OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016
Both are unpopular. Only one is a threat
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Another good
outcome
Derelict building ordinance
forced Flavel property sale
he purchase of a Flavel-owned downtown block is
monumental news. The block — on the north side of
Commercial Street — had been on the market for some 18
months. The Astoria City Council in December 2014 used
the derelict building ordinance to force a sale of this down-
town property as well as the Flavel residence at 15th Street
and Franklin Avenue.
For as long as most Liotta of Warrenton — are
Astorians can remember, the relative newcomers to our
two Flavel blocks — facing region. They appear to have
each other on Commercial the experience necessary
— have been virtually to put a new face on this
empty. In fact, Sears left the block’s faded glory.
north-side building in 1996,
The City Council’s terms
leaving it vacant.
for this deal require Mary
To the visitor entering Louise Flavel to put pro-
downtown, these dead zones ceeds from this sale —
make a bad irst impression. $135,000 — into improve-
Despite the gains down- ments in the facing block.
town has made over the past
We are fond these days
20 years – with restoration of trusting that the market-
of the Liberty Theater and place will solve things. But
Hotel Elliott and birth of a a willfully negligent prop-
host of restaurants – the two erty owner does not it the
Flavel blocks have been a economic model of a mar-
ket. That’s where the derelict
weight around our neck.
The building’s purchas- building ordinance comes in.
ers — Marcus and Michelle Astoria is fortunate to have it.
T
July 4 plan still
needs work
To avoid a ban, ireworks supporters
must curb residential problems
By THE WASHINGTON POST
EDITORIAL BOARD
his election,” a spokesman
for U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse
(R-Neb.) said Thursday, “remains
a dumpster ire.” Well, yes, the
two major-party candidates for
president are historically unpopu-
lar. But if this election is unusually
bad, it is not because both parties
chose bad candidates. There is
no equivalence between Donald
Trump and Hillary Clinton — as
even responsible Republicans
should be able to recognize.
‘T
Clinton is a knowledgeable politi-
cian who has been vetted many times
over. She understands and respects
the U.S. Constitution. She knows pol-
icy. She can cite accomplishments
in the public interest, such as press-
ing through an important children’s
health insurance program during her
husband’s administration. As a sena-
tor, she was respected by colleagues
on both sides of the aisle. She com-
pleted four years as secretary of state
to generally positive reviews. She
began her presidential campaign by
rolling out a series of serious policy
papers.
None of this means you have to like
Clinton or believe she would be a good
president. You may disagree with her
views; we have done so often enough
and will do so again when we think
she is wrong. You may believe she was
foolish to push for the Libya interven-
tion, arrogant to keep her emails out
of the oficial State Department server,
greedy to take large speaking fees as a
private citizen. But measured against
other major-party candidates of recent
times, Clinton is well within estab-
lished bounds of competence, knowl-
edge, commitment and integrity. She is
not a dumpster candidate.
Trump, by contrast, has waged a
campaign based on bigotry, ignorance
and resentment. He has no experience
as a public servant, and his private
record of bankruptcies and exploita-
tion should be disqualifying. He reg-
ularly circulates falsehoods. He has no
dis cern ible interest in or knowledge
of policy. Just in recent days, Trump
tweeted out an anti-Semitic image
circulating on neo-Nazi websites and
attacked the media for reporting as
much. He called one sitting senator
a loser and threatened another while
receding
memory,
Paciic County, Washington,
residents and oficials are
engaged in the latest round
of postgame analysis about
what went right, wrong and
what else to do about it.
In 2015, July 4 was a bac-
chanal worthy of ancient
Rome, resulting in a homi-
cide, hundreds of complaints,
and ugly tons of garbage left
on the beach.
A new group, Not a Ban a
Better Plan, formed to see if
existing laws could be bet-
ter enforced to address resi-
dents’ concerns while avoid-
ing a heavy regulatory hand
in a place that prides itself on
freewheeling spirit.
Did the corrective mea-
sures work? In part, they
did. Parks and Washington
State Patrol, along with
local law enforcement, pro-
vided a highly visible pres-
ence on peninsula streets and
beaches.
However,
ireworks
remain a problem for numer-
ous residents. In 2016, there
sequence of four nights of
explosions, culminating on
the Fourth.
What should the next steps
be? Starting next year, the
Vancouver, Washington, City
Council is banning personal
use and sale of any ireworks,
including sparklers.
The Long Beach Peninsula
and Paciic County need not
be so draconian. They can
choose, for example, to do as
the city of Ocean Shores does
and allow ireworks only on
the beach, but not in residen-
tial areas. And if Vancouver
has been legally able to enact
an outright ban, surely local
governments can impose
additional date and time
restrictions without the need
of state legislation.
If ireworks supporters
want to avoid a ban, addi-
tional action is required to
address the concerns of those
who believe the “better plan”
helped curb misbehavior on
the beach but did little for
the streets where local peo-
ple live.
Editorials that appear on this page are written by
Publisher Steve Forrester and Matt Winters, editor of the
Chinook Observer and Coast River Business Journal, or staff
members from the EO Media Group’s sister newspapers.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the African
Methodist Episcopal church national convention in Philadelphia Friday.
proving that he lacks even a passing
familiarity with the Constitution. He
praised one of the most vile dictators
of the 20th century.
Those Republicans with enough
self-respect to be mortiied by the man
their party is about to nominate con-
tinually hold out hope for some magi-
cal transformation. Yet even if Trump
lipped his agenda — not a problem
for a man with almost no ixed beliefs
— he would still be the candidate who
mocked a disabled reporter, proposed
banning Muslims from entering the
United States, attacked a judge based
on his ethnicity, celebrated violence at
his rallies, demeaned women and prom-
ised to round up and deport 11 million
undocumented immigrants. He would
still be the candidate who vaulted to
political prominence with race-based
attacks on the incumbent president and
launched his campaign by calling Mex-
icans rapists.
