PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, APRIL 17, 2015
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Candidates deserved more
If you’re going to hold a candidate
forum, hold an actual candidate fo-
rum.
That is the takeaway from what
was billed as the Keizer Chamber of
Commerce’s candidate forum dur-
ing Tuesday’s monthly chamber lun-
cheon at Keizer Quality Suites.
There are a number of races in
next month’s election, with vari-
ous seats on the Keizer Fire District
Board, Salem-Keizer School Board,
Marion County Fire District Board,
Salem-Keizer Transit Board and the
Chemeketa Community College
Board.
Chamber offi cials invited candi-
dates for all races to the luncheon,
which was a tight time squeeze to
begin with. Luncheons start at 11:30
a.m. with food, with the main pro-
gram running from noon to 1 p.m.
What happened Tuesday was still a
bit puzzling.
Squeezing a candidate forum into
a luncheon can be done. After all, the
same chamber did so for last fall’s
election. This time was different.
To start, candidates didn’t sit up
front at a head table. They were
placed around the room at various
tables, with the idea being that lun-
cheon attendees would be able to
chat with the candidates.
Considering the number of can-
didates, that seemed reasonable.
Except not all of the candidates
were there. If all were present, there
would have been 23 candidates.
Roughly half of them were absent,
with a couple of opponents such as
Chuck Lee taking advantage by get-
ting in cheap (and inaccurate) shots.
But this was a prime chance for
candidates to give speeches. Many
would suspect candidates would
jump at the chance and fi gure out a
way to make it work.
That wasn’t the biggest problem.
Normal luncheon announcements
and reminders were made. Mary
Stewart from Oregon State Univer-
sity Extension Service talked about
that group’s program. She was kept
to fi ve minutes.
Here is the problem: by the time
Joe Egli was done with a 20-minute
talk about the upcoming Iris Festi-
val, it was about 12:40 p.m. Since the
chamber puts on Keizer’s biggest an-
nual event next month, it absolutely
makes sense to have Egli promote
it. But it left just 20 minutes for the
normal self-introductions of the 50
or so people in attendance, plus time
for door prizes.
The candidate forum still hadn’t
even started. People were asked to
keep their self-introductions brief. It
was announced candidates would get
a minute or two to talk about them-
selves.
At an event billed as a candidate
forum?
In short, candidates didn’t get the
forum they deserved on Tuesday, nor
did voters.
- CM
Vote for Betty Hart
big picture vi-
sion. If the 12
years as a city
councilor were
his only ex-
perience, that
would certainly
be enough; but
that’s really just padding to his re-
sume when compared to his decades
of service to the community in other
areas.
A local businessman, Rotar-
ian and Little League coach, Jim has
dedicated his life to the community
and his vast experience will be a wel-
come addition to the fi ne members
of the fi re board. If you want an ex-
perienced, detailed and watchful eye
keeping track of your tax dollars, join
me in voting Jim Taylor for Keizer
Fire District board of directors.
Brandon Smith
Keizer
The election of citizens to the
Keizer Fire Board does not raise much
attention.
This is a shame because the deci-
sions made by the board affects life and
property in Keizer. I believe it is im-
portant to elect knowledgeable people
to those positions.
This is the reason why I am sup-
porting Betty Hart to the board of
directors. I attended monthly board
meetings for more than eight years and
I have always seen Betty there. In addi-
tion, she has also attended budget and
advisory meetings consistently. Betty
has been active in supporting much-
needed levies to ensure the people in
Keizer were protected. I believe Betty
deserves a position on the board be-
cause of her knowledge and devotion
to the district. Please join me and vote
for Betty Hart.
Bill Quinn
Keizer
Vote for Jim Taylor
The City of Keizer is fortunate
to have a number of respected and
qualifi ed candidates running for the
Keizer Fire District board of direc-
tors. However, none have the back-
ground and experience of Jim Tay-
lor and I am pleased to endorse his
candidacy.
