OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2016
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
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
OUR VIEW
Bipartisan ideas
to reform PERS
Sens. Johnson and Knopp attempt to
overcome leadership inertia
T
wo state legislators have offered an impressive list of ideas
for ixing Oregon’s ailing retirement system for public
employees. Their suggestions are fair, constitutional and
would protect government services. Their effort, notably, is
bipartisan.
With all that going for it, the ideas are unlikely to be embraced by
Gov. Kate Brown or Democratic leaders in the Legislature. They are
focused instead on spending potential revenue from Measure 97 and
gaining super-majority status for their party.
The challenges of the Public Employees Retirement System are
well documented. The program’s unfunded liability exceeds $21 bil-
lion and continues to grow. Costs to school districts and local gov-
ernments are scheduled to jump $885 million next year, forcing
massive cuts in stafing, programs and services.
Our state’s political leaders cobbled together a so-called “grand
bargain” in 2013 to save PERS. Predictably, many of the changes
were struck down by the Oregon Supreme Court because they
reduced accrued beneits for current retirees. The planned “savings”
legislators counted on instead increased unfunded liabilities.
Two respected state senators realize the severity of the chal-
lenge and are attempting to create momentum for bipartisan change.
Democrat Betsy Johnson from Clatsop County and Republican Tim
Knopp of Bend have created a work group to craft solutions that are
legal, bipartisan, fair to retirees and protect essential government
services. They have invited experts, government oficials, retirees
and representatives from business and labor to participate.
Already, several reforms have been reviewed by the Legislature’s
legal counsel and deemed likely to survive a constitutional chal-
lenge. Among them:
• A $100,000 cap on the inal average salary used to calculate
retirement beneits. This would signiicantly reduce the payouts to
football coaches, university presidents and other highly compen-
sated public employees.
• Move all new public employees to a deined contribution plan,
much like those in the private sector.
• Prevent unused vacation and sick time from inlating inal aver-
age salaries to artiicially increase retirement beneits.
• Use market rates to calculate annuities. Currently, the PERS
board assumes a 7.5 percent rate of return — far above current mar-
ket rates.
Sens. Johnson and Knopp should be lauded for their efforts to
reform PERS. Perhaps they can initiate the political momentum to
get past the inertia in the state capital.
Brown bypassing
coastal issues
I
t’s not surprising that polls show Gov. Kate Brown has a sub-
stantial lead against Republican challenger Bud Pierce heading
into November’s general election.
The governor is a Democrat in a heavily Democratic state and
she has been concentrating on garnering votes, banking campaign
contributions and voicing support for the controversial Measure 97
corporate tax initiative along the Interstate 5 corridor where most
of the state’s population resides. Most career politicians would say
that’s a smart strategy, a sure way to win the race.
But what is surprising is that Brown is giving the appearance of
marginalizing Clatsop County by ignoring coastal voters and their
concerns on issues like gillnetting, emergency preparedness, pen-
sion reform and aging infrastructure.
Along those lines, it didn’t help that perception earlier this week
when Brown turned down an opportunity to debate Pierce here on
the coast to address those issues in person. The Daily Astorian’s par-
ent company, EO Media Group, was among four sponsors of the
debate proposal, and the sponsors would have foot the bill for the
debate as a community service.
Pierce was eager to participate in a coastal debate. But the gover-
nor is already participating in ive other debates with Pierce, four of
which are on the I-5 corridor with the ifth in Bend, and according
to her campaign staff, a sixth debate in Astoria — although desired
— wasn’t logistically possible.
That’s too bad because Brown hasn’t visited Clatsop County
since June 2015 and it would have afforded her a leadership oppor-
tunity to be transparent and inclusive in front of voters who tend to
cast ballots their own way and who potentially aren’t sold on her
political leanings or her leadership qualities.
If Brown wants to change those perceptions, she should start
serving coastal constituents by addressing those issues instead
of spending her time casting for valley votes and campaign
contributions.
