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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TuESDAY, FEbRuARY 5, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
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Systems Manager
GUEST COLUMN
Be careful which laws you pass
T
he hallways of the state Capitol are
buzzing with lobbyists, activists,
citizens and legislators all pursu-
ing good intentions for the 2019 legisla-
tive session.
Get ready to lower your expectations.
Or, in the words of that other Gov.
Brown (Jerry, not Kate): nemo dat non
habet.
My mother taught
Latin, so I can appreci-
ate the former Califor-
nia governor’s use of that
ancient language to com-
municate without politi-
cal spin. He was saying:
BETSY
No man gives what he
JOHNSON
does not have. In other
words, the state can-
not give what it does not
have.
Brown used that Latin phrase in 2011
after he entered office and faced a $27
billion deficit. He retired recently, and the
national media reviewed his career. In
particular they noted that while he inher-
ited a deficit, he left his state with a $14.5
billion “Rainy Day” reserve fund and a
$14.8 billion discretionary surplus.
“The first test of all of us, and gov-
ernment is no exception, is to live within
realistic limits,” Brown has said of his
budgeting philosophy.
A budget is an articulation of where
priorities rest. The centerpiece of Ore-
gon’s 2019 legislative session will be its
2019-2021 state budget.
Gov. Kate Brown submitted an aspi-
rational budget of $23.6 billion. The
co-chairs of the Joint Ways and Means
Committee — myself, state Sen. Eliza-
beth Steiner Hayward (D-Portland/Bea-
verton) and state Rep. Dan Rayfield
(D-Corvallis) — will submit ours.
In one day last month in Salem, state
Sen. Steiner Hayward and I sat in a con-
ference room and heard budget requests
from various groups. In total, on that one
day, those requests added up to about
$750,000,000. That’s three-quarters of a
billion dollars. In one day.
So many people want so much stuff,
and they want the government to pay for
it. To give you an example of how this
translates in the budget process, repre-
sentatives of a beloved Portland not-for-
profit came to us and asked for $500,000
to fix their boiler.
The organization educates deaf stu-
dents and does laudable work, but it was
fair to ask them: Why didn’t you save in
anticipation of fixing your boiler? Can
you raise funds for a matching grant?
What about your alumni and their fami-
lies — can they contribute?
This is not to single out one institu-
tion. It is representative of the kinds of
requests and expectations we receive.
Many times it’s as if those with the need
haven’t considered any other alternative
besides asking the state.
Looming over the 2019 legislative
session is the approximately $25 bil-
lion unfunded liability of the Public
Employee Retirement System (PERS).
And looming over that is the volatile
nature of the investment world, which is
linked to many retirement accounts. Yet
the requests for government funding keep
coming.
Shortly after Gov. Kate Brown was
re-elected in November, she announced
work would begin on developing tax and
fee increases to raise billions of dollars.
Unless there are accompanying restraints
in spending, there will be no change in
Oregon’s financial condition.
Aside from the budget, thousands of
bills will be introduced this session. Only
a fraction will pass, but proposed bills
consume much time. A few that stand
out:
GUNS: One bill would require Ore-
gon residents to have a permit before
obtaining a gun; another would require
gun owners to secure their firearms in a
locked container or with a gun lock; still
another would restrict ammunition pur-
chases to 20 rounds every 30 days. There
are many others, but expect the focus to
be on those bills pushed by a group of
urban high school students inspired by
the protests following a school shoot-
ing in Parkland, Fla. I hope these high
schoolers take time to talk to their rural
counterparts about the legitimate uses
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
California Gov. Jerry Brown Brown inherited
a $27 billion deficit and left office with a
$14.5 billion “Rainy Day” reserve fund and
a $14.8 billion discretionary surplus.
of firearms.
HOUSING: Because of the enormous
pressure to do something about hous-
ing, there is a proposal to institute rent
control across the state. Variations also
include restricting no-cause evictions.
Tenant groups and landlords are already
haggling over details. To increase vari-
ety and availability of rental units, there
is a proposal to end single-family zoning
and allow duplexes, triplexes and similar
multi-family units to be built in residen-
tial neighborhoods.
CAP AND TRADE: This issue has
been debated for several sessions, yet it is
unknown how it will impact Oregonians.
Cap and trade attempts to control carbon
emissions by setting a cap on the amount
of pollution a business or organization
may produce — but allows a trade by
which a business or organization can pur-
chase more capacity for carbon emissions
elsewhere. Ultimately, it increases the
cost of energy and presumably reduces
the demand. It sounds worthy but runs
counter to a concept currently popular —
equity. The poor and working class will
likely be hit harder with higher fuel and
energy costs.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM:
There will likely be an attempt to elim-
inate the death penalty by redefining
aggravated murder. At the same time,
there will likely be legislation to elevate
hate crimes to a higher level of offense
and increase punishment. Meanwhile,
there will be bills with the intent to keep
more convicted felons out of prison. A
big-picture look at these bills will reveal
disturbing contradictions. Many of these
proposed reforms sympathize with crim-
inals who steal, assault and kill and give
law-abiding residents more reason to arm
themselves.
It’s a reminder that all lawmakers
need to weigh the unintended conse-
quences of bills before we pass them.
The day the legislative session offi-
cially opened, the state of Oregon was
hit with a lawsuit alleging that students
with behavioral problems were being
excluded from class.
In 1975 Congress, acting with the
most compassionate of intentions, passed
a law called the Education for All Hand-
icapped Children Act. Who could be
opposed to helping the handicapped?
