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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 24, 2017)
OPINION 6A 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 OUR VIEW E ach week we recognize those people and organizations in the community deserving of public praise for the good things they do to make the North Coast a better place to live, and also those who should be called out for their actions. SHOUTOUTS Luke Whittaker/EO Media Group Approximately 160 people representing various Clatsop County businesses attended the CEDR event held at Seaside. • Clatsop Economic Development Resources award win- ners who were announced at CEDR’s annual meeting ear- lier this week at the Seaside Civic and Convention Center. The Small Business Entrepreneurship winner was Steve Sinkler, owner of The Wine Shack & Provisions 124, while LEKTRO and its owner, Eric Paulson, were honored for Large Business Entrepreneurship. Ruth Swenson, manager of the Hillcrest Inn, was recognized along with the company for Outstanding Customer Service, and the Visionary award went to Jim DeFeo, owner of Astoria Coffeehouse & Bistro, Cargo and Carruthers. In the Small Business Service to the Community category, CEDR recognized Kathleen Deland Peterson, owner of KP Graphics, and Contractor John Nelson and Coaster Construction received honors in the Large Business Service to the Community category. Technological Advancement honors went to Mark Gustafson and Gustafson Logging, while the Job Creation award went to Jim Prinzing and the Pelican Pub & Brewery. Martin Hospitality and its chief executive officer, Ryan Snyder, were recognized for Economic Impact in the community. • Organizers and volunteers of the eighth annual Pouring at the Coast craft beer festival last weekend in Seaside that was pre- sented by the Seaside Chamber of Commerce. The event attracted craft beer brewers from across the region and the Northwest, and as far away as Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Chamber Executive Director Brian Owen said there were 32 vendors and 1,068 attend- ees with attendance up 20 percent from last year. The festival’s proceeds fund chamber programs and other events, he said. The festival’s People’s Choice winner was Wild Ride Brewing, of Redmond, for its Nut Crusher Peanut Butter Porter, the second consecutive year the beer has won and third consecutive year the Wild Ride Brewery has taken the People’s Choice award home. • Clatsop County management and local members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union Local 2746 for coming together to co-spon- sor an American Red Cross blood drive last month. The drive col- lected 45 pints of blood, two pints more than the event’s goal, with donations from 47 people including 11 first-time donors. The blood drive was organized by Lisa Lindberg, a property appraiser in the county Assessment and Taxation Department and a union member. • Hampton Affiliates, Warrenton plant manager Lois Perdue and Cliff Tuttle of the plant’s special projects team, who were honored by the Astoria School District Board earlier this month. The school district has partnered with Hampton Affiliates to obtain a Career and Technical Education grant for more than $280,000 through the Oregon Department of Education that provides Astoria High School students with technology and engineering skills. Hampton Affiliates has also created a summer internship program for four to six AHS students. CALLOUTS • Telephone scammers who supposedly represent a sports media company who have been contacting local businesses soliciting advertisements for the Astoria High School Athletic Department. In the scam, the callers are contacting local busi- nesses and asking if they would like to advertise in the school’s 2017 Fall Sports Poster. If the business agrees, it is sent an invoice with instructions on how to send payment. The supposed com- pany the callers represent is no longer in business, according to the Better Business Bureau. Police urge residents to use caution with any telephone solicitation, and warn that with tax season nearly upon us there will likely be an increase in scam calls supposedly from the IRS. The IRS website has information and tips on how to avoid falling victim to such scams. Suggestions? Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look. THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2017 American democracy: Not so decadent after all By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Washington Post Writers Group W ASHINGTON — Under the dark gray cloud, amid the general gloom, allow me to offer a ray of sunshine. The last two months have brought a pleasant surprise: Turns out the much feared, much predicted withering of our democratic institutions has been grossly exag- gerated. The system lives. Let me explain. Donald Trump’s triumph last year was based on a frontal attack on the Washington “establishment,” that all-powerful, all-seeing, supremely cynical, bipartisan “cartel” (as Ted Cruz would have it) that allegedly runs everything. Yet the establishment proved to be Potemkin empty. In 2016, it folded pitifully, surrendering with barely a fight to a lightweight outsider. At which point, fear of the vaunted behemoth turned to con- tempt for its now-exposed lassitude and decadence. Compounding the confusion were Trump’s intimations of authoritarianism. He declared “I alone can fix it” and “I am your voice,” the classic tropes of the dem- agogue. He unabashedly expressed admiration for strongmen (most notably, Vladimir Putin). Trump had just cut through the grandees like a hot knife through butter. Who would now prevent him from trampling, caudillo-like, over a Washington grown weak and decadent? A Washington, moreover, that had declined markedly in public esteem, as confidence in our traditional institutions — from the political parties to Congress — fell to new lows. The strongman cometh, it was feared. Who and what would stop him? Two months into the Trumpian era, we have our answer. Our checks and balances have turned out to be quite vibrant. Consider: 1. The courts. Trump rolls out not one but two immigration bans, and is stopped dead in his tracks by the courts. However you feel about the merits of the policy itself (in my view, execrable and useless but legal) or the merits of the constitutional reasoning of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (embarrassingly weak, transparently political), the fact remains: The president proposed and the courts disposed. ‘The good news is that the checks and balances are working just fine.’ Trump’s pushback? A plaintive tweet or two complaining about the judges — that his own Supreme Court nominee denounced (if obliquely) as “disheartening” and “demoralizing.” 2. The states. Federalism lives. The first immigration challenge to Trump was brought by the attorneys general of two states (Washington and Minnesota) picking up on a trend begun during the Barack Obama years when state attorneys general banded together to kill his immigration overreach and the more egregious trespasses of his Environmental Protection Agency. And beyond working through the courts, state governors — Republicans, no less — have been exerting pressure on members of Congress to oppose a Republican president’s signature health care reform. Institutional exigency still trumps party loyalty. 3. Congress. The Republican-controlled Congress (House and Senate) is putting up epic resistance to a Republican administration’s health care reform. True, that’s because of ideological and tactical disagree- ments rather than any particular desire to hem in Trump. But it does demonstrate that Congress is no rubber stamp. And its independence extends beyond the perennially divisive health care conundrums. Trump’s budget, for example, was instantly declared dead on arrival in Congress, as it almost invariably is regardless of which party is in power. 4. The media. Trump is right. It is the opposi- tion party. Indeed, furiously so, often indulging in appalling overkill. It’s sometimes embarrassing to read the front pages of the major newspapers, festooned as they are with anti- Trump editorializing masquerading as news. Nonetheless, if you take the view from 30,000 feet, better this than a press acquiescing on bended knee, where it spent most of the Obama years in a slavish Pravda-like thrall. Every democracy needs an opposi- tion press. We damn well have one now. Taken together — and sus- pending judgment on which side is right on any particular issue — it is deeply encouraging that the sinews of institutional resistance to a poten- tially threatening executive remain quite resilient. The anti-Trump opposition flatters itself as “the resistance.” As if this is Vichy France. It’s not. It’s 21st-century America. And the good news is that the checks and balances are working just fine. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Port shuns fishing fleet pen letter to the Astoria Port Commissioners: I am a career professional commercial fisherman. I just purchased my 59th Oregon commercial fishing license. I have lived in this community all my life and paid property taxes, state taxes and licensing fees in this state and community for the last 55 years. I have built four new boats in the surrounding area, and I have owned, operated and outfitted over 50 boats in my fishing career. I spent hun- dreds of thousands of dollars in this community. I am a lightweight com- pared to some of the multimillion dollar fishing operations in the com- munity that some gillnetters own. I have delivered into Astoria, Warrenton and Chinook and Ilwaco, Washington, seafood products from almost every fishery on the coast. I have fished off the coast and inland waters of Alaska, California, Ore- gon and Washington. I have traveled throughout these states for 58 years, plus I have traveled