FEBRUARY 2, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
‘We’ can become the ‘They’
Thousands of cities and towns
across the nation elect a mayor and a
city council. Most have a city manag-
er-city council form of government
such as we have here in Keizer.
City manager Chris Eppley over-
sees the directors of the city’s depart-
ments: administration, community
development, public works, fi nance
and more. The operation of the city
gets done with these departments
and their leaders.
What these depart-
ments manage is generally
at the direction of the city
council, which sets policy
in all areas of the city. That
makes the city council
important when it comes
to current issues and espe-
cially the future of Keizer.
In recent years, Keizer city council
elections have been more like coro-
nations as too many council races
have had one candidate. In contrast,
during the fi rst two decades of city-
dom, races for mayor and city coun-
cil seats attracted multiple entrants.
One could argue that life today is
much more complicated compared
with the early 1980s; activities and
commitments take up so much of
our time that many feel they have
no time to devote to a two- or four-
year political job. Voting in elections,
especially on the local level, is as in-
volved as most people get. But there
are other ways to have a say in how
one’s hometown is operated: run for
public offi ce as a city council candi-
date.
With this path anyone can be-
come a ‘They.’ Being a ‘they’ doesn’t
have to be negative or nefarious,
becoming a ‘they’ means that a ‘me’
will have a place at the table where
decisions about the city are made.
The job of city councilor is reward-
ing. Whether one believes Keizer
should stay quaint and mid-sized, or
that Keizer’s growth should be main-
tained in a benefi cial way, there is
room for those views on council.
In most instances the people who
are elected to the city council are
those who come from the grassroots.
Keizer is a city of neighborhoods and
that is where are government leaders
come from.
What does it take to run and be
elected to the city council? It takes
the belief that one would be a good
addition to the council, that their
background and experience would
bring a unique perspective to that
body’s deliberations. And to win?
It takes votes, pure and simple. That
means asking people for their vote
either through door-to-door can-
vassing, advertising or both.
Every potential city
councilor is part of a
group—a service club,
a sports organization, a
school, etc. This is the
base—the people most
likely to support a candi-
dacy of ‘one of ours.’
Some may think that
running for public offi ce
costs lots of money, funds that have
to be raised. To run in a local election
is fairly inexpensive. The hard costs
include placing information in the
Voter’s Pamphlet. Softer costs can in-
clude yard signs and advertising, but
those are not required.
Some campaigns need only one
issue to be successful. In the early
1970s there was an unknown woman
running for California secretary of
state. Her issue? Getting rid of pay
toilets in public places such as air-
ports. It was an issue that resonated
with voters and she went on to serve
20 years in that offi ce. All because of
one issue.
Closer to home, some past Keizer
city councilors owe their election
to a single issue, such as sidewalks.
There are issues that can be used as
a campaign platform; some people
have been elected to council with a
promise to keep an eye on the city’s
budget.
With Keizer’s future in the bal-
ance, the next city council will grap-
ple with some big issues. Some of
those issues will be resolved in a way
that will anger some residents and
please others. That is how democracy
works, sometimes you win, some-
times you lose. But you don’t win if
you don’t play.
Morphing from a ‘Me’ to a ‘They’
is good thing when it means you
help your community.
—LAZ
our
opinion
Don Vowell
to be missed
Boxes of Soap.
His thoughts and col-
umns will be missed. My
condolences to his family
and friends.
Bob Mitchell
Keizer
letters
To the Editor:
I am sorry to have read
of the passing of Don Vow-
ell. Over many years I have
‘consumed’ many of his
Correction
In the Page 5 editorial, No More Soap, the date of Don Vowell was incor-
rect. He passed away on January 15, 2018. We regret the error.
Squeezing both sides in the Middle East
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
President Donald Trump wants
to negotiate a “deal of the century”
between Israelis and Palestinians
like a high-rolling real-estate don.
At the World Economic Forum
in Davos, Switzerland, last week,
Trump defended his de-
cisions to recognize Je-
rusalem as Israel’s capital,
to move the U.S. embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusa-
lem and to withhold $65
million of $125 million to
the U.N. Relief and Wel-
fare Agency that provides
care for Palestinians.
Trump told reporters at
a meeting with Israeli Prime Minis-
ter Benjamin Netanyahu that “the
money is on the table.” The U.S., he
said, gives “hundreds of millions of
dollars” to the Palestinians, and “that
money is on the table. Because why
should we do that, as a country, if
they’re doing nothing for us?”
Former Secretary of State John
Kerry, meanwhile, wants to negoti-
ate like the British colonel played by
Alec Guinness in Bridge on the River
Kwai.
The Israeli outlet Maariv report-
ed Thursday that Kerry met with
Hussein Agha, an ally of Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas, in Lon-
don. Kerry reportedly asked Agha
to tell Abbas to “stay strong,” “play
for time,” and not yield to Trump’s
demands. He came across as more
interested in protecting his rank
than ending decades of strife, which
was supposed to be his mission.
It seems Kerry is so committed
to a two-state solution to the Israe-
li-Palestinian dispute that he prefers
no deal to a deal with Trump.
Maariv also reported that Kerry,
the Democrats’ losing presidential
nominee in 2004, told Agha that
Trump could be out of offi ce in a
year and that he was considering
running for the White
House in 2020.
It is rare to have a
discussion with experts
about Trump’s actions
without hearing the def-
inition of insanity —do-
ing the same thing over
and over again and ex-
pecting a different result.
Rabbi Dr. Donniel
Hartman, president of the Shalom
Hartman Institute in Jerusalem,
cited the defi nition of insanity and
mused, “I’m not saying it won’t
work for sure,” although “I might
have looked for a more thoughtful
change that allows each side a total
amount of dignity.”
