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About Sandy post. (Sandy, Oregon) 1938-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1981)
SANDY (Ore ) POST Thurs J«n i, 19«! (Sec 1) The Sandy’ Post Von Broschier. Publisher Editorial & Opinion Wring out the old year, ring in ’81 One year ago, the country was looking forward to 1980 and a fresh start It was the beginning of a new decade and there was an air of optimism after a generally dismal 1979. 1980 turned out to be a bust On a local level, the state came up $200 million short in its projected budget forcing cuts in human services. Clackamas County sheriff John Renfro resigned under heat, there were more political scandals and Mt. St. Helens threatened to w’ipe the Pacific Northwest off the face of the earth 1980 was certainly not a year of prosperity. But things in Sandy were generally favorable The city m ade strid es tow ard continued smooth growth with its com prehensive plan, a teacher strike was averted in the Sandy- E lem entary D istrict and homebuilding continued to boom in Sandy while declining elsewhere Life in Sandy is not perfect, but things are in a lot better shape here than in most parts of the world Or even the United States Bring on 1981. Tax vices to help balance budget Gov. Vic Atiyeh is counting on two p a rtic u la r vices to help balance the budget he has proposed to the 1981 legislature — smoking and drinking Atiyeh s proposed budget includes substantial tax increases in several areas He is looking, for instance, for a 29 percent increase in the money the state receives from the personal income tax during the next two years starting in July 1981. He also expects collections of corporate income and excise taxes to rise, although at a much smaller rate of slightly more than 3 percent. These impending tax increases are largely due to continued inflation, which will result in Oregonians being paid more and thus paying the state more in income taxes without actually gaining anything in purchasing power (In the area of personal income taxes. Atiyeh also proposes legislative action to postpone the so-called “ indexing” of the personal exemption and to reduce the state deduction of federal taxes paid.) Despite the added income-tax revenue, the state government can expect to be in bad shape in the coming biennium State revenue is expected to grow about 12 percent from the current biennium, far below the existing and expected inflation ra te T h a t’s why the g o v ern o rs budget. while continuing the homeowner property tax relief program . envisions an increase in state basic school support that falls short of the legislative goal of meeting 40 percent of public-school costs. Under these circum stances, imagine how much worse off the state would be if it weren’t for all those unreformed drinkers and smokers. Atiyeh s budget calls for a 5-cent-per-pack increase in the state cigarette tax. (Most of that tax goes to the state general fund, but counties and cities each get one-ninth of the total.) The cigarette tax would go from 9 to 14 cents under the governor’s proposal. .And Atiyeh. banking on the state's liquor monopoly, is asking for a boost in the liquor m arkup from the present 94 percent to 99 percent. With the increased tax. cigarette sales are expected to yield nearly $79 million in state revenue in the next two years, up more than 33 percent from the cu rren t biennium And with the liquor price increase — averaging 25 to 50 cents on a fifth of liquor — the state expects to get $82.5 million from liquor sales. Thus it appears that smokers and d rin k ers will contribute roughly $161 million to the state treasury over the next two years That may not sound like much compared to the $2 4 billion in personal income tax revenue, but every little drink, and every little puff of smoke, helps the state. C a ro lin e OuH O ffic e M a n a g e r M a rk Floyd Editor Don D illon N ew s Editor Letters to the editor: Readers respond to Christmas events Santa explains When 1 came to Sandy Dec 6 and started my round> again for the fifth year in the Sandy business district, I did so w ith my usual anticipation that it would be a joyous experience But I've heard just a few comments by people — mothers of little kids, mostly — that they resent the practice of charging $4 to have the children’s picture taken w ith Santa Claus. The project is a money maker to help pay the ex penses of some Sandy representatives to a con ference in Anchorage. Alas, where small-town booster organizations can exchange ideas for promoting their towns It seemed like a good idea. Nevertheless, there is. quite apparently , some lack of understanding of the motive for this enterprise It makes me awfully unhappy if even one youngster, or one parent, is resentful in this Christmas season. A couple erf times. I'v e seen the problem in time to call a youngster and parent over, and assure them that it isn't necessary to pay for a Santa Claus picture — but I ’m sure I didn’t catch them all. I t ’s te rrib ly unfortunate — although it really isn't anyone's fault — if there is a sour note in our Christmas celebration in Sandy I want to apologue for being in volved in the cause of any unhappiness and I am recommending to the Sandy Area Merchants who sponsor my sojourn in Sandy at Christmastime, that they be sure in future years that there are “ no strings at tached" to enjoyment of Santa Claus by youngsters and parents Santa Claus Kiwanis baskets The Sandy Kiwanis Christmas Basket project ended Dec 20 with more than 125 fam ily households having received food baskets and