PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, MAY 8, 2015
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Endorsements
It is not the norm to have con-
tested election races in Keizer. Voters
in Keizer are faced with more than
one candidate for several offi ces in the
May 19 election—and that’s a good
thing. Of the six races only two are
uncontested.
In one race there is an embarasse-
ment of riches—Keizer Fire District
Board, Position 5. Betty Hart, a long-
time community volunteer (and wife
of outgoing board member Mike
Hart) faces Jim Taylor, a former three
term city councilor.
Both candidates have been involved
with community and governmental
organizations; both have Keizer’s best
interests in mind.
After the election there will be
three new members of the Keizer Fire
District board of directors. The dis-
trict will ask voters in November to
approve a levy to replace aged equip-
ment. The nature of fi re districts has
changed over the past 20 years—only
a small percentage of its calls are ac-
tually fi res, most are medical calls.
That reality needs to be addressed by
the board of directors now and into
the future. As expenses such as PERS
and health insurance continue to raise
it is important to have members of
the board who will look beyond past
practices and prepare for the future in
terms of both personnel and opera-
tions.
The fi re district is more than just
budgets. The board sets the district’s
policies and it is important to have
members who will be independent
enough to push for strategies that
will maintain the services the public
expects while holding the line on ex-
penses. That could include laying the
groundwork for collaboration with
other fi re departments and districts
and the use of equipment on medical
calls, which now calls for a fi re truck
to accompany a medic unit.
Both Taylor and Hart have much
experience with budgets. Keizer
would be well-served by either on the
fi re board however, due to his call for
changes in daily operations of expen-
sive equipment, we endorse Jim Taylor
for position 5.
The other contested race for the
Keizer Fire District board is for posi-
tion 3, pitting James Mulhern against
Chet Patterson.
Patterson was a co-author of the
study that led to Keizer’s incorpora-
tion in the early 1980s; he was one
of the city’s original fi ve councilors.
He brings a strong fi nancial back-
ground to the race, having served in
various positions in the private sec-
tor—including an accountant and an
auditor—for more than 20 years. He
currently sits on the district’s budget
committee.
His opponent is a fi refi ghter with
the Marion County Fire District #1.
He cites his experience as an Emer-
gency Medical Technican (EMT) and
his work as a union offi cer regarding
labor issues.
The Keizer Fire and the Marion
County Fire #1 (MCFD#1) districts
have had their disagreements in the
past and continue to paint the rela-
tionship with distrust.
Nowhere in the voter’s pamphlet
does Mr. Mulhern state he works
for the Marion County Fire District.
Adding him to the Keizer Fire board
would add fuel to a political fi re that
should be extinguished, not enhanced.
There are ways for Mulhern to ex-
press his views on cross-district coop-
eration, but it is not on the board.
When it comes to position 3 the
best choice is Chet Patterson.
The race for Salem-Keizer School
District director, Zone 6, fi nds Chuck
Lee running for his third term. His
opponent is Timothy Moles.
Moles, CEO of Joules Power, Inc.,
has an impressive resume regarding his
years in the U.S. military. Beyond that
it is hard to see how his background
and his views (teachers in uniforms?)
will help the fi nal customers of the
school board: our children.
Lee, president of Mountain West
Career Techincial Institute, a former
president of Blanchet Catholic School
and a former Keizer City Councilor,
brings a resume better matched to the
school board position. We do ask Mr.
Lee not to seek another polticial of-
fi ce if he is elected to a new four-year
term. He is effective and having an
impact on our students where he is.
Our endorsement goes to Chuck
Lee.
Another contested race for Keizer
voters to decide is for Salem Area
Mass Transit (SAMT) District direc-
tor, subdistrict 2.
Colleen Busch is facing Richard
Stevenson, both Keizer residents. Both
understand the importance of public
transportation; Stevenson relies on
buses and paratransit.
