Tuesday, sepTember 20, 2022 A7
REDMOND SPOKESMAN
Write to us: news@redmondspokesman.com
GUEST COLUMN
Life in Redmond
has changed,
but it’s still good
I
’m impressed with the direction The Redmond Spokesman is
taking under Tim Trainor’s leadership.
When he asked if I would consider reviving my column, he
didn’t have to twist my arm.
My connection with The Spokesman began in January 1975,
when I became Western Communications’ second publisher in
Redmond. WesCom had acquired the newspaper from long-
time owner Mary Brown in 1971.
In about 1980 I began writing a column
which appeared weekly until my retirement in
January 2021. Yes, Ginger and I are still here,
in the same home on a large lot in north Red-
mond.
We could think of no other place we’d rather
live. We’re comfortable with the growth and
Vertrees
believe Redmond still has its own personality.
We wouldn’t go back to the Seattle area where
we were born and raised.
The rapid expansion in Central Oregon has resulted in several
major benefits: Numerous jobs created by new industries mean
our kids don’t have to move away, and more doctors and medical
facilities allow us older folks to remain here. A dramatic increase
in flights and destinations at the Redmond airport means we no
longer have to fly north to go south.
Our daughters are married and independent, living in Des
Moines, Wash., and McMinnville, Ore. We first became grand-
parents in 2006. Grace is 16 and a junior at McMinnville High
School where her brother Ben, 14, is entering as a freshman.
Their cousin Lizzy, also 14 and a freshman, is attending a charter
high school in Federal Way.
My first goal after retirement was to take the OSU Master
Gardener class. I skipped the next-to-last day of work to attend
the first class. We continue to plant a large garden every spring
despite our potentially hazardous weather and the critters that
occasionally maraud it. Tomatoes are usually our most bountiful
crop, starting our own seedlings in April and putting them in the
ground in late May. Our changing climate creates new anomalies
that provide challenges. The hot summer has hampered pollina-
tion, but a warmer September and October will probably facili-
tate ripening.
Ginger and I have been superintendents of Land Products ex-
hibits at the Deschutes County Fair since 2008 in the open class
building, which represents the down-to-earth tenets upon which
fairs were established.
Early in retirement we started attending a twice-weekly ex-
ercise class designed for older folks. We added additional days
of aerobics and weight training, something we had never done
before. I believe that routine has helped us become octogenari-
ans. The class also broadened our network of friends to fill in for
those who have died or moved away.
And I began making wine, four to six batches a year, from
wine kits manufactured in Canada. I discontinued that in 2019
catering to a ruptured heart valve that made lifting six gallons of
liquid too strenuous.
We remain relatively healthy. I have most of my originally is-
sued body parts. Ginger has two new knees and a hip to enhance
her mobility. We were inoculated against Covid as early as possi-
ble, and twice boosted.
We are not snowbirds, but we have learned how to escape oc-
casionally, usually in the late fall or winter when cooler, shorter
days make outdoor activities less conducive in Central Oregon.
We toured Australia and New Zealand in 2008 and sailed the
Mediterranean in 2016.
Before Covid we went on cruises now and then, the last one
in 2019 to celebrate 50 years since we departed Alaska where I
served three years in the U.S. Navy with Armed Forces Radio.
We’ve discovered the warmth of Kauai and Mexico.
Kiwanis remains my major volunteer activity. I’ll relinquish
the job of secretary in October after 19 years in that position.
I’ve chaired the wine dinner committee and scholarships. Gin-
ger joined the Redmond Garden Club after she retired two years
after I did, from Central Oregon Community College support
staff.
The other major change in my personal life occurred on Jan.
6, 2021, when I gave up my lifelong registration as a Republi-
can. The insurrection at the nation’s Capitol was too much. I
may be moderate politically, but I can tolerate only so much.
I’ve been disenchanted with Oregon’s redistricting this year.
Living in the same home for nearly 48 years, we’ve been sev-
ered from Redmond with legislative representation from The
Dalles and Vale.
Life goes on.
█
YOUR VIEWS
Trash, homeless sites reflect
poorly on Redmond
I am very concerned about the trash that
is on our roads and also for the homeless
sites that are popping up on the canal across
from the Redmond Cancer Center.
It seems to me that the last thing that
the people that are sick and not feeling well
needs to be seeing the mess that faces them
daily at the center from these sites. These
should be eliminated immediately and the
roads should be picked up from trash for
the people that are here to visit and see what
they think of the town.
