NOVEMBER 29, 2019, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
Opinion
Greg Frank, 1957-2019
There are two things one got right
away when they met Charles “Greg”
Frank: no one laughed louder or
more heartily at his own jokes than
Greg himself; and, his smile was as
wide as an ocean and that smile put
everyone at ease.
Frank, a former chief
of the Keizer Fire District
and a community leader,
sadly passed away on Nov.
5 after a long and cour-
geous battle with cancer.
He may have departed
this mortal coil but his
legacy will outlive him.
He emulated his father and started to
volunteer for the Keizer Fire District
in 1981. By 1990 he had been hired
as the district’s chief, a testament to
his work ethic, his leadership skills
and his management vision. Frank
served as chief until his retirement in
2007.
The Keizer Fire District greatly
changed under his leadership. He
oversaw the construction of a new
state-of-the-art fi re hall that contin-
ues to be the pride of the district.The
station’s large meeting room has host-
ed a number of community events.
Ambulance service was established
with the requisite paramedic staff.
That service now accounts for more
than 90 percent of all calls answered
by the district.
Hundreds of Keizer’s youth—male
and female—got a taste of what a fi re
district does when they enrolled as an
Explorer Scout, another Frank leg-
acy. The Scouts were established, in
part, to have a pipeline of future fi re-
fi ghters and paramedics. That’s vision.
That’s a legacy.
Not one to stand on his laurels,
Greg went back to the fi re
district two years later as
an elected member of the
Keizer Fire District Board
of Directors, serving one
term. That’s dedication.
Greg’s passion for ser-
vice was evident as a mem-
ber of the Rotary Club of
Keizer, of which he served
as president in 2010-11.
A man of faith, Greg and his
wife, Jan, were dynamos with their
church’s children’s ministries. It is
easy to think that hundreds of kids
have a fi rmer hold on their own faith
because of Greg and his wife.
In his post-fi re district years he
ran the family’s two hardware stores.
But the store seemed to be a sideline
to his real passion: travel. Personally,
Greg never met a travel itinerary he
didn’t like. He, with family members,
posted photo after photo of their
global destinations. He might travel
the world but he always came back
home to Keizer.
The memory of his laugh, his
ready smile and the legacy he leaves
behind makes us thankful that Keiz-
er had Greg Frank, even for a short
time.
—LAZ
our
opinion
Holiday shopping,
meet small business
The day after Black Friday is Small
Business Saturday. Some may consider
it a frivolous event, but that is not true
for the many small brick and mortar
retailers, not just in Keizer but across
the nation.
Small Business Saturday was estab-
lished in 2010 as a counter to Black
Friday and Cyber Monday sales, in a
campaign to get the American con-
sumer to consider options other than
big box stores and online for their
holiday shopping needs.
The face of retailing is evolving
fast. Familiar names are gone or are
on their last legs. The indoor mall,
ubiquitous across America in cities big
and small for decades, is facing tough
times, some are even closing, sitting
empty. Retailers of every size say that
competition from discount stores and
online shopping has made the future
of their livelihood uncertain.
Big name stores and malls may be
under threat, but small businesses are
as vibrant as ever. Aside from owning
one’s own house, owning one’s own
business is a dream of many. Keizerites
can fi nd many owner-operated stores
in the city.
Small businesses are the main driv-
er of employment in the nation. Most
retail businesses have one or two, if
not more employees besides the own-
er. Those employees rely on these jobs.
Employees and owners pay the taxes
that fuel the city’s operations.
Frivolous or not, small businesses
count on customers from their market
area. A majority of retailers look to the
holiday shopping season to turn their
accounting books black.
In a world of discount stores and
Amazon.com, why would a harried
shopper visit store after store? Owners
of small retail businesses and their staff
are knowledgeable of their invento-
ries. They provide quality, friendly and
personal help. They are eager to please
their customers—offering free advice
and suggestions.
If retailers want you to come into
their store to support them on Small
Business Saturday, they must do their
part. They must assure their store and
their staff are clean and tidy. They must
assure all customers receive a friendly
greeting. Customers are not a guar-
antee or a right; it is a privilege, and
we all must do the utmost to assure
customers—old and new—have a
great experience that propels them to
return.
— LAZ
Arboretum honors one man
One day in the future, visitors to
Keizer Rapids Park will see a stand of
trees in the southwest part of the park.
The visitors won’t have to wonder
why they are there; there is a sign to
mark the Keizer Rotary Arboretum
in honor of Wilbur Bluhm.
A long-time Rotarian, Bluhm is
the city’s unoffi cial tree expert and
historian. Several years ago he person-
ally trod the streets of Keizer doing
an inventory of all the city’s trees—all
241 species. Bluhm knows his stuff as
he is a retired horticulturist.
