MARCH 1, 2019, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
Opinion
Choose River Road options wisely
The options a consulting fi rm pre-
sented at a recent open house for a re-
vitalized River Road will not please
everyone, especially commuters.
One of the options unveiled at the
Feb. 12 open house at Keier Civic
Center called for removing the cen-
ter turn lane and installing bike lanes
on the east and west sides of River
Road.
The other three options all put bi-
cyclists in the driver’s seat with bike
lanes taking precedence over motor
vehicles. There are some in the pub-
lic who are not fans of bicycle lanes,
who feel their life is complicated by
sharing the road with non-polluting
transit choices.
Aside from major cities there is
not a history of mass transit in the
secondary cities on the west coast.
Westerners value their independence
and trading their private vehicles for
public transportation is a tough sell.
Yet the undeniable fact is that people
have to move about.
Bicycle lanes are not a “build it and
they will come” situation. There are
many bicyclists in Keizer but a small
percentage actually use them to get
to commute to work. For those who
have jobs in the Salem central area,
commuting on two wheels makes lots
of sense, but you can’t order people to
ride especially in inclement weather.
Commuting by bicycle is not an
issue for those who are physically fi t,
but it would be a challenge for those
who are not in prime condition.
With all that, is the best option for
a revitaliztion of River Road a matter
of narrowing lane widths and add-
ing bike lanes? The city has to plan
for the growth that is expected over
the next 15 years and that includes
a smart and workable transportation
system, something for which Mayor
Cathy Clark has a long-held passion.
A revitalization of River Road is
more than making the city’s main
thoroughfare move more smooth-
ly. Drivers use River Road to get to
work in Salem or elsewhere in Keiz-
er. They use it to get from one end
of the city to the other; some trips
within Keizer are fairly short—run-
ning to the grocer, dropping kids off
at school.
The reality of River Road is that
it is used by the public, in part, to get
to a retail destination. You cannot
hamper that use because it will tamp
down its overall raison d’etre: eco-
nomic development. Business con-
tributes to the city’s tax base and we
want to see more of that, not less.
An increase in bike lanes should be
accompanied by more bicycle main-
tenance stations along River Road,
more bike racks and an incentive to
get more people on bikes for fun or
commuting.
Before its next meeting on revi-
talization options the city should en-
sure that members of the Traffi c Safe-
ty-Bikeways-Pedestrian Committee
(many of whom are bicyclists) are
there to add their valuable input.
—LAZ
Will the real Post please stand up?
Rep. Bill Post built his name local-
ly as an entertaining, sometimes bom-
bastic talk radio host who delighted in
aggravating the left and affi rming the
right’s beliefs. These skills put him in
a position to run for the Oregon Leg-
islature, but it was in many ways his
less prominent qualities that allowed
him to be taken seriously as a poten-
tial lawmaker. Like many entertainers,
his demeanor off the air was quite dif-
ferent—thoughtful, open-minded and
willing to acknowledge hard truths
even if they contrasted with party or-
thodoxy.
This ability to channel his inner
class president helped allow Oregon’s
at-least-superfi cially-genteel political
establishment to overlook Post’s occa-
sional clownish tendencies. As Keizer’s
representative, he has had mixed suc-
cess balancing these competing per-
sonalities. Unfortunately, he doesn’t
seem to be learning on the job, and
may be backsliding, as his recent ac-
tions caused House Speaker Tina
Kotek to remove him from the House
Judiciary Committee as punishment.
(Kotek also removed Rep. Mitch
Greenlick, a fellow Democrat, from
a powerful committee chair perch for
his own less-than-civil comments.)
It is primarily Post’s social media
presence that has caused him unwel-
come headlines. There was his mock-
ing of sexual assault victims, doxxing
petition organizers, and more recent-
ly referring to a fellow lawmaker as
“cray cray.” By comparison, the tweet
that broke the camel’s back—a call
for gun rights activists to show up at
a rally encouraging tighter gun laws
—wasn’t so bad, but was the latest in a
pattern Post seems unable or unwill-
ing to break.
Post may be earning retweets and
atta-boys, but he’s not doing Keizer
or District 25 any favors. Republican
infl uence is at its nadir in Oregon due
to the Democratic supermajority, but
individual relationships still matter, as
does the ability to be taken seriously.
His credibility when advocating for
his district is diminishing even as his
seniority rises.
Like a young pitching prospect
with a mean fastball, Post got to the
big leagues of state politics with quick
wit and a veteran broadcaster’s keen
understanding of his audience. It’s past
time to diversify his skill set. Unless
his aspirations end at being a minori-
ty-party backbencher, we would all
be well served if Post channeled his
inner 1 Corinthians 13 and put away
childish things—which in a modern
edition might translate as “delete your
account.”
And if all we ask of our elected
leaders is entertainment, what right
do we have to demand actual solu-
tions for what ails us?
Debate over ISIS bride
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
In 2014, Hoda Muthana, then 20
years old, left Alabama to become an
ISIS bride in Syria. When she left
the United States, she posted her
passport on her Twitter account and
implied she was about to burn it.
Now Muthana wants to re-
turn to the U.S. with her
18-month-old son, but
President Donald Trump
doesn’t want to let her back
in the country.
Here’s the TV news take
on her case as laid out by
the Today show’s Craig
Melvin: “This is the Al-
abama woman who left four years
ago to join ISIS. She has a son. She
said that she wants to come home
now; she was radicalized, she made
a big mistake.”
“Alabama mother begs to return
to the US,” reads an online ABC
News headline. Considering that
Muthana left Alabama four years
ago to renounce the United States
and join ISIS, “Alabama mother” is
not the way most people would de-
scribe her.
