A4
V IEWPOINT
Hood River News,
Saturday, February 21, 2015
O ur readers write
JOE PETSHOW
Publisher/President,
Eagle Newspapers, Inc.
TOM LANCTOT
Past President,
Eagle Newspapers, Inc.
CHELSEA MARR
General Manager
Obamacare
reality
KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
Editor
JODY THOMPSON
Advertising Manager
TONY METHVIN
Columbia Gorge Press Manager
DICK NAFSINGER
Publisher, Emeritus (1933-2011)
DAVID MARVIN
Production Manager
Subscription $42 per year in Hood River trade area. $68 outside trade area.
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
ASSOCIATION
OREGON NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Printed on
recycled paper.
Official Newspaper, City of Hood River and Hood River County
Published Every Wednesday & Saturday by Hood River News,
P.O. Box 390, Hood River, Oregon 97031 • (541) 386-1234 • FAX 386-6796
Member of the Associated Press
Spring Election
Ballot filing deadline approaches
J
ohn Kitzhaber has cleared out his desk and Gov.
Kate Brown faces the tough challenge of picking
up the pieces, rebuilding faith and fostering legis-
lation. She’s as able as any public servant in the
state and all Oregonians should wish her the best
in a time when the state needs steady leadership.
It’s a good time, also, to ask the question: with Gov. Brown
in Salem and Jerry Brown in Sacramento, has there ever
been another case of two chief executives of neighboring
states sharing the same last name?
While the state’s highest-profile elected office gets the bulk
of the attention recently, the focus in Hood River should turn
to local offices that are also important. Numerous positions
will be on the May 19 Special District ballot, and the deadline
to file is less than a month away, on March 19.
Potential candidates can find the filing form on the Hood
River County Elections website, hoodriver.co.us/elections.
All applications must be in the Elections office no later
than 5 p.m. on March 19. For details contact the Hood River
County Elections office at 541-386-1442.
Here is the complete list of open positions scheduled to be
on the May 19 ballot:
■
HRC Transportation District
Director 1 — unexpired 2- year term
Directors — three 4-year terms
HRC School District
Position 1 — 4 year term
Position 3 — 4 year term
Position 5 — 4 year term
Parkdale RFD
Directors — three 4 year terms
Westside RFD
Directors — three 4 year terms
Wy’East RFD
Directors — two 4 year terms
Crystal Springs Water District
Commissioners — three 4 year terms
Ice Fountain Water District
Commissioners — two 4 year terms
HRC Library District
Board Members — two 4 year terms
HRV Parks and Recreation
Board Members — three 4 year terms
Port of Cascade Locks
Commissioners — three 4 year terms
Port of Hood River
Commissioners — two 4 year terms
Odell Sanitary District
Director — one 4 year term
Parkdale Sanitary District
Director — one 4 year term
Directors — two 2 year unexpired terms
Reality (for me and others — how
do I know others? — two weeks of
busy lines and no replies!) versus
the rose-colored glasses.
Pre-Obamacare: Family was cov-
ered by health insurance, affordable
and if I had a question, I could actu-
ally talk to someone when I called.
Obamacare year 1: Your insur-
ance is canceled Dec. 31. Your col-
lege age daughter cannot be on your
policy, she has to get her own. There
is a problem with your application
— “please call back.” Need to fax
this document. Faxed, no response,
calls no response. Frustrated, wrote
letter to our Senator, about 10 days
later got a call and got coverage, will
never know if it was coincidental or
not. However, did not have coverage
for two months — glad we stayed
healthy! Coverage was still afford-
able with the tax credits (who pays
for those?).
Obamacare year 2: Mid to end of
November, got a letter stating cover-
age was continuing for 2015, but my
wife’s was changing. Good so far!
College age daughter did not get re-
newal or notice. Refilling a prescrip-
tion in January — “Your coverage
was terminated Dec. 31.” My wife
somehow retained her coverage, but
mine and my daughter’s were out.
Online website — “There is a prob-
lem …” After numerous attempts, I
actually talked to someone but, “I
cannot fix this error code, please call
this 800 number.” Well, this number
is so busy that you cannot even wait
on hold! Experiencing high call vol-
ume, please call back. Glad I didn’t
have a heart attack because I don’t
have health insurance! Two weeks
later, on a random attempt I got
through. They fixed the error code. I
can pick coverage, but effective
March 1. Again, two months without
coverage. Guess that’s the affordable
part — 12 month plan with coverage
for 10 months.
