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PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, JULY 8, 2016 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Put a market at transit center There have been sev- eral attempts in the past to bring a farmers market to Keizer. The last itera- tion was at Chalmers Jones Park—behind the Keizer Civic Center. That space is very nice public square but it is behind the center. There is a better space to try a market again, one that would be highly visible and be accessible to thousands of vehicles: Salem-Keizer Transit’s center at Keizer Station. It’s improbable that weekend service for the region’s Cherriots buses will be- gin again anytime soon, leaving the transit center empty and unused. There is space enough to plat many booths selling produce, arts and crafts. There is room for the market plus parking for customers. There is parking in Keizer Station across the railroad tracks as well. Every retail business knows that one key to success is location. A mar- ket at the transit center would be visible from every roadway in that area. With the appropriate signage it would be diffi cult to ignore and its location there would almost guaran- tee that vendors would see the type of customer traffi c they need. The center is owned and main- tained by Salem-Keizer Transit. Any use other than for its intended pur- pose will call for intergovernmen- tal talks and an agreement. There are farmers markets throughout the Northwest, many in public spaces such as closed off streets or public squares. The transit district would have to be compensated and be assured that a market would not damage the infrastructure there. The comfort station would not have to be open; por- table toilets would do just as well. It is too easy for governments to get territorial over their assets, but the transit center is owned by the taxpayers. There should be no turf wars, only a desire to see an under used center have life on the week- ends. The city itself should not run the market, that should be left to a busi- ness organization, such as the Keizer Chamber of Commerce. Vendors can be charged a long-term fee (13 weeks and more) or a one-time fee, but the market will work best if consumers know if they go they will fi nd the produce or crafts they want. Consis- tency in vendors is as a major part of a market as is the location. Can Keizer have a farmers mar- ket? Some say that there is already a good Saturday market in downtown Salem. That should not be a deter- rent—there are more than 12,000 households in Keizer and many more in northeast Salem and north Marion County. With the right management and marketing Keizer can turn an empty transit center lot into a bus- tling, vibrant market. —LAZ Church thanks community There is only one per- son running for governor that is willing to make the changes that benefi t the people of the state of Oregon. Bud Pierce is that person. He is smart, understanding and not beholden to any special interest groups. He is not a career politician, and is willing to listen to the people of Oregon with an open door policy. Bud Pierce is willing to debate Kate Brown, who seems to be hid- ing from the people of Oregon. Kate Brown has turned down debating with Dr. Bud Pierce, stating she is too busy. Dr. Pierce is still taking care of his oncology practice, as well as go- ing to speak to groups and listening to people’s concerns. Kate Brown seems to not be able to make the tough decisions or multi-task. Bud Pierce has made these hard decisions many times in his career. He has been asked many times to speak on these matters. Pierce has been all over the state talking to Oregonians about their needs, their concerns and what they expect from their governor. When was the last time Kate Brown trav- eled the state or visited any small town outside of the Portland metro area? Phil Stephens Salem editorial letters To the Editor: Truth Tabernacle Church and Truth Taber- nacle Christian Academy would like to express our gratitude to the communities of Sa- lem & Keizer for their donations to our 18th Annual 30 Kilometer Bike- A-Thon that was held on June 4th. It was a tremendous success and we thank you for your support. Jessica M. Anderson Keizer Support for Bud Pierce To the Editor: As a native Oregonian, I have become disappointed with my state government. There was a time when our state government listened to the people of Oregon. But in the last 20 plus years those elected (and ap- pointed) have been controlled by big money and special interest groups. The mind-set seems to be if the state needs money let’s tax the people even if we have to hide the tax. No matter what your political leaning is, you need to take a look at how our state government is be- ing run. You will agree it is time for a change… new ideas… new vision. Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS NEWS EDITOR Eric A. Howald editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Derek Wiley news@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY ADVERTISING Publication No: USPS 679-430 Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: PRODUCTION MANAGER Andrew Jackson Keizertimes Circulation graphics@keizertimes.com 142 Chemawa Road N. LEGAL NOTICES Keizer, OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes Confronting both nostalgia and amnesia By E.J. DIONNE JR. The haunting U2 lyric, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” captures what many Americans seem to feel about politics in 2016. And a lot of us are looking backward. Donald Trump’s pledge to make our country great again captures the longing of some of his supporters for a time when our country was less di- verse—and when a less open global market created the circumstances for a large, well-paid working class. Trump doesn’t talk about it, but incomes also rose because of a robust union movement. The era of labor power feeds nostalgia on the left for the glory days that ran from the 1940s through the 1960s when living wages underwrote strong families and up- ward mobility. The postwar era “was an extraor- dinarily good time to be a worker,” says the historian Jefferson Cowie. “For the very fi rst time in U.S. his- tory, business, the government, and workers all accepted unions and col- lective bargaining as legitimate pillars of American working life.” “As a result,” he writes in The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics, one of the year’s most important political books, “more income, more equality, more optimism, more leisure, more con- sumer goods, more travel, more en- tertainment, more expansive homes, and more education were all available ... to regular people than at any other time in world history.” But as Cowie’s title suggests, he sees the New Deal’s arrangements as the consequence of an exceptional pushback against our historical ten- dency to resist collective solutions. “Moral reform” and “corporate pow- er,” he says, are more dominant in our story. In addition, the New Deal’s dependence on the white South made FDR’s admin- istration