OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Advance Astoria
a step toward
economic success
S
uccessful economic development can’t be boiled down
to any simple formula — there are too many moving
parts and external influences for any municipality to fully
control its own destiny.
What can be achieved is laying the groundwork to sup-
port desirable investments and discourage potentially damag-
ing factors. It takes the right combination of attitudes, laws and
assets to capitalize on good fortune when it comes knocking.
Advance Astoria, a new five-year road map for economic
success approved on first reading by the Astoria City Council
this week, sets a goal of creating 200 new good-paying jobs in
the city by 2021. This is ambitious but attainable, considering
the current economic climate in our region.
In the immediate future, it’s possible to foresee additional
good jobs associated with the forthcoming Columbia Memorial
Hospital/Oregon Health and Science University Knight Cancer
Center. Not only will the cancer center itself create new health
care positions, it will add additional economic gravity to the
city’s already-impressive concentration of medicine and well-
ness enterprises. Local patients who now have to obtain care in
Portland and elsewhere will instead stay closer to home. This
is a mercy to them and, without being crass about it, a boon
to the economy in terms of money spent on everything from
lattes and lunches to gasoline and lodgings.
The cancer center, along with other developments includ-
ing two next-generation U.S. Coast Guard cutters, will put
more shoppers on Astoria streets and more money on local bal-
ance sheets. In combination with trends including rapid expan-
sion in craft brewing in recent years, the next five years have
a good possibility of being some of Astoria’s brightest in a
generation.
This growth is made possible by carefully tended economic
soil: Astoria residents have made literally many thousands of
incremental investments that result in a generally appealing
place that makes the most of its remarkable natural setting. It’s
far from perfect — there are warts and under-appreciated prop-
erties here and there — but overall it is an energetic and cap-
tivating town. Beyond its scenery, history and heritage build-
ings, it has the good luck to be well within the orbit of Portland
and other dynamic metros, as the Advance Astoria plan notes.
But proximity to “hip” places would mean little if the city
had not worked hard for three decades to renovate itself. It
also must be noted that Astoria’s success is very closely tied
to the success of surrounding towns. Warrenton’s retailing and
manufacturing sectors are key economic drivers for the entire
county. Seaside and Cannon Beach are magnets for our incred-
ibly robust tourism sector. Tending to all these partnerships is
to everyone’s benefit.
It’s worth taking a side trip in this discussion of renewal
and development to think about situations like that explored
in our Tuesday story about a man protesting code enforcement
actions on his property in Alderbrook.
Our photos of a decrepit fisherman’s house plastered with
protest signs and surrounded by a conglomeration of junk
might depict how Astoria could have appeared in alternate
reality — like the run-down,
seedy “Bedford Falls” shown
Good work
by an angel to the character of
at good pay
George Bailey in the Christmas
classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
will keep
Alderbrook is a colorful
Astoria’s old
enclave that treasures its eccen-
fishermen’s
trics and strong working-class
heritage. Even so, it’s possible
houses
to imagine that neighbors find
occupied by
the property to be something of
a drag.
dedicated
Forced by the Flavel situation
Astorians.
to implement more rigorous code
mechanisms than exist in most
of rural Oregon, the city is clearly within proper bounds in
attempting to resolve an overly drawn-out problem. The list of
private property rights does not include being allowed to lower
the value of surrounding properties.
At the same time, quirkiness is a trait treasured by Astorians
and many who visit it. A fundamental principle of good eco-
nomic development and urban renewal is to preserve the char-
acter of the place, making sure there is room for unusual “char-
acters” — the diverse people who reside here. It would be a
sour victory if success made Astoria uncomfortable and unaf-
fordable to its own people.
There’s good cause to believe city leaders, staff and resi-
dents mostly understand this balancing act: Advance Astoria
indicates they do. Good work at good pay will keep Astoria’s
old fishermen’s houses occupied by dedicated Astorians.
Where did ‘We the people’ go?
By THOMAS FRIEDMAN
New York Times News Service
A
few days ago I was at a con-
ference in Montreal, and a
Canadian gentleman, trying
to grasp what’s
happening to
America, asked me
a simple question:
“What do you fear
most these days?”
I paused for
a second, like a
spectator waiting to see what would
come out of my own mouth. Two
things came out: “I fear we’re
seeing the end of ‘truth’ — that we
simply can’t agree any more on
basic facts. And I fear that we’re
becoming Sunnis and Shiites —
we call them ‘Democrats’ and
‘Republicans,’ but the sectarianism
that has destroyed nation-states in
the Middle East is now infecting
us.”
It used to be that people didn’t
want their kids to marry one of
“them,” referring to someone of
a different religion or race (bad
enough). Now the “them” is some-
one of a different party.
When a liberal comedian poses
with a mock severed head of
Donald Trump, when the presi-
dent’s own son, Eric Trump, says of
his father’s Democratic opponents,
“To me, they’re not even people,”
you know that you are heading to a
dark place.
So when I got home, I called my
teacher and friend Dov Seidman,
author of the book “How” and CEO
of LRN, which helps companies
and leaders build ethical cultures,
and asked him what he thought was
happening to us.
