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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 13, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, June 13, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com MIKE FORRESTER Pendleton Chairman of the Board STEVE FORRESTER Astoria President TOM BROWN Bigfork, Mont. Director KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer JEFF ROGERS Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW In rural Oregon, historic preservation is about survival How adulthood happens OTHER VIEWS In the last few days, on these anywhere in Eastern Oregon. very pages, we have published two 2YHUKHUHZH¶UH¿JKWLQJWRRWK opposing opinions about the Main and nail to hold onto our young Street Revitalization Act. That’s of people, our jobs and our buildings. value to the reader — to have the Some money from the state could argument from both sides right there help, and some brick-and-mortar in front of you and allow yourself to investment can save crumbling arrive at a conclusion. bricks and mortar on our main On Wednesday, we published streets and highways. Why won’t a piece titled the taxpayer-funded “Renovation tax state get involved credit would rob and preserve our Some brick- public schools,” KLVWRU\" and-mortar penned by The At least that’s Oregonian how Restore Oregon investment can sees it. newspaper in Portland. On In the grand save crumbling Thursday, Restore scheme of the bricks and Oregon responded gargantuan state by submitting their budget, we’re mortar on our op-ed: “Revitalize arguing over a few main streets Main Street Act pennies. While would support true that every and highways. it’s local economies, penny counts, $12 schools.” million per year into Both made sense, from where a Historic Rehabilitation Fund is they were coming from. small enough to worry that it’s not The Oregonian view is easy to enough dollars to make a dent in the see, if you are writing from a desk backlog of infrastructure demand in Portland. The city has developers that is closing in on collapse. outbidding each other to spend The proposal — in our view money on land and facilities in Rose — is a relatively modest one that City. Long-neglected neighborhoods ZRXOGEHQH¿WKLVWRULFWRZQVOLNH are being spruced up — to the Pendleton, Echo and Baker City, detriment of some — with each new and at a negligible cost to taxpayers Trader Joe’s and the coattail-riding statewide. coffee shops that follow. Housing In rural Oregon, our historic prices continue their steady climb cities have not been built around and from affordable to Seattle. And of overshadowed by expansion that course that Portland sensibility for scrapes the sky and pushes against real things (or really ironic things) city limits. Our old, economic makes historical preservation pay off districts are modest — just a in the long run. Why do we need the building or two in many places. And LQHI¿FLHQWVWDWHWRJHWLQYROYHG" by giving them access to state funds That’s not the case outside of the for a fresh coat of paint, a whole metropolitan area, and not the case town could become brighter. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS Legislature has gone to the cats and dogs The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times I n the early days of a legislative session, you might hear legislators talk about “cats and dogs,” and it’s not a reference to animals. Rather, the phrase refers to a certain W\SHRIELOOWKDWÀRXULVKHVLQWKH¿UVWKDOI of a session. A “cat and dog” bill tends WREHRQDVSHFL¿FDQGQDUURZWRSLFWKDW often is close to the heart of a particular legislator. Each session tends to generate a lot of these bills — hence the phrase “cats and dogs.” Many of them are silly. Some of them generate some press coverage because they often tend to cover unusual topics. $QGPRVWRIWKHPGLHLQWKH¿UVWIHZ weeks of a session — a useful reminder that one of the important functions of a Legislature is to kill bills. So it was surprising to learn this week that a “cat and dog” bill still is very much alive in this session - and that the bill deals with actual cats and dogs. House Bill 3494, which passed the House of Representatives last month, would ban the declawing of cats. The bill also would ban devocalizing both cats and dogs. (A Senate panel is scheduled to consider the bill on Thursday.) If the bill passes, Oregon would EHFRPHWKH¿UVWVWDWHWREDQGHFODZLQJ of cats, although a bill that would make declawing a crime is pending in the New York Legislature, according to a story in The Oregonian newspaper. Let us get right to the point, so to speak: We generally do not believe cats should be declawed, except under very rare circumstances. (The bill allows three exceptions: if the cat’s life is at risk, if the cat’s clawing poses a risk to the cat or its owner and if other efforts to curb a cat’s destructiveness have failed.) We have similar reservations about devocalizing animals, both cats and dogs. But we also don’t think the Legislature should be in the business of mandating this issue on behalf of pet owners. Although House Bill 3494 has attracted support from organizations such as the Oregon Humane Society, not all like-minded organizations think the bill is a good idea. In fact, The Oregonian noted that a group called The Paw Project worries that the bill as currently written offers too many exceptions. It’s also possible that one unintended result of the bill might be an increase in the number of cats relinquished to shelters because of destructive clawing; it would be ironic if a bill designed to protect feline welfare ended up generating a spike in the number of cats put to death. Finally, though, we don’t see the compelling reason why legislators should get involved in the issue. At this point in the session, these “cat and dog” bills can serve as a real distraction from bigger issues. That’s why these bills, as cute as they may be, are best settled in the early days of the session, not when the clock is ticking toward adjournment. E very society has its rites of home. A third of the graduates in the passage, marking the transition Arum and Roksa sample were living at from youth to adulthood. Most home, levels roughly double the share of these rites of passage are ritualized of grads living at home in the 1960s. and structured, with adult supervision Three-quarters of 18- to 25-year-olds and celebration. But the major rite of who were not living at home received passage in our society is unritualized, ¿QDQFLDODVVLVWDQFHIURPWKHLUSDUHQWV unstructured and unnamed. Most of American parents provide an average the people in the middle of it don’t of $38,000 in assistance to their young David even know it is going on. It happens Brooks adult children. between ages 22 and 30. 