Ann Richardson
Culver
City councilor supports
rec center bond
There will be a vote in November to
have a new recreation center built here in
Redmond. I am an advocate for this and it
is of the utmost importance that it passes.
Letters policy: We welcome your letters. Letters should be limited to
one issue, contain no more than 300 words and include the writer’s
phone number and address for verification. We edit letters for brevity,
grammar, taste and legal reasons. We reject poetry, personal attacks,
form letters, letters submitted elsewhere and those appropriate for
other sections of the spokesman.
Guest columns: your submissions should be between 600 and 800
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reasons. We reject those submitted elsewhere.
How to submit:
• email is preferred: news@redmondspokesman.com
• Or mail to: 361 sW sixth street, redmond Or 97756
their safety and welfare. It doesn’t matter if
you have kids or not. We are investing in the
future of Redmond. What’s in it for you is a
great city with a great community. We must
begin with the end in sight. This is vision,
this is the future.
I am asking all of you to please invest
in the future of the children by voting for
a new recreation center. This is weighing
heavy on my heart because this may be
our last opportunity to get this passed. We
must look at this as a capital investment
that we should not and cannot afford to ig-
nore. Please share this with your friends and
neighbors and ask them to support this as
well. November is close and we don’t have
much time to get the word out. We have to
save all of the children because they are our
future and this is how we can begin to do
this.
If there is ever an investment that we
need to make, this is it. I’d rather invest in a
recreation Center than a new jail.
Clifford Evelyn
Redmond city councilor
GUEST COLUMN
Corporate activity tax a failure
BY MICHAEL SIPE
T
he Oregon Legislature instituted
the corporate activities tax (CAT)
in 2019. Every Democrat legislator
and no Republicans voted for it. Advo-
cates pitched it as a way to fund improve-
ments in the education system. The law
was a terrible idea, devoid of business or
common sense. Time has proven that
CAT is unfair, regressive, oppressive to
small businesses, and
extremely inflationary.
Worst of all, CAT failed
to improve public edu-
cation. The Legislature
should immediately give
Oregonians cost-of-liv-
ing relief by repealing
Sipe
the CAT tax. Here’s why.
CAT is disguised as a
tax on corporations; however, it’s actually a
multiple-level tax that increases the cost of
goods and services we buy every day. Most
people are familiar with a retail sales tax,
where consumers pay a tax on the final re-
tail price of a product. CAT is much worse
than this, as it’s a complex revenue-based
tax imposed at each step of the supply chain.
Also, since CAT is imposed on taxable reve-
nue, not net profit, it cuts especially hard on
price-constrained, low-margin businesses.
As the market allows, businesses are per-
mitted to pass the tax on at each level, and
thus it multiplies, until a product reaches
Carl Vetrees is a former editor of the Redmond Spokesman and a longtime
Redmond resident.
WRITE TO US
Our children need and deserve a safe place
where they can learn life skills, while at the
same time strengthening their minds and
bodies.
Recreation centers have a positive impact
on our communities. It’s a place where kids
can go to participate in organized activities
or even do homework. A quality recreation
center would be an asset to our community
and in these trying times we cannot afford
to ignore the benefits of building one. It is
long overdue.
Recreation centers provide opportu-
nity for education. It creates an active and
healthy community, it increases property
value, and they make great communi-
ties whole. Recreation centers help create
leaders in our communities and this is
what we want. Keep this in mind: It’s eas-
ier to build strong children than to repair
broken men.
We spend millions of dollars on infra-
structure and new equipment year after
year, which is necessary. Now we need to
focus on investing in our children as well as
the retailer, which also passes along the now
geometrically increased tax burden to the
consumer, who is blind to how the state has
inflated the cost of everything from grocer-
ies to cars to houses. If you intentionally set
out to drive up prices, it would be hard to
create a more insidious way to do so.
To understand the inflationary effect of
the CAT Tax, consider a homebuilder who
builds and sells two houses a year in Cen-
tral Oregon. Building a house requires ma-
terials and labor. On the material side, the
company that harvests and sells trees to a
sawmill pays a tax on that sale and passes
it on to the sawmill. The mill processes the
logs into lumber and sells the lumber to a
distributor, at a price that includes the CAT
tax on the forester’s and the mill’s revenue.
