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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JULY 23, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Public pay measure could cut both ways
A
proposed ballot measure for
2020 would force Oregonians to
have a serious discussion about
the role of public employees.
A self-described government watch-
dog group called Priority Oregon wants
public employees throughout the state
to have similar pay and benefits to what
private employees receive. Last week,
the business-oriented group filed the ini-
tial paperwork for its proposed constitu-
tional amendment that would mandate
“Equal Pay for Equal Work.”
Priority Oregon, which does not dis-
close its funders, has been a sharp critic
of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and
Democratic legislative proposals.
The assumption is that public-em-
ployee compensation would decrease,
freeing tax dollars for other uses. But
the ballot measure could cut both ways.
The proposal raises a fundamen-
tal question: Should public and private
employees be equally compensated?
If so, the governor, city managers and
school superintendents — even leg-
islators — could argue for hefty pay
raises when compared with private-sec-
tor equivalents. CEOs and boards of
directors make far more in the corpo-
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
Unionized state workers rally outside the state Capitol in Salem in 2011.
rate world. Government information
technology professionals, and certainly
many lawyers and doctors, could make
more.
The larger issue is that an unwrit-
ten social contract has governed pub-
lic compensation for generations. The
private sector involves greater risk of
success or failure, and thus the poten-
tial financial rewards are greater. In
contrast, public employees generally
have experienced greater job security,
although that is lessening. In exchange
for that security, they have received
lower salaries but good benefits. If that
social contract is to be changed, soci-
ety’s expectations must change as well.
Priority Oregon contends that
Oregon public employees generally
have much better pensions, more paid
time off and lower healthcare premiums
than most private-sector employees.
That is accurate.
Salary is a different matter. Scads
of statistical studies have been con-
ducted, but all they have proved is the
difficulty of comparing public and pri-
vate pay for “similar” jobs. In conduct-
ing those analyses, numerous assump-
tions are made about what constitutes a
comparable job as far as duties, work-
ing conditions and qualifications. That
explains why practically any group can
find a salary study to support its particu-
lar viewpoint.
For decades, Oregon has struggled,
and failed, to find definitive answers. It
would be expecting a lot of future leg-
islatures to “establish criteria to guide
public employers’ determinations of
when an employee’s job is like or com-
parable to the job of an individual in
Oregon who is not employed by a pub-
lic employer,” as required by the pro-
posed ballot measure.
The proposal is a long way from
reaching the 2020 ballot, if it does. But
it raises intriguing questions.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Night driver chronicles Seaside
I
’ve never worked as a taxi driver, but
I’ve taken plenty of taxis. It’s sort
of like a blind date every time. You
don’t know who’s in the front seat at the
wheel. But before you panic, remember
the guy in front doesn’t know who you
are either.
Lou Solitske understands this
dynamic. The former taxi driver in
Sacramento, California, took the art of
taxi driving to a new high: transforming
it into a masterful collection of personal
essays that present the world of taxi
driving as not only
one of getting from
here to there, but of
making momentary
but meaningful human
connections.
It doesn’t hurt that
he has a heart of gold.
R.J. MARX “One of the things I do
is get stranded people
home, regardless of their ability to pay,”
he writes in his memoir “Taxi Tales.”
“All they have to do is let me know
what’s going on from the very begin-
ning of the ride and not treat me like a
chump.”
Don’t worry — not too many people
took Solitske as a chump.
“I have been a night driver for
Sacramento Yellow Cab since 1987,” he
writes. “Right off the bat I found myself
in bizarre, humorous, sad, thought-pro-
voking and scary situations.”
Solitske describes himself as standing
6feet, 2inches tall and weighing 275
pounds. “I wear black boots, black pants,
a black shirt, a black leather vest, black
fingerless gloves and a black fedora. All
in all, not a pretty sight. My attire and
demeanor are designed to project the
image that I would be more trouble than
I’m worth.”
Frequenters of the Seaside Coffee
shop know him. He’s been spotted walk-
ing along Broadway and U.S. Highway
101 with a camera and long lens. And the
signature black outfit.
