Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 2018)
4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 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 GUEST COLUMN Photos courtesy NWSDS LEFT: Republican House District 32 candidate Vineeta Lower, right, meets with advisory council members. RIGHT: Steven Manesis, right, prepares to interview Patrick Starnes, Independent candidate for governor. LEFT: Democratic House District 32 candidate Tiffiny Mitchell, left, is interviewed by advisory council volunteer Linda Crandell of Astoria. RIGHT: Advisory council members discuss issues with Gov. Brown. Candidates discuss senior, disability issues Do you know where candidates stand on issues that affect seniors and people with disabilities? By ZAIRA FLORES MARIN T he Advisory Councils of NorthWest Senior and Disability Services (NWSDS) hosted their biennial candi- date interviews forum in August, providing an opportunity for candidates running for Oregon government positions to express their views about the state’s services for seniors and people with disabilities. The taped interviews are available to view on YouTube prior to the Nov. 6 general election. The interviews included Gov. Kate Brown, Independent gubernatorial candidate Patrick Starnes, Republican congressional candidate John Verbeek, and state House District 32 can- didates Tiffiny Mitchell (D) and Vineeta Lower (R), among many others. All participating candidates were asked questions regarding budget cuts, senior nutrition programs, and support of crucial senior and disability programs such as Oregon Project Independence, as well as other topics. The interviews were taped, and the candidates’ comments and responses were not edited. The interviews of opposing candidates seeking the same office were grouped together for the broadcasts. The project was coordinated by volunteers to offer community members an opportunity to learn the differences among candidates and the views and ideas each of them had to offer. Advisory council member Steven Manesis, a Clatsop County resident and advocate in Salem for those with disabilities, interviewed Starnes. “The event gives NWSDS and members of the community the opportunity to discover what prospective lawmakers at the state and federal level will do for seniors and people with disabilities,” Manesis said. “Advisory council volunteers also had the opportunity to share with candidates the needs of seniors and people with disabilities, before and after the interviews. It was a joyous occasion and a very well-organized event.” NWSDS and its councils take a nonpar- tisan approach to ensure that the public can receive information necessary to make their own, best-informed decisions. The goal is to empower and educate older adults and people with disabilities, so they can get involved in the election process and have additional tools to aid them in electing the candidate of their choice. To view the candidate interviews, go to bit. ly/NWSDS-interviews. Zaira Flores Marin is bilingual council and volunteer coordinator for NorthWest Senior and Disability Services, an intergovernmen- tal agency that contracts with the state to serve seniors and people with disabilities. She can be reached at 503-304-3451 or zaira.flores@ nwsds.org. Council. Looking at the big responsibilities of the city council, having someone who is able to balance the needs and desires of Astoria seems a cardinal requirement. I have trust in Roger’s real ability to meet those responsibilities, and to be thoughtful, open and fair when taking on the challenges and demands that the city of Astoria will pres- ent. Astoria is loved for so many reasons, and all of them need to be included in the city planning; Roger Rocka is up to the challenge. LOREN CROSS Astoria clearcut — including the Clatsop and Tilla- mook state forests — not at all like the 50-70 acre harvest areas of today. I’m not sure many people, especially folks relatively new to the area, realize this. Still, the bees and butterflies survived. Almost all timber in these counties is second or third growth. Hampton is currently selec- tively harvesting hundreds of acres of these previously clearcut stands. This is another example of Hampton’s commitment to sound ecologic and forestry principles. The writer states that the stream restoration and road improvements are “putting Band- Aids on the … wound they helped create.” In reality, most of these so-called “wounds” were created by previous landowners, most that were a result of practices prevalent in the 1920s and 1930s. Monoculture? I don’t know what the writ- er’s definition is, but Hampton plants a mix of native tree species after harvest; the forest consists of ages from zero to 80-plus, not my idea of monoculture. I hope this will clear up some common misconceptions regarding this issue. BUD HENDERSON Knappa LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Vote ‘no’ on Measure 106 T o educate myself to be better informed for the upcoming election in Oregon, I have been researching Measure 106.Proponents of Measure 106, including the statewide Cath- olic Conference, the Right to Life Political Action Committee (PAC), something called the Precious Children of Portland … even former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee have weighed in on the horrors of abortion and its being funded by the “taxpayer.” What a bunch of hogwash. The Facebook page of Measure 106 states that this bill will prevent “taxpayers from pay- ing” for abortions. Right. So only the folks who can afford it will be eligible. That’s fair, right? Wrong. The Oregon Right to Life group claims that late-term abortions “have been proven to cause the child pain as he/she is slowly removed from the mother limb by limb.” Well, no, it hasn’t been proven, and of course the Right to Life group can’t provide any attribution other than the latest pro-Christian, anti-abortion, Come to Jesus web page. And I, for one, am not inclined to accept anything the Catholic Church has to say about sex, marriage, pregnancy or abortion, given its outstanding history and current problems on those subjects. Oregonians are too smart to be pulled into this continuing type of political double-speak. Measure 106 is not a problem solver, because there is no problem. Vote “no” on Measure 106. THOMAS RYAN Seaside We don’t accept what Trump is doing L ast week, a gentleman wrote that Demo- crats refuse to accept that the current man in office is the president (“Democrats still refuse to accept the impossible,” The Daily Astorian, Sept. 20). He is president. That is fact. Democrats don’t accept what he’s doing in office, and won’t. That is fact. We aren’t looking backwards to what-ifs. We’re focused on what’s going on now. Recently this president was caught try- ing to take money from the Federal Emer- gency Management Agency (FEMA) and put it into Immigration and Customs Enforce- ment (ICE). He is using our tax dollars to rip families apart and put children with strang- ers (recently “losing” where almost 1,500 of those children were placed). Now he’s trying to hurt us even more by taking money that helps us recover from disasters. How will we ever recover from the disaster that is his presidency? It will start when we get him out of office. ROBIN RODGERS Astoria Vote Herman for Astoria City Council R on Zilli, candidate for Astoria City Coun- cil, owes a big debt to whoever took part of his statement to The Daily Astorian reporter, “development is inevitable” (Sept. 19), and turned it into a headline. It will be interesting to see the amount of campaign contributions this quote will generate for the candidate, from local and long-distance developers. It’s the good people of Astoria who look unfavorably at more condominiums like that monstrosity at the foot of Third Street, giant hotels or any other kind of building along the waterfront. They want to just sit and watch the river flow. (Apologies to Bob Dylan.) The good people of Astoria have no inter- est in building any kind of accommodations to serve the second-home needs of people from Portland, or wherever. On the contrary, the good people of Astoria wish to provide afford- able rental housing to the multitude of poorly paid service workers Ward 3 candidate Joan Herman fully understands the development and housing sit- uation in the city she selflessly served for many years in various capacities and posi- tions. She is committed to listening to all of the people, making a decision and coura- geously going forward to accomplish “what we feel is best for the community.” When they receive their ballots people of Ward 3 would be wise to put an X in the box next to the name Joan Herman. GEORGE McCARTIN Astoria Vote Rocka for Astoria City Council I am writing in support of Roger Rocka, who is running for election to the Astoria City Clearcuts not as extensive as they used to be I n regard to the recent anti-clearcut letter “Clearcuts and wildflowers” (The Daily Astorian, Sept. 17), I would like to make the following comments: Once again, the points raised by the writer ignore history and are based on conjecture. Yes, recent clearcuts are unsightly to some, but to observe a truly massive clearcut, look at most of the West Coast in the 1920s and 1930s, when virtually all forest land was
