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