PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, MAY 19, 2017
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Matching goods to needs
At a time of expected cuts in
social service spending by govern-
ments on every level due to budget-
ary constraints, the public—in some
cases—can fi nd quicker
and more effi cient results
by turning to each other.
That is what the
Community Resource
Network is doing in
Marion County. The net-
work is part of the coun-
ty’s Community Services
Department. It is a web-based net-
work that connects resources to
unmet needs through information
sharing. It is not a bureaucracy, it is
people helping people.
An example cited by Tamra
Goettsch, director of the Commu-
nity Services Department, is about
a goat. A young girl in the county,
in a family of limited means, wanted
to join 4H. She chose raising a goat
as her project. In her situation, pur-
chasing a goat was not possible. The
word went out on the Community
Resource Network and within a
few days the girl had a goat for her
project. There was little muss, little
fuss; a girl needed a goat, the word
went out, someone had a goat and a
goat went to the girl for her project.
Not all needs are as easily met as
matching a young girl with a goat
for a 4H project. Not every connec-
tion needs to be earth-shattering.
Businesses and non-profi t organiza-
tions licensed to do business in Or-
egon can join the network. On the
network members announce their
surplus resources—coats, beds, bed-
ding, toiletries, books, backpacks—
items that most of us take for grant-
ed but are at times out of reach of
the less fortunate in our community.
Though the county
department
oversees
the network, it operates
mostly with the input of
its members. There are
hundreds of good rea-
sons join the network,
the most important being
that it helps others in our
community in the most basic way—
person to person.
The Community Resource Net-
work can be especially powerful to
help the most vulnerable—children
in need. Membership gains access to
the information about need, it does
not beholden a member to a long-
term commitment and certainly no
fi nancial commitment. As summer
begins, there may be businesses and
individuals who have quality, gen-
tly used jackets and coats that can
be matched now for use by kids
next fall and winter. Those coats
and jackets may be the only goods
shared by that organization, but at
the time it means the world to the
recepient.
We are always big supporters of
people helping each other with the
least amount of government in-
volvement. The Community Re-
source Network is the vehicle that
should be supported by businesses,
non-profi ts and indiviuals alike.
—LAZ
our
opinion
Nothing eclipses festival
Keizer’s biggest community
event kicks off Thursday night at
the Keizerfest tent at the Lions Club
on Cherry Avenue.
Total Eclipse of the Heart, the 2017
Keizer Iris Festival is offi cially held
all month long in May, but the big
events started last weekend and
continue through Sunday, May 21.
This year’s theme was chosen to
mark the total solar eclipse that will
be visible in Keizer on Aug. 21.
The public is invited to many
festival activities, and there is some-
thing for everyone. The kick-off
party is Thursday in the Keizerfest
tent starting at 5 p.m. Cost is $8
for a barbecue dinner prepared by
Adam’s Rib Smoke House. Local
favorites The FlexTones will enter-
tain from the main stage from 7 to
10 p.m.
All the carnival rides, the Mid-
way and vendors along with beer
and wine will be open on Friday,
May 19. That day, the Iris Festival
Golf Tournament takes place at Mc-
Nary Golf Club. The Senior Talent
Showcase will take place on the
main stage starting at noon; there
will be a $5 lunch buffet.
Runners and parade fans get their
rewards on Saturday. Pre-parade 5K
and 3K runs will take a route up and
down River Road. The Valley Credit
Service Iris Festival Parade will start
at 10:30 a.m.
Saturday, May 20, is also Lem-
onade Day in Keizer-Salem. The
national event is designed to teach
kids about business by planning
and running their own lemonade
stand. There will be many lemon-
ade stands throughout Keizer that
day including a pod of them at the
entrance to the Keizerfest tent; the
stands will operate from about 10
a.m. to mid-afternoon.
Live music will fi ll Keizerfest Fri-
day and Saturday.
A marathon, a half-marathon and
a 10K run are all on the bill for Sun-
day morning.
While all that is going on Sch-
reiner’s Iris Gardens on Quinaby
Road, just north of Keizer, will be
fully abloom. The gardens attract iris
lovers as well as photographers and
artists. Weather forecasts for festival
weekend are good which should
make for a wonderful Iris Festival
once again in the Iris Capital of the
World.
—LAZ
To the Editor:
It appears the Keizer
City Council has no re-
spect for the judgement
of the voters in Keizer.
Judging by the results of
the special meeting on
imposing a fee for city
parks, the council will—in all likeli-
hood—impose a $4 per month per
household on our water bills.
In spite of the city’s own survey
which showed our citizens ranked
parks well below public safety, the
council will probably go ahead with
a fee without a vote of the people.
The fact is the parks now receive
$336,000 a year for maintenance
and that will go to $1 million per
year with the fee. You
can bet a fee for pub-
lic safety will be on the
agenda shortly. The only
way to stop the process is
for tax payers to let the
city council know they
are acting badly.
Let’s take care of public safety
fi rst and let us vote on fees.
Bill Quinn
Keizer
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Which story are we sticking to?
By DEBRA SAUNDERS
President Donald Trump did
himself no favor last week when he
went on NBC News and essentially
refuted the reason his team had giv-
en the press for why he
fi red FBI Director James
Comey.
Trump told NBC’s
Lester Holt, “I was going
to fi re Comey” regardless
of what the Department
of Justice recommend-
ed, which confl icted
with the White House’s
sketchy version of events.
White House Press Secretary
Sean Spicer told reporters that the
decision to can Comey came from
Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein. “It was all him,” Spicer
told reporters. “No one from the
White House. That was a DOJ de-
cision.” Wrong.