Taxi driver
Originally from Chicago, Solitske’s
family moved to the San Fernando Valley
in 1950.
He considers himself lucky in life
“from the get-go.”
“When I was born they told my par-
ents not to get attached to me because I
wasn’t going to last too long,” he said.
Solitske was born with six holes in his
ventricular septum, the wall separating
the lower chamber of the heart.
“I had open-heart surgery in 1963,
when 1 was 15, with a 75 percent mortal-
ity rate,” he said. “I knew what the odds
were, but I made it. Ever since then I’ve
felt compelled to give back.
He “escaped” in 1965 and never came
back.
ues to sell.
Solitske’s memoirs are a little bit
Robert De Niro, a little bit Judd Hirsch,
with a lot of heart thrown in.
How many other taxi drivers would
carry a wounded owl to a veterinary
hospital? Kick bigots out of the back
seat? Offer a free ride on Christmas? And
recite poetry, too?
On to Seaside
After his memoir was published,
Solitske continued driving, selling copies
of “Taxi Tales” to his customers.
“I had a captive audience,” he smiled.
But his taxi driving days were coming
to an end as he and Jackie moved to Half
Moon Bay, California, on the coast.
“We loved Half Moon Bay, but she
hated our home,” he said.
She also hated the heat.
They considered Portland and Astoria
before a Realtor sent them a listing from
Seaside.
“We bought it sight unseen. The
Realtor was a nervous wreck — but it
was perfect.”
They relocated in May 2015.
Tragically, Jackie died of amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis, or ALS, shortly after
their move.
“I took care of her,” he said. “To
watch this capable, confident woman
melt away was probably the hardest thing
I’d ever done.”
Lens on life
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Lou Solitske in front of Seaside Coffee House.
With a degree in economics from
San Jose State, he went from economics
to selling pharmaceuticals and later as
a manager’s representative at the San
Francisco Merchandise Mart selling
computers to doctors.
He hated it — despite being the com-
pany’s No. 1 salesman.
“They had me training new people,”
Solitske recalled. “This one trainee said
‘I oozed sincerity and dripped credibil-
ity.’ I was selling my soul.”
He transitioned from sales, driving
cabs at night on a part-time basis. During
those rides, he regaled passengers with
words of wisdom, arias from famous
operas and recitations of the works
of Longfellow, Yeats and Poe — and
Solitske.
Despite his affinity for arts and letters,
Solitske stepped into the good-guys-
wear-black wardrobe as a precaution in
dicey neighborhoods where customers
were as likely to pull a knife as they were
a $5 bill.
“Looking like Guido the Hit Man
helped me keep alive a little bit,” he
recalled. “It was, ‘Hey, man, don’t tread
on me.’ I had six robbery attempts. I was
stabbed seven times.”
Driving a taxi was an opportunity for
Solitske to make money, have fun and
help people, he said.
At the instigation of friends and pas-
sengers, he started writing his memories
down — soon finding enough material
to fill a book. The project took 15 years,
with the book’s release in 2001. It contin-
Today he can be seen walking the
streets of Seaside with a long lens. “I’m
an omnivore, I’ll gobble up anything
that gets in front of my camera,” he said.
Solitske describes Seaside as “a
varied and target-rich environment for a
photographer.”
Plus each camera weighs about 22
pounds. “I hump between 6 and 8 miles
on a typical day — my lazy day I do 10
to 15 miles. If I don’t get my shots. I
still get my exercise.”
At 71, Solitske said, “If I don’t use it,
I’ll lose it and go right downhill.”
But nothing he has ever done to
allow him to help more people in des-
perate situations than driving his cab.
“It’s in the middle of the night, I’ll
have a parent call with a sick child, or
a woman is battered and I’ve got to get
her out of the situation before he kills
her or she kills him,” Solitske said.
“In situations like that money is not
important.”
Solitske said he considered himself
the luckiest driver in Sacramento. “I just
got these trips out of nowhere — and I
do believe it was a result of my deposits
in the karma bank.”
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astorian’s
South County reporter and the editor of
the Seaside Signal and Cannon Beach
Gazette.