Later the law was renamed the Individu-
als with Disabilities Education Act with
the catchy acronym IDEA. All children
considered disabled would be guaranteed
a public education.
Over the years this law has been
manipulated and litigated to the point
where the definition of disabled has been
enlarged. A child deemed disabled who
hurts others or destroys property still has
a right to an education. The schools must
find a way. Some states are now spending
billions trying to meet the requirements
of a law that has mutated into something
unrealistic and harmful to all students.
There’s a lesson here for lawmakers.
Be careful which laws you pass. Your
constituents will be forced to live with —
and pay for — the consequences.
betsy Johnson represents District 16
— which includes Clatsop County — in
the Oregon Senate.
LETTERS
Welcome to Astoria
would like to welcome Mr. Mark Hol-
lander and his new hotel to Astoria.
Those 60 new rooms are something us
here in Astoria cannot live without. I am
glad that your building abides within the
codes the city laid out for new construc-
tion. I can hardly wait until it is built.
I imagine a Sunday morning in July,
after those 60 new room occupants take 60
showers and flush 60 times, they pile into
60 cars and plow onto Marine Drive, with
all the cars that leave all the parking lots
along scenic “hotel drive.” If you want to
get to the new co-op, you had better walk.
Codes could have been changed last
year to limit size and height of riverfront
construction, but empirical knowledge
dictated that the council should focus on
curbing homeowners from renting an extra
room in their home. Last count: approx-
imately 44 Airbnbs in Astoria (“Morato-
rium possible on homestay lodging,” The
Daily Astorian, May 11, 2017).
That amounts to 44 rooms that would
accommodate 44 tourists, and they don’t
block anyone’s view. These rooms have
zero new impact on our infrastructure.
We have been flushing these 44 toilets
for decades. Their 44 cars are dispersed
throughout the neighborhoods, not adding
to the gridlock on Marine Drive.
Last year’s council thought that anyone
who had an opinion also had a financial
interest in homestay lodging. Maybe, but
what’s so wrong with local homeowners
making a few tourist dollars to help pay
their taxes? Would you rather give all the
money to Mr. Hollander? Mr. Hollander
doesn’t even live here.
JOHN GINDER
Astoria
I
Truth suffers under Trump
D
oes saying that God wants the pres-
idency of the U.S. to be filled by
a chosen one really matter? The White
House press secretary, Sarah Sanders,
recently thought so when she said in a
Christian Broadcast News interview on
Jan. 30 that God “wanted Donald Trump
to become president. And that’s why he’s
there.”
It appears to be her opinion and not a
fact. In my opinion, no god of merit would
install such a liar in a position of such
power. The fact is that truth has suffered
under President Trump. It’s been crucified
and buried, but it is not dead. Truth has life
everlasting, and will come again.
America is not the kingdom of a god.
The president is not placed in position by
divine right. The presidency is a seat of
consent by the governed. The right to gov-
ern lies in the authority of the people; the
same people who must demand truth from
those it elects to serve the nation with
integrity.
The fact that Trump is in the White
House because he was elected by the gov-
erned means that the governed can return
the White House to one who would restore
truth in its hallowed halls. Now that really
matters.
DARRELL CLUKEY
Cannon Beach
Logging causing
low streamflows
he recent low streamflows during sum-
mer months that are hampering the
further development of properties at Fal-
con Cove are not just a function of climate
change shortage of rain during critical
months, or summertime overuse of exist-
ing supply.
The meticulously conducted 2016
Perry/Jones study (bit.ly/2BkcZWV) by
scientists from Oregon State University
demonstrates that low streamflows during
T
summer months are directly related to past
and ongoing logging. A scan of the hills
east of Falcon Cove shows heavy logging
over many years.
The Perry/Jones study used paired
samples in experimental forests, pri-
marily in the western Cascades, to com-
pare mature and old growth parcels with
replanted plantation sites. The study found
that stream flows from the plantations par-
cels during summer months were 50 per-
cent lower than those coming from mature
stands. What was most shocking was that
the same 50 percent water loss persisted,
even when replanting had taken place 50
years earlier.
The Perry/Jones study was corroborated
in 2017 by Christopher Frissell, lead sci-
entist for Frissell and Raven, a highly rep-
utable hydrobiological and landscape firm
(bit.ly/2HPGXYA). He concluded, “The
great majority of forested watersheds in
the Pacific Northwest are likely experienc-
ing severe, but previously unrecognized
streamflow deficits caused by past and
ongoing logging.”
In light of these findings, residents of
Falcon Cove who have to truck in some of
their water during the summers might con-
sider getting the timber companies to foot
some of the bill.
ROGER DORBAND
Astoria
Look on the bright side
T
here’s a whole lot of whining going on
as we Americans undergo a whole lot
of political/social/economic angst.
But must that be so? Can’t we tone down
our misery and look on the bright side a bit
more? We’ve recently enjoyed a few days of
sunshine, less rain, and occasional good news,
reported in The Daily Astorian and elsewhere.
I say: Try some random acts of kind-
ness, seek out the positive, and try to smile
more. Who knows? You might be able
to persuade your spouse, partner, boss,
coworker, neighbor, doctor or dentist to
treat you with slightly less contempt.
ROBERT BRAKE
Ocean Park, Washington
Video told part of the story
fter looking at the news lately, I hope
the high school children in Clatsop
and Tillamook counties do as well as the
Covington High School children. People
only get one quarter of the video to make
them look smirky. If their hats would have
been “Hope and Change,” they would
have been the heroes, not the Native
American who got in their faces.
DALE E. ANDERSON
Nehalem
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