Mr. Taylor has been a member of
the Keizer community his entire life,
giving him a unique perspective and
letters
Keizer Rapids concerts
I don’t think it is right that they are
making a for-profi t operation out of
the concerts at Keizer Rotary Amphi-
theater.
It was always non-profi t for the
people of the community, put on by
band members of the community.
Now they are going to make every-
body pay and as usual only the folks
that can afford it will go. It’s too bad
these greedy people are doing this to
the community.
Tom Bidwell
Salem
Following the trail of the phone menu
BY DON VOWELL
As an illustration of the time I
invest in research for these rants, I
called the offi ce of this newspaper
during normal business hours.
They answered the phone. Hal-
lelujah. My gratitude
is out of proportion
because I had just
fi nished a call to the
offi ce of a large phar-
macy several time
zones out. When I
die and am rightly
sent to some mid-
dling level of Dante’s
Inferno, I suspect my
eternal torment will be restricted
to speaking only with automated
phone systems.
The opening greeting of my
pharmaceutical call was “If this is a
medical emergency hang up and dial
911.” Duh. The button pressing be-
gan when I needed to choose a lan-
guage. That’s reasonable. There was a
needless warning to listen closely as
menu options may have changed.
This one sometimes crosses me
up. My mounting dread many times
prevents me from devoting full at-
tention to the recording. Option 4
seems like it could be right, but I
keep listening all the way through 8
in case there is a choice that actually
works for me. Sometimes I start over
because I don’t remember if I was
supposed to press 3 or 4.
Next you are advised if you know
your extension number you may
dial it now. It looks like an escape
hatch until you are shunted to yet
another automated
system. If you were
unable to take that
exit the menu op-
tions begin. Press 1 if
you are a doctor or a
hospital, press 2 to re-
fi ll a prescription, 3 if
you are a new patient
(get out now if you
still have that choice
and fi nd a pharmacy that answers
the phone), 4 if you have questions
about the amount of your co-pay, 5
for billing questions.
Billing questions, that’s me. Sens-
ing victory, I press 5. There’s an
electronic click, a panic-inducing
silence then a ring tone indicating
a new call to another department.
Ms. Automated System picks up
the call to advise me that my call
may be recorded for quality control.
Maybe that shames a few of us into
not screaming when we fi nally get
through. Then begins yet another
set of options to categorize your
billing question. Your last button
press makes you think you are about
done. You are told the average wait
a box
of
soap
Saving water? It’s really not that diffi cult
BY GENE H. MCINTYRE
The classic Two Years before the
Mast tells the story of Bostonian
Richard H. Dana’s experience as a
common seaman aboard an Ameri-
can sailing ship that rounded Cape
Horn to Mexico’s California in the
1830s with return by ship to Mas-
sachusetts.
Six years before
the Desert relates the
adventures of this col-
umn’s writer while
working for the Ara-
bian American Oil
Company (Aramco)
in the 1980s.
Thoughts of Saudi
Arabia have been fresh
on my mind as news
out of California this
year is mostly about its drought.
Much of Southern California takes
on the likeness of a desert unless
water by irrigation is available, so
that state’s governor Jerry Brown
announced last week a historic
statewide measure that would aim
for a 25 percent reduction in water
use by the end of 2015.
Incidentally, it was reported on
April 7 compliance is at 2 percent
now and, unlike Saudi Arabia, with
an autocratic government, Cali-
fornia practices America’s brand of
“freedom” which “gives” everyone
the “permission” to-do-as-he-pleas-
es, ignoring and sometimes inten-
tionally subverting what amounts to
a water crisis in that case.
But back to my story: Saudi Ara-
bia’s eastern-most city is Dhahran
where my family and I lived while
employed in that country. The most
important fact to convey to our
neighbors to the south is that desert
circumstances are not only surviv-
able, but survivable with grace and
style. How much water California
can pump to the surface from deep
wells to compensate for lack of rain-
fall is not known, but Aramco had
several deep wells to provide what
was called “sweet” water. Meanwhile,
most of the water for uses other than
drinking and dish washing was from
the process of desalinization.