through Canada, and have run boats from San Fran- cisco to the Bering Sea. When I was asked to write this letter, I sat down and started writing down all the ports, harbors, small fishing communities, fuel docks and harbors I took shelter in to protect from storms, for fuel, and deliver- ing products into these communities. There are 67 of such harbors and ports that I have been in throughout my career. But I have always oper- ated out of Astoria and Warrenton. As a commercial fisherman, I have employed hundreds of fisher- men for deckhands and have spent hundreds of thousand of dollars in shipyards in this community and surrounding areas. I have deliv- ered over $1 million worth of prod- uct within this community on a 5-1 ratio. I heard that I might be called one of Bill Hunsinger’s cronies although, I disagree with Bill a lot of the time, and have throughout the last 50 years we have worked around each other. But, on this issue. Bill and I stand shoulder to shoulder. I understand that the president of the Port Commission does not want to sign a letter supporting the gill- net fishery, but that does not surprise me one bit about the Port of Astoria. They treat every fishery in the com- munity equally, including the drag- gers, shrimpers, tuna boats, trollers, crabbers and longliners. This is why 95 percent of the commercial fishing fleet is moored in Warrenton. You go where you are treated better. In the 67 ports and harbors that I O Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian Pier 2 at the Port of Astoria. have been in, the attitude of the Port of Astoria, in its infinite wisdom, has shunned the commercial fish- ing fleet as a whole. It has the least facilities of any port, including stor- age and room to tie up commercial boats. It is not about the hard work- ing employees of the Port, they treat you with respect and friendship. I hear that tourism is more important than commercial fishing, does that mean that if there are gillnet boats in mooring basins in Astoria that the tourists will not come? I want to cite an experience I had two years ago in Homer, Alaska, just to give the Port an example that you can walk and chew gum at the same time. I have never experi- enced, or seen a busier port in my career, than what I saw in Homer. I witnessed thousands of sport boats, a huge charter fleet for sports fish- ing, a huge gillnet fleet operating with purse seiners, halibut boats and processors. I have never been in a better-run port — it is clean and excellently maintained. In addition, where the commercial boats deliver their products, it is clean, and the commercial side of the port is run excellently. This is my point: When you walk up the dock, and get your feet on land, you see thousands of tour- ists, hundreds of little 10-foot by 20-foot shops of all varieties and ter- rific restaurants to accommodate the tourists. It is so crowded you can barely walk across the street because of tourism traffic. About 200 yards from the port there are about 300 campers. The place is absolutely alive with commercial fishing boats, sports boats and tourists, all coexist- ing and booming with activity. To imply that you have to get rid of commercial fishing boats to have tourism is ignorant, and the people of Astoria need to under- stand that and the governor of Ore- gon should acknowledge and under- stand that when you attack one of us, you attack us all. There is a clear and present danger in this country that there is a war against the com- mercial seafood industry, and that 99 percent of the commercial fishermen feel this way, but that is for another time and another discussion. For myself, I take a fierce pride in being a commercial fisherman, and no governor, legislator, port commissioner or fishery is going to make me bow my head. I stand with all the fishermen and fisheries on the coast, and I am proud to have them as my friends. GARY MARINCOVICH Astoria Trump’s moves am reading “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari. It was on The New York Times best seller list a few months ago. It is a fantastic book that gives a beautiful and brief over- view of the history of mankind. Among many other things, Harari discusses different types of governments and financial systems. He compared monarchies, commu- nism, socialism and capitalism. They all had either their time, their virtues, or their downfalls. He pointed out a particularly poisonous type of gov- ernment, and that was when govern- ments did the bidding of big money in a particularly horrendous way. He gave many examples, but one you may remember from your high school history class was the Opium Wars. That was when England used the force of their military to force China to buy their opium. I am left wondering what is on Trump’s mind when he wants to tear up all trade agreements, drastically reduce funding for the State Depart- ment, and put so much money into the military. JEAN HOOGE Astoria I