What a piece of junk! It should be
like home/auto. I can accept man-
dating coverage, but evaluate your
Founded in 1905
419 State Street
Hood River, OR 97031
P.O. Box 390
Phone: (541) 386-1234
Fax: (541) 386-6796
Operations:
Joe Petshow
Publisher
President, Eagle Newspapers
(541) 386-1234
JPetshow@hoodrivernews.com
Front Office/
Classified Advertising:
Stacey Methvin
Classifieds/Receptionist
HRNClass@hoodrivernews.com
SMethvin@hoodrivernews.com
Circulation:
Esther K. Smith
Circulation Manager
(541) 386-1234 Ext. 205
ESmith@hoodrivernews.com
The Warm Springs Library is a
nice little place that serves a lot of
people with a $0 budget for buying
books. If it is time to clean out your
old books, especially kids’ books, I
will be glad to pick them up and de-
liver them to the library. Just send
me an email at ronghr@aol.com.
You’ll make a lot of people very
happy!
Marg Guth
Hood River
Profits rule
I don’t trust corporations. Espe-
cially international “Big Food” cor-
porations like Nestle which is one of
the largest. Whatever corporations
say and do, whatever bones they
may throw to local governments,
whatever they promise in the way of
jobs and tax revenues are for the sole
purpose of gaining local and inter-
national control of the food and
water supply and maximizing corpo-
rate profits.
It’s not for the public good. Do the
research.
Jerry Giarraputo
Hood River
‘Our song’?
Hood River Valley is so extraordi-
nary. Who else has two snowcapped
mountains to see every day? We have
two rivers, Hood and Columbia. An-
nually covered in bloom in the
spring.
This valley needs its own song.
Someone in this valley is talented
enough to compose a song telling
folks of our wonderful valley. Maybe
the radio station could play a few
lines of the tune prior to a commer-
cial every day to familiarize folks of
our song.
Don’t privatize
water
The letter submitted by Mr. Dave
Palais (Feb. 18), while eloquent, is
simply untrue.
Make no mistake, Nestle is taking
a public resource and will profit
handsomely to our detriment. He
claims no rights transfer to Nestle
but imagine how the language the
Nestle lawyers wrote reads. Do you
really think Nestle will walk away
from its investment before three
generations of time passes?
The current attempt to use their
megacorporation influence and by-
pass the existing laws is not what
one would expect from a good corpo-
rate citizen. Google “Nestle law-
suit” if you want to see the “strong
positive track record” of the compa-
ny. Lists of lawsuits for deceptive,
fraudulent and predatory behavior,
unfair competition, antitrust, exces-
sive withdrawals causing damage to
the aquifer, etc. abound.
Nestle is extracting a public re-
source. In other extraction indus-
tries, such as oil, the public is paid a
significant percentage of the profits
as royalties (25 percent or more).
Have you seen what Nestle has nego-
tiated to pay verses their profit? Nes-
tle is not even a US company. This is
not about the money, it is about pri-
vatizing the public’s water.
And what do we get out of this
deal? More trucks on I-84 and mil-
lions more plastic bottles littering
our environment. Do not allow Nes-
tle to take our water.
David Michalek
Hood River
Parent and teacher despairs over
‘out of control’ standardized tests
President — Barack Obama, White House, 1600 Pennsylva-
nia Ave., Washington D.C., 20500
E-mail: president@whitehouse.gov
U.S. Senators — Jeff Merkley, SDB-40B, Dirksen Senate Office
Building, Washington D.C., 20510. Phone: 202-224-3753; E-mail:
oregon@merkley.senate.gov; Ron Wyden, 717 Hart Office Build-
ing, Washington D.C., 20510. Phone: 202-224-5244.
Web address: www.senate.gov/member/or/wyden/general/
2nd Congressional District Representative — Greg
Walden, 14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112, Medford, OR 97504.
Phone: 541-776-4646;
E-mail: www.walden.house.gov/contactgreg
Governor — John Kitzhaber, 254 State Capitol, Salem, OR
97310. Phone: 503-378-3111;
E-mail: www.governor.state.or.us/email.htm
District 26 State Senator — Chuck Thomsen, 900 Court St.
N.E., S-307, State Capitol, Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-
1726; E-mail sen.chuckthomsen@state.or.us
District 52 State Representative — Mark Johnson, 900
Court St. N.E., Bldg. H-385, State Capitol, Salem, OR 97301.