The arboretum was borne out of a
suggestion from the president of Ro-
tary International in 2018 for each of
the world’s more than 33,000 clubs to
plant a tree for each club member.
The Rotary Club of Keizer never
sits still and went right to work, plant-
ing an initial 36 trees in 2018. There
have been subsequent tree additions
since then.
Bluhm was key in the decisions of
what trees to plant. There was no sec-
ond thought for the Rotary Club to
honor him on the sign marking the
grove.
The Rotary Club of Keizer doesn’t
sit still and that is certainly true of
Wilbur Bluhm.
—LAZ
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Let the people decide Trump’s fate
By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
Was there linkage between the
withholding of U.S. military aid and
the U.S. demand for a Ukrainian state
investigation of the Bidens?
“Was there a quid pro quo?”
This question has bedeviled Wash-
ington, D.C. for months
now. “The answer is yes,”
said U.S. Ambassador to
the EU Gordon Sondland
in sworn testimony last
week.
Sondland added that
President Donald Trump,
Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, White House
Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, national
security adviser John Bolton and Vice
President Mike Pence were all wired
in to what was up:
“They knew what we were doing
and why. ... Everyone was in the loop.
It was no secret.”
And so where are we headed now?
The House intel and judiciary
committees will advance one or more
articles of impeachment against Don-
ald Trump to the House fl oor, where
they will be agreed upon in party-line
votes and sent to the Senate for trial.
Impeachment appears as inevitable
as anything in politics today.
Some are pressing the House, after
Sondland, to slow down, cast a wider
net, and demand the sworn testimony
of Pompeo, Mulvaney, Pence, Bolton
and Giuliani. Others are urging the
House to strike while the iron is hot,
move impeachment swiftly, and get it
all done before the Iowa caucuses and
the New Hampshire primary.
As the goal of the more rabid an-
ti-Trumpers is to impeach, convict and
remove the president, and then pro-
ceed with civil and criminal charges,
this looks to be a fi ght to the death.
Mulvaney may have shown the
White House the way to fi ght a month
ago. Asked whether the withholding of
aid to Ukraine until an investigation of
the Bidens had been announced was
not the defi nition of a “quid pro quo,”
Mulvaney blurted out:
“We do that all the time. ... No
question about it... That’s why we held
up the money. I have news for every-
body. Get over it. There’s going to be
political infl uence in foreign policy.”
Welcome to the real
world.
In return for meeting
with President Volody-
myr Zelenskiy, Trump
had a right to demand
that Ukraine initiate
an investigation into its
most corrupt compa-
ny, Burisma. Especially
since the ne’er-do-well son of Vice
President Joe Biden had been given
a $50,000-a-month seat on Burisma’s
board just days after Joe demanded and
got the resignation of the state prose-
cutor and signed off on a billion-dollar
loan guarantee for this third-most cor-
rupt regime on earth.
We read often that allegations of
corruption in the smelly deal that put
Hunter Biden on Burisma’s board are
“unfounded.”
Who did the investigating?
And what are we to make of the
crocodile tears of Democrats that
Ukrainian soldiers battling secession-
ists and Russians in the Donbass have
died for lack of U.S. weapons held up
by Trump?
Is this not manifest hypocrisy?
Most Ukrainian government of-
fi cials were not even aware that the
military aid for which Congress vot-
ed was being held up. And from 2014,
when Vladimir Putin’s Russia seized
Crimea and backed the secessionists
in the Donbass, to 2017, President
Barack Obama confi ned military aid
to the Ukrainians to “sending blankets
and meals,” as said the late Sen. John
McCain.
If Trump imperiled “national secu-
rity” by withholding for two months
this latest tranche of military aid, did
not Obama more gravely imperil our
other
opinions
national security by denying Ukraine
lethal aid for years?
Among the foreign service profes-
sionals who testifi ed to Adam Schiff ’s
intel committee this week, none chose
to associate himself with charges of
“crimes” or “bribery” having been
committed during that controversial
phone call of July 25.
Indeed, the weakness of the Demo-
cratic case may be found in the endless
escalation of the charges. First, Trump
was guilty of a quid pro quo, and then
an abuse of power, and then throwing
fi ghting Ukrainian allies to the wolves.
Next, it was bribery.
But how is it bribery for a president,
responsible for seeing that the laws are
faithfully executed, to insist that a re-
gime dependent on U.S. aid investigate
a confl ict of interest and potential cor-
ruption when the enriched benefi cia-
ry is the son of the vice president of
the USA?
Even before his fi rst day in offi ce,
President Trump was in the gun sights
of the “deep state” and its media aux-
iliaries.
And the origins of that “Get
Trump!” conspiracy inside the “deep
state” are now under investigation by
the Inspector General of the Justice
Department and the U.S. Attorney for
Connecticut John Durham.