The issues the SAMT directors
will face include how to add evening
and Saturday bus service. The services
were taken away in 2009 due to bud-
get constraints. The directors must
decide whether to ask for a property
tax hike or a payroll tax to pay for the
added services.
Stevenson supports the payroll tax
that is sustainable and permanent;
Busch thinks the property tax is the
better way to go.
Stevenson is currently a mem-
ber of the district’s Citizen Advisory
Committee. Busch has a long list of
community activities in Keizer and
she has been a member of the Keizer
Fire District budget committee since
2008. It is always a good thing to have
people who have extensive budget ex-
perience.
Therefore, we endorse Colleen
Busch for director of subdistrict 2 for
the Salem Area Mass Transit District.
The Keizertimes supports Measure
No. 24-380 which would establish a
Marion County Extension and 4H
Service District. Agriculture is vitally
important to the county’s economy.
The measure would implement a 5
cents per $1,000 assessed value to fund
the district which would be managed
by the Marion County Commission
with assistance from citizen advisory
committees and volunteers.
It is a new tax but it is one that
benefi ts our single largest industry.
— LAZ
Have fun
without alcohol
Need I say
more?
There
are a lot of non-
alcoholic bev-
erages. For the
benefi t of our
children, let us
refrain from any alcoholic drinks.
Anne Johnson
Keizer
To the Editor:
The annual Keizer Iris Festival
is a highlight of the year and good
for the family. However, I was disap-
pointed that the Brewfest for Keiz-
erfest has been added. It would be
nice to have entertainment without
the aid of alcoholic beverages.
In the paper (Keizertimes, April
17, 2015) it stated “a lot of research
has been done regarding brewfests.”
I did some research, too. Ac-
cording to the National Highway
Traffi c Safety Administration, 230
passengers under the age of 15 were
killed in drunk driving accidents in
2012. Also, the Centers for Disease
Control reported that 10,322 people
were killed in alcohol-related crashes
in 2012.
A brief look at America today
would remind us that alcohol is,
each year, directly related to highway
deaths, drownings, domestic violence
and suicides. In regards to alcohol,
our country puts out approximately
$67 billion.
letters
Betty Hart for
Keizer Fire Board
To The Editor:
With respect to all candidates, we
are supporting Betty Hart for Keiz-
er Fire Board. She has experience
when it comes to the fi re district’s
budget and would help represent our
interests effectively.
Betty has been a long-time vol-
unteer in our community, worked
on the last two campaigns for the
fi re district and participated in the
chief selection process. She knows
our community and the fi re district.
Betty’s background in accounting
and fi nance will help her watch our
taxpayer dollars.
Keizertimes
Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303
phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com
Lyndon A. Zaitz, Editor & Publisher
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Salem, Oregon
Still getting the hang of retirement
By DON VOWELL
Retirement must be much harder
for people who can afford it. They
must actively choose between fritter-
ing away valuable resources on leisure
pursuits and endless vacation or doing
something to better their communi-
ty. If you don’t have a lot of money
for travel or expensive pastimes your
choices are different. You can sit and
look out the window between books
or you can get up and do something.
A fulfi lling retirement is more likely a
healthy mix of doing good and doing
nothing.
Even before retiring I was not sold
on the idea that after a 45 year span of
supporting myself and then my fam-
ily I would suddenly earn release from
any responsibility for earning my keep.
A portion of my pay for those years
was regularly sent to my pension fund
but if I manage to live long enough
I’ll end up collecting more than I
contributed. That continuing support
must merit more than just cashing the
check.
We watched a movie last night that
jolted me back to thinking about how
best to use my time. Earning your
keep is probably about stuff much
more important than money. A whole
working life of
demanding
physical labor
can make you
want to avoid
any more of
that. It seems
legitimate to
think that you have earned the right
to relax and just enjoy life. All that is
required now is learning how to enjoy
life. It’s not as simple as I’d hoped.
