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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 2017)
PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, FEBRUARY 10, 2017 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Call it a day for EDC Is it time to put a stake through the heart of the city’s Economic Development Commission? The commission, established by the Keizer City Council in 2014, has not met on its original quarterly schedule; many times there are up to fi ve members absent from ses- sions. This is no way to run a city commission. The Economic De- velopment Commission, headed by Mayor Cathy Clark, serves in an advisory capacity to the city council and is charged with providing recommendations regarding economic development in the city. The commission is supposed to establish a network of communica- tions between resources and talents within the city, identify resources and talents in the community, create development incentives and remedy regulatory barriers to job creation. There were suggestions at some of the meetings to do an invento- ry of vacant commercial spaces on Keizer’s main thoroughfares. This would give the city vital informa- tion about space available to busi- nesses that want to locate to Keizer. There was to be an effort to iden- tify all the stakeholders and proper- ty owners up and down River Road in an effort to speak directly with those who have the fi nal say about their property. That task hasn’t been tackled by the commission. Of course it is hard to accom- plish goals when a third of your commissioners are absent from the quarterly meetings. Some members have missed more meetings than other members. In our view, if a person accepts appointment to a city commit- tee, task force or commission, they should have a better than 50 percent attendance record. It is a commit- ment to sit on one of the many city bodies; it comes with the responsibility, as well, that each member will be attentive, productive and present. Being a member of a city body may be a nice additional to one’s re- sume, but that’s hardly a reason to take up a seat that another person could inhabit. If an appoin- tee to a city body is unable to fulfi ll their duties, that appointee needs to politely and professional step aside in favor of someone else who is ea- ger to be part of the process. In the case of the Economic Development Commission there seems to be a lack of interest. Was the commission created with a vague mission? Government offi - cials constantly talk about economic development. Here was a body that was to focus on that exclusively and it was shown little love. Sunset the Economic Develop- ment Commission and go back to the drawing board. The original commission was to be composed of a good fi x of business owners, property owners, developers and ar- chitects. That plan got skewed over the past three years in the life of the commission. If the city is serious about eco- nomic development then it needs to be serious about the support, fund- ing and power it gives what could be a very important body for the future of the city of Keizer. —LAZ The best aren’t getting the best awarded in each, total- ing $14 in awards per weight class, $1,330 for the tournament. While $1,330 sounds like a lot for awards, it is only 4.46 percent of registration fees. Many tournaments such as the Buckle Belt Challenge, Rumble at the Rock, and Best of the West tournaments award singlets, fi ght shorts, and belts, a $50-$100 value. These tournaments are spending at least four times per weight class as OWA. My wrestler and his teammates put in many hours for these tour- naments, their parents spend lots of time and money, and they should be rewarded when they are deemed the best. I hope OWA decides to properly award their champions with better trophies. Gennifer Nelson Newport editorial letters To the Editor: The trophies awarded at tournaments hosted by Oregon Wrestling Association don’t refl ect the titles the winners earned as champions. The recent OWA tournament I attended with my wrestler was the Oregon Kids Folk- style Championships. The fi rst- and second-place trophies were simple plaques with no information such as weight class. Also, OWA didn’t order enough so many were mailed. The plaques were $5 before inscrip- tion and lower-placing medals 99¢. This year there were 1,193 wres- tlers. Each paid registration fees of $25, totaling $29,825. In ad- dition, fl oor passes were sold at $25. There were 95 weight classes. Two plaques and four medals were What are we afraid of? What are you afraid of? Many of us feel over-taxed and under-pro- tected by our government so fi rst we should learn the real threats to our country before deciding where to in- vest in increased safety. If safety means not dy- ing then we should also know the causes of death in America. Center for Disease Control (CDC) statistics from 2014 show the vast majority of deaths in America were caused by some medical condition. Most of us manage to avoid being killed accidentally or by someone with malice aforethought and in- evitably die from medical conditions, many of those the inescapable result of getting old. The price of birth is death. We don’t need to spend much here. Eat right and exercise—it’s hard to even imagine the money saved by reducing heart disease and obesity- related disease. What are you afraid of? Halfway down the CDC list ap- pears the fi rst non-medical cause of death—accidental death. Drug overdoses have now eclipsed traffi c deaths as number one cause of acci- dental deaths. I wish I knew where an increase in funding would help to reduce drug use. If we were able to resist using our phones for any rea- son while driving that would cost nothing and save plenty of lives, and the same drugs that cause overdose deaths contribute to traffi c deaths. What are you afraid of? Coming in at tenth as cause of death in America is suicide. This looks like a problem better served by com- passion than cash. How does a nation so rich with