7KH¿UVWELJRUGHDOLV¿QGLQJDMRE Comment The people who endure this rite of Many young adults have not been passage have often attended colleges given basic information about how to where they were not taught how to work go about this. As my Times colleague April hard. As Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa Lawson, 28, notes, they are often given the write in their book “Aspiring Adults Adrift,” advice, “Follow your dream! The possibilities the average student at a four-year college are limitless!” which is completely discordant studies alone just over one hour per day. That with the grubby realities they face. is roughly half of how much They want meaningful students were compelled to work with social impact. study just a generation ago. They want to bring their Meanwhile, colleges have whole selves to work and become socially rich, stocked ignore the distinctions with student centers, student between professional and organizations, expensive intimate life that were in the gyms, concerts and activities. heads of earlier generations. As Arum’s and Roksa’s But meaningful work is research demonstrates, scarce. Fifty-three percent academic life is of secondary of college graduates in the or tertiary importance to most Arum and Roksa sample who students. Social life comes were in the labor force were ¿UVW6WXGHQWVH[SHULHQFH unemployed, underemployed college as a place to meet or making less that $30,000 other people and learn to a year. build relationships. As emerging adults move When they leave campus, from job to job, relationship though, most of those social to relationship and city to connections and structures FLW\WKH\KDYHWR¿JXUHRXW are ripped away. Suddenly which of their meanderings fresh alumni are cast out into a world almost are productive exploration and which parts without support organizations and compelled are just wastes of time. This question is very to hustle for themselves. confusing from the inside, and it is certainly These twenty-somethings live in a world of confusing for their parents. UDGLFDOIUHHGRPÀX[DQGLQVHFXULW\6XUYH\V Yet here is the good news. By age 30, show they are very pessimistic about the state the vast majority are through it. The sheer of the country but amazingly optimistic about hardness of the “Odyssey Years” teaches their own eventual destiny. According to the people to hustle. The trials and errors of the Clark University Poll of Emerging Adults, decade carve contours onto their hearts, so 86 percent agree with the statement, “I am they learn what they love and what they don’t. FRQ¿GHQWWKDWHYHQWXDOO\,ZLOOJHWZKDW,ZDQW They develop their own internal criteria to out of life.” make their own decisions. They fear what ,QWKHPHDQWLPHPDQ\VSHQGWKH¿UVWIHZ other people think less because they learn that years out of college aspiring but adrift. They other people are not thinking about them; they are largely unattached to religious institutions. are busy thinking about themselves. Two-thirds report that they are not politically Finally, they learn to say no. After a youth engaged. Half the students in Arum’s and dazzled by possibilities and the fear of missing Roksa’s recent study reported that they lacked out, they discover that committing to the few clear goals or a sense of direction two years things you love is a sort of liberation. They after graduation. piece together their mosaic. Yet they are not sure they want to rush One thing we can tell young grads and their into adulthood. As Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and parents is that this is normal. This phase is a Elizabeth Fishel write in “Getting to 30,” “The thing. value of youth has risen, and the desirability It’s a not a sentence to a life of video of adulthood has dropped accordingly. Today’s games, loneliness and hangovers. It’s a rite of young people expect to reach adulthood passage that makes people strong. eventually, and they expect to enjoy their adult Ŷ lives, but most are in no hurry to get there.” David Brooks became a New York Times One way they cope is by moving back Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. Fresh college alumni are cast out into a world almost without support organizations and are compelled to hustle for themselves. YOUR VIEWS Building renovation supports schools, doesn’t rob them I feel it’s important to point out some of the facts that were left out of the recent Other Views column titled “Renovation tax credit would rob public schools.” I think I’ll just lead with the point that property taxes support local schools, and that renovations of historic buildings increase the tax base, meaning more property tax generated for education (among other things). I don’t WKLQNWKDWTXDOL¿HVDVUREELQJSXEOLFVFKRROV — in fact, it should decrease schools’ reliance on state coffers. A stronger property tax base in Oregon would actually decrease the strain on the state’s education funding. My experience with commercial real estate WD[DVVHVVPHQWVKRZVWKHSULPDU\LQÀXHQFH on property taxes is how much income the property produces. I will guarantee you every appraiser you meet can attest that unoccupied second story residential that hasn’t been renovated in 30-plus years drags down the value of a property. Pendleton’s downtown historic buildings are riddled with unoccupied and underutilized second story residential. Also, if it doesn’t meet current code for the type of occupancy, LETTERS POLICY good luck getting the building inspector to sign off on turning it back into something other than an empty room after so many years of sitting idle. Tax credits and grants for restoring historic properties can make those unusable spaces pull their weight again. Oregon Senate Bill 565 and other federal tax incentives for the renovation of historic buildings will not hurt funding for education and will improve funding of other local public services. Pendleton needs every hand RQGHFNWRWXUQ¿QDQFLDOO\XQGHUSHUIRUPLQJ historic buildings back into income-producing properties for their owners, which will in turn produce higher assessed values and provide more local tax revenue. This is also the goal of Urban Renewal programs, to spur private investment, grow the tax base and reduce blight. This connection between renovating or building real property and funding our schools, city, county and public safety is often overlooked. I want everyone to know that when they see contractors working a major renovation or erecting a new building, that new tax revenue is funding our schools, infrastructure, and making sure the ambulance shows up when you need it. Jordan McDonald Pendleton The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
