Opinion
4A
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Our View
Time to think big
on what to do with
federal stimulus
T
he massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue
Plan Act is pouring money into local govern-
ments as people and their communities con-
tinue to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Union County is receiving $5.2 million from
the federal aid. La Grande is receiving $2.77 mil-
lion. The seven other incorporated cities in Union
County will receive funds ranging from $30,000 to
$450,000. Wallowa County is receiving $1.4 mil-
lion, and the cities there will receive $50,000 to
$230,000.
Our local governments face an array of decisions
on how to allocate these funds, and those won’t be
easy to make. There are a host of competing pri-
orities and needs that seek a one-time infusion of
funds. Our elected leaders must sift through the
ideas that sound grand and decide what needs the
money the most.
La Grande in 2020 used some general fund
money to create a low-interest loan program to help
businesses in town. Early this month, City Manager
Robert Strope reported there still is about $185,000
in the program. That’s an indicator not to use the
incoming funds for another grant or loan program.
We suggest local governments instead look for
ways to use these funds to help a wide swath of
their communities and the local economy, as long
as, of course, the federal rules guiding the use of the
funds allow for that. With spring here and Union
and Wallowa counties in the state’s lower risk cate-
gory for COVID-19, boosting tourism could prove a
valuable boon.
A group in neighboring Umatilla County con-
sisting of the Pendleton Economic Development
Department, the Pendleton Convention Center, the
Pendleton Chamber of Commerce and the Pend-
leton Round-Up Association has developed a plan
to receive $250,000 to create a broad-based effort to
beef up tourism. Local governments in Union and
Wallowa counties should give careful consideration
to a similar plan.
Tourism is a vital economic element to the com-
munities of Northeast Oregon, from the Pendleton
Round-Up to fishing on the Grande Ronde to riding
the Wallowa Lake Tramway. There are no doubt
plenty of Oregonians looking to escape the strict
rigors of extreme risk counties. Our corner of the
state offers scenic vistas, abundant outdoor access,
local dining, craftspeople and artists all worth
checking out.
Yes, pressing concerns abound for local govern-
ments, in particular infrastructure improvements.
La Grande is rebuilding one of its roads right now.
The $2.77 million it’s getting would rebuild a few
miles of roads, but a better move would be to invest
in downtown parking.
This is a time for La Grande to consider where
it could build a parking structure, perhaps akin
to what McMinnville has — a large, multilevel
free public parking structure a few blocks from its
downtown core.
The counties, cities and even school districts —
which also are going to get a share of ARPA —
could work together to provide better rural broad-
band access. One of the common laments that came
out of online education was the difficulty of get-
ting decent internet access for all students. Several
million in federal funds could help build out such
access.
Local leaders must be careful not to spread this
infusion of money too thin. And if they can iden-
tify vital infrastructure projects that need improve-
ment, they should articulate the reasons why and be
willing to back it with a vote.
There are not many times local governments are
going to receive a chunk of change from the feds,
and we are not suggesting any of these projects are
simple, but these and others are worthy of serious
consideration and discussion.
Other Views
Democrats see racism everywhere it isn’t
MICHAEL
REAGAN
POLITICAL CONSULTANT
S
o let me get this straight.
According to the president,
according to the Democrats and
according to the liberal media, half
my country is racist, my political
party is racist and I’m a racist.
That’s the message they’ve all
been telling me in the wake of the
guilty verdict in the trial of Derek
Chauvin, the Minneapolis cop
charged with killing George Floyd.
They say because I’m white, I’m
an accomplice in George Floyd’s
death.
They say because I’m white, I’m
guilty for creating a systemically
racist country that deliberately keeps
Blacks in political and economic
chains and allows police to mistreat
and kill Blacks without punishment.
They say because I’m a Repub-
lican who didn’t vote for Joe Biden,
who doesn’t support Black Lives
Matter and who doesn’t want to
defund or dismantle the police, I’m
a racist.
You know what I say about
all this crap about racism being
everywhere?
It’s a cynical political power play
by Democrats that needs to end
quickly before we get the race war
they are hell-bent on starting.
I’m really sick of watching
America being ripped in half over
racism by so-called progressive
Democrats and their shameless
flacks and lackeys in the media.
Based on how the Biden-pam-
pering media spin it, you’d think it
was Republicans who founded the
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KKK and invented the Jim Crow
South’s racist system of legal segre-
gation that lasted for seven decades,
not the racist Southern Democrats.
The same dishonest media would
have you think it was the Repub-
licans who filibustered things like
the 1965 Civil Rights Bill, not racist
Democrats like Robert Byrd, the
“reformed” KKK local leader who
a few years later would mentor and
befriend a young Delaware senator
named Joe Biden.
Speaking of Biden, with his racist
legislative track record in the Senate,
he has a lot of nerve scolding the
country for being racist and blasting
police for systematically mistreating
Black Americans.
Biden, his media allies don’t want
you to remind you, was the law-
and-order guy who took credit for
passing the 1994 crime bill — the
tough law that the New York Times
says helped to create the era of mass
incarceration of Blacks.
But that’s OK. Biden’s ancient
sins against Blacks are forgotten.
Now he’s a progressive.
Now he’s so woke he makes
irresponsible public statements
about what he’d like the verdict of
a murder trial to be while the jury
is deliberating, as he did in the
Chauvin case.
Virtually no one in the country
objected to the guilty Chauvin ver-
dict — except the same people who
demanded it before any of the facts
were heard.
As we’ve seen since April 20,
convicting a bad cop and putting
him in prison for his wrongdoing
will not be enough to satisfy the
BLM crowd and their Democrat
allies.
They want all cops everywhere to
suffer for Chauvin’s sins.
They want the country’s police to
be defunded, disarmed and replaced
with social workers and EMTs or
they’ll protest — and riot — in the
streets until they get their way.
They’re so insane that now
they’re saying they don’t want cops
to intervene in knife fights like
the one in Columbus that ended
with a white cop shooting to death
a 16-year-old Black girl who was
about to stab another Black girl.
Of course, it’s easy for politicians
and celebrities to say we should take
your cops off the street when they
will always have their own armed
protection.
Meanwhile, by pushing the sick
narrative that white cops go to work
each day hoping to kill a Black man,
Democrats and the media have suc-
ceeded in smearing all white cops as
racist murderers.
It’s no wonder cops are quitting
all over the country, from New York
City to New Mexico to Los Angeles.
Crime and violence is on the rise
in our cities because half the country
is so stupid they believe the Demo-
crats’ lies about systemic racism in
our justice system and an ongoing
war on Blacks by racist cops.
If the other half of the country
— the Republican half — doesn’t
stand up to the Democrats soon, it’s
going to be too late for Americans
of every color.
———
Michael Reagan, the son of Pres-
ident Ronald Reagan, is a political
consultant and the author of “Lessons
My Father Taught Me: The Strength,
Integrity and Faith of Ronald Reagan.”
He is the founder of the email ser-
vice reagan.com and president of The
Reagan Legacy Foundation.
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