Then, Deputy Press Secretary
Sarah Huckabee Sanders told re-
porters Trump asked Rosenstein
and Attorney General Jeff Sessions
for their recommendation “based
on the conversation they had. He
asked them to put that recommen-
dation in writing. But they came to
him on his own.” Wrong.
That day Vice President Mike
Pence also framed Trump’s deci-
sion to fi re Comey as the result of
Rosenstein’s and Sessions’ input.
Not true.
The White House does not
look good. David Axelrod, former
guru to President Barack Obama,
summed up the problem when he
told The New York Times, “The most
hazardous duty in Washington these
days is that of a Trump surrogate. ...
You wind up looking like a liar or
a fool.”
Anonymous staffers began leak-
ing stories about how various in-
dividuals were blind-
sided—which
only
highlighted the chaos
in the West Wing.
Trump tweeted that
Friday morning, “James
Comey better hope
that there are no ‘tapes’
of our conversations
before he starts leaking
to the press!”
Later Spicer had to go out and
face the White House press corps.
When a reporter asked if Trump
had recorded conversations with
Comey, the press secretary replied,
“I’ve talked to the president. The
president has nothing further to add
on that.” In this atmosphere, it’s bet-
ter for spokespersons to signal they
are out of the loop.
According to press reports, Pence
was aware that Trump wanted to
fi re Comey the week before it hap-
pened. Now, no vice president is
going to reveal the content of con-
versations with the president, not if
he wants the commander in chief to
confi de in him. But in the future,
Pence could see reason to backpedal
his rhetoric in order to safeguard his
reputation as a straight shooter.
Worst of all, Trump’s NBC in-
terview made clear that he has so
much contempt for his own spin
that he freely stepped on it.
The original White House story
always lacked credibility. In July,
Trump accused Comey of go-
other
views
ing too easy on Hillary Clinton
when the FBI director announced
the agency would not fi le charges
against her for using a home-brew
server for her classifi ed communi-
cations as secretary of state. In Oc-
tober, when Comey temporarily
reopened the investigation, Trump
praised the FBI chief for doing the
right thing.
Rosenstein’s memo, on the other
hand, hit Comey for being unfair to
Clinton by speaking to the press in
July and broadcasting the FBI’s de-
cision to reopen the investigation
in October. Also, his memo did not
explicitly recommend that Trump
fi re the FBI chief. That is, there is
no way the Rosenstein memo was
the catalyst for Comey’s dismissal.
Trump himself could not stick to
that fantastic story.
In a sit-down with Fox News,
Trump insinuated that he is think-
ing of shaking up his communica-
tions staff—even taking over the
press briefi ngs himself. If Trump
thinks he does a better job defend-
ing himself, he might consider that’s
because he would not make the
very bogus arguments that his team
was tasked with making.
Over time these antics, if they
continue, only can serve to isolate
Trump. Who, after all, wants to be
the next press secretary or deputy to
be left out on the loneliest of limbs?
If Donald Trump keeps this up, pro-
fessionals who value their reputa-
tions will fi nd excuses to stay away,
and sycophants alone will remain.
(Creators Syndicate)
Worried about the state of our leadership
By GENE H. McINTYRE
Every American is free to accept
and reject societal values. It is only
when the expression of those values
does harm to other Americans that
the line of what’s lawful is crossed.
This aspect of human in-
teraction is the difference
between chaos and order.
Then, too, a society’s core
values are what provides
its youth a means of em-
ulating traditions, carrying
them from one genera-
tion to the next, sustain-
ing the Constitution that established
America’s foundational values.
It was this very matter of values
that alarmed this voter about can-
didate Donald J. Trump. During the
2016 campaign season we learned
that Trump viewed most Mexicans
as “rapists and drug dealers.” He
commented on John Mc-
Cain as “not a war hero.”
He said of Megyn Kelly’s
questions during the fi rst
GOP debate that they re-
sulted from a menstrual
period. He said he wit-
nessed 9/11 celebrations
on the part of Muslims
in America. He mocked
a disabled reporter using
wild gestures and gut-
tural sounds. He owned
a Trump University that
took money from would-
be students and pocketed
that money without de-
livering any educational
programs. Then there was
that despicable Access Hol-
lywood tape where groping
and objectifying women
was glorifi ed by Trump as
his way of treating the op-
posite sex.
After Trump’s election, there
have been a virtual avalanche of lies
and exaggerations proven time af-
ter time to be untrue. One of the
fi rst lies had to do with the number
of persons who watched his inau-
guration in Washington,
D.C. Then there was the
lie about the number
of persons behind the
Electoral College count
versus the actual num-
ber of votes for him and
Hillary Clinton.Then
there was the ongo-
ing lie about the Trump-imagined
number of illegal voters that have
been determined by research to be
about 30. Then there was the prov-
en-false wiretap accusation. More
recently the fi ring of the former
FBI Director James Comey has re-
sulted in contradictory explanations
guest
column
for the fi ring from Trump versus his
spokespersons. And this, that and
the other go on and on and on.
Yet, according to polls, no mat-
ter what President Trump says or
does, something between 35 to 40
percent of those Americans asked
about him, still support him as ap-
parently do most GOP members of
Congress. This leaves one to ask
whether our nation is into a crisis in
values where lying and exaggerating
has become for many the standard
for all interactions within and out-
side the nation. Sadly, after the way
fi ring Comey was handled, it ap-
pears we are on the verge of losing
our way as a democracy with the
Constitution trashed and the hor-
rors of authoritarian rule by strong
man dictatorship replacing it.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)