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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THuRSDAY, JANuARY 17, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
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Production Manager
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Systems Manager
GUEST COLUMN
Homeless have heartbeat, just like us
hen I finished reading the
Property Watch story last
week in The Daily Astorian
(“Business leaders say Property Watch
has worked well, but issues persist,”
Jan. 11), I thought that the concept is
180 degrees wrong.
But after further reflection, I think
it’s about 50 percent complete. Allow-
ing police to monitor business proper-
ties after hours is certainly a tool in the
community toolbox, but by no means
the exclusive fix.
To my assessment of what’s right
about Property Watch, there needs to
be some way for those in a commu-
nity who choose to play by the rules of
the game to intervene
when others who choose
to live there, and don’t
acknowledge the same
rules, create problems.
The rules to which I’m
referring most are not
the municipal rules and
JOHN
regulations, but rather
KOPP
the conventional social
expectations and agree-
ments like transacting with money, buy-
ing and renting property, and having
more traditional forms of occupation (of
course, the actual laws and rules mat-
ter too).
We make choices even in our non-
choices. Some who conduct their lives
outside the rules, yet live in the city,
choose to treat the community they
depend upon without integrity — it’s
not okay to sleep on the doorstep of a
business and leave waste there in the
morning, for example. Some author-
ity, some means, needs to be in place
to work with anyone who wants it
both ways. This already largely exists
through law enforcement. Typical
“crime” is another good example of
W
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Many businesses in downtown Astoria post signs asking people to avoid loitering and
other disruptive behavior.
the impacts of citizens, with or without
homes, who want it both ways. Examin-
ing behaviors alone, however, does not
address the underlying causes. In this
way, Property Watch is definitely one
form of what’s needed.
However, the program is incom-
plete because there are many people in
the world who cannot play by the rules
of the game, or who are hindered in the
process. These people might have the
best of intentions, solid dreams and par-
tial progress, but due to a litany of rea-
sons cannot play like everyone else.
Even those who choose not to play (but
still expect to be allowed “in”) often
have years of causes and conditions that
led to their present situation. Sociology
is ripe with studies of the homeless, the
addicted, and criminals in our country
(if we choose to narrowly identify peo-
ple based on these basic classifications
alone) which show that trauma, abuse,
neglect and difficult early life situations
exist almost universally among them.
When we take action to address
“non-players,” we have to remember
that they are humans first. How would
we want our own sons and daughters
treated in their cities? I’d ask how we
ourselves would want to be treated,
but it’s too easy to imagine that “I,” as
my present “me,” would never end up
homeless. The fact is, there are home-
less people. Whether we blame or bless
them, these people exist. By posturing
an entire community against this popu-
lation, we’re turning our backs on obvi-
ously suffering humans — humans with
206 bones and a heartbeat, just like us.
And this is where the Watch’s basis
strikes me as incomplete. So we don’t
want the homeless people here, I get it
(though our complaint is actually not
with the people, but rather the impacts
of some of their behavior). Where
should they go, then? Zoom out for a
moment and think about the next town
they might reach and how that commu-
nity will deal with them. Where is there
a Great Homeless City where they will
finally be allowed without complaint?
Will you face a homeless person and
tell them that the best option is for them
to disappear? It is absolutely this com-
munity’s responsibility to look after its
“playing” citizens, but looking away
from human beings without offering a
constructive alternative is not a solution.
And it needs stating — it is also abso-
lutely this community’s responsibility to
look after all of its citizens (because, it
turns out, that it’s in the “players’” best
interest to do so).
Lastly, though the Astoria Warming
Center is an excellent step in the right
direction, it is not the ultimate solution
either. The center is only open on select
nights, during a narrow window of the
year, in a residential neighborhood that
distrusts its presence. Through integra-
tive and honest-looking — truly seeing
all others — we can dissolve the appear-
ance of both sides and can most com-
passionately relate to all of the members
who live in this community.
An actionable solution: what kind of
place can we design in our community
where homeless people can go on any
night of the year? In the meantime, let’s
put our money where our mouth is. If
you’re concerned with any aspect of the
homelessness issue, start a conversation
about it with someone, volunteer for a
shift at the warming center, or go meet a
homeless person.
John Kopp is a government employee
and concerned citizen who has lived in
and around Astoria since 2015.
OTHER VIEWS
Selected editorials from
Oregon newspapers
Bend Bulletin, on improving
Oregon’s public records law
eople seeking public records in
Oregon get all kinds of abuse. Pub-
lic agencies ignore them. Agencies
overcharge them. Sometimes, agencies
even sue requesters to stop from having
to fulfill a request.
That’s not the way the state’s pub-
lic records law is supposed to work.
But that’s the way some public agencies
choose to implement the law — espe-
cially when a requester is seeking infor-
mation that could make the agency look
bad.