With the serious problems Oregon faces, the state needs inclusive
leaders in all areas, not just career politicians out to win elections.
Hillary’s sick days
By FRANK BRUNI
New York Times News Service
B
efore we delve any further
into the coughs heard round
the world and the swoon that
changed history, some perspective:
Running for president isn’t
hard. It’s brutal.
The oddity isn’t
that one of the
candidates would
succumb to illness
and be forced off
the trail for a few
days. The oddity is that all of the
candidates don’t drop like lies.
What we ask of them is less
preparation than mortiication,
physical as well as psychological.
Between formal speeches and infor-
mal rallies and brieings and fund-
raisers and long lights and short bus
rides and coffee-shop huddles and
state-fairground scrums, they endure
20-hour days in which they cram
in twice that many hours of work.
They’re miracles of perseverance,
so much so that a certain 68-year-
old Democratic nominee can get a
pneumonia diagnosis and deliver a
big (if cloddishly rendered) speech
at a fundraiser that same night.
Their stamina isn’t at issue, just
their sanity.
We haven’t learned anything new
about Hillary Clinton’s penchant
for secrecy. We’ve had it conirmed
— for the millionth time. Her
self-protection is a perverse form
of self-destruction. It’s borderline
pathological. But it’s something that
most voters accepted or rejected
somewhere along the quarter-cen-
tury timeline from Travelgate to her
emails. A roadside crumpling and a
round of antibiotics aren’t going to
change that.
Her lack of transparency might
well be disqualifying if her oppo-
nent were the political equivalent
of freshly Windexed glass. Her
opponent is the political equivalent
of a thickly armored car.
Donald Trump won’t show us
his taxes. He won’t illuminate his
philanthropic activity or the work-
ings of his charity, which, according
to David Fahrenthold’s terriic
reporting in The Washington Post,
operates in a bizarrely self-aggran-
dizing fashion.
He’s promising more detailed
health information and a sit-down
with Dr. Oz, who is Trump with a
stethoscope, approaching matters
of great seriousness with great silli-
ness. (Next up: Judge Judy hears the
Trump University lawsuit.)
But what Trump presented pre-
viously — a few gushing sentences
from a physician who later admitted
to ginning them up on the ly — was
a Valentine’s Day card masquerad-
ing as medicine. I’m surprised there
weren’t hearts and Cupids in the
margins.
I can’t see
her coughing
fits excusing
his hissy fits,
which are
scarier and
harder to cure.
Apart from it, there’s no
evidence of Trump as Hercules.
More like Nero, with a coterie of
sycophants fanning him and peeling
his grapes.
He’s the master of phoning in to
news shows rather than appearing
on set, which would require more
exertion. He has often done just one
event a day, near an airport, so he
can ly home in his plush private
jet and sleep in his own comfy bed.
He’s the rare exception to the slog
I described above. During the pri-
maries, it was huge news when he
inally overnighted in a chain hotel
in Iowa and, that same weekend, sat
through all 60 minutes of a church
service. Praise the Lord and pass the
Gatorade.
Although his hair refuses to
accept it, he’s 70 years old, and if
there’s footage out there of him
doing the P90X workout, I missed
it. I have seen him playing golf,
which isn’t much more aerobically
demanding than backgammon.
All of this makes him a singu-
larly ineffective critic of Clinton’s
health. And his surrogates and
supporters are bungling the case by
overstating it. To hear them talk,
she’s some sporadically animated
cadaver, a mashup of “Weekend
at Bernie’s” and “The Candidate.”
They’re going to look ridiculous
when she stands sturdily on the
debate stage for 90 minutes and
speaks in sentences fuller, more
coherent and more grammatical
than his.
Of course events could unfold
differently. She could have a
debate so terrible that naysaying
about her health is the least of her
worries. She could continue to
struggle with illness, compromis-
ing the intensity with which she
stumps. She could shortchange us
on the additional medical records
that she has rightly pledged to
share, yanking her campaign off
message yet again. She could
have a lurking malady — as could
Trump.