presents A total of more than 500 children and adults were benefittea in the Sandy- Bonng-Hoodland areas. The project was tru ly a community effort. The Kiwanis Club annually ac cepts the responsibility for planning, administration and expenditures for fre«h foods As always, it asked and received tremendous help from individuals and organizations of the com munity. according to project chairman A rt Prochaska The students of the area elementary schools and high school responded w ith large canned food drives. Their efforts brought in more than 5.000 cans of food. More than 500 presents were needed to provide one present for each child and youth. Here again, the people and the com munity came through. There was an abundance of beautifully wrapped presents for infants and youths of all ages Generous donations of money were received from individuals and organ izations These contributions are used each year to help pay for perishables, chickens. fru it, fresh vegetables, margarine and bread which are put in the baskets. Presents for the baskets came from countless in dividuals. church organiza tions Sandy and Boring Fire Departments, service organ izations. and the Kiwanis members and their wives. Sandy Kiwanis president Frank Happold said “ without the complete support of the community, we just couldn’t get the job done.” The Sandy Masons con tributed the use of their dining hall for the week it took to assemble the baskets, and the Mt. Hood Mudders helped make deliveries to remote places, a most valuable contribution to the project. Sandy Kiwanis Club members wish to thank all the people, organizations, and business firm s who helped, many of whom are not mentioned above. I t was, indeed, a community effort. Dale E. Nicholls Sandy Kiwanis Club public relations chairman Stove tax foe Well. I ’ve heard it all now L ittle by little these ecology people are making my world safer and safer for me But they can stop anytime The minute I heard about putting a tax on my wood stove, I really got mad. Our forefathers had their tea tax; well. I just discovered my own tea tax with this latest gim m ick by the Environ mental Bully-Boys. They put a halo over their heads, say it's fo r the “ public good” and that seems to be enough. They can talk until they’re red in the face about the particulate count in the air. But I ’ll never agree that burning wood in my stove is hazardous. These people are on a power trip. They get turned on over telling us what we can or can’t do. The greatest problem these extremists have is justifying the bankroll they request year after year. So no m atter what, keep telling the public the "sky is falling” even if it isn’t. I go on record as being against such legislation. The cost of a telegram to the governor may alert him to the folly of such a tax or ban. I ’m outraged at these pompous know-it-alls trying to invade my home With such arrogance, they’ll want to tax the commode in my bathroom next. Ralph A. Sandereock Jr. Sandy LETTERS POLICY: The Post asks that all letters to the editor be typed, double-spaced and signed, [leadline is noon. Tuesday. Letters should be ac cu ra te, free of libelous remarks and in good taste. This newspaper attempts to publish all letters it receives and may edit material lightly to con form to guidelines. M axim um length is 200 words. — Albany-Democrat Herald The Innocent Bystander: A few stories to remember Here once again, as preordained as the return of the flu virus to Capistrano, is that annual media event — The Story of the Year The year began with the ruthless, power- mad Russians sending M.OOC troops into Afghanistan to prop up an inefficient un- regune This incredibly barbaric act was condemned by all leaders of the free world, including former Vietnamese Prem ier Thieu. who said he didn’t think it would work in Afghanistan either This was followed by a more happy note when the Fashion Foundation of American selected Pope John Paul II as the world's best-dressed man Unfortunately, however, the Pope Look never quite caught on, being overshadowed by punk vinyl pants, preppy Weejun loafers and J.R western hats Nevertheless, the Pope went right on wearing what he thought was right It was a great year, though, for bringing things to the surface Emerging from the underground were Abbie Hoffman. Carolyn Wilkerson. Bemardine Dohm and 16.2 cubic miles of volcanic ash from Mount St Helens Other disasters that leap to mind include the Italian earthquake, the Midwest drought and the ascension of Strom. Thurmond to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee It was a had year for the Hunt brothers and Henry Kissinger Herbert and Bunker Hunt lost S9 billion on silver futures and Dr Kissinger backed for the GOP nomination, in chronological order. Governor to n a lly . Senator baser Ambassador Bush and very lastly. Ronald Reagan This shows you how good our foreigh policy advisers are at picking winners Others who didn t do too well at picking winners were the Gang of Four who backed the Cultural Revolution; United Arts, which backed ‘ Heavens G ate;” and Colonel Khaddaf;. who becked B illy Carter It was a mixed year for sex After a decade and more of the Sexual Revolution, sex finally lost, the newest craze among the “ w ith it ” people being celibacy The Moral M ajority has not yet taken an official position on the practice of celibacy between consenting adults So it may be fun Wall Street report: Right wing teed off at Reagan pick On the other hand, a study of pigs in dicated that those which jogged were “ happier, more energetic” and presumably sexier