Several bills in the Legislature propose
changes in the law to improve it. Not all
of them will.
Two would make things worse. House
Bill 2345 would reduce the public record
fees charged by state agencies to mem-
bers of the news media by 50 percent. If
a request is narrowly tailored, the agency
would be required to waive any fees.
This would be great for members
of the news media. But it’s the public
records law, not the news media records
law. The law is for any member of the
public. The news media does not deserve
a special discounted rate. The news media
should pay or not pay the same amount as
any other member of the public.
Senate Bill 609 would require that a
requester tell a public agency how he or
she intends to use the requested records.
That’s no business of the government.
It’s a public record. That means it’s the
public’s information. Agencies could use
the information from a requester to deny
and delay requests. If a requester wants
to disclose the information, that’s one
thing. That may help in disputes over the
costs of records or in disputes over why
a record should be public. But the disclo-
sure should not be required.
There are also two proposed changes
in the law that could make things bet-
ter. House Bill 2353 adds some teeth. It
would allow the attorney general, dis-
trict attorney or a court to award a pen-
alty to a requester — and attorney fees
— if a public agency fails to respond to a
request or responds to undue delay. The
bill does not put a dollar figure on the
penalty.
For instance, last year the Oregon
Department of Human Services put
us through the public records ringer.
We asked for details about how it was
responding to a state audit that said the
agency was guilty of “chronic manage-
ment failures and high caseloads” that
“jeopardize the safety of some of the
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state’s most vulnerable children.” After
more than a month went by without
details, we asked for emails related to our
request for information. The agency had
15 business days under public records
law to tell us what was going on. It did
not. It did not face any penalty for fail-
ing to comply with the law. We did even-
tually get what we asked for. But should
public agencies be able to violate the law
without even a token penalty? We don’t
think so.
Ginger McCall, the state’s public
records advocate, has pushed for another
change in Oregon law that in a way has
taken shape in House Bill 2431. The bill
requires state agencies to make public the
number of requests it received, the num-
ber of requests unfulfilled and informa-
tion about how much was charged.
Passing the bill will enable Oregonians
to better understand how well the public
records law works — or often doesn’t.
Albany Democrat-Herald,
on sluggish recycling rates
recent report from the state
Department of Environmental
Quality about Oregon’s goals for
recycling included bad news: The state
is likely to fall short of its goals for recy-
cling more than half of the waste gener-
ated in the state.
A
For calendar year 2017, the state
found, Oregonians recovered or recy-
cled a little more than 2.3 million tons of
waste. That works out to be about 42.8
percent of the roughly 5.4 million tons of
waste generated in the state.
The problem is that the state’s Legis-
lature has set a goal of 52 percent recov-
ery by 2020. (The goal for 2025 is 55
percent.)
Officials told the Statesman-Journal
newspaper, which reported about the sur-
vey, that the 2020 goal now seems out of
reach.
Looking at the trends, it certainly
appears as if Oregon is moving in the
wrong direction: The recovery rate for the
state peaked at 49.7 percent in 2012 and
has been sliding since then.
To be fair, the 2017 rate of 42.8 per-
cent was a little better than the 2016 rate,
42.2 percent. And that 42.8 percent rate
for 2017 represents about 2.3 million tons
of recovered material. That’s all stuff that
doesn’t need to be dumped at a landfill.
And the state report noted some unex-
pected developments that depressed the
state rate. If you’ve been following devel-
opments in the world of recycling, you
know about one of them: China’s deci-
sion near the end of 2017 to ban imports
of unsorted paper and post-consumer
plastics.
But a bigger factor, the state said, was
the unexpected 2015 closure of a paper
mill in Newberg that was the state’s larg-
est user of post-consumer wood waste as
a fuel. Other mills stopped using wood
waste because of federal air-quality rules.
That suggests one important lesson
about recycling: Even the best intentions
don’t matter much unless there are mar-
kets for that recycled material.
If you need more evidence about the
connection between markets and recy-
cling, consider what happened with bot-
tles and cans in 2017: In April of that
year, the deposit for those containers dou-
bled, from 5 to 10 cents. Not unexpect-
edly, 2017 saw a substantial increase in
the recycling of those containers.
Here’s another example: Scrap metal
prices increased in 2017, and so did
the amount of metals recovered, which
jumped by some 14 percent.
Another hopeful trend involves man-
ufacturers using lightweight packaging
instead of heavier materials. The upside,
the state said, is that the lighter materials
tend to be easier on the environment. The
downside is that increasing use of these
materials could depress the state’s recov-
ery rate, which is based on weight.
Hitting the state’s ambitious goals
will require the development of robust
(and stable) markets for recycled mate-
rial. But here’s one more number to think
about: Maybe we all could do something
to reduce that 5 million tons of stuff we
throw away every year.