The one thing I’ve consistently en-
joyed is taking the camera to visit the
wildlife refuges of western Oregon.
Rather than seeking the company
of others I am surprised to fi nd how
much I enjoy being alone except for
bugs, birds, and critters with all their
noises. It would be overstatement to
claim it is a spiritual experience but
it is something like that. The cares of
the day never follow me around on
these walks.
I’m getting better at letting go of
expectations. Expectations ruin just
about everything. If you think back
about every time you have been sad,
angry, hurt, or felt cheated, it’s because
some person, thing, event, experience,
or meal didn’t live up to your expec-
tations. It doesn’t matter much what
a box
of
soap
actually happened, it’s not what you’d
hoped for.
I began these safaris fi lled with
hope that I would fi nd some new
rarely sighted bird or thing and come
home with a trophy picture. Some-
times that led to a slight letdown.
Slowly I am learning to just be out
there. All of the best moments have
been completely unexpected. Noth-
ing has helped more than learning to
stop and be quiet. It doesn’t seem to
take long for the refuge residents to
accept that you are not a threat and re-
turn to their business. I bet that lesson
offers some valuable corollary in how
best to insert yourself into any group
of strangers.
It would stretch credibility to
imagine that wandering around the
refuges taking pictures gives back to
the community in any way. There is
a small and kind group of folks that
regularly view the pictures online and
say they enjoy them. That’s enough
for me. In time I will fi nd a more
direct way to help people that need
it here in town. In the meantime I’ll
keep searching for the exact balance
between pages read and guilt-o-meter
overload.
(Don Vowell gets on his soapbox
regulary in the Keizertimes.)
Publicity campaign won’t change Kochs
A few days ago a large photo of
a smiling face appeared on the front
page of USA Today. It was the very
private Charles Koch of Koch Indus-
tries who allowed his image, along
with an article from a rare interview,
to be used and whose purpose, he
reported, was to make a case for the
improvement of his rather negative
image. Whatever the case, Charles
and his brother David’s greatest inter-
est is to end all but basic government
programs: Only national defense, pub-
lic safety, enforcing settlements and
preventing the spread of communi-
cable disease are supported by them.
Further, the Koch brothers do
not believe in climate change as man
caused and will do everything they
can to prevent any U.S. action to
curtail it. They are, after all, big-time
into making money through their oil
and gas holdings, with holdings in 62
countries provide them with annual
revenue at $115 billion. Hence, with
all their money, they have the mon-
etary means to have their way.
Meanwhile, Charles and David will
not support Social Security, Medi-
care, public education, programs for
the poor and anything else that re-
quires tax dollars, seeking a highly
constrained and bare bones govern-
ment budget. Their plans come at a
time when massive wealth inequality
(the Koch brothers, it’s believed, want
more inequality) rules America while
99 percent of all new income gener-
ated in the U.S. goes into the pock-
ets of the nation’s top 1 percent. To
get their way, the Koch brothers will
donate $900 million to the campaign
chests of fi ve Republican presidential
aspirants who will in turn do their
bidding.
Charles
and David are
now
mount-
ing an aggres-
sive defense of
their company
and their po-
litical advocacy
interests as based on a multi-decade
effort, they say, to “increase well-being
in society.” Further, they say that none
of what they’re going about to polish
their image has as its intent to make
more money which is probably true
since they’re billionaires already. They
just want the U.S. to become an un-
contested, unthreatened plutocracy or
where the rich own and control ev-
erything.
Charles says they receive daily
death threats. Now that could be
motivated by an effort to gain sym-
pathy and garner concern for their
lives. However, while it may be true
that they receive death threats, two
considerations are probably also true:
their ruthless, cutthroat ways of do-
ing business have undoubtedly earned
them enemies that would like revenge
while, also, they have to have a securi-
ty force guarding them that’s the envy
of the White House where the Secret
Service has become the modern-day
version of the gang that can’t shoot
straight.
