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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, FEbRuARy 20, 2021
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
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Production Manager
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Systems Manager
GUEST COLUMN
An unprecedented opportunity
C
latsop County’s elected leaders
have an unprecedented opportunity
to model responsibility and civic
sacrifice with the vaccine rollout.
In January, The Astorian noted a county
spokesperson as saying that some county
commissioners were vaccinated because
they make up the county’s governing body
— an integral part of keeping the county
functioning and directing
services and programs.
By contrast, state Sen.
Betsy Johnson, D-Scap-
poose, quipped in a Jan-
uary piece, “I can sure
as hell tell you I’m not
going to get a vaccination
JEN
before every person in an
MUNSON
assisted living facility gets
one.”
Sen. Johnson is on the right track.
Those of us in positions of privilege
and influence may assess our relative util-
ity to the community while at the same
time working to ensure the most marginal-
ized individuals receive vaccinations first.
Inexplicably, the federal government
does not mandate vaccines be distrib-
uted or administered equitably. Local enti-
ties are therefore left to their own devices,
which naturally tend toward upholding
systems of inequity — and even racial
injustice.
Indeed, a February piece from National
Public Radio stated a fact most of us are
now well aware of: Even though commu-
nities of color are far more likely to face
higher rates of mortality due to COVID,
they continue to receive less access to the
vaccines.
Following the seafood processing plant
outbreaks last spring, Michael McNickle,
Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian
Optics can be important during the coronavirus vaccine rollout.
THOSE OF uS IN POSITIONS OF PRIVILEGE ANd
INFLuENCE MAy ASSESS OuR RELATIVE uTILITy
TO THE COMMuNITy WHILE AT THE SAME TIME
WORKING TO ENSuRE THE MOST MARGINALIZEd
INdIVIduALS RECEIVE VACCINATIONS FIRST.
the county’s public health director, wrote
to the Oregon Health Authority, “Unfortu-
nately, COVID-19 has disproportionately
affected our Latinx community; especially
those working in jobs labeled ‘essential
worker’ ... Clatsop County desires bal-
anced protections for the most vulnerable
while supporting the operational needs of
essential businesses.”
McNickle emphasizes county gov-
ernment’s commitment to serve the pub-
lic first. Nowhere is that commitment
more imperative than in addressing racial
disparities.
Those of us holding white privilege, as
most of our local elected officials do, have
an opportunity to both step aside from our
place in line for the vaccine as well as to
call attention to the issue of racial inequity
in vaccine distribution.
Unlike front-line essential workers,
who, according to NPR, disproportionately
represent people of color, county com-
missioners need not work directly with
the public. Meetings are now conducted
online, communiques can be exchanged
by phone, email or otherwise.
What exactly was the necessity for
some commissioners to receive the vac-
cine before more vulnerable members
of our community? With one exception,
these are not front-line health staff, teach-
ers, bus drivers nor essential food produc-
tion workers. The county spokesperson
notes the move to vaccinate county com-
missioners was a way to reassure the pub-
lic that the vaccine is safe. But if this was
the intention, why did we not hear com-
missioners shout this messaging from the
rooftops? Where is the coordinated cam-
paign to use their privilege as early vac-
cine recipients — and their pulpit as
elected officials — to tout vaccine safety?
Finally, on a very basic note of human
curiosity, was no one evaluating the optics
of such a move?
Still, the year is yet young. We have
plenty of time to look for our local elected
representatives to address racial inequity in
purposeful ways. The revelation that some
elected officials saw fit to vaccinate them-
selves before their most vulnerable constit-
uents also serves as a reminder that we, the
electorate, have an opportunity to consider
our own complicity in upholding inequal-
ity in our everyday lives.
Our silence on these matters amounts to
complicity. On the contrary, let’s get loud.
Jen Munson is a disability rights advo-
cate and social worker.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Reinstate
M
any of Oregon’s small towns are
cash-strapped and struggling. Some
blame this on a decline in revenue from
logging, due to environmental protec-
tions. But despite conservation efforts,
t imber harvests on state and federal land
have remained about the same for the
past 25 years. So why aren’t communities
benefiting?
The answer is that timber companies
have finagled outrageously preferential tax
treatment for themselves, allowing them
to wring money from our forests without
putting much back into the communities
where they operate.
In the 1990s, logging industry represen-
tatives successfully lobbied Oregon politi-
cians to eliminate the severance tax. This
tax was a major funding source for schools
and local governments.
Washington state, California and Idaho
still have this tax, and the money it gen-
erates helps fund schools, sheriff’s offices
and public libraries. The tax breaks we’ve
doled out to timber companies have cost
counties approximately $3 billion over the
past 30 years.
Communities are suffering another
blow, as logging practices contami-
nate their drinking water, damage their
water systems and threaten their water
sources altogether, leading to tax and
w
ater rate increases for residents and small
businesses.
Some claim that bringing back the sev-
erance tax would lead to job losses. But
the timber industry has been slashing
jobs for decades, replacing workers with
machines and closing mills to export logs
overseas.
Why should Oregonians subsidize an
industry that exploits our land and cripples
our communities? It’s time for lawmak-
ers to put small towns ahead of corporate
interests and reinstate the severance tax.
