Bill 2001, See Housing / Page 5A Nonprofits, state office try to fill civics gap ■ Legislative attempts to mandate civic instruction in Oregon classrooms have failed By Jake Thomas Oregon Capital Bureau SALEM — As a social studies teacher at Amity Middle School, it falls on Jeff Geissler to teach students the importance of voting, paying taxes and how their government works. Now in his fourth year teaching social studies, Geissler recalls taking a training offered by the Classroom Law Project on civic education. Dur- ing a week-long training, Geissler spent long days learning about the Greek roots of democracy, the American Revolution, the genesis of the Constitution and debates over the founding document. He overcame his students’ “so what?” reaction by linking civics to confl icts in social life, questions over INDEX Business ...... 1B Classified ..... 4B Comics ......... 7B Crossword ... 4B WEATHER Dear Abby .... 8B Horoscope ... 4B Lottery.......... 2A Obituaries .... 3A FRIDAY Opinion ........ 4A Sports .......... 6A Sudoku ........ 7B Weather ....... 8B how rights are applied and conver- sations they might have with their family at dinner. When his students learned about the number of adults who don’t vote, “They were aghast and disappointed in the adults,” he recalled. Geissler said civics education like this should be in every classroom. But it’s not. In recent decades, civics has fallen to the wayside in class- rooms in Oregon and across the country. There is no requirement for students to study civics in Oregon Full forecast on the back of B section Tonight Thursday 28 LOW 35/22 A bit of snow A shower PROFILING A COUNTRY SINGER schools. Research shows students who are taught civics are more likely to vote and be engaged in their communi- ties. Last year, leaders of the College Board, which administers the SAT exam, said understanding the U.S. Constitution was as important as computer science. At least 31 state legislatures pro- posed 115 bills or resolutions aimed at bolstering civics in 2018, accord- ing to the National See Civics / Page 5A CONTACT US HAVE A STORY IDEA? 541-963-3161 Call The Observer newsroom at 541-963-3161 or send an email to news@lagrandeobserver.com. More contact info on Page 4A. Issue 4 3 sections, 22 pages La Grande, Oregon Online at lagrandeobserver.com
