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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
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Circulation Manager
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Business Manager
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Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Jewell schools ramp up creativity
A
s buzz words go, the expression
“thinking outside the box” must
be one of the most over-used cli-
chés in modern America. Nevertheless,
it can be properly applied to the latest
suggestion being circulated among
patrons of the Jewell School District.
Superintendent Alice Hunsaker and
school board members are consider-
ing rescheduling the regular curriculum
from five days a week into four.
Leaders concede it would not neces-
sarily save any substantial money. But
it would avoid coaches and students
repeatedly losing class time Fridays for
sports, music and other activities involv-
ing travel.
One important component is that it
would allow time for more organized
and less disruptive professional devel-
opment. Administrators would be able
to bring workshops and other training
to Jewell so teaching staff would bene-
fit and grow.
Another element is quality of life for
staff. Many make significant sacrifices
to teach or work in other positions at
Jewell, including a one-way commute of
50 minutes or more. These staff have to
use up a valuable day off just to accom-
modate a weekday dental or medical
Don Anderson/For The Daily Astorian
Superintendent Alice Hunsaker, left, tells the nine 2016 graduates of Jewell School to
move their tassels from right to left during their graduation ceremony.
appointment.
However, a four-day workweek for
Jewell’s 150 students prompts many
important questions that must be
addressed head-on. What do the stu-
dents who are not traveling for sports or
music do on their fifth day? The avail-
ability of day care and other options
need to be carefully examined, espe-
cially for working parents unable to
change their schedules to stay home on
one weekday.
Also, administrators will need to
review the number of students eligi-
ble for reduced-price or free meals, then
factor in how to keep those youngsters
properly nourished on days when there
is no regular school.
Of the five school districts in Clatsop
County, Jewell has always been a lit-
tle different. It’s smaller and much more
remote, of course, but its K-12 program
has a sense of community unlike any
other. Anyone who has ever attended a
Blue Jays’ athletic contest —in any sea-
son — knows students wearing a Jewell
uniform fight for points as fiercely as
any in their division.
Timber funding during prior years
has supported the district, which has
offered opportunities for field trips
that most students would envy. It has
achieved considerable successes in
music, journalism and academics.
Jewell leaders are taking the right
course on this possible change. They
have floated the idea, offered explana-
tions for why they proposed it, and then
begun detailed surveys of parents and
staff to measure support. They have dis-
tributed a suggested schedule to help
parents and students better visualize
how exactly it could work.
Armed with a better feeling of the
level of support, administrators will be
better able to make a decision.
America’s public schools are one
of the nation’s greatest assets. Jewell
leaders want to run theirs efficiently,
minimize lost class time and prop-
erly develop staff. They are to be com-
mended for looking at creative ways to
achieve all three of those goals.
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
You still have time
to save your town
Russia dividing us
politically and economically
SB 1528 an act of war against
small business
Carbon plan may
be better than free
y heart is breaking — yet not surprised
— reading of the new chain hotel pro-
posed for the Astoria waterfront (“New hotel
pitched for Astoria,” The Daily Astorian,
March 2).
I am not an Astoria resident at this time;
I’m from Canada. I visited and fell in love
with your town last year and met many beau-
tiful people who welcomed me, and I was
contemplating a move.
The reason I am leaving my home town
in Canada is that it’s been “developed” and
“tourismed” into the ground. My home town
has become a profit-driven, barely recogniz-
able ghost of the lovely community it was
while I was growing up.
It started when a local hotel on the water
was taken over by a huge chain. Twenty years
later, a unique town once full of working-class
charm is a tourist-neurotic advertisement of
itself: Concrete boxes, chain stores, so-called
“developers” blocking out lake views with
concrete eyesores that get taller and uglier and
pricier each year, snatching up land and pav-
ing everything in sight, while remaining rental
stock turns to Airbnbs.
Our young people leave because they can’t
find housing. The town panders to everyone
but the locals.
It starts with a chain hotel on the water and
“jobs.” But I’ve also seen places hold out and
thrive. Hold on to what’s yours — its rare.
You still have time to save your town.
CHERISE CLARKE
Penticton, B.C., Canada
A
ccording to numerous reports, including
one in The Wall Street Journal on March
1, “Russian Meddling on Social Media Tar-
geted U.S. Energy Industry, Report Says,”
the Russians, the No. 1 supplier of oil in the
world, posted over 9,000 times on Instagram,
Facebook, and Twitter under page names like
“Born Liberal,” encouraging pipeline and
fracking protests. Dating back to 2015, the
propaganda was aimed at shutting down the
drilling and shipping of oil. One post on Insta-
gram got 1,500 likes.
The article also says the Internet Research
Agency “… opened its opinion-influencing
unit in 2014 with the goal of spreading dis-
trust in the U.S., according to a federal indict-
ment secured by special counsel Robert Muel-
ler in mid-February.”
Like the bombshell Mueller uncovered that
Russian operatives under the name “Black-
MattersUS” organized the New York City
“Trump is NOT my President” Nov. 12, 2016
protest attended by 10,000, the size and media
attention given to protests at the KeystoneXL,
Dakota Access, and the Colonial pipelines
went national, as well.
Social media has opened inexpensive and
largely unaccountable access for organized
Russian agents intent to confuse and divide
us, not just politically, but economically, as
well.
WAYNE MAYO
Scappoose
W
hether she signs or vetoes Senate Bill
1528, Gov. Kate Brown will send a
loud and lasting message about how she
views the importance of small business to our
state’s economy.
Oregon small businesses account for 99
percent of all businesses in the state, and
employ 56 percent of Oregonians in the pri-
vate sector, according to the U.S. Small Busi-
ness Administration.
Right now, across the nation, the
small-business economy is humming nicely as
a result of the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,
which gave small business a 20 percent reduc-
tion in their federal taxes.
In Oregon, federal tax reform had the
dual impact of lowering small business taxes,
while actually raising overall tax revenues
for the state. For Oregon to disconnect from
this one provision that would save small
businesses some money on their future tax
bills would be a historical act of callousness
against Oregon’s Main Street, mom-and-pop
enterprises. I hope she does the right thing by
vetoing this bad bill.
Passage of SB 1528 is like an act of war
against small business directed by Gov.
Brown, and supported by the Democratic
majority in the Legislature.
ROBIN OLSON
St. Helens
R
M
egarding the article “Climate change
group searches Clatsop County for help
in Washington, D.C.” (The Daily Astorian,
March 7): Citizens Climate Lobby now has a
chapter in just about every county in the U.S.
because they’ve got a simple, proven plan to
combat climate change that doesn’t cost con-
sumers or taxpayers anything.
In fact, CCL’s Carbon Fee and Dividend
plan may be even better than free. Last year,
solar and wind become cheaper than any fos-
sil fuel in many parts of the world (World Eco-
nomic Forum, Forbes, Lazard, Bloomberg
New Energy Finance), and as they scale up,
clean energy prices will drop even faster, cre-
ating a virtuous cycle (Scientific American).
So, as the carbon fee increases each year,
people will make more money annually by
using their increasing monthly “carbon div-
idend” checks to buy cheaper clean energy.
It’s projected to create millions of jobs and
increase the gross domestic product (GDP)
$75-80 billion annually with no government
regulations, expansion, subsidies or expansion,
just market forces.
British Columbia has used Carbon Fee and
Dividend for a decade, and they have zero
carbon emissions, lower taxes, lower energy
bills and the best economy in Canada (The
Economist).
Carbon Fee and Dividend can also make
other nations cut their carbon emissions as much
as we do. See how at citizensclimatelobby.org
PETE KUNTZ
Northglenn, Colorado