The distributor sells the lumber to a retailer,
at a price that includes the CAT tax on the
forester’s, the mill’s, and the distributor’s
revenue. The retailer sells the lumber to the
builder, at a price that includes the CAT tax
on the forester’s, the mill’s, the distributor’s,
and the retailer’s revenue. The builder then
uses the lumber to build the two houses,
selling them to two local families at prices
that include the CAT tax on the forester’s,
the mill’s, the distributor’s, the retailer’s, and
the home builder’s revenue.
The CAT’s compounding effect on lum-
ber is mirrored with countless other mate-
rials used in building a house. It also drives
up much of the cost of the labor. Every-
thing that goes into building the houses is
increased by the CAT tax. Is it any wonder
houses cost so much?
This same effect happens throughout
Oregon’s economy. The result is that nearly
everything we buy is more expensive than
it would otherwise be. And the tax our state
government imposed is one culprit.
I am sure there are better ways to fund
education than CAT, but some might ar-
gue all this inflation would be worth it if
the CAT actually made Oregon’s schools
better, as our legislature promised it would.
However, the additional billion dollars per
year in taxes we pay has made no discern-
ible difference. Not only that, while closing
schools by COVID mandate, Governor
Kate Brown kept collecting the CAT tax,
despite the fact that small businesses across
the state were struggling to survive. Yet
even with a multi-billion-dollar windfall
of funds from the CAT, Oregon schools re-
main mired at the bottom of national edu-
cation rankings.
We cannot afford an ill-conceived and
inflationary tax that has failed to deliver its
promised benefits. The corporate activities
tax should be repealed in the next legislative
session.
█
Michael Sipe is a local business consultant and
the Republican candidate for Oregon House
District 53, which includes the northern portion of
Bend, Tumalo, Sisters, Black Butte and southwest
Redmond. He lives in Tumalo.
CONTACT YOUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS
Redmond
Mayor George Endicott: George.endicott@
redmondoregon.gov, 541-948-3219
Deschutes County
County Commission Chair Patti Adair: patti.adair@
deschutes.org, 541-388-6567
County Commission Vice Chair Tony DeBone: Tony.
debone@deschutes.org, 541-388-6568
County Commissioner Phil Chang: phil.Chang@
deschutes.org, 541-388-6569
Your Legislators
Rep. Jack Zika (District 53): 503-986-1453; 900
Court st. Ne, H-387, salem, Or 97301, rep.JackZika@
oregonlegislature.gov
Sen. Tim Knopp (District 27): 503-986-1727; 900
Court st. Ne, s-425, salem, Or 97301, sen.TimKnopp@
oregonlegislature.gov
State
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254 state Capitol, salem,
Or 97310; 503-378-3111; www.governor.oregon.gov.
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read: oregon.
treasurer@ost.state.or.us; 350 Winter st. Ne, suite 100,
salem Or 97301-3896; 503-378-4000.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen F. Rosenblum:
Justice building, salem, Or 97301-4096; 503-378-4400.
Oregon Legislature: Legislative documents and
information are available online at www.leg.state.or.us.
Federal
President Joe Biden: The White House, 1600
pennsylvania ave., Washington, d.C. 20500; 202-456-
1111; to send comments, go to www.whitehouse.gov.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: d.C. office: 313 Hart senate
Office building, u.s. senate, Washington, d.C., 20510;
202-224-3753; fax 202-228-3997. portland office: One
World Trade Center, 121 s.W. salmon st. suite 1250,
portland, Or 97204; 503-326-3386; fax 503-326-2900.
baker City office, 1705 main st., suite 504, 541-278-
1129; merkley.senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: d.C. office: 221 dirksen senate
Office building, Washington, d.C., 20510; 202-224-
5244; fax 202-228-2717. La Grande office: 105 Fir st.,
No. 210, La Grande, Or 97850; 541-962-7691; fax, 541-
963-0885; wyden.senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (2nd District): d.C. office: 1239
Longworth House Office building, Washington, d.C.,
20515, 202-225-6730; fax 202-225-5774. medford
office: 14 N. Central avenue suite 112, medford, Or
97850; phone: 541-776-4646; fax: 541-779-0204;
Ontario office: 2430 s.W. Fourth ave., No. 2, Ontario, Or
97914; phone: 541-709-2040. bentz.house.gov.