“At the end of the day, the Pal-
estinians are going to have to make
the decision, whether they want
everything or whether they want
part” of everything, he said.
Hartman warns that it often is
a mistake to consider Palestinians
simple bargainers at a table—when
they see their pride at stake.
When Vice President Mike
Pence visited Jerusalem this week,
he repeated the administration’s
new talking point—that the admin-
istration supports a two-state solu-
tion “if both sides agree.”
When Trump hosted Abbas at
the White House in May, the presi-
dent opened the door to an un-
other
opinions
imagined deal. But there has been
no movement, and between the
Dec. 6 Jerusalem announcement,
the withholding of funds and his
questioning of a two-state solution,
he essentially is signaling that Pal-
estinian leaders better walk through
the door now, while there still are
concessions to be had.
“Palestinians are not very thrilled
by this new formula,” Ghaith al-
Omari of the Washington Institute
of Near East Policy observed.
“Palestinians are now saying
that because of all of this pres-
sure, the U.S. can no longer serve
as a mediator,”al-Omari added.
“Whether this is just posturing re-
mains to be seen, as many Palestin-
ian leaders understand that a peace
process cannot proceed without the
U.S. playing a leading role.”
As for the withholding of funds
to U.N. relief, Colum Lynch wrote
in Foreign Policy, “There is concern
that the move against the Palestin-
ians could backfi re, feeding greater
extremism in the region.”
For Trump, this is all about get-
ting a deal, and he showed himself
ready to squeeze concessions from
Israel as well. As Trump told Ne-
tanyahu in Davos, “You won one
point”—on the embassy—“and
you’ll give up some points later on
in the negotiation, if it ever takes
place.”
“Obama and Kerry, were they
able to make the deal?” Hartman
asked, rhetorically. The answer was
no, because they lost the Israeli side.
And Trump can’t win a deal with-
out the Palestinians.
(Creators Syndicate)
Bundys open era of legal law breaking
By GENE H. McINTYRE
I have read widely, as many an
Oregonian have, about the long, ar-
duous and dedicated work of several
Americans that came before us and
got our national monuments, refug-
es and parks established, it was with
alarm that the events at the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge unfold-
ed two years ago. De-
scribed as an armed, self-
described militia group,
protesting the sentenc-
ing of father-son ranch-
ers in Burns, Oregon, for
burning federal land, they
seized control of the east-
ern Oregon refuge for 41
days.
That group of outlaws
substantially wrecked the
buildings and equipment there and,
besides protesting over the incar-
ceration of father-son for criminal
actions, clearly wanted to take our
Refuge away from decades-long
protection by the federal govern-
ment as a sanctuary for bird and
beast in order to declare the Ref-
uge for personal use and personal
profi t from all manner of personal
and private development. Some
of these people were already under
law-breaking status by the federal
government for tax evasion in the
state of Nevada where, for all intents
and purposes, they used federal land
there as though their private prop-
erty.
Bundy family members and fol-
lowers were brought to federal court
in Oregon but had the charges
against them dismissed as have had
the federal charges against the fa-
ther, Cliven Bundy, dismissed in Ne-
vada. These outcomes predict more
trouble for all of us who want the
federal lands set aside as sanctuar-
ies for Americans to visit and view
and essentially have now given Bun-
dy look-alikes to believe they can do
as they please with public proper-
ty while the average American who
cares should be on notice that the
next round with these law-breakers
is about to get underway, and pre-
dictably, with Trump Ad-
ministration help.
One of Oregon’s
newspapers, The Daily As-
torian, through its editori-
al board, has commented
that “Most Americans
have little sympathy for
Bundy, his family and
supporters. He might
like to think himself a
folk hero, but his hide-
bound refusal to abide by longstand-
ing cattle-grazing rules placed inno-
cent lives in danger, degraded public
lands around his ranch and made a
mockery of the law.” However, the
reader may have noticed, as did I,
that government attorney ineptness
failed to obey the rules of evidence
in the Oregon and Nevada prosecu-
tion efforts.
The judge in the Nevada case,
the honorable Gloria Navarro, de-
cided the holding back of evidence
useful to the defense bungled their
case and thereby ended it. Hence, the
government prosecutors, stumbling
around like cowboys in from a cattle
drive for a night on the town, dem-
onstrated an inability to herd things
to
convictions. Replacements,
trained and experienced to get the
job done, as a new set of federal of
prosecutors, should be appointed
to re-try, with success, these lawless
types.
Unfortunate for those of us who
guest
column
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do not want a repeat of the Mal-
heur take-over and the subverting
of rangeland actions by the Bundy
ranch in Nevada, President Trump
and his Secretaries of Energy Rick
Perry, and Interior, Ryan Zinke,
Environmental Protection Agency
directory Scott Pruitt, who seek
to convert public lands to private
purchase and use, those of us who
want monuments, refuges and parks
protected will not be in any likely
way see a saving of federal lands be-
fore January, 2021. Those of us who
want the land that belongs to all
Americans for posterity must fi ght
for public lands protection because
those among us who will exploit for
profi t are pals of Trump and have his
ear.
Another chapter in this saga is
currently underway by the family of
the law-breaking occupier who died
in a shootout with federal and state
law enforcement offi cers. Mean-
while, preliminary costs to American
taxpayers for FBI and state police,
the wreckage by occupiers, the loss
of work by fi sh and wildlife employ-
ees, the damage to businesses, et ce-
tra in the area now adds up by avail-
able fi gures to something around
$6,000,000. The family suing seeks
$5,000,000. Wouldn’t that be some-
thing if our fellow Americans award
the amount wanted, thereby essen-
tially forcing us to condone and fi -
nancially reward criminal behavior.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)
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