The issue at hand: Criminal mis-
conduct inside the U.S. government to
determine the outcome of an election,
and, failing that, to remove a president
our government elite cannot abide.
Bottom line: If this country is not
to be torn apart for a decade, the de-
cision to retain or remove President
Trump should be made by those who
put him in the White House and not
by rabid partisans like Adam Schiff.
Let the people decide the fate and
future of the president of the United
States. After all, they were the ones
who hired him.
(Creators Syndicate)
How crazy is Warren’s health care plan?
By LARRY ELDER
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.,
wants “Medicare for All,” as does Sen.
Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., her self-de-
scribed “Democratic socialist” rival.
Unlike Sanders, however, Warren
claims she can fi nance her plan by rais-
ing taxes only on the superrich. The
middle class, Warren insists, will see
their health care costs go down and
their taxes will not go up.
Some of her nearly equally left-
wing rivals demanded
specifi cs. Who pays? And
how much? After a Dem-
ocratic debate, one rival,
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of
South Bend, Indiana, said
Warren was “more specifi c
and forthcoming about the
number of selfi es she’s tak-
en” than about her plan.
Buttigieg said: “Not only is it im-
portant to have ‘yes-or-no’ answers to
‘yes-or-no’ questions at a time when
people are so frustrated with Washing-
ton-speak, but also there’s still been no
explanation for a multitrillion-dollar
hole in this plan.”
Not that Democrats and their me-
dia sympathizers truly care about costs
or whether promises about costs are
even kept. President Barack Obama
made numerous unrealized promises
about his health care plan. He insist-
ed Obamacare would save the average
family $2,500 a year, that it would
“bend the cost curve” downward and
that people could keep their health
care plan if they wanted to. Politi-
Fact pronounced Obama’s “if you like
your health care plan, you can keep it”
promise 2013’s “Lie of the Year.”
Democrats, of course, quickly em-
ployed their fallback position on rising
costs: blame Republicans. Sally Pipes
of the Pacifi c Research Institute, a
conservative think tank, said last year:
“Despite the fact that premiums rose
throughout President Barack Obama’s
second term, Democrats claim that the
most recent rate increases are Presi-
dent Donald Trump’s fault. In August,
four liberal cities—Baltimore, Chica-
go, Columbus and Cincinnati—fi led
a lawsuit alleging that Trump is ‘wag-
ing a relentless campaign to sabotage
and, ultimately, to nullify
the law.’ That’s nonsense.
Obamacare is imploding
under the weight of its
own regulations.”
A month before
Warren fi nally revealed
the cost of her plan, the
Urban Institute, a cen-
ter-left think tank, estimated the cost
of a single-payer plan for everyone, in-
cluding illegal aliens, at $34 trillion “in
additional federal spending” over 10
years. Other conservative groups, like
the Heritage Foundation, put the price
almost as high. Last year, Heritage es-
timated the cost at $32.6 trillion. The
American Enterprise Institute warns
that these cost estimates don’t consider
the number of health care-related jobs
that will be lost. According to a recent
article in The Washington Post, some
economists estimate the number of
jobs lost at 2 million.
About Medicare for All’s price tag,
the center-left The Atlantic magazine
said: “That’s more than the federal gov-
ernment’s total cost over the coming
decade for Social Security, Medicare,
and Medicaid combined, according to
the most recent Congressional Budget
Offi ce projections. ... Over the next
decade, the plan on its own would rep-
guest
column
resent a nearly 60 percent increase in
total expected federal spending, from
national defense to interest on the na-
tional debt.”
Under pressure, Warren recently re-
vealed the cost ofher plan: $52 trillion
over 10 years, including $20.5 trillion
in new federal spending. About War-
ren’s plan and her promise not to raise
taxes on the middle class, the executive
vice president of Third Way, a “centrist”
Democratic organization, said: “The
gap between what she says it will cost
and what it will really cost is in the
trillions of dollars, and the middle class
will be on the hook to fi ll that gap. My
guess is that with accurate numbers,
she’s somewhere between $5 trillion
and $10 trillion short. (Her plan taps)
the rich and corporations as much as
possible. Who’s left? The middle class.”
The Kaiser Family Foundation ex-
ecutive vice president for health poli-
cy told The Atlantic: “The only way to
make that math add up is to pay doc-
tors and hospitals and drug companies
a lot less, as Warren has proposed. The
fundamental question here is: Can you
lower health-care prices enough to
offset the increased costs from univer-
sal coverage and very comprehensive
benefi ts?”
The answer to that question is an
unequivocal yes, provided one doesn’t
care who pays, how much or wheth-
er a Medicare for All plan can actu-
ally achieve its objectives of insuring
everyone for less money while main-
taining quality. To Democrats, this isn’t
even a heavy lift. They believe there
is such thing as a free lunch and the
Republicans are stopping them from
eating it.
(Creators Syndicate)