Phone: 503-986-1452; E-mail: rep.markjohnson@state.or.us
Hood River County Board of Commissioners — Chair
Ron Rivers, Vice Chair Maui Meyer, members Les Perkins, Bob Ben-
ton and Karen Joplin, Hood River County Courthouse, Hood River,
OR, 97031. Phone: 541-386-3970.
Chris Stenberg
Bookkeeper
CStenberg@hoodrivernews.com
Got books?
Put your thinking caps on friends
and neighbors. I’m sure a couple of
you could come up with a song to go
along with our pears, apples and
wineries, and after the public was fa-
miliar with “our” song, they could
whistle a tune as they walk along
our streets.
Get busy folks. We have all the
rest, let’s have a song too.
Peggy Swyers
Hood River
ANOTHER VOICE
W HERE TO WRITE
Chelsea Marr
General Manager
CMarr@hoodrivernews.com
own risk, pick the coverage you
need/want. It stays in continuous
coverage, can buy it anywhere and is
portable. Is that too much to ask?
Steve Nybroten
Hood River
By ERIC COHN
M
andated standardized
state testing is now offi-
cially out of control.
It will take seven in-
structional days to run
each grade level through the battery
of computerized tests that we must
now administer at our local Middle
School. To what end? What is the pur-
pose?
The most important test most kids
will take prior to graduation is the
SAT. That test is a total of 3.75 hours.
That’s less than one half of one in-
structional day. That test has real life
implications for each student who
takes it. What are the benefits to each
student that outweigh the seven in-
structional days it will take my
eighth graders to take their battery of
tests? What will they gain? More im-
portant, what will they lose?
As an illustration, I have recorded
the primary topics taught in my vari-
News:
Kirby Neumann-Rea
Editor
HRNews@hoodrivernews.com
ous math classrooms over the last
seven instructional days. They in-
clude: transformations of quadratic,
exponential, radical and absolute
value functions, the quotient and
power rules of differentiation, the
importance of trigonometric identi-
ties sin^2(x) + cos^2(x) =1, tan(x)
=sin(x)/cos(x), translation of sine, co-
sine and tangent waves along with
their amplitudes and periods, the
unit circle in radian measure, do-
main and range of functions along
with asymptotes thereof, exponent
operations with fractional exponents,
simplification of complex rational
expressions, 5 point data summaries,
Q-point regression lines, positive and
negative correlation of data, writing
the equation of a line of best fit
using the appropriate Q-points, func-
tion notation and operations.
It sickens me to think of the empty
list of instructional topics I will have
over this 7 day testing period. I have
Trisha Walker
News/Features
TWalker@hoodrivernews.com
an undergraduate degree from U.C.
Berkeley, a Master’s degree from the
University of Portland, and yet I will
spend 7 days basically watching kids
take test, after test, after test. School
administrators must spend countless
ours trying to figure out how to get
450 plus kids to take all of these
exams on a very limited number of
computers. What a waste. What an
inexcusable, colossal waste of time,
money and educational opportunities
for our students. I’ve been teaching
for 26 years and I’m profoundly upset
as a teacher, and very, very puzzled as
a parent.
It’s not testing that hurts kids. It’s
what they don’t get while they are
testing that does the real damage.
Who started this? What was their
intent?
More important, who will stop it?
■
Eric Cohn of Hood River is a math
teacher at Hood River Middle School.
Production:
David Marvin
Production Manager
Adam Lapierre
Ailene Hibbard
Archivist
DMarvin@hoodrivernews.com
News/Features
Advertising:
Jim Drake
ALapierre@hoodrivernews.com
Jody Thompson
Advertising Manager
JThompson@hoodrivernews.com
Production/Commercial Printing
Liana Stegall
Advertising Sales
LStegall@hoodrivernews.com
Production/Commercial Printing
Ben Mitchell
News/Features
BenMitchell@hoodrivernews.com
Jim Drake
Entertainment
JDrake@hoodrivernews.com
Kirsten Lane
Advertising Sales
KLane@hoodrivernews.com
JDrake@hoodrivernews.com
Andy Taylor
ATaylor@columbiagorgepress.com
Allen Diers
Commercial Printing
ADiers@hoodrivernews.com
419 State Street
Hood River, OR 97031
P.O. Box 390
Phone: (541) 386-1234
Fax: (541) 386-6796
Tony Methvin
Plant Manager
(541) 386-1234
TMethvin@columbiagorgepress.com
Andy Taylor
Commercial Printing/Production
ATaylor@columbiagorgepress.com
David Marvin
Commercial Printing/Production
DMarvin@hoodrivernews.com