PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, APRIL 8, 2016
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Where art thou, volunteers?
Since it became an or-
ganized community and
then an incorporated city,
in 1982, Keizer has relied
on the kindness of its resi-
dents to volunteer to fulfi ll
the many roles in city gov-
ernment and other organi-
zations.
At a time, decades ago, the center
of the community was Keizer Little
League (KLL), one of the most suc-
cessful youth baseball programs in
Oregon. Keizer Little League teams
played on a fi eld complex that was
the envy of other Little Leagues. It
was from the ranks of KLL volun-
teers that was born future leaders of
the city: city councilors, mayors and
leaders of committees and organiza-
tions.
The Big Toy at Keizer Rapids
Park is now a reality. That came to
fruition due to the many hours and
the expeience donated by volunteers.
The community build of The Big
Toy was heralded for months before
it happened. Hundreds of residents
registered to volunteer in one of the
many realms of the build. Unfor-
tunately, many of the people who
signed up never showed to volun-
teer, pushing the completion of the
project back by a week, and forcing
those who did show up to work long
hours.
The Little League fi elds have been
a source of contention between the
two baseball organizations for sev-
eral years. In decades past, baseball
parents were all too happy to spend
their volunteer time to maintain the
fi elds, coach and operate the conces-
sion stand. Not so much these days.
The city has a constant roster of
committee, board and task force va-
cancies to fi ll. Too few people have
stepped up to serve on the bodies
that do a lot of the preliminary work
on city projects. The city council had
to act and they approved legislation
that allowed a person to serve on
more than one committee. The Keiz-
er Points of Interest Committee has
not had a formal meet-
ing in months because no
quorum was present to al-
low for formal action.
What has happened to
the third word of Keizer’s
motto of pride, spirit and
volunteerism? Unlike the
late 1970s and early 1980s
there are many more opportunities
for Keizer residents to satisify their
contribution to society. Keizer Little
League has been joined by KYSA,
Keizer Youth Basketball, Keizer Soc-
cer Club as well as non-athletic
groups such as Keizer Art Associa-
tion, the Keizer Community Library,
Keizer Community Band. Add in the
one-time or once a year projects that
require volunteers: Keizer Iris Festi-
val, the turf project at McNary High
School and The Big Toy. All these are
joined by teams, churches, schools
and clubs.
It is not so much a dearth of vo-
lutneer bodies as is it a wealth of ways
a resident can offer themselves. In
2013 when a seat on the Keizer City
Council became vacant, seven candi-
dates applied for the volunteer posi-
tion. Three years later another coun-
cil vacancy attracted one candidate.
Keizer is home to working fam-
ily households which must juggle
job, school and recreation schedules.
Families have to decide where their
heart lays when it comes to adding
volunteeer hours to their busy sched-
ules. It is no contest when it comes
down to something with which their
children are involved or a city com-
mittee.
Any organization seeking volun-
teers will do themselves well if in-
stead of sending out a clarion call for
volutneers, they send out a roster of
volunteer duties and hours needed.
Unfortunately, it seems that the days
of overfl owing with helping hands
could be a thing of the past unless
the call for volunteers is sent out in
a way that appeals to a busy society.
—LAZ
editorial
Bruce Anderson: councilor
Bruce Anderson was chosen by
the Keizer City Council to fi ll a
vacancy on that body at a meeting
Monday. It was an unanimous vote;
Anderson was the only applicant for
the opening.
Anderson is an excellent addition
to the council. In his private sector
career he has served in positions in
top industries. Currently he is Re-
gional Community Affairs Manager
for NW Natural. He lobbies the
state legislature which puts him face
to face with lawmakers of all stripes
and from all parts of the state. That
will come in handy should Keizer
need legislative help in seeking to
expand the Urban Growth Bound-
ary.
Before NW Natural he held top
jobs at Northwest Food Processors
Association, Oregon Life Under-
writers Association and the Oregon
Home Builders Association.
For those who wanted to see a
councilor from the business world,
there was no better applicant than
Mr. Anderson.
The council’s newest member
will be able to hit the ground run-
ning; he’s already versed in many of
the topics that will come up the rest
of the year.
