Editorial and Opinion
No Fear; the paper w ill come through strike
The Post advises its readers that
we will continue to publish and
distribute throughout any possible
postal strike nationally. While the
possibility of mail slowdown in the
Sandy area appears remote, the
fact remains that 80 percent of all
Post readers get their copies in the
mail.
However, Sandy’s rural route
carriers will not be affected by any
union decision to strike, since they
are locally contracted labor and
not members of any postal crafts
group. Sandy postal customers live
on rural routes, so losing the in-
town services of letter carriers (we
never had) will have no adverse
effects on delivery of The Post or
the city.
Creek and other postal areas could
find the delay more troubling, so
The Post will provide bundles of
free papers at local markets in the
event of a postal strike. In Boring,
copies would be available at the
two supermarkets, while Eagle
Creek readers would find copies at
the Eagle Creek grocery store next
to the post office.
Should delivery of The Post
become unduly delayed in Sandy,
additional free copies will be made
available at the main office of
Clackamas County Bank and at
Oregon Trail Savings & Loan.
We apologize for whatever in
convenience
these alterate
delivery plans may cause our
readers and ask our subscribers to
bear with us in the event of a postal
strike. (VB)
Post readers in Boring, Eagle
Is ‘coffee clatch’ a postal alternative ?
Two women there decided two
years ago to open their own version
of a local post office. There is no
home delivery or pick-up of letters,
and the women leave packages to
Uncle Sam and United Parcel to
handle. The women simply open
8:30 to 5 p.m. and provide a will-
call counter where individuals and
businesses can pick up or drop off
mail.
station to pick up his mail. But then
many rural postal customers there
must drive miles, anyway, simply
to pick up or deposit mail.
Residents near Yellowstone Park
generally drive to colorful Moose,
Wyoming, to check their rental
boxes at the post office.
Maybe the ladies in Wyoming
have a good idea with their no-frills
mail service. They provide a place
where neighbors get together
mornings to talk over t. weather
or the latest sale. But they show
good business sense, too, in
locating just across the street from
the U.S. post office, where they can
keep an eye on traffic flow enjoyed
by the “competition.”
When the intended recipient
shows up, the letter is there
waiting. Can’t beat the price,
either. It costs just five cents to
“mail” a letter, and businesses get
special quotes on prices to send out
monthly statements in bulk.
We recall, too, that the ladies
weren’t opposed to walking up and
down the streets to drum up
business for their mail service.
Wonder if Jimmy Carter dropped
in their shop to mail a letter on his
recent visit to Jackson Hole . . .?
(VB)
Naturally, the service is
adequate only for in-town use when
a person is willing to come to the
Chamber ready to assume public leadership?
The Sandy Chamber of Com
merce deserves to be commended
for its recent stand on possible
passage of the revised city budget
Sept. 12. It’s about time that the
chamber begins taking public
stands on crucial civic issues, and
hopefully this indicates a renewed
leadership role for this group.
The chamber indicated at its
recent general meeting that
members favor establishment of a
citizens’ action committee for
budget passage, to be named by the
chamber’s board of directors. As
one member stated, voter concern
and response requires more kin
dling than words of support and
notices on upcoming elections in
the newspaper. Concerned citizens
must organize and campaign for
issues they feel are important for
the community.
Sandy sits at a crossroad of
change coupled with confusion, and
someone must lead the parade.
Growth, political discord and
budget problems stagger the city.
We commend the Chamber of
Commerce for its visible in
volvement and hope that it’s in
dicative of things to come. (VB)
Von Braschler, General Manager
John Kline. Editor
Caroline Duff, Office Manager
Mark Floyd, Staff Reporter
Kaye Barton, staff reporter
Published weefcly Thursdoys by The Outlook Publishing Co Bo. 68
Sondy Oregon 97055 Second doss postage paid ot Sandy Oregon
668 5548
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r
ByDAVID COIIEN
Immediately after Labor
Day, the House w ill face its
first key test on whether it
has learned any lessons from
California’s Proposition 13
vote. The outcome of civil
service reform w ill tell us
whether Congress is ready to
respond
to
citizens
frustration and anger toward
government by insisting on
competent performance by
our public servants.
The
C arter
Adm in
is tr a tio n ’ s
le g is la tio n
builds on the concept that
citizens w ill receive effective
government service only if it
is im partially administered,
provides incentives and
rewards for outstanding
p e rfo rm a n c e ,
p e rm its
managers to manage, and
provides employees with
protection against political
abuse.
These free copies would be
available to Post subscribers on an
honor system. If you subscribe but
find difficulty in receiving your
weekly paper, please feel free to
take a copy.