ex- tremely timid on justice for African-Americans. When the logic of American liberalism led to civil rights, the old coalition shattered. And then there were the effects of restrictive immigration laws passed before Roosevelt took offi ce. “The unintended result of a conservative racial immigration policy,” Cowie writes, “was the cohesion necessary for the most liberal period in Ameri- can history.” It’s no wonder that those old ani- mosities have come roaring back: In 1970, as the New Deal era began its decline, only 4.7 percent of Ameri- cans were foreign born; in 2013, the percentage was 13.1 percent, back up to levels at the turn of the last century. Progressives, Cowie argues, should stop pretending that the New Deal era is easily replicable. They need to understand how many stars had to align to make its breakthroughs pos- sible. “Our present politics,” he con- cludes, “ought not be misled by free- wheeling historical analogies based on an extraordinarily unique period in American history.” The Great Exception is a healthy splash of cold water in the face of a nostalgic liberalism. But as Sam Rosenfeld of Wesleyan University has noted, the constraints on policies of a New Deal sort are not uniquely American: Western European social democracy faces some of the same quandaries that confront pro-labor Democrats. Moreover, if nostalgia can be prob- other views lematic, two of the country’s shrewd- est students of politics and social pol- icy, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, argue that amnesia is a problem, too. “We are told that the United States got rich in spite of government,” they write, “when the truth is closer to the opposite: The United States got rich because it got government more or less right.” In American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper, they go back even before the New Deal to argue that a mixed economy involv- ing both a strong government and a strong private sector “marked Amer- ica’s long and extraordinary ascent.” It allowed us to be “the fi rst middle- class nation, the runaway leader in high school and then college gradua- tion rates, the unrivaled champion in medical innovation and basic scien- tifi c research.” Too often, we discuss “gridlock” and “polarization” as if everybody and thus nobody is to blame for them. Hacker and Pierson rightly see Washington’s stalemate as the prod- uct of a right-wing ideology that has moved us away from the tradition of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. This great trium- virate celebrated “a constructive and mutually benefi cial tension between markets and government” rather than pitting them in a “jealous rivalry.” It ought to be possible to fi ght both nostalgia and amnesia. New Dealism, as Cowie argues, is not the only model for progressives. And many who saw themselves as con- servative once acknowledged the constructive power of government. You don’t have to long for some lost golden era to believe that we Ameri- cans can do better—again. (Washington Post Writers Group) Public offi cials should set standard Sometimes, a two-word descrip- tive phrase can communicate equal to a 100 word paragraph. Consider the phrase “political hack.” It can be used in a number of contexts but in this column it references a political offi ce holder who may be best de- scribed as having displayed ethically- defi cient behavior. Case in point comes from a news- paper story out of Salem reporting that State Rep. Jodi Hack (R-Sa- lem) very likely overstepped ethical boundaries for legislators. The mat- ter’s origin is a Portland police offi - cer, Laurent Bonczijk, who’s said that Hack confronted him about traffi c tickets issued to her 22-year-old son. We learn that Hack’s son, Reece Hack, was involved in a crash on I-5 in Portland immediately south of the Marquam Bridge. He was cited at that place for careless driving, driving without a license and failure to carry proof of insurance and registration. Further, Reese Hack already had his license suspended for not paying fi nes from previous violations. The offi cer was stopped on his way to the Multnomah County Courthouse when Hack and her son confronted him. The offi cer re- ports that the conversation did not go well, saying that Hack was “ex- tremely rude” and that she was try- ing to impress upon him the impor- tance of her offi ce-holding status and that he “better be dismissing tickets” because she is a state legislator and “how dare you ticket my son.” According to the offi cer there was more from Hack who refer- enced the offi cer as “a jerk right out of the gate,” accusing Bonczijk of profi ling her son “because he’s an athlete,” (though, says the offi cer, he had no way of knowing that her son was an ath- lete). Facts in the matter now known is that Reece Hack is a 6 foot 2 inch tall fresh- man on a Wil- lamette Uni- versity Bearcats team. In the course of the courthouse conversation, Hack displayed a letter from the Or- egon DMV, identifying Hack as a legislator who displayed a provision- al driver’s license originally issued to her 22-year old when he was 18. Hack says she is totally innocent and never would have done anything untoward by trying to use her leg- islator status to reverse the wheels of justice. Further, Hack says she will “come out swinging” if there’s any attempt to use it against her and she is “not going to back off.” An authority contacted regarding this matter, Hana Callahan, director of the government ethics program at Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, is reported to have said that this “case raises red fl ags because even the appearance of impropriety by a public offi cial is unethical on its own.” Salem’s Gatti Law Firm at- torney Chris Best said that “if a legislator acting within their position as public offi - cial compelled a police offi - cer to absolve parking fi nes then there is gene h. mcintyre ‘no doubt’ that would constitute an abuse of power.” Due to the gravity of what’s been reported about Rep. Hack, hope is that the Oregon Government Ethics Commission will investigate Bon- czijk’s report, offi cial complaint or not. Should the offi cer’s testimony prove verifi able, at the very least, Rep. Hack should be sent to an in- tensive course on public offi cial eth- ics while it would appear she could also use some heads-up on what it means to be a responsible parent. Further, accuracy prevailing in the case of Hack’s behavior, this is a rep- resentative who should fi nd some- thing else to do. In closing here, my view of po- lice work is that it is a tough at best and, at worst, costs police offi cers their very lives. That anyone would use their political position to try to push an offi cer around for the ben- efi t of an apparently wayward family member results in considerable an- ger here. Then, too, if all’s true, the Hack example is another example of what’s gone so very haywire among so many young people in today’s American society. (Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap- pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)