REGAN FISHER
Portland
Comparisons
E
arly in his presidency, some peo-
ple foresaw that Donald Trump was
gradually turning into a dictator like
Adolf Hitler. Such a comparison was then
premature.
When Hitler wanted to get rid of his
critics, he had them beaten, interned or
murdered. The victims ranged from his
early supporters (Röehm Putsch, 1934),
to leading generals such as Field Marshal
Johannes Erwin Rommel, to whom he sent
cyanide pills in 1944 to force suicide.
Trump merely disparaged allies, the
FBI, Russia probe’s Robert Mueller and
select other “irritating” entities. He time
and again fired close associates. The press,
he declared, was the enemy of the people.
When Hitler found the established judi-
ciary not compliant enough, he established
the extra-legal Volksgerichtshof (Peo-
ple’s Court) in 1934 in order to expedite
the silencing of critics — nearly 90% of its
cases ended in death sentences.
Trump attempted to pack the federal
courts with people whom he expected to
uphold his designs. But Trump’s lawsuits
to nullify elections were rejected, even by
judges Trump himself had appointed.
With mesmerizing rhetorical skill, Hit-
ler led a dispirited German people toward
Nazism. Trump was a bumbling speaker,
who lost millions of voters during his term
in the White House.
Hitler was a megalomaniac who created
laws for his own purposes. Trump consid-
ered himself above the American Consti-
tution, and incited his goons to storm the
U.S. Capitol.
Trump was decidedly more repugnant,
and a bigger liar in public than Hitler, but a
strong democratic tradition kept him from
becoming as bad as Hitler.
ERHARD GROSS
Astoria
LETTERS WELCOME
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month. Letters written in response
Commend
A
s the school superintendents in Clatsop
County, who collectively serve approxi-
mately 5,000 students, we want to commend
the Clatsop County Public Health Depart-
ment for their partnership with us and the
community in these challenging times.
The health department team, since well
before school started, has been instrumen-
tal in helping us plan for a safe opening of
schools.
They consult with every district weekly
to discuss multiple health logistics related to
serving our communities’ students and staff.
They have assisted and advised on contact
tracing when we needed help. They also have
coordinated the vaccine process for school
employees so that 95% of school employ-
ees in our county have been offered their first
vaccination. The second doses are coming
soon.
They have been available by telephone
day and night to address questions and their
expertise has allowed for a safe and steady
reopening process for schools, which, to date,
has resulted in no case transmission between
people in any of our county’s schools.
We want to publicly express our appre-
ciation for the health department, and espe-
cially Vincent Aarts, for their support. We are
all fortunate to live in a community where
the health department is so dedicated to the
safety of our young people and our schools.
CRAIG HOPPES
Astoria School District
SUSAN PENROD
Seaside School District
BILL FRITZ
Knappa School District
STEPHEN W. PHILLIPS
Jewell School District
TOM ROGOZINSKI
Warrenton-Hammond School District
DAN GOLDMAN
Northwest Regional Educational
Service District
Sea change
almon and steelhead fishing within the
lower Columbia River and coastal riv-
ers is at risk.
Every year, fewer fish return, Buoy 10
quotas fill within days and the opportuni-
ties to catch salmon and steelhead farther
inland get smaller.
There is a stark contrast between the
abundance we once had before the lower
Snake River dams were built on the
Columbia’s largest tributary, and the scar-
city we now experience. The recreational
angling community, and the vast economy
fishing supports, is at risk unless we take
bold action now. Our salmon do not have
any more time to wait.
U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson’s recent
announcement for comprehensive basin-
wide recovery is the innovative, collabo-
rative problem-solving approach we have
been calling for. His expansive $33.5
billion Columbia Basin Fund will sup-
port restoring a free-flowing lower Snake
River, improving wild salmon returns to
the Columbia River each year.
In addition to providing security, stabil-
ity and certainty to the angling community
and fishing industry, it invests in a clean
energy future and modernizes our trans-
portation and irrigation infrastructure. This
is the moment we’ve been fighting for 48
years for: A chance for a sea change and a
lasting solution to the salmon wars.
However, the details of Simpson’s pro-
S
to other letter writers should address
the issue at hand and should refer to
the headline and date the letter was
published. Discourse should be civil.
Send via email to editor@dailyasto-
rian.com, online at bit.ly/astorianlet-
ters, in person at 949 Exchange St.
in Astoria or mail to Letters to the
Editor, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR.,
97103.
posal need to be fleshed out. We hope the
Northwest congressional delegation gets
involved to shape Simpson’s concept into
a legislative package that the entire region
can support.
CHRIS HAGER
Portland
Better sense
I
am very grateful to have received my
first vaccination shot today, being a
health care practitioner. However, the vac-
cination site could very well have been a
superspreader event.
In the line outside the building no social
distancing was being observed, and once
we entered the building, it got even worse.
The coordinator agreed with me that the
setting did not feel safe.
Way too many people were crammed
together in a small space, and she said that
had been the case previously, also, when
it was blowing and raining outside. I hav-
en’t been in as crowded a setting since the
beginning of the pandemic.
Once we got further inside, the social
distancing got better, but really was not
great in a small hallway. And to my dis-
may, one of the screeners had her mask
down below her nose. This is simply not
acceptable. I would hope that in future
events, there is better sense exhibited.
DEBORAH ALBRECHT
Gearhart