FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2015
4 — THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS
Opinion / Local
— Editorial —
Hatred under
the guise of
tolerance
The week we first launched this
newspaper eighteen months ago, one
of us received an email written in the
wee hours of the night. The message
was from someone whose business
we’d always supported, whom we’d
helped personally whenever we could
during their times of need.
Well, she’d seen our first issue come
out, and though it contained nothing
she could put her finger on as particu-
larly bad—she actually liked parts of
it—she was markedly upset.
Why? Because how dare we, being
the conservatives that we are, have
the gall to start a newspaper. How
dare we! The message was clear: she’s
liberal politically and an opinion page
written by a right-leaning editorial
board rather than a left-leaning one
was unacceptable to her.
She went on to use words like
divisive and mean-spirited. She felt
simply because our views varied
from hers, that our newspaper would
“punish” and “divide” the community.
She wrote something to the effect that
conservatives “didn’t even have the
ability to recognize people with other
points of view as human.” She then
took her efforts a step forward and
went on to do everything she could to
financially support at least two other
newspapers in the area, while boycot-
ting ours, in the hopes we would fail.
Did she care that we were trying to
make a living, trying to raise our kids
and create local jobs? Nope! We were
conservative. How dare we!
The irony is that in her words and
actions, she revealed herself as the
embodiment of everything she’d ac-
cused us of being.
The vitriol was honestly so out of
the blue that it took months to com-
pletely wrap our brains around it, and
finally to see it as part of a bigger
picture. As the months have rolled by,
we’ve encountered others of the exact
same mindset here and there.
You’ve seen that meme: “I’m
tolerant. Agree with me or else, you
bigoted, racist, fringe, whacko extrem-
ist, Bible-thumping, redneck, sexist,
homophobic, capitalistic cretin!”
Ludicrous, right? All this would be
laughable if it wasn’t such a threat to
our country.
The “if I don’t like it, it shouldn’t be
allowed to exist” mentality just took a
little stronger foothold this week with
the removal of the Confederate Flag in
many locations. Some have chosen to
attribute hatred and intolerance to that
flag. (We call it “projecting,” but what
do we know?) Others who grew up in
the deep south recognize the flag for
its historical significance, for familial
ties and cultural heritage.
But now, because a group of people
dislikes something, it’s being taken
away from those who value it.
This week, TV Land banned “The
Dukes of Hazzard” because of the flag
painted on top of the General Lee.
The circle of state flags at the Capi-
tol in Boise, Idaho is missing a state
flag now. Mississippi is gone. Its flag
featured a Confederate Flag in its top
left corner. If someone had seen it,
it may have hurt their feelings, you
know.
In Salem this week, there’s con-
siderable talk among Democrats
about removing the Mississippi Flag
among our circle of state flags there.
The demand at present is to force the
nonprofit organization that actually
owns these flags to replace it with a
version of that flag as it existed prior
to the Civil War. That version sports a
magnolia tree, and was created before
much of that state’s rich history, both
good and bad, unfolded.
This is the way by which freedoms
and rights are gradually worn away,
and representative republics are trans-
formed into socialist states.
We think there’s a strong argument
to be made that this push to be inof-
fensive and tolerant is the opposite
of what it appears. It’s hatred hidden
only slightly from view. Someday
soon, much as it was in that email
from 18 months ago, it won’t be hid-
den at all.
—The Baker County Press Editorial Board
— Letters to the Editor —
Carbon dioxide is necessary for
life
To the Editor:
Carbon Dioxide is necessary for life.
Perhaps there is an overabundance of it,
regardless of the cause. I’ll let C. Chase,
G. Dielman and the Pope argue over that.
I want folks to remember that trees,
grass and all vegetation thrive on carbon
dioxide. But, all of this flora needs to be
growing. That big, old, over-ripe pine tree
has already used up its allocation of CO2
and has sequestered some carbon in the
soil while doing so.
The young upstarts around it are do-
ing their best to suck up their share of
nutrients and light. However, being too
crowded with the old ripe trees shading
out the sunshine for photosynthesis has
slowed their progress.
Grass is even more important for absorb-
ing carbon dioxide. It has a much faster
turnaround time if harvested properly. As
a grass plant ripens and repeats the pro-
cess over time, while not being harvested,
will eventually shade itself to death. The
abundance of old growth prevents any
new shoot from receiving enough sun-
light. The Federal Conservation Reserve
Program that rents millions of acres of
private farm land for nonuse is a very sad
Letter to the Editor Policy: The Baker
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lish letters containing factual falsehoods or
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claimer: Opinions submitted as Guest
example.
A windshield inspection of one of these
fields looks like lots of vegetation. Stop
the car and walk into the field, looking
down, to see all is dead. The supposed in-
tent was set aside for erosion control and
benefit of wildlife. The birds and game
animals only used it a few years until it
matured and became moribund.
All land requires management for any
kind of sustainable production. Renew-
able natural resources are the only basic
wealth.
Stupid excuses, such as a spotted owl or
sage grouse to stop food and fiber produc-
tion only adds to our countries problems
of excessive debt, unemployment and too
much carbon dioxide. In addition, this
government style of management increas-
es risk of fire to all set-aside lands. Fire
leaves bare soil. All soil needs cover with
viable, living organisms. Use it or lose it.
Our problems will never be solved by
top down Washington D.C. bureaucrats,
goaded by misguided tree huggers and an-
imal rights activists. We have to get public
land management decision making closer
to home. Local control is imperative.
Dan Warnock
Baker City
Haggen
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3
“What are our Haggen
Values, what the company
stands for and what a lot
of those values will mean
around the community and
in community giving and
in our relationships with
local suppliers,” McGiv-
erin said.