Should Sandy postal clerks who
sort the mail locally go on strike in
the next week or so, the local post
office could pull through with
temporary help and management
personnel. The mail might be
delayed by a day or a half-day, but
the mail will go out.
The impending postal strike is
reminiscent of a curious situation
in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where
housewives help to move the mail
in a coffee-clatch atmosphere.
House to consider
civil service reforms
Pepresented Notionolly by
u s suburban press inc
No 35
Aug 31, ;«7S
a ...
A
“ I’m With Kennedy...We Ought To Have
National Health Care If It Kills Us...”
Letters to the editor
Some Memories
To the Editor:
Recent letters to The Post
have explored vignettes of
Alder Creek May I dip my
oar into the discussion since I
am not exactly w earing
three-corner pants and can
dredge up memories?
1 recall the forest fire in
1926. the loggers had just
begun to cut away trees at
the edge of the forest and it
was a hot summer day. My
father had an acre of ground
with a creek frontage which
he purchased for $400. He
built a two story house with
lumber which only set him
back $150 at the time. Since
the fire was close to summer
home sites, we were called
and advised to remove
anything of value from the
cabin.
Our neighbor, a deeply
religious man, joined us in
the journey, but first he
called his practioneer and
asked to pray for rain after a
I « — h^hew^
we a rrive d , the woods,
barely a quarter of a mile
from the highway, had
become a seething infero.
Birds were screaming and it
was a horrible sight. But
before dawn the woods, were
drenched w ith a heavy
downpour which gave the
firefighters relief.
Tracks were then laid
through the wilderness to
haul the logs out of the forest.
They were hauled to a m ill
three miles away. On the hill
overlooking the west slope of
Alder Creek canyon one
might often hear the toot of a
steam whistle from a logging
locomotive Some years ago I
found the rotting ties left
after the rails were removed
Patches of alder had grown
up on the right-of-way. But
today all these scars have
Sharons
food
King,
been removed by the passage C a r ls o n ’ s C h e v r o le t’
of time.
W illaim ’s Thriftw ay; Gios
At the time the road from Ford; Decker’s Department
Sandy was gravel. It was Store; Paola’s Pizza Bam;
often oiled to cut down the Sandy Dairy Queen.
dust and motorists would
T h e ir
c o n tr ib u tio n s
swear when they heard the
tar-like concoction coating enabled us to enter two
their fenders. They would teams in the Columbia
return home and scrape it Summer Basketball League.
off. In our brave new world In addition, these sponsors
they w ill pay to have a provided awards at our two
very successful summer
chassis undercoated.
Sincerely, development camps.
William Fenner
I would like to include a
(W illie of Welches) special thanks to Jim Wolf of
Welches Oregon Athletic Equipment
and Charlie Driggers of
F ra n k
Bashor A th le tic
Supply for providing ad
ditional awards for the
summer camps.
To the Editor:
Your interest in basketball
On behalf of the Sandy
High School Boy’s Basketball and young athletes is greatly
Program I would sincerely appreciated.
Dennis Warren
like to thank the following
Head
Basketball
Coach
Sandy businesses for their
Sandy High School
financial support:
Thank You
-
Government employees’
unions and veterans’ groups
are working overtime in the
halls of Congress to maintain
the present inflexible civil
service. In candid moments,
employees, managers and
c iv il
service
experts
acknowledge that the federal
government is a bureau
cratic maze which stifles the
in itia tiv e
of dedicated
government employees while
often failing to protect their
rights. The accumulation of
laws and regulations serves
as a shield fo r non
performance.
Government is complex
enough without permitting it
to frustrate good managers
by giving them insufficient
a u th o rity
to
supervise
personnel effectively. Nor
should it continue to un
derm ine dedicated c iv il
servants by failure to reward
th e ir
outstanding
per
form ance. When m e rit
violations take place with
im p u n ity and pay and
promotions are made on the
basis of longevity rather than
performance, our system
clearly has to be changed.
I f the House is concerned
about the taxpayers’ revolt,
it w ill face up to four key
issues in c iv il service
refo rm :
(1) Establish a Senior
Executive Service. The SES
would designate up to 9200
s u p e rg ra d e
e x e cu tive s
w ithout adding to the
g o v e rn m e n t’ s
p a y ro ll.
Entrance into the Service
would be v o lu n ta ry for
persons now at high levels
Those who enter the Service
would be eligible for bonuses
for superior performance
and would be removed for
poor perform ance. The
opponents of change are
trying to block it with a
proposal to lim it the SES to
three departments on a two-
year tria l basis.