Sasse has proved to be a rare Repub-
lican oficial with the moral courage to
speak as honestly about Trump after
he clinched the nomination as he did
before. It’s not surprising that the sen-
ator would want to dismiss the whole
campaign as a mess, and we don’t
doubt that he genuinely fears the direc-
tion in which Clinton would lead the
nation.
But to equate the two candidates
as indistinguishably unqualiied prod-
ucts of a rigged or failed system only
feeds public cynicism while blur-
ring distinctions that should not be
blurred. Clinton is a politician, long
in the arena, whom you may or may
not support. Mr. Trump is a danger to
the republic.
Those Republicans with enough
self-respect to be mortiied by the man
their party is about to nominate contin-
ually hold out hope for some magical
transformation.
A week from hell for Americans
By CHARLES BLOW
New York Times News Service
ast week was yet another
week that tore at the very iber
of
our
nation.
ith July 4 now a were in effect an escalating
W
AP Photos
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during an
interview after a rally in Virginia Beach, Va., Monday.
L
After two videos emerged show-
ing the gruesome killings of two black
men by police oficers, one in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, and the other in
Falcon Heights, Minnesota, a black
man shot and killed ive oficers, and
wounded nine more people, in a cow-
ardly ambush at an otherwise peaceful
protest. The Dallas police chief, David
O. Brown, said, “He was upset about
Black Lives Matter” and “about the
recent police shootings” and “was upset
at white people” and “wanted to kill
white people, especially white oficers.”
We seem caught in a cycle of esca-
lating atrocities without an easy way
out, without enough clear voices of
calm, without tools for reduction, with-
out resolutions that will satisfy.
There is so much loss and pain.
There are so many families whose
hearts hurt for a loved one needlessly
taken, never to be embraced again.
There is so much disintegrating
trust, so much animosity stirring.
So many — too many — Amer-
icans now seem to be living with an
ambient terror that someone is some-
how targeting them.
Friday morning, after the Dallas
shootings, my college-student daugh-
ter entered my room before heading out
to her summer job. She hugged me and
said: “Dad, I’m scared. Are you scared?”
We talked about what had happened in
the preceding days, and I tried to allay
her fears and soothe her anxiety.
How does a father answer such a
question? I’m still not sure I got it pre-
cisely right.
Truth is, I am afraid. Not so much
for my own safety, which is what my
daughter was fretting about, but more
for the country I love.
This is not a level of stress and strain
that a civil society can long endure.
I feel numb, and anguished and
heartbroken, and I fear that I am far
from alone.
And yet, I also fear that time is a
We seem caught in a cycle of
escalating atrocities without an
easy way out, without enough
clear voices of calm, without
tools for reduction, without
resolutions that will satisfy.
protests over police killings
requirement for remedy. We
and the killings of police
didn’t arrive at this place
overnight, and we won’t
oficers as fundamentally
move on from it overnight.
about the value of life rise
Centuries of U.S. pol-
above those who see politi-
icy, culture and tribalism are
cal opportunity in this arms
simply being revealed as the
race of atrocities?
frothy tide of hagiographic
These are very serious
history recedes.
questions — soul-of-a-na-
Our American “ghettos”
tion questions — that we
were created by policy and
dare not ignore.
Charles
design. These areas of con-
We must see all unwar-
Blow
centrated poverty became
ranted violence for what it
fertile ground for crime and violence. is: A corrosion of culture.
Municipalities used heavy police forces
I know well that when people speak
to try to cap that violence. Too often, of love and empathy and honor in the
aggressive policing began to feel like face of violence, it can feel like meeting
oppressive policing. Relationships hard power with soft, like there is inher-
between communities and cops became ent weakness in an approach that leans
strained. A small number of criminals so heavily on things so ephemeral and
poisoned police beliefs about whole even clichéd.
communities and a small number of
But that is simply an illusion fos-
dishonorable oficers poisoned com- tered by those of little faith.
munities’ beliefs about entire police
Anger and vengeance and violence
forces. And then, too often the unimag- are exceedingly easy to access and
inable happened and someone ended up almost effortlessly unleashed.
dead at the hands of the police.
The higher calling — the harder trial
Since people have camera phones, — is the belief in the ultimate moral
we are actually seeing these deaths, live justice and the inevitable victory of
and in living color. Now a terrorist with righteousness over wrong.
a racist worldview has taken it upon
This requires an almost religious
himself to co-opt a cause and mow faith in fate, and that can be hard for
down innocent oficers.
some to accept, but accept it we must.
This is a time when communi-
The moment any person comes to
ties, institutions, movements and even accept as justiiable an act of violence
nations are tested. Will the people of upon another — whether physical, spir-
moral clarity, good character and righ- itual or otherwise — that person has
teous cause be able to drown out the already lost the moral battle, even if he
chorus of voices that seek to use each is currently winning the somatic one.
dead body as a societal wedge?
When we all can see clearly that
Will the people who can see clearly the ultimate goal is harmony and not
that there is no such thing as selective, hate, rectiication and not retribution,
discriminatory, exclusionary outrage we have a chance to see our way for-
and grieving when lives are taken, be ward. But we all need to start here and
heard above those who see every trag- now, by doing this simple thing: Seeing
edy as a plus or minus for a cumulative every person as fully human, deserving
every day to make it home to the peo-
argument?
Will the people who see both the ple he loves.