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PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 5, 2016 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Who are we planning for? Commercial develop- ment in Keizer, especially along its main thorough- fare, River Road, is un- even at best. Undeniably there is new development: the new Starbucks with a drive through; Willamette Valley Appliance (nee Mole’s) has remodeled and relocated to a larger space at River Road and Sunset Drive. The new owners of Schoolhouse Square, at River and Chemawa Roads, is recruiting new tenants to the once-fading shopping center. A new building pad will be con- structed at the southeast corner of the property which will house two businesses new to Keizer—Jersey Mike’s restaurant and The Human Bean coffee shop. BFit moved into Schoolhouse Square earlier this year. But Keizer’s main commercial strip still has some big holes to fi ll. Creekside Center (River Road and Lockhaven Drive) has slowly been slipping into irrelavancy with the loss of an anchor grocery store as well as other small businesses. River Road has been a main fo- cus of the city’s Economic Devel- opment Commission with Cherry Avenue also getting some attention. There are some realities that people need to remember: Keizer and its commission can wish all they want for certain types of retailers, devel- opments and businesses that will bring needed jobs into our city lim- its, however they have few arrows in their quiver to use to make that happen. Unlike cities and counties across the country, Keizer does not have tax breaks to offer, no discounts on busi- ness licenses. All the city has to offer is some leeway on costs of required city permits. The tools that need to be welded are either politically dif- fi cult or controversial. The politically diffi cult route is to expand the Ur- ban Growth Boundary to the north of city limits. Any expansion requires the acquiesance of Salem, Marion County and Polk County. The contro- versial route is to rezone parts of the city to allow certain types of construc- tion and development. The Economic De- velopment Commission and other groups interested in the growth of Keizer need to change their focus from what to build to who and how to attract the types of businesses that will offer high wage jobs for Keizer residents. How can we discuss building when we do not know who will want them. We have strongly advocated for the city, the commission and the Chamber of Commerce to actively recruit new business. We call for a reconcerted effort. The Economic Development Commission part- nering with the Keizer Chamber of Commerce should develop a short list of the categories of business that can be persuaded to come to Keizer. The process starts with asking businesses what would make them locate here. What criteria needs to be met before they will commit to moving or building here? We must address the answers to those ques- tions. Is it a lack of large-scale de- velopable land? Is it a lack of skilled labor? Is it a question of shipping facilities? Keizer needs to get the an- swers and plan from there. Could Keizer be home to a large call center or mega-warehouse if we had hundreds of acres to develop? If so, that tells us we need to redouble efforts to expand the Urban Growth Boundary and add millions of dol- lars to the city’s tax base not to men- tion hunderds of jobs. Let’s not discuss what to build in Keizer today. Let us open a dialogue with the businesses Keizer wants tomorrow. Attracting light industry, biotech and medical should be the focus of any economic development plans. —LAZ Join me, vote for Gary Johnson governor in the country combined, leaving the state with new schools, hospitals, highways, bridges, and a billion dollar surplus. All with- out raising taxes a penny. Like Johnson, Bill Weld also served as a two-term governor but in the state of Massachusetts. He was also a Re- publican in a Democrat state and was reelected with 70 percent of the vote - the highest percentage ever in that state. He cut spending, elimi- nated borrowing, balanced the state budget, reformed Medicaid, and cut taxes - never once raising them. Please carefully consider the de- cision we have at hand. Fifty percent of Americans aren’t in the Republi- can or Democratic parties. Why are our only options always one or the other? Join me, and support Liber- tarians Gary Johnson and Bill Weld come November. Luke Peets Monmouth editorial letters To the Editor: To the Republicans, Democrats, and Indepen- dents who feel cheated and do not want to vote for either of the nominees of the two major parties, I urge you not to waste your vote on Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but to turn to a viable third option: Gary Johnson, the nominee for the Libertarian Party, and his running mate, Bill Weld. Governor Gary Johnson is the only candidate in this election who makes sense on the issues impor- tant for this country. He advocates an agenda that stands on the prin- ciple of limited government, in both economic and social life. Adhering to the Constitution, he views free- dom as the guiding principle of his campaign for the presidency and beyond. Johnson served as a two-term governor of New Mexico—a Re- publican in a Democrat state—and oversaw