than those which didn’t The study , however, raised two questions: (1> Who wants to have sex with a sweaty pig and (2> how do you get a pig to wear a tank top and Adidas? Speaking of sex. D r W illiam Schockley was named Father of the Year after he announced he had donated to a sperm bank for Nobel laureates Another laureate, though, was sued for divorce after he told his spouse. "N o t to n ig h t honey, I gave at the office ” Speaking of the economy, which we have to whether we like it or not. President Carter, after three years of trying, at last managed to bring on a recession It didn't do any good Money was tight, loose, tight and occasionally disappeared altogether New faces emerging out of nowhere in cluded Yoda, a genetically engineered, oil- eating bacteria , and Rosie Run As the year ground slowly to a close. Carter was still in the White House, if just barely, the Iranians were demanding we drop $24 billion in small, unmarked bills for the hostages, and a public relations man was putting together a 10-minute vigil for Colonel Sanders during which, according to his press release, ' all that w ill be heard is the crunch of the Colonel’s E xtra Crispy’ chicken ” On the bright side, scientists at Animal f >ptics. Inc developed rose-colored contact lenses for chickens that prevented them from pecking each other to death Let us hope scientists w ill soon do as much for us an end to the fixed-commission rates that had been a cozy Wall Street standby fo r two centuries And he has lately enraged the banks themselves by his bold entry — through such devices as money- m arket funds and cash- management accounts — into areas they had considered their own protected tu rf Two men destined for top posts in the Reagan adm inistration had a private golf game last month, and — in between the drives and putts — their chief topic of conversation was who the President-elect should oose as Secretary of the Treasury One of the men. old friends in their 60s. was W illiam J. Casey, now named as Director of the CIA but on this day still functioning p rim a rily as Reagan s successful campaign manager The other was Donald T. Regan, chairman of M e rrill Lynch and — as the No 1 man of Wall Street's No. 1 firm — a key to good w ill for the new administration in the national and international financial communities Casey volunteered that the job would probably go again to form er Treasury Secretary W illiam Simon, if he wanted it. but that others were s till being considered, including economist Alan Greenspan Regan had a mixed reaction Given the present disorderly state of the economy and its financial markets, he said, it was essential that the President-elect pick an experienced articulate manager for the Treasury post Thus, presumably, Simor wouid qualify But. Regan went on. under no cir- cumstan' e> should the assignment go to a theorist an ideologue or a professional economist Regan has taken Regan's advice — suggesting that not just their names, but their thinking, are alike — but he has done so in a way the M e rrill Lynch boss may not have had in mind he has named Don Regan himself to be the new ad m inistration's chief financial of ficer It is a provocative and already - controversial choice Some Reagar loyalists protest that Regan is (horrors' not a hard-line political partisan i Given the bipartisan mess that has been made of the American economy of late, this scarcely constitutes a capital of fense.) Others, of various per suasions, see Reagan the innocent middle-Amencan country boy seduced by a p illa r of the dark and conspiratorial Wall Street establish ment (They don’t know either man I Don Regan, as it happens is about as typical of Wall Street as Hank Aaron is typical of baseball player«. Regans immense success in building and broadening M e rrill Lynch has come as a highly un conventional maverick He is hardly characteristic of, or beloved by. the financial industry's traditionalists Indeed I commented to him, during one of is appearances as my guest on “ Wall Street Week," that he must sometimes feel lonely in those precincts as one who actually bebeved in free-enterprise, com petitive capitalism Consider some of the powerful enemies this feisty ex-Marine made in pursuing the cause of authentic, untraditional competition: He antagonized the most en trenched interests on the New York Stock Exchange, the “ specialists” who make the market in each in dividual stock, by urging that they be replaced by a computerized “ national market system” to which all investors and market-makers would have access At a time when moat brokerage executives regarded the view as little short of treason he campaigned actively for That all this has. ui the end, been good for M e rrill Lynch is precisely the point A more aggressive and innovatice approach to private competition would be good for America, too — and would contrast vivid ly with existing government policies that penalize the successful and bail out the failures Nor should anyone assume that Regan is a narrow fellow ill- equipped for the infighting of political Washington He already has made clear his view on the immediate desirability of both tax cuts and spending cuts ( “ you can’t have one without the other” ), and he has long understood that problems such as today's crushing interest rates and looming capital shortages cannot be isolated from govern ment's uncontrolled spending (As he once put it to me, “ I f the government cuts back on its desires, there w ill be enough capital to go around " ) AU in aU, then, that was s pretty interesting golf game last month