Aramco discouraged its employ-
ees from drinking desalinated water
because its composition bears no re-
semblance to water from a fresh wa-
ter stream in Oregon. If one should
indulge himself, we
were told, the result
would be something
like the purging of
an aggressive enema.
We – my wife, myself
and our children –
took their word for it
but had to get used to
desalinated water for
bathing, clothes wash-
ing and the watering
of outside plants.
The use of sweet water from a
bucket fi lled at the kitchen sink had
to be employed to clean up a car’s
exterior or otherwise the result of a
car wash Oregon-style meant a fi lm
on the windows so thick from the
minerals that one could not see out
to drive. It was much too laborious
to proceed that way very often, so
we got used to a thin coat of dust on
our four-wheel machines as well as
all things outside. Then, too, regular
wind storms meant the opportunity
to taste the fl avor of Saudi Arabia’s
desert sands.
It was my privilege to visit many
a Saudi home, invited there by
workers who were Saudi citizens.
There were no grass lawns. Na-
tive indigenous plants of somewhat
scarce abundance meant homes fi t
in with the arid landscape and pro-
tected its natural display and the
survival of fl ora and fauna. Inside
Aramco’s compounds the com-
pany planted and cared for small
patches of lawn mainly there, it was
believed, to protect the American
employees from devastating bouts
of homesickness.
Yes, Aramco provided its em-
gene h.
mcintyre
Keizertimes
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LEGAL NOTICES
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Periodical postage paid at
Salem, Oregon
time to speak with a representative
is currently 12 minutes.
These systems are sold to busi-
nesses in the name of effi ciency.
Effi ciency means saving businesses
a little time by costing customers
a lot of time. A robotic system that
took several minutes to steer you to
the right employee could have been
eliminated by an employee that an-
swered the phone and connected
you with the right party. If Giant
Pharmacy gets 1,500 calls a day they
still must speak with each one, pos-
sibly excepting those that gave up
on the automated phone system and
hung up. If those calls cost each cus-
tomer three minutes system naviga-
tion time that’s a total of 75 hours.
In the name of corporate effi ciency
they spent 75 hours aggravating
their customers.
It could be that customer sat-
isfaction and goodwill have fallen
way behind net profi ts and stock
performance as corporate goals. If
any of those businesses are reading
this please know that you can win
lifelong loyalty just by answering
your phone. After all the money
you spent persuading the Supreme
Court to declare your personhood,
you might as well act like one.
(Don Vowell lives in Keizer and
regularly takes to his box of soap in the
Keizertimes.)
ployees with a golf course but to
play the game meant getting used
to fairways, tees and greens fi xed in
place by a thin coat of asphalt-grade
oil. As far-fetched as an oil course
may sound, Aramco employees
played on it regularly and reported it
as fun to do. If the Governor Brown
order works effectively, Californians
will have to surrender their courses
to brown grass and desert plants to
which, after a decade or two, it’s
surmised, they’d get used to.
Californians may wish to adjust
their mindset to rather drastically-
changed conditions. Freshly washed
cars may be an unusual sight while
lawns will become a rare phenom-
enon (the great American lawn is,
after all, an English affectation and,
really now, who wants to imitate
those U.K. Windsor-worshipers!).
Swimming pools will be used
strictly for skateboarding. Some lo-
cations in California may become
uninhabitable and return to the
domain of desert-natural Southern
California fl ora and fauna.
It’s a sure bet more tourists will
visit the Northwest. We’ll continue
to enjoy most everything they will
have lost in California. We will even
continue to fl ush our toilets at the
same rate as has been true of us in
past times. Our cars will be shiny
clean and our pools open for use.
Meanwhile, what has been envy
for “greener pastures” down south
will reverse its direction. Hence,
there’ll be need of another former
governor Tom McCall, he who
admonished outsiders to visit Or-
egon but don’t stay, which has had
the same result as the English king
who planted his throne close to the
ocean’s front and ordered the tide
to stop.
In other words, as California
dries up, the always dreaded Cali-
fornication will increase as those
folks literally seek “greener pas-
tures.”
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)