We think Bruce Anderson is the
right additional to the council at the
right time.
—LAZ
Share your opinion
Email letters to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday.
Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com
The 2016 election’s nasty spirit
By MICHAEL GERSON
In a campaign that has involved talk
of revisiting the Geneva Conventions,
rewriting the 14th Amendment and
rounding up and expelling 11 million
people, failures of politeness, violations
of manners, would seem a secondary
concern. But in this political cycle,
insults, invective and coarseness have
been charged with a political signifi -
cance. They are intended to indicate
authenticity and a fi ghting spirit—the
liberation of politics from political
correctness and elite sensibilities.
Some fi nd this invigorating; others
offensive. But it is one of the ways that
the election of 2016 will be remem-
bered—for playground taunts, for at-
tacks on candidates’ families, for vul-
gar bodily references and for a nasty,
ungenerous spirit.
This is hardly unprecedented. To
the contrary, our country’s conception
of proper manners has often moved
in a generational cycle. Various move-
ments of the late 1960s, for example,
involved liberation from stifl ing social
conformity. This created necessary
space for the unconventional, while
changing stupid and oppressive con-
ventions (such as social prohibitions
on interracial marriage, or, later, big-
otry against gays and lesbians).
But all attempts to overthrow eti-
quette in favor of what is “real” come
from a belief (hat tip to Jean-Jacques
Rousseau) that what comes naturally
is also good. In real life, what comes
naturally to human beings—as any-
one who has cared for small human
beings will tell you—is often selfi sh,
petulant and rude. All children are
Donald Trump before they are taught
manners.
People get tired of living in a so-
ciety fi lled with the sharp corners of
incivility. The mannerlessness of the
late 1960s and
1970s produced
a backlash of
good
taste,
symbolized by
the popularity
of Miss Man-
ners (aka Judith
Martin) in the
1980s and Ronald Reagan’s rather
courtly formality.
What is different this time is that
the challenge to manners is coming
from the right—not the “free speech
movement” but from brushfi re popu-
lism. The standards and values of real-
ity television —the exaggerated feuds,
the personal vilifi cation and the de-
leted expletives —have invaded the
political realm. And it is a form of so-
cial decay.
America’s
founders
actually
thought and wrote a lot about man-
ners. (No. 2 on the “Rules of Civility”
George Washington copied down as a
boy: “When in company, put not your
hands to any part of the body not usu-
ally discovered.” I imagine this would
also cover references to your man-
hood during a presidential debate.)
The founders worried that a society
without an aristocracy would lack ob-
vious standards of propriety. But it is
good manners that allow citizens to
argue without coming to blows, and
even to fi nd productive compromise.
Manners are not the same thing
as morality. They are practical rules
for living together. Unlike moral-
ity, manners vary greatly by country
and tribe, as well as across time. But
being relative does not make them
trivial. Particularly in a democracy,
good manners involve an affi rmation
that we, all of us, are part of the same
community, and that everyone is due
a certain minimal amount of respect.
other
views
Poor manners, in contrast, can indicate
the dehumanization of individuals and
groups. The boor is often the bigot.
“America has, in theory, the best
code of manners the world has ever
seen,” argues Miss Manners. “That’s
because it is based on respect for the
individual, regardless of his or her
origin. Good manners in America are
about helping strangers. They’re also
about judging people on their quali-
ties rather than on their backgrounds.
These are principles that were delib-
erately worked out by our Founding
Fathers to assure the dignity of the
individual and keep society nonhier-
archical.”
This is what should appeal to con-
servatives the most. Good manners
create a livable community without
recourse to laws and regulations. They
create ties among citizens that are not
based on compulsion. When we stand
in a stadium with our hand over our
hearts, or refrain from using bad lan-
guage in front of children in the sub-
way, or disagree about politics without
becoming personal and vicious, we
add a few invisible strands that hold
our community and democracy to-
gether. In most everyday circumstanc-
es, manners matter more than laws.
This is a social contract. We treat
people with respect in the hope and
expectation we will be treated with
respect. And people who demand re-
spect without showing it are properly
viewed as narcissists or sociopaths.