opportunity seem so bleak and hopeless to more than 40,000 of us each year? It sounds naïve even to me but it seems like we could do better just by listen- ing to each other. You can’t know someone’s desperation without giv- ing them that time. What are we afraid of? Because reduction in the rate of all these deaths would require us to change our behaviors or lifestyles we fi nd it easier to focus on outside threats. We could build a wall along the Mexican border. The intent here is probably more fi nancial security than protection from terrorist violence. That wall would be more symbolic than functional—subject to tunnel- ing, scaling, fl ying over and boating around. The most frequently men- a box of soap Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGING 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 (Don Vowell gets on his soapbox regularly in the Keizertimes.) Are we ready for the way Trump governs? Referring to Stephen Bannon as President Bannon, as in president of the United States, is quickly being viewed as no joke. Many among us are concerned (extremely concerned is more like it) that the man elected to be POTUS has already morphed into the guy called in from Breitbart to direct Donald Trump in every Oval Of- fi ce decision he makes. Fur- ther, another Trump advisor, Michael Flynn, can credibly be recognized as the real new vice president. Meanwhile, Bannon, in a move most troubling and unprecedented, has been appointed to the National Security Council. In this position of highly consequential decision-making, Bannon’s serving as the de facto president. After all, Trump has made it plain that he nei- ther knows nor understands policy or government. So, he leans heavily on others: enter Stephen Bannon, Michael Flynn and a whole host of billionaire business folks and military hawks who seek to control the fate of those American working fami- lies and the senior citizens Trump in campaign mode promised to pro- tect, aggrandize their already exces- sive wealth, and lead us into more warring overseas through the propa- gandizing of “alternative facts.” We know from his banters and pronouncements during the cam- paign that Trump has shown little interest in or the understanding of is- sues such as health care and national security. He blithely promised to do things that were never followed up with the details for implementation. Meanwhile, the real Trump, the man behind the pomposities, has been re- vealed to us by way of his trite and bombastic tweets that serve only to disillusion, upset and anger all but Trump’s base who support any out- rage he throws out. What’s as troubling as any- thing else is that direct access of and availability to the Oval Offi ce has been surrendered to a man not elected to anything but who’s well known for his anti-Semitic, racist and anti-immigrant views. These points of outlook have been among those an increasing number of Americans have diligently tried to bury with the nation’s past. Then, too, Bannon has made it clear that his stated goal is to destroy the govern- ment we known and to be made over in authori- tarian terms where there are no U.S allies, only those others in the world who fear our military might if they do not do as told. The White House is notori- ous for serving as a bubble of isola- tion around the president, a condi- tion well known there long before 45. With the ideological political strategist Bannon as a principal on the National Security Council, while the chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff and director of national intel- ligence will be invited when their attendance is “relevant,” the National Security Council will simply serve as an echo chamber of the president’s views. The frighteningly narcissistic Trump distances himself from any but a few views like those of Bannon gene h. mcintyre Keizertimes tioned cost estimate is about $14 billion. That $14 billion might save more lives if spent on careful control of opioid drugs, or discouraging inat- tentive driving. What are you afraid of? Or we could concentrate our ef- forts on banning refugees from en- tering our country. On the CDC list for cause of death in America there is no entry for acts of terror by refu- gees. The Cato Institute reports that since establishment of the Refugee Act of 1980 no American has been killed in a terrorist act by a refugee that has been through the long and thorough “vetting” required to get a visa. Zero. It is more than faintly ironic that our President tweets in apocalyptic terms the dangers of “People pour- ing in. Bad!” and instructs Homeland Security to “VERY CAREFULLY” check refugees already vetted, in- terviewed, fi nger-printed, DNA- checked, and fi nally granted a visa in a rigorous process that can go two years. This from a president who has never held a public offi ce and still re- fuses to release his tax records. Not much vetting for a man assuming the most powerful position on the plan- et. What are you afraid of? and Flynn. Knowing what we know about these guys, how can interna- tional issues be diplomatically man- aged? Trump’s need for admiration along with his aversion to critical assessments, like those from repu- table members of the press that he obviously loathes, makes for reckless- ness in virtually every matter domes- tic and foreign. Members of Congress in recent years have proven only their ability to serve themselves through acts of par- tisanship. Only a strongly expressed, well organized and determined op- position by millions upon millions of democracy-loving Americans will be able to halt what looks already to be a disastrous course our new Com- mander-in-Chief is setting out for us. It’s hoped, although that hope may be entirely in vane, that red state and blue state Americans will act in con- cert to see to it that we as a nation do not become a country without a viable future. (Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap- pears weekly in the Keizertimes.) Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com