(2) Add protections for
w histleblow ers.
An
in
dependent counsel would be
authorized to investigate
allegations of im proper
reprisals against those who
blow the whistle on wrong
doing within the government.
This properly reverses past
practice when government
employees who revealed the
existence of unlawful and
improper behavior by their
agencies too often became
targets of agency reprisals.
(3)
M odify
veterans’
preference. The effect of
m o d if y in g
v e te r a n s ’
preference w ill be to open
greater opp ortu nities to
qualified women, minorities,
and young people while
assisting
those veterans
most in need of help — the
Vietnam era and the disabled
veteran.
(4) Oppose changing the
Hatch Act. The Hatch Act is
an essential protection
against partisan p o litic a l
interference with the civil
service. I d a system based on
performance, it becomes
extraordinarily important to
protect civil servants against
such political interference.
The most aggressive op
ponents of c iv il service
reform are at the same time
trying to promote changes in
the Hatch Act. These are
unwise and irresponsible.
The choice for the House
is: w ill it be responsible in
remedying many of the
problems facing our civil
service system and show that
it is paying attention to voter
d is s a t is f a c t io n
w ith
government performance, or
w ill it continue to cave in to
the intense pressures from
ve teran s’
groups
and
governm ent
employees’
unions who have a stake in a
status quo that results in
poor
government
per
formance?
Cohen is president
Common Cause.
of
- #
From other editors:
RV fuel plea has selfish ring
Testimony reported from a
hearing in Portland on the
p ossibility
of
gasoline
ratio nin g was hard to
believe. How can people be
so dense!
The Department of Energy
was sponsoring the hearing
on a contingency plan for
gasoline rationing. The plan
could cut o ff fuel for
“ recreational vehicles.”
That presumably includes
everything from
motor
homes to dune buggies and
snowmobiles.
Because it is required by
law, the government has
been working up a stand-by
their allocated fuel for RV
program
fo r
gasoline travel People could use their
rationing even though no one individual gas allocations for
in the administration, as far anything they wanted If,
as is known, is actually
however, they wanted to use
contemplating putting such a up their allocation on a
plan into effect. The plan is weekend of racing motor-
intended as something to fall boats. they might not be able
back on in case of a severe to drive to work the following
gasoline shortage of the kind Monday.
that might be caused by a
renewed war in the Middle
East.
Tourism and travel in
dustry representatives were
reported to have told the
hearing that no matter what,
a rationing plan should not
cut off fuel for RV’s. One
spokesman said the plan was
unfair because it would hit
the travel industry harder
than any other And he
worried that the disruption of
the travel industry because
EPA
A d m in is t r a t o r
of lack of fuel would have a Douglas Costle explained the
change this way: “ Dropping
disastrous effect on Oregon
Another spokesman denied the highway and combined
removes
that
that “ recreational travel’’ ratings
was a luxury Instead, he irresistible but human urge
said, it’s an “ integral part of to accept the highest num
bers available in buying a
American life.”
car Publishing only the
What do these people think
lowest number should help
would happen to the rest of
the economy and the rest of make customer expectations
more realistic.
the country if we had a fuel
shortage of such dimensions
T he
E n v ir o n m e n ta l
that rationing had to be Protection Agency is going to
started as a last resort9 It issue only one mileage rating
takes a singular kind of for 1979 cars instead of one
blindness to talk of damage each for highway and city
to the travel industry or of d riv in g and a combined
travel as a way of life in average of the two, as in the
circumstances that surely past The new miles-per-
would involve dramatic and gallon quotation w ill be
d is a s t r o u s
c h a n g e s based only on city driving
throughout the country
It’s a sign of our selfish
times that representatives of
one special interest would
dare go before a public
hearing and say, in effect,
'We don't care what happens
to the rest of the country in a
gasoline emergency as long
as we get ours."
Albany Democrat Herald
From other editors:
EPA sees some
progress with cars
The proposed gas rationing
plan, of course, wouldn't
prevent people from using
This is progress, but not
enough
“This
is
not
a
fin al
solution This single rating is
a temporary step It's the
most immediate action we
can take to make the 1979
ratings more accurately
reflect consumer experience.
We are continuing to con
sider possible changes in the
program that w ill make the
ratings more representative
of actual driving conditions.”
I t ’s the latter point that
people care about. Most
d rive rs get much worse
mileage than predicted in the
EPA estimates
The announced change
represents progress in the
sense of reducing the number
of fictional figures EPA will
be posting on the window
sticker But the important
thing is to try to make what is
printed come closer to real
life “ consumer experience ”
— Eugene Register Guard