PAGE A15, KEIZERTIMES, FEBRUARY 11, 2022
PUBLIC SQUARE welcomes all points of view. Published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Keizertimes
The city enters middle age
By LYNDON ZAITZ
The city of Keizer is turning 40 years
old in 2022. When voters approved
incorporation in November 1982, Keizer
became Oregon’s 13th largest city. The
impetus to become a city was in part not
to be annexed by Salem.
Keizer was created as a limited ser-
vices, low cost city. Keizer still has the
same tax base of $2.09 per $1,000 as in
1982 .That is the lowest in the state for a
city of its size. It is a great story what the
city has been able to do over the past four
decades with such a low tax rate.
That low tax rate helped Keizer grow,
as high property tax refugees from Salem
moved to Keizer. It was not only the low
taxes but the image of the our commu-
nity as a small, quaint town.
Keizer had clean, orderly neigh-
borhoods. The schools produced
college-bound students. Driven by vol-
unteer power, the Keizer Little League
program and its fields were second to
none in Oregon.
Keizer’s city council was filled with
citizens who volunteered their time to
assure that the vision of the city’s found-
ing fathers was maintained and secured
for future generations. Service organiza-
tions and their volunteers were instru-
mental in building and improving the
city.
Identified as the Iris Capital of the
World in the 1980s, Keizer’s premier com-
munity event, Keizer Days, morphed into
the Keizer Iris Festival, which boasted
one of the largest parades in Oregon.
City leaders had a vision for the prop-
erty along Interstate 5. The Chemawa
Activity Center (as it was called at the
time) became the Keizer Station we
know today. That area is also home to
Volcanoes Stadium.
on my
mind
Since 1982 Keizer has added thou-
sands of homes and subdivisions. The
city has been bumping up against its
border for years now, which led to seri-
ous discussions of expanding the Urban
Growth Boundary that keeps Keizer las-
soed inside its 1982 border.
There is not much difference between
Keizer of 1982 and Keizer in 2022. The
city is home to family and senior house-
holds. The people in those houses are not
much different than families anywhere
else—they all want a sense of community.
They want to feel safe and secure. They
want the opportunity to partake in the
American dream of achieving any goal,
personal or professional.
Forty years on we need to assure that
the idea of Keizer lives on. We all get dis-
tracted by coverage of national issues.
There is no major effort to ban certain
books in our local schools. There is no
move to limit voting opportunities. The
issue getting the biggest reaction is man-
datory masks in schools. That will soon
be a moot point since the state will lift its
mandatory mask regulation on March 31.
Those who choose Keizer for their
home do it for the same reason that our
founding fathers did in 1982: to live in a
small town with a sense of community
and brotherhood. Let’s not lose that as
the city enters middle age.
(Lyndon Zaitz is publisher of the
Keizertimes .)
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Why is Ukraine our problem?
By MARC A. THIESSEN
A new Politico-Morning Consult poll
shows most Americans support the people
of Ukraine in the face of Russia’s aggres-
sion. 63% want to impose crippling sanc-
tions on Russia if Vladimir Putin invades;
58% support allowing Ukraine to apply for
NATO membership; 49% say NATO should
not stop Ukraine from joining the alliance
to prevent a Russian invasion; and 48% sup-
port sending U.S. troops to Eastern Europe
to bolster NATO allies in the region.
Only small minorities oppose most
of these policies. But a significant number
of Americans tell pollsters they are just not
sure what to think. Many understandably
wonder: Why is this the United States’ prob-
lem? It’s a fair question. And the answer is:
Because if the United States allows Russia
to invade and overthrow a European
democracy, the consequences of our inac-
tion would reverberate across the globe.
China is watching. If Putin can invade
Ukraine, Taiwan may be next. In October,
following President Joe Biden’s disastrous
August retreat from Afghanistan, China
flew a record number of fighters and bomb-
ers into Taiwan’s air defense zone -- the larg-
est Chinese air force incursion ever against
Taiwan. A few weeks ago, as Putin massed
forces along Ukraine’s border, China made
another major incursion. If the United
States fails to deter Russia less than a year
after surrendering in Afghanistan, Beijing
may calculate that it has a short window of
weak U.S. presidential leadership to invade
and crush Taiwan’s democracy. The result
could be a war in the Pacific.
North Korea and Iran are watch-
ing as well. If Putin invades, both countries
will have every incentive to accelerate their
development of nuclear weapons and the
means to deliver them. They both know that
after the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine
inherited an arsenal of nearly 2,000 stra-
tegic nuclear weapons. But in December
1994, the United States brokered an agree-
ment called the Budapest Memorandum
on Security Assurances in which Ukraine
agreed to give up those weapons along
with its intercontinental ballistic missiles
and strategic bombers. In exchange, Russia
pledged to “refrain from the threat or use
of force against the territorial integrity or
political independence of Ukraine,” while
the United States and Britain promised
“to provide assistance to Ukraine . . . if
Ukraine should become a victim of an act
of aggression.”
In 2014, Russia violated that agreement
when it invaded Ukraine and annexed
Crimea. Now, Putin is threatening to finish
the job. If he is allowed to do so, no nation
will ever give up its nuclear weapons in
exchange for U.S. security assurances again.
To the contrary, the lesson from Pyongyang
to Tehran will be that the only path to
other
VOICES
security is to develop and deploy nuclear
weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
This could spark a global arms race.
Saudi Arabia has pledged to develop its
own nuclear arsenal if Iran becomes a
nuclear power. Indeed, Amos Yadlin, former
head of Israeli military intelligence, has
warned that “the Saudis will not wait one
month” to go nuclear. Other countries could
follow suit. Nuclear nonproliferation as we
know it would be dead.
And United States’ credibility would lie
in tatters—as would the credibility of NATO.
The transatlantic alliance is already reeling
from Biden’s debacle in Afghanistan. But
the founding purpose of NATO was to deter
Russian aggression in Europe. If allies can’t
agree to take steps necessary to do that,
then it’s fair to ask: Why does NATO still
exist?
The consequences of NATO’s failure to
deter Russia would resound across every
alliance. NATO remains the touchstone of
the U.S. commitment to its allies around the
world. Every U.S. treaty alliance is measured
against NATO. There is a reason 17 nations
—including Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
South Korea, Jordan and Israel -- are desig-
nated under U.S. law as “Major Non-NATO
Allies.” U.S. law also requires that Taiwan be
treated as a Major Non-NATO Ally, without
formal designation as such. Those com-
mitments will be rendered meaningless if
NATO’s credibility is destroyed. The web of
U.S. security alliances that has guaranteed
peace and stability internationally would be
decimated.
Since the end of the Cold War, demo-
cratic self-government has spread through-
out the world. Of those still living in
autocracy, most live in just two countries:
China and Russia. It is no coincidence
that those are the two countries that pose
the greatest threat to peace. The unprece-
dented expansion of liberty over the past
three decades has produced unprecedented
prosperity at home and abroad. All of that
is at risk if the last remaining autocracies
are emboldened by the failure of the world’s
democracies to deter their aggression.
appens in Ukraine. Standing by and
allowing Russia to invade without cost or
consequence would project weakness. And
when our adversaries believe we are weak,
they are more likely to test our resolve --
and more likely to miscalculate. And that
could have consequences far beyond Kyiv.
(Washington Post)