Every American will soon be aware
of the Koch brothers efforts to remake
themselves into saints. That means
advertising on television networks
and cable streams as well as at profes-
sional sports arenas and during college
basketball and football games at 15
universities. They are also giving big
bucks to create and support a network
of think tanks and policy and political
groups to advance their drastic gov-
ernment spending cuts. During last
year’s election cycle, for instance, they
spent $90 million to defeat Democrats
and succeeded by their deep pockets
in achieving Republican majorities in
the Congress.
There just may be something to
the vilifi cation of the Koch brothers
as they work against any and all gov-
ernment regulations so that they can
do with the environment as they
please. They do not want the U.S. gov-
ernment or state governments to tax
their industries and have hired a team
of lobbyists, mainly former Republi-
can members of Congress, to promise
campaign contributions to those who
will fi ght to end all regulations and cut
taxes for the wealthy.
It’s believed from what this col-
umn writer has read that they seek to
rule the U.S. from behind the scenes.
They’ve made their fortunes by oper-
ating in a free society and will now use
that freedom to render subservient ev-
ery American who opposes them.
They’ve got the money while the U.S.
Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens
United has helped them to achieve
control because the typical voter does
not study the candidates and what
they stand for; rather, too many Amer-
icans vote by having heard a name or a
proposition repeated on TV dozens of
times every day, meaning grim conse-
quences for most of us and especially
the unwary.
Please join us in voting for Betty
Hart for Keizer Fire Board this May.
Patrick and Kristi Sieng
Keizer
Keizer Volunteer Firefi ghters,
Association Board of Directors
Keizer
one minute that any thinking person
is going to sell a gun to a criminal or
a deranged person? If a person wants
a gun badly enough they only have
to go out of state to buy one. Does
the law stop people from receiving a
gun in the mail from another state?
How will the state control this?
Several sheriffs have indicated that
they will not enforce the law. In my
opinion this is just another feel-good
bill that the Democrats felt they had
to have. This law may be saluted by
people in the Portland and Eugene
areas and laughed at by people out-
side metropolitan areas. If the Re-
publicans controlled either cham-
ber or the governor’s offi ce, this bill
would not become law. It is time to
bring a change in the Oregon legis-
lature for sensible laws.
Bill Quinn
Keizer
Volunteers endorse
Chet Patterson
To the Editor:
The Keizer Volunteer Firefi ghter’s
Association is expressing our en-
dorsement for Chet Patterson for the
Keizer Fire District Board Position
3. When the Keizer Fire District
was formed back in 1948, we relied
on volunteers from day one. Over
time, many things have changed and
now our volunteers work alongside
dedicated career professionals in the
district.
One thing that has not changed,
however, is our ability to work with
other agencies. Those neighboring
agencies who we help and who help
us have been invaluable, but an in-
tent to redesign how we work to-
gether is not only unnecessary, but
could damage that relationship and
the services that Keizer Fire provides.
Chet Patterson understands this.
Having been one of the founding
city councilors, he has witnessed
change. He has instigated and en-
dorsed change. He has also resist-
ed needless change. Chet Patterson
knows Keizer, and he is familiar
with the Keizer Fire District. Chet
has been personally involved in the
district as a father of a previous Ex-
plorer and as a member of the Keizer
Fire Budget committee.
The Keizer Volunteer FireFight-
er’s Association strongly recom-
mends a vote for Chet Patterson for
the KFD Board Position 3.
Tony Ling and
gene h.
mcintyre
New checks
on guns are
unenforceable
To the Editor:
How stupid can you be? The
Democrats in the Oregon legislature
just passed a bill that requires a back-
ground check on private gun sales.
This will increase the work of the
state police and licensed dealers and
the cost to lawful gun owners. You
don’t have to be a genius to see that
this law will not be fully enforceable.
Many counties do not have the
manpower for background checks.
How is anyone going to know that
a person sold a gun to his lifelong
friend or neighbor? Do you think for
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)