Problem: Muthana doesn’t seem
really sorry. In an exclusive inter-
view with ABC News, Muthana was
asked what she thought would be
proper punishment for joining ISIS.
She replied: “Maybe therapy lessons.
Maybe a process that will insure us
that we’ll never do this again.”
Muthana also described herself as
“just a normal human being who’s
been manipulated once and hope-
fully never again.”
The “Manson girls”—young
women who trolled and killed
for cult leader and mass murderer
Charles Manson in 1969—come to
mind. But at least the creepy young
women who fell for Manson didn’t
know what they were getting into
when they joined his so-called fam-
ily.
Muthana was radicalized over the
internet. Months before she fl ew to
Istanbul on the road to Raqqa, Syr-
ia, ISIS posted a gruesome video of
one of its masked thugs beheading
journalist James Foley.
ISIS forces had be-
headed Syrian troops,
humanitarian workers,
civilians and western
hostages. A normal per-
son does not see videos
of people being behead-
ed and want to marry
the executioner. But Muthana did.
She married three ISIS fi ghters as
her contribution to the caliphate.
Muthana also had a Twitter ac-
count on which she urged others to
drive trucks to kill people at Amer-
ican parades. And she urged her fol-
lowers to look up President Barack
Obama’s schedule so they could
“take down that treacherous tyrant.”
Muthana now is being used as
another example of what is wrong
with Trump. After all, The president,
tweeted, “I have instructed Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully
agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana
back into the Country!”
As Pompeo told Melvin, the
U.S. does not believe Muthana is a
U.S. citizen, as her father served as
a Yemeni diplomat for the United
States shortly before her birth. The
government asserts that the fact that
Muthana had a U.S. passport did not
establish her bona fi des as a citizen.
Muthana’s family is suing to
prompt Washington to get her out
of a Syrian refugee camp and back
into the United States.
“This shows us to be a nation of
laws,” attorney Charles Swift argued
other
voices
on CNN Friday. Swift also said that
Muthana “understands that she’s go-
ing to be prosecuted.” I’m not so
sure she does understand, given her
assertion that jail time is less likely
to help her when she really needs
help to recover from the trauma she
experienced.
Muthana family attorney Has-
san Shibly told the Daily Mail that
Trump would use the case to un-
dermine birthright citizenship in
a way that affects “mostly Latino
Americans.”
There is one little problem with
that argument. According to Swift’s
petition to establish Muthana’s citi-
zenship, as well as that of her son, the
U.S. government sent a letter to her
in care of her parents’ address on Jan.
15, 2016 informing Muthana she
was not a citizen. January 2016—
that’s before Trump was elected.
It was the Obama administration
that determined Muthana was not
a citizen.According to Swift’s brief,
the United Nations did not notify
the U.S. government about the fa-
ther’s diplomatic status until months
after the daughter was born. And if
there is one thing President Obama
was not known for, it was working
to end birthright citizenship.
Swift may well be right on the
citizenship issue at hand. And if he
is, may Muthana be greeted with a
quick embrace from a legal system
ready to let her take responsibility
—real responsibility—for joining a
terrorist organization.
Or maybe the courts will rule
that Muthana is not an American,
and if that happens, for once, it
won’t be because of Trump.
(Creators Syndicate)
Four weeks in, major bills getting play
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As the fourth week of session unanimously through both chambers
comes to a close, cap and trade and as many of us agree that no cause evic-
rent control have proven to be the tions are unfair. The most contentious
part of the bill relates to rent control,
most controversial issues as of yet.
which has proven not to
The cap and trade bill
work. In fact, in the only
(LC 894) was original-
places where rent control
ly 98 pages and has now
has been used, large met-
been turned into HB
ropolitan cities, it has been
2020, being 55 pages long.
signifi cantly scaled back
The Joint Committee on
from the original concept.
Carbon Reduction has
Land lord constituents
been meeting to work
have reached out to me
on HB 2020 and to hear
and shared their opposi-
from interested parties.
tion to SB 608, but they
The committee is com-
prised of 14 senators and
from the also recognize this bill will
allow them to raise rent to
representatives with eight
capitol
7 percent per year, which
Democrats and six Re-
is typically unheard of to
publicans. Much like the
By BILL POST
raise rent that high.
transportation
package
These two bills have
from 2017, the commit-
been at the height of dis-
tee will be taking this bill
around the state to have hearings and cussion, but what I believe should be
listen to local input.
Senate Bill 608 is the
rent control bill. This bill
was pushed very quick-
ly through the Senate
chamber and had a pub-
lic hearing in the House
Committee on Human
Services and Housing
on Feb. 18 and passed
both houses. From
what I have observed
in watching much of
the testimony, the big-
gest concern was the no
cause eviction portion,
which I would guess 90
percent of the testimony
approved of that portion
of the bill. I believe if
SB 608 just addressed
no cause evictions, this
would be a bi-partisan
bill and potentially pass
our fi rst priority is passing funding
for education before anything else. It
was great to see educators and stu-
dents at the Capitol on Presidents Day,
with an estimated of 4,000 in atten-
dance. Their message was to fully fund
schools, and I agree. In order to do
this, we need to pass the K-12 bud-
get. School districts need the certainty
of knowing what their budget will be
and that’s why this issue should be our
very fi rst priority every session. Let’s
not wait until the end of session, we
need to invest now.
As always, please feel free to reach
out to my offi ce with and questions
or concerns. Your comments and in-
put are greatly appreciated.
(Bill Post represents House District
25. He can be reached at 503- 986-
1425 or via email at rep. bil- post@
oregonlegislature.gov.)