Those who equate crudeness and
cruelty with authenticity are doing a
nasty disservice to their country, mak-
ing it that much harder to live to-
gether. Those who want to serve their
country should mind their manners.
(Washington Post Writers Group)
Lottery revenue lets business off tax hook
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The Oregon Center for Public
Policy (OCPP) of Silverton has lob-
bied the state’s government since
1990 on budget, tax and economic
issues with a goal “to improve deci-
sion-making and generate more op-
portunities for all Oregonians.” Over
its lifetime, it has weighed in on how
certain policies like welfare assistance
programs, taxes, minimum wages and
unemployment benefi ts would affect
Oregonians.
Recently, its website featured an
article by OCPP staff member Juan
Carlos Ordonez titled More disgraceful
than the lottery: Oregon’s corporate income
tax. Ordonez writes that if any Or-
egonian wants to look at the shameful
state of Oregon’s corporate income
tax, look no further than the nearest
bar or restaurant with video lottery
machines. People go to these places
with their machines and lose and lose
to an extent that adds up to the ma-
jority amount of revenue collected by
the Oregon Lottery.
The article also reports that more
than half of the nearly 12,000 video
lottery terminals are found in low
income neighborhoods. The bottom
line is that the state lottery brings in
mostly money from preying on poor
people, those hoping for a break
in their bad luck in losing money
by playing the games.
OCPP then asks “What does this
have to do with Oregon’s corporate
income tax?” Well, the answer OCPP
provides is that the Oregon Lottery
puts more money into the state trea-
sury than all the corporate income
tax. So, all this adds up to the fact
that while some Oregonians struggle
to meet their fi nancial obligations by
gambling addic-
tions, they do
more to sup-
port public ob-
ligations
like
support of our
public schools
than the Bank
of America, Ve-
rizon, Walmart and all the other na-
tional corporations doing business in
this state combined.
Shame gets heaped on the matter
when you consider the costs involved.
$1.1 billion was lost by Oregon Lot-
tery players last year. About 19 per-
cent or less went back to the state
to help fund public services while
32 percent of the losses went to pay
for the lottery itself: commissions,
salaries, equipment, marketing and
related lottery costs. Incidentally, the
Department of Revenue, in charge of
income and other tax programs, uses
only 2 percent of collections to run
the place.
What one could view as negative
changes within the Oregon Lottery
has occurred over the years. Before
the Oregon Lottery, corporations paid
about 18 percent of all income taxes
collected. Nowadays, their share of
the state’s tax burden has shrunk to 7
percent. How this state of condition
came about is by lobbyists earning
their keep by securing a whole host
of corporate loopholes and subsidies.
Hence, they now, with help from law-
yers and accountants, can avoid their
fair share of the cost of running all
public matters in Oregon; in spite of
Oregon’s modest corporate minimum
tax, some corporations at present pay
no taxes at all.
gene h.
mcintyre
In this context, as costs to keep Or-
egon’s public services alive, the taxes
avoided could help to pay for the
schools that educate their workers, the
courts that resolve their disputes, and
the public safety services that pro-
tect their property. Meanwhile, those
losing money on gambling tempta-
tions as well as those in the shrinking
middle class must make up for what
the national corporations don’t pay
while the tax system also directly sub-
sidizes corporations in Oregon by way
of a lengthy list of tax credits, deduc-
tions and subtractions.
The Oregon Lottery was ap-
proved by voters in 1984 as the an-
swer to what economically ailed us
here. About eight years later the video
lottery games appeared about which
the lottery boasted that these were
“the fi rst 23-hour, centrally controlled
gaming system in the country.” The
ultimate result has been a shift in re-
sponsibility of paying for public ser-
vices away from those most able to pay
to those least able to do so.
Initiative Petition 28 is being cir-
culated to address and redress this lop-
sided situation. If passed it would raise
taxes on large, out-of-state corpora-
tions and could bring into the state’s
fi nancial picture, billions of dollars to
invest in our schools, health care sys-
tem and senior services among other
pressing money-issue priorities. Pre-
sumably, a greater effort than the one
underway now could be earmarked
for gambling addicts. Initiative Peti-
tion 28 could fi nally be something
worth betting on.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)