“What we’re experiencing is an
assault on the very foundations of
our society and democracy — the
twin pillars of truth and trust,”
Seidman responded. “What makes
us Americans is that we signed
up to have a relationship with
ideals that are greater than us and
with truths that we agreed were
so self-evident they would be the
foundation of our shared journey
toward a more perfect union — and
of respectful disagreement along
the way. We also agreed that the
source of legitimate authority to
govern would come from ‘We the
people.’”
But when there is no “we” any-
more, because “we” no longer share
basic truths, Seidman argued, “then
there is no legitimate authority and
no unifying basis for our continued
association.”
We’ve had breakdowns in truth
and trust before in our history, but
this feels particularly dangerous
because it is being exacerbated by
technology and Trump.
Social networks and cyberhack-
ing are helping extremists to spread
vitriol and fake news at a speed and
breadth we have never seen before.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Ukrainian Pres-
ident Petro Poroshenko in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday.
“Today, we’re not just deeply
divided, as we’ve been before,
we’re being actively divided — by
cheap tools that make it so easy to
broadcast one’s own ‘truths’ and
to undermine real ones,” Seidman
argued.
This anger industry is now
“either sending us into comfortable
echo chambers where we don’t see
the other or arousing such moral
outrage in us toward the other
that we can no longer see their
humanity, let alone embrace them
as fellow Americans with whom we
share values.”
Social networks and hacking
also “have enabled us to see, in full
color, into the innermost workings
of every institution and into the
attitudes of those who run them,”
noted Seidman, “and that has
eroded trust in virtually every insti-
tution, and the authority of many
leaders, because people don’t like
what they see.”
With shared truth debased and
trust in leaders diminished, we
now face a full-blown “crisis of
authority itself,” argued Seidman,
who distinguishes between “formal
authority” and “moral authority.”
While our system can’t function
without leaders with formal author-
ity, what makes it really work, he
added, is “when leaders occupying
those formal positions — from
business to politics to schools to
sports — have moral authority.
Leaders with moral authority under-
stand what they can demand of
others and what they must inspire
in them. They also understand that
formal authority can be won or
seized, but moral authority has to
be earned every day by how they
lead. And we don’t have enough of
these leaders.”
In fact, we have so few we’ve
forgotten what they look like.
Leaders with moral authority
have several things in common,
said Seidman: “They trust people
with the truth — however bright
or dark. They’re animated by val-
ues — especially humility — and
principles of probity, so they do
the right things, especially when
they’re difficult or unpopular. And
they enlist people in noble purposes
and onto journeys worthy of their
dedication.”
Think how far away Trump is
from that definition. In Trump we
not only have a president who can’t
lead us out of this crisis — because
he has formal authority but no
moral authority — but a president
who is every day through Twitter a
one-man accelerator of the erosion
of truth and trust eating away at our
society.
We saw that play out between
Trump and James Comey, the FBI
director.
There’s an adage, explained
Seidman, that says: “Ask for my
honesty and I’ll give you my
loyalty. Ask for my loyalty and I’ll
give you my honesty.” But Trump
was not interested in Comey’s hon-
esty. He only wanted Comey’s blind
loyalty — delivered free because
Trump thought he had the formal
authority to demand it. “But true
loyalty can’t be commanded; it can
only be inspired,” said Seidman.
Alas, Trump is not going to get
any better and the technology is
not going to get any slower. It is
imperative, in the short run, that
some moral leaders emerge in the
GOP and actually restrain Trump.
But that’s doubtful.
But the upside of today’s
political-technology platform
is that leaders can come out of
anywhere — fast. Look at the new
president of France. In the long run,
the only thing that will save us is
if more people — no matter what
age, color, gender or faith — build
moral authority in their respective
realms and then use it to do big,
meaningful things. Use it to run for
office, start a company, operate a
school, lead a movement or build
a community organization. And in
so doing you can help put the “We”
back in “We the people.”
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 2338 Rayburn HOB, Washing-
ton, D.C., 20515. Phone: 202- 225-
0855. Fax 202-225-9497. District
office: 12725 SW Millikan Way,
Suite 220, Beaverton, OR 97005.
Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax 503-326-
5066. Web: bonamici.house. gov/
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313
Hart Senate Office Building, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-
3753. Web: www.merkley.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden.
senate.gov
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court Street N.E.,
H-373, Salem, OR 97301. Phone:
503-986-1431. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/witt/ Email: rep.bradwitt@
state.or.us
• State Rep. Deborah Boone (D):
900 Court St. N.E., H-481, Salem,
OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1432.
Email: rep.deborah boone@state.
or.us District office: P.O. Box 928,
Cannon Beach, OR 97110. Phone:
503-986-1432. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/ boone/
• State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-314, Salem, OR 97301. Telephone:
503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsy john-
son@state.or.us Web: www.betsy-
johnson.com District Office: P.O.
Box R, Scappoose, OR 97056. Phone:
503-543-4046. Fax: 503-543-5296.
Astoria office phone: 503-338-1280.
• Port of Astoria: Executive
Director, 10 Pier 1 Suite 308, Asto-
ria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-3300.
Email: admin@portofastoria.com
• Clatsop County Board of Com-
missioners: c/o County Manager, 800
Exchange St., Suite 410, Astoria, OR
97103. Phone: 503-325-1000.