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
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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
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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
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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
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of a session. A “cat and dog” bill tends
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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.
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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
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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,
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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— 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
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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
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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.