PAGE A6, KEIZERTIMES, MAY 17, 2019
Opinion
Timo for fun, timo for irisos
KeizerFEST, formerly known as
Keizer Iris Festival, kicks into high
gear this weekend.
Produced by the Keizer Cham-
ber of Commerce, KeizerFEST
offi cially started two weeks ago
with the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast
(the fi rst offi cial event) and contin-
ued with the Distinguished Young
Women’s program last Saturday and
the Keizer Volunteer Firefi ghters
Association’s
Mother’s
Day breakfast on Sunday.
Though the name of
the festival has changed,
the heralded bearded
iris is still very much in
the mix. Schreiner’s Iris
Gardens north of Keizer,
is the one of the world’s
foremost hybridizers and shippers of
the tall bearded iris. We are in the
thick of bloom season, the perfect
time for a visit to Schreiner’s.
KeizerFEST organizers have seen
to it that there is something for ev-
eryone during festival weekend. Be-
ginning Thursday night, there will
be four days of live music on the
main stage at the big KeizerFEST
tent on Cherry Avenue at the Lions
Club.
That live music includes LaFa-
milia Dia—Family Day—on Sun-
day. In the afternoon fi ve acts will
perform on main and community
stages. The theme iris for 2019 is
Lovely Senorita, and LaFamilia Dia
is a tip of the hat to the Hispanic
heritage.
Before Los Alvardos, Jr. takes to
the main stage Sunday afternoon,
the Teen Music Showcase will fea-
ture some of Keizer and Salem’s
most talented teens in the morn-
ing. Cash prizes will be awarded
to the top winners as determined
by a judging panel comprised of
choir directors from Salem-Keizer
schools.
But before you get to LaFamil-
ia Dia on Sunday, there are plenty
of actitivities on Saturday. There are
four runs (3K/5K on River Road
before the parade and a 10K and
half marathon that takes runners
into the area’s rich farm lands).
Those who think they have the
best or cutest pet, can enter the
Mayor’s Pet Parade which starts at
River Road and Lockhaven Drive
(near Figaro’s Pizza). Some of those
same parade entrants just might be
entered into Crown the Hound
Saturday afternoon on
the community stage.
After the pets have
their time in parade
spotlight, the Valley
Credit Service Keizer-
FEST parade begins at
10:30 a.m. and heads
down River Road to
south Keizer.
The grand marshal for this year’s
parade is Teresa Munoz, owner of
Los Dos Hermanos restaurant in
south Keizer. Chosen to honor her
community works and support,
Munoz is one of the popular host-
esses of any restaurant in the valley.
The KeizerFEST grounds will be
home for the Vendor Fair and food
trucks; inside the main tent adult
beverages will be available.
The KeizerFEST Classic Car
Show will be held at St. Edward
Catholic Church until 1:30 p.m. on
Saturday.
For thrill seeekers of any age, car-
nival rides will be twirling, rushing
and spinning. What’s a good festival
without rides and the midway with
its many games of skill and luck?
Purists need not worry, Keizer-
FEST is bounding with irises: thou-
sands of irises will decorate parade
entries. The Keizer Art Association’s
Enid Joy Mount Gallery at the Keiz-
er Cultural Center is exhibiting en-
tries for the offi cial artwork for the
2020 festival—all are iris-themed.
KeizerFEST is here this week
but the tall bearded iris is in Keizer
forever....after all, Keizer is the Iris
Capital of the World.
—LAZ
The hypocrisy
of Democratic
leaders
years is disgraceful.
I’m not a far-right
activist. Throughout
my life I’ve voted the
person, not the party.
But I can no longer, in
good conscious, sup-
port the Democratic Party.
Dave Bacon
Keizer
our
opinion
lottors
To the Editor:
According to Democratic
party leaders, President Don-
ald Trump is the source of the hate
that has permeated our nation since
his election. My observations in the
past three years see a different side
of their story line: his election has
exposed the extreme bitterness they
harbor toward those who resist them.
While claiming to take the high
road, they attack him with acrimo-
nious partisan rhetoric, and also
encourage incivility toward his sup-
porters.