Haggen fosters a legacy
of being a family owned
company. It is a communi-
ty-minded company with
a focus that has always
been on local commu-
nity, sustainable values in
its business operations,
homegrown and home-
made quality in its stores
and genuine service, he
claimed.
“We refer to it as
our culture compass, to
describe it to you guys it’s
like a moral compass. As
we’re going about our day
to day business we know
that we stand for the local
community and that will
come to light more and
more in this store. Even
with this aggressive con-
version of all these stores
sustainable value, genuine
service and homemade
quality is kind of what
guides us, what we are
really about. Those values
come to life in our stores
and are quite different from
Albertsons or Safeway.
Haggen really does pride
itself on having a great
selection of fresh products
and that can mean fresh
produce, fresh baked bread
or deli salads, that’s where
we try to differentiate our-
selves from our competi-
tion and be truly better. We
partner with small vendors,
farmers, ranchers and even
fisherman not only because
it supports the community
but because it’s one of the
ways we think we can get
the freshest food possible
into our stores,” McGiv-
erin explained.
Store Manager Mark
Ruberti agreed. “Hopefully
we’ll get some items in
our store that represent our
community, which is what
this is all about. Every-
thing went pretty smooth
with the store (transition)
now we are just going to
work on building business
getting items in the store,
make a run of it here in
Baker City.”
Haggen also believes in
giving back to the com-
munities. “Over the last
year as a little grocer with
18 stores, we gave over
150,000 to nonprofits some
of those national, some
regional like the Multiple
Sclerosis Society, Meals
on Wheels in Oregon, Red
Cross and Children’s Hos-
pitals. In every community
there are a lot of lesser
known nonprofits also, that
list would be really long if
I tried to list them off but
we do make it a point to
give back to the communi-
ties that we serve.
“One of the things that
we did on day one here
was donate $1000 to the
Salvation Army. We’ve
also made a commitment
within the very near future
of opening these stores to
have community donation
days where 2% of profits
for that day are donated
to a designated nonprofit
organization.
“That nonprofit is
determined with the Store
Manager’s help and based
on community input.
Those nonprofits have not
yet been selected and Mark
should be contacted about
consideration for selection
of support. You can also
submit info online. As far
as what we’d like, types of
nonprofits we support, we
tend to lean toward child-
hood education causes,
hunger relief and sustain-
ability. If you’re involved
with a nonprofit that falls
outside of that wheelhouse
it doesn’t mean you’re
excluded at all but it does
mean that others that fall
into those categories ahead
of you they might be the
first priorities.
“Mark has paperwork
you can fill out or you can
go online to start paper-
work for 501 3c consider-
ation,” said McGiverin.
He really stressed the
point of talking with Mark
at the store level as the best
way to get started as best
point of contact.
Haggen differs than
Albertsons or Safeway in
that it empowers its Store
Managers to make a lot
more decisions at the store
and community level. They
also allow a larger budget
to donate,—it’s totally up
to each store director how
to use that money which
has gone from “I think at
Albertsons it was a $50 per
month budget to a $500 per
month budget with Hag-
gen. So if you need cake,
cookies or water for a fun-
draiser, event or function
talk to Mark. He is always
your best resource.”
Haggen expects to select
the nonprofits in which
they will support within
the next 2-3 months with
approximately four for the
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year likely.
McGiverin said, “We
haven’t set a firm date be-
cause honestly we are try-
ing to catch our breath here
but I would guess by the
end of July early August
we will select nonprofits
and community donation
days.”
McGiverin next talked
about vendor possibilities
within our community.
“A common question
I’ve had as far as being a
small vendor at Haggen
is ‘is there any minimum
quantities to doing busi-
ness with Haggen?’ The
answer is no. If you’re
dealing with Mark and
you’ve got raspberries for
three weeks of the year and
you’ve got say 20 cases, he
can take them and if that’s
it that’s all you’ve got that
is fine. There is no mini-
mum.”
But there are still some
required steps that must be
taken.
As McGiverin explains
“It always starts with the
store director, but the
process is fairly simple.
However, if you’ve never
done this before it can
seem complicated. We
have what we call a new
item authorization form
that needs to be completed
and a new vendor form and
then we have a form that
basically says you’re not
selling us anything bad or
breaking the laws and its
legitimate.
“Those are three forms
and then you need to
provide us with a copy
of liability insurance—”
which he believed to be
one million dollars but it
may have changed to five
million. “It’s on the form”
He smiled. “So occasion-
ally we get asked, ‘What
if I want to get in more
of your stores?’ It still all
starts with one store. If the
product sells well in one
store then the corporate
buyers will take notice
and will expand the store
basis.”
Brianna Peppers, owner
of the Short Peppers farm
and Brianna’s Breads
asked, “When vending you
have to have all licenses
but if you were offering
meats or baked goods or
something like that how
does the health inspec-
tor aspect work? Do you
have to have a form, do
you have to make sure
you have everything, like
in doing a farmers market
we have to have all of our
forms, certifications every-
thing?”
SEE HAGGEN PAGE 9
YOUR ELECTED
OFFICIALS
President Barack Obama
202.456.1414
202.456.2461 fax
Whitehouse.gov/contact
US Sen. Jeff Merkley
503.326.3386
503.326.2900 fax
Merkley.Senate.gov
US Sen. Ron Wyden
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Wyden.Senate.gov
US Rep. Greg Walden
541.624.2400
541.624.2402 fax
Walden.House.gov
Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown
503.378.3111
Governor.Oregon.gov
State Rep. Cliff Bentz
503.986.1460
State Sen. Ted Ferrioli
541.490.6528
Baker County
Commissioners Bill Harvey;
Mark Bennett; Tim Kerns
541.523.8200
541.523.8201