the most successful period of growth in the state’s history. As governor he cut spending, balanced the budget, and vetoed more waste- ful spending bills than every other Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com 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 SUBSCRIPTIONS One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY Publication No: USPS 679-430 POSTMASTER Send address changes to: Keizertimes Circulation 142 Chemawa Road N. Keizer, OR 97303 Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon Will GOP repudiate Trump’s cruelty? By E.J. DIONNE JR. Republican politi- cians face a choice. They can accept Hillary Clin- ton’s invitation to aban- don Donald Trump and prevent a redefi nition of their party as a haven for bigotry. Or they can prop Trump up, try to maximize his vote—and thereby tarnish them- selves for a generation. If there were any doubts about Trump’s disqualifying lack of simple decency and empathy, he resolved them in an interview on ABC News last weekend with a charac- teristically cruel and self-centered attack on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, an American Muslim couple whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in the line of duty in Iraq. With his wife by his side, Khizr Khan delivered what was the most devastating attack on Trump dur- ing the Democratic National Con- vention. Khan directly challenged Trump’s strongman ignorance: “Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.” And he said this of Trump: “You have sacri- fi ced nothing and no one.” Most politicians—most human beings—would have humbly de- clared that no sacrifi ce is compa- rable to losing a son or daughter in service to the nation. Instead, Trump said he had made many sacrifi ces because (I’m not making this up) he “created thousands and thousands of jobs.” He said of Khizr Khan’s speech: “Who wrote that? Did Hillary’s scriptwriters write it?” And then he broke new ground, even for him, in heartlessness. “His wife,” Trump said, “if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have something to say.” Every Republican pol- itician and commentator who continues to say that Trump is a superior or even morally equivalent choice to Hillary Clinton will now own their tem- porary leader’s brutality for the rest of their political careers. Many humane Republicans know this. Ohio Gov. John Kasich spoke for them when he tweeted that “there’s only one way to talk about Gold Star parents: with hon- or and respect.” This is a moment of truth for GOP leaders who passively ac- cepted and sometimes encouraged an extremism that traffi cked in religious and racial prejudice and painted President Obama as an il- legitimate, power-hungry leader. The party’s traditional chief- tains assumed they could use these themes to rally an angry, aging base of white voters while keeping the forces of right-wing radicalism un- der control. They did not anticipate Trump. He spent years courting the far right with his charges that Obama was born abroad and set himself up in contrast to an estab- lishment that cynically exploited its feelings. Now, in Ronald Reagan’s re- vered phrase, comes a time for choosing. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Lead- er Mitch McConnell look feeble and vacillating when they try to distance themselves from Trump outrages while maintaining their support for his election. They em- body a calculating timidity as they worry about Trump’s impact on their party while also fearing for the electoral chances of the rest of other views their candidates if they push away Trump’s constituency. Khizr Khan called their bluff in an interview on Friday with MS- NBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: “This is a moral imperative for both lead- ers, to say to him, ‘Enough.’” Had Trump been watching, he would have known that Ghazala Khan also spoke out. Her reticence at the con- vention, she explained, arose from grief over her lost son that made it diffi cult even to talk about him. She powerfully made her point again in an essay published online Sunday morning by The Washington Post. Up to now, it has fallen largely to conservative intellectuals and for- mer Republican offi cials to express their horror over Trump’s amoral approach to politics, his incoherent, dictator-friendly foreign policy, and his racist, exclusionary defi nition of what it means to be an American. By contrasting Reagan’s “Morn- ing in America” to Trump’s “Mid- night in America,” Clinton invited such conservatives to abide a term of her leadership in order to avoid the damage a self-involved practi- tioner of a nasty brand of fl imfl am could do to their cause and their country. Clinton Republicans and ex- Republicans could thus be this generation’s Reagan Democrats. In repudiating Trump for Clinton, they will not be abandoning their ideology. They will be making a moral statement that their move- ment will not tolerate an oppor- tunist so corrupt and so vile that, when given a choice, he pandered to religious intolerance rather than honoring the sacrifi ce of a brave young American. (Washington Group) Post Writers Both candidates leave one to wonder The fanciest word I found to label myself dur- ing the past two weeks is masochist or a person who is gratifi ed