With bi-partisan support and
without public outcry, construction
of our nation’s existing barriers along
the American-Mexican border began
in 1993. With bi-partisan support
and without public outcry, Presi-
dent Obama separated illegal immi-
grant families during his presiden-
cy. With support of the Democrats
and without public outcry, President
Obama used his executive privi-
lege to withhold documents from
Congress in 2012. Without conse-
quences, Obama’s Attorney General
Eric Holder was held in contempt
of Congress in 2012. But now that
Trump is taking these same actions,
Democrats are trying to convince us
that his doing so is immoral, uneth-
ical, corrupt, unpatriotic, and rep-
resents a constitutional crisis.
Democrats are also quick to point
out character fl aws in Trump while
white washing their own. Their acri-
monious hypocrisy for the past three
Retain Diane Watson
on CCC board
To the Editor:
Being fi scally responsible is why
Chemeketa Community College has
the lowest tuition of all communi-
ty colleges in Oregon. You need to
know that it’s Diane Watson’s expe-
rience and service on the Board of
Education for the past six years that
has helped Chemeketa achieve and
maintain that status while improving
its programs and also fi nding unique
opportunities to support students.
I’ve served with Diane on CCC’s
Board of Education and can person-
ally attest to her dedication, passion
and commitment to improving pro-
grams for Chemeketa students. She
has also been an ardent supporter
of partnerships with Salem-Keizer
School District that make it easier for
students before they get to Cheme-
keta.
We need Diane’s perspective and
effective advocacy for quality edu-
cation on the Board. Please vote to
continue Diane Watson’s service on
CCC’s Board of Education.
Jackie Franke
Salem
(The writer is a Chemeketa Community
College Board of Education member.)
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Don’t trash my good union job
By DAVID BURCKHARDT
Twelve years ago I was scrambling
to make ends meet with two part-
time food service jobs when my dad
told me to check out a job just post-
ed at his plant. I was intrigued. Reli-
able hours. Union health
and retirement benefi ts. A
chance to build my career
in renewable energy.
Other than the heads
up, my dad didn’t pull any
strings. I got the job on
my own merit and have
worked for the Covanta
Energy-from-Waste plant
in Brooks ever since. To-
day I’m a control room operator,
part of a team that oversees the con-
version of Marion County’s garbage
into local, renewable energy for
9,000 homes each year.
I’m writing because I hear that
some in the Oregon Legislature
might be looking to shut down our
plant. I want lawmakers to know
about the benefi ts our plant pro-
vides, not just for me and my 43 co-
workers (including my dad), but also
for everyday Oregonians.
Let’s start with the immediate
consequences of shutting down the
plant. More than 500 tons of waste
that’s processed at our plant each
day would be loaded on semi-trucks
and shipped more than 100 miles
through the Columbia Gorge to a
landfi ll in eastern Oregon. Think
the traffi c is bad on I-5 today? Add
more than 9,800 semi-truck loads
on I-5 and I-84 each year.
Closing the plant means my dad,
myself and more than 40 others
would lose our family
wage jobs. We’d also
lose our good union
health and retirement
benefi ts.
Closing the plant
means Marion Coun-
ty residents could po-
tentially see higher
garbage rates. That’s
because our county
government would lose the reve-
nues from the energy the plant gen-
erates. In the past, those dollars have
been invested in county services
and those dollars make it possible
for Marion County to have some of
the most innovative waste reduction
and recycling programs in all of Or-
egon including Save the Food (food
waste reduction) and Master Recy-
cler training.
Additionally, our plant recov-
ers 8,000 tons of metals each year.
That’s enough metal to build more
than 6,500 cars.
Longer term, closing the plant
would mean another 500 tons of
waste added every day to regional
landfi lls. Instead of producing ener-
gy, the buried waste produces meth-
othor
voicos
ane that adds even more greenhouse
gas emissions.
Instead of closing the plant, I
urge my representatives in Salem
to endorse Senate Bill 451, which
would allow Covanta to receive re-
newable energy certifi cates from the
state.
Rather than forfeiting good
union jobs and dismantling one of
the most progressive systems for
handling solid waste and recycling
in Oregon, I think lawmakers ought
to be doing everything they can to
support a local energy resource that
keeps garbage out of landfi lls, pre-
serves land for higher use and elimi-
nates greenhouse gas emissions.