But we don’t have any more
proof of her physical unitness
for the presidency than we did a
week ago. There’s no clear link
between the blood clot of 2013
and Sunday’s swoon.
What we have is a stress-ag-
gravated instance of frailty
from one of two senior citizens
engaged in a marathon. Will it
really eclipse the race’s other
dynamics?
In a recent Washington Post/
ABC News poll, only 36 percent
of respondents said that Trump
was qualified to be president.
I can’t imagine any one of the
other 64 percent reasoning: “He’s
ignorant, but so robustly ignorant.
A liar, but such a strapping one.
Forget those hateful tirades; look
at those cholesterol levels.”
I can’t see her coughing its
excusing his hissy its, which are
scarier and harder to cure.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Process alone doesn’t mean democracy has been served
ne week ago, Gearhart’s City
Council passed an ordinance
regulating less than 5 percent of
Gearhart homeowners who rent
their homes on a short-term basis.
In getting the ordinance passed, the
mayor and the city administrator
applauded themselves in bull-dog-
ging a process, and thereby claiming
that democracy had been served.
The mayor even stated that pass-
ing the ordinance was “something
we (the council) wanted to do”
(“Gearhart gives new rental rules
a go,” The Daily Astorian, Sept.
8). Don’t let that “we” slip by you.
It has been the focus of the whole
process the past several years. The
“we” is not the citizens, but the
mayor, other council members and
the city administrator.
Following a process in and of
itself does not satisfy the ends of
democracy. If it did, there would be
no reason for citizens to claim an
abuse of process. The purpose of
process is to consider facts and hear
input from the public. Elected and
appointed government oficials are
not expected to be experts on every-
thing, and particularly volunteer,
unpaid elected oficials can hardly
be expected to be experts on much
at all, especially relating to gover-
nance. This is why citizen input and
consideration of information and
O
facts from the public and experts is
so critical to public discourse and
excellent decision making.
Limitations on input
Gearhart’s mayor and a handful
of others in favor of the new zoning
ordinance claim everyone had the
opportunity to be heard. However,
limitations were strictly placed on
input — only ive, and sometimes
only three minutes, and only at pub-
lic meetings or hearings. Addition-
ally, the process set out by the law
wasn’t even properly followed.
As one example, the ordinance as
passed has provisions and language
that was added after all public notice
and hearings. The city pays its attor-
ney to do a better job than that.
The 5 percent of Gearhart home-
owners who rent their homes to
vacationers (typically less than one-
third of any year) were completely
denied such a process. Many home-
owners requested an audience with
council members, either individually
or in groups. We were refused. On
repeated occasions we requested to
help form a committee of Gearhart
homeowners to study the issue. The
council refused. We offered to form
a group of homeowners who rent
to vacationers to take into account
other homeowners’ concerns and
impose self-regulation. The council
didn’t consider it.
Experts on the issue of vacation
rentals, including property manag-
ers, lawyers and political consul-
tants were given ive or three min-
utes, depending on the meeting, to
speak at public meetings or hear-
ings, and no more. Of course, writ-
ten testimony was also submitted,
but who knows what was received
and read. City councilors have
admitted to not looking at their gov-
ernment email accounts, and the
city administrator has conirmed
this. If there are emails which the
city administrator decides need par-
ticular attention, he has admitted to
sending them to the councilors’ per-
sonal email addresses.
Process has been abused
Don’t ind comfort in the claim
that democracy has been served by
simply following a process. On the
issue of regulating a small percent-
age of Gearhart homeowners who
rent to vacationers, process has been
abused in Gearhart by refusing, and
not actually accepting and consid-
ering data, meaningful citizen input
and expert information.
I am a friend of Gearhart who
respects the rights of citizens both in
court, and at the ballot box.
KATHY SCHROEDER
Portland/Gearhart