by self-imposed pain. While I did not sit glued to a TV through- out every minute of the two convention’s proceedings, I did muster the fortitude, by what’s be- lieved self-denied means, to listen to almost every word each evening. The Democratic nominee, Hill- ary Clinton, came as no real surprise although it was evident that the more charismatic, Bernie Sanders, gave her, literally and fi guratively, a run for her money. So many of my fellow citizens hold Hillary in low regard because she is unfavorably viewed by them beyond the email scandal and Benghazi. Personally, I have no reason to hold that view be- cause she has never hurt me person- ally or fi nancially. What Hillary lacks, in my opin- ion, is charisma. In a couple of words, while she’s undoubtedly bright and by all accounts a hard worker, she does not possess the presentation and speaking skills that have claimed the “high ground” by so many can- didates who’ve stood for election for president. Her menu for success in the Oval Offi ce looks like another four years of Barack Obama. How- ever, to grant her full due, Sanders’ message has apparently forced her to go further “left” than would have been the case if she’d not had Bernie snapping at her heels. Now, to one extent or another, because she’s a woman, if the U.S. Senate and House remain under the control of the GOP, she will predict- ably have about the same amount of success with Congress that President Obama realized. And there will be those Republicans who, right up front, will dedi- cate their political lives to stopping her every effort to push a pro- gressive agenda includ- ing free college tuition for those who qualify and national health in- surance. It may even be that some Republi- cans want life breathed into free tuition or en- hanced Obamacare, but they never want her to get credit for it or any other likely vote-getter. I may be too unfor- giving of Bill Clinton, but I was set off again when his Wednesday evening fi ctional in- vention began with “I met a girl.” His entire story of a near fairy tale happy marriage with Hillary left out the details that will always wreck his try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. He’s been proven time and again, while married to Hillary, to be a unreformed wom- anizer who apparently chased ev- ery member of the opposite sex he found attractive. He could not even abstain from his bad habit when as president he ruined the life of an intern and came within a stone’s throw of being impeached. He may be less amorous with advancing age, but I would discourage any daugh- ter of mine from an internship in the White House should Hillary be elected. But this big part of Hillary’s life leaves me wondering how in the dickens, if she possesses an ounce of self-respect and personal integrity, she has been able to put up with Bill the cad and his chronic chas- ing after other women. This issue is the reason I feel a lack of trust about Hillary, that is, that she will do and pretend anything to place her- self in a position to gain more wealth and power. Just a sad person inside who will always act out of base self- interest rather than national concern. Then there’s The Donald. What motivates his behaviors remains for me the same way Winston Churchill referred to Russia years ago: A rid- dle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Does this guy really want to be president? His negativity over the past year regarding almost ev- eryone and everything, except his current wife, his children and, above all, himself, have been wholly de- rogatory and without even a hint of redeeming value as he mocked a person with a disability, his con- gene h. mcintyre tempt for Hispanics, his lack of re- spect for the U.S. Constitution, specifi cally when it takes issue with religious freedom, and, among other disgusting views, the racism he re- vealed when he criticized a judge in a case brought against him as being unqualifi ed because, although Amer- ican citizen, his parents came to the U.S. from Mexico. Trump’s acceptance speech two weeks ago as the GOP nominee came across to me as a very angry tirade that tells us that everything is cur- rently wrong in our country and he is the only one who can repair it and return us, by his means, to our lost glory. He seems neither Democrat nor Republican; rather, an oligarch who will rule from Trump Tower not bothering himself to occupy the White House—for traditional exec- utive role governing—or respect our other branches of government. A short list best describes him: jerk, liar and want-to-be dictator with an uncanny resemblance to Benito Mussolini. The American political scene is so bereft of promise and good purpose now that I fi nd it diffi cult to come up with a name that might take the place of a Clinton or a Trump and save us from our too-many-bam- boozled selves. All the encouraging, high-spirited words out of Cleveland and Philadelphia remind me of the multitude of balloons and confetti that fell from the rafters on last night of each convention: even before the cheering crowds left their respective buildings, the over-sized red, white and blue infl ated objects that fell from the rafters had been popped and swept up with the rest of the trash. (Gene McIntyre’s column appears weekly in the Keizertimes.)