Most people I talk to are glad to
hear that our plant is a cleaner al-
ternative to coal-fi red plants. They
appreciate that waste-to-energy fa-
cilities like ours are recognized by
the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and the European Union
for mitigating greenhouse gases.
To me, recycling, recovery and
renewable energy is what the Ore-
gon environmental ethic is all about.
I’m proud of the work my dad and
I do. And I hope that my 4-year-old
daughter will someday be proud of
the contribution her dad and grand-
father made to our state.
(David Burckhardt works with
his fathor, Ed Burckhardt, at tho Co-
vanta Enorgy-from-Wasto plant in
Brooks.)
American consumer loser in tariff war
A picture can be worth a thou-
sand words and such an example ap-
peared the other day by cartoonist
Michael Ramirez in The Las Vegas
Review-Journal. The drawing was a
cartoonish resemblance of a scene
inside Air Force One where a like-
ness of President Donald J. Trump
asks a staffer, “How do you say, ‘Pay-
ing tariffs in Chinese?’” The staffer
replies, “U.S. consumer.” This “fun-
ny” is prologue to an
ominous tale.
A volley of tweets
has come from Trump
where he has addressed
the serious issue of tar-
iffs by using his familiar,
“Well, I said to myself, I
said, ‘I’m going to sugar
coat the consequences
of my trade war with
China and my base will carry me
to victory.’” Unfortunate for at least
one million Americans whose jobs
are directly at stake, Trump has min-
imized the worth of China’s pur-
chases of U.S. goods and services,
misstated the trade defi cit and ig-
nored the wholly predictable rise in
the many costs to consumers when
imports are heavily taxed.
With trade relations between
the United States and China totally
falling apart and the
stock market looking
every day in free fall,
Trump has chosen to
label these fractured
talks as “congenial.”
Meanwhile, his view
is to wait for China to
start buying from our
farmers when, in fact,
China already is the
fourth-largest export
market for U.S. agri-
culture.
Then
there’s
Trump’s
statement
that “We have lost
100 million dollars a
year, for many years,
on crazy trade with
China and we won’t
anymore.” That, too,
is wrong. When an-
alyzing the trade defi cit, Trump
overlooks trade in services where
we gain a surplus with China. Keep
in mind also that while the imbal-
ance has been lopsided, export of
goods to China has increased over
70 percent since 2008 and exports
to China overall are up 527 percent
since 2001.
Trump reports that tariffs are
now being paid to the U.S. by Chi-
na at 25 percent on $250
billion worth of goods
and products and these
payments go to the U.S.
Treasury. However, tar-
iffs don’t work that way:
China is not writing
checks to the U.S Trea-
sury. Rather, the tariffs
are paid by American
companies which then
pass the costs onto U.S. consumers
by higher prices. Do we Ameri-
cans typically buy from home-based
manufacturers? No, to the contrary,
what happens is that Americans buy
less of everything and a recession
gets underway.
We hear again from Trump that
“tariffs will bring far more wealth to
our country than even a phenom-
enal deal of the traditional kind”
which“our farmers and starving
gono h.
mcintyro
nations helped.” However, Trump
fails to pay attention to the damage
tariffs do. By all estimates, a trade
war leads to slower growth and not
the prosperity he predicts. Tariffs
have proven to retard growth while
their latest increase will cut back
U.S. gross domestic product by 0.3
percent or $62 billion in 2020, a loss
of about $500 to every American
household.
One of Trump’s handicaps is his
internal confl ict on matters eco-
nomic. He prides himself on being
tough in deals; yet, views himself
as the master of the deal, a tug-of-
war bound to grind thinking and
problem-solving to irreconcilable
paralysis. Yet, he keeps talking to
himself through the labyrinth that’s
his mind and we Americans, our
farmers now in the bull’s eye, suffer
the calamity underway by Sino-U.S.
incompatibility, losing a vitally im-
portant bilateral relationship.
(Gono H. McIntyro sharos his
opinion rogularly in tho Koizor-
timos.)
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