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OPINION
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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
Picture yourself at
Eastern Oregon U.
As a northeast Oregon mother or
student who wants to be a forester
father, you may dream of watching
or a farmer, doesn’t four years in La
your son or daughter — decked out
Grande make sense? If you’re from
in Duck green or Beaver orange
this neck of the woods and want a
— walk across a stage to collect a
bachelor’s degree, to stay in-state
college degree. You might wake up
and stay close to home, doesn’t EOU
from that dream,
make all the sense in
however, when you
the world?
A focus on
realize that means
This is no
your little baby
advertisement
the
online degrees university. All for
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those
and distance
hours away from
uses of the word
you for four years or
“imagine” above
learning has
more, soaking up all
mean right now
that valley culture
left the campus EOU isn’t operating
and reducing the
at its full potential.
experience
chances they will
The last decade,
come back home to
has burned
feeling hollow. EOU
drop their roots in
through multiple
the same place you
administrations, all
did.
of whom left before their visions
It’s possible that more moms and
came to fruition. The university
dads should picture their children
does a poor job of marketing itself
collecting a degree from Eastern
— both with top-of-mind visibility
Oregon University. But so far, the
and deeper, more substantive
school has been unable to penetrate
positioning on what sets it apart from
many Eastern Oregon minds outside its competitors. A focus on online
Union County.
degrees and distance learning has
If the university is going to
left the campus experience feeling
survive and thrive, that needs to
hollow.
change. And Tom Insko, Eastern
Eastern Oregon is currently
Oregon University’s new president,
ground zero for some important
knows it. He visited this newspaper’s issues. Take wolves, for instance.
editorial board this week to listen as
It’s disappointing that the school has
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can become a more integral part of
voice for a Western problem that is
Eastern Oregon. Insko is an EOU
loping through their campus grounds.
graduate and most recently in upper
Why isn’t EOU part of the discussion
management at Boise Cascade. This
when we are debating the forest plan,
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or drones, or growing canola, or the
It’s hard to overstate what the
minimum wage?
university could mean to our region.
From those of us in Umatilla
Imagine a booming natural resources County, the school is just one hill
VFKRRO¿QGLQJQLFKHVEHWZHHQ%OXH away. But something over there
Mountain Community College and
has to call us. The school needs to
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improve the campus experience,
professors and programs that
create an interesting, diverse,
compete with those in the valley, and challenging and comforting place
those in Boise or Pullman, and attract where young people can see
students from across the region.
themselves living for a few years, or
Imagine that stopping the brain
maybe longer. It needs to improve
drain of our best and brightest to
and expand its relationship with
nearby urban areas. Imagine a nearby the city of La Grande. We’re never
university that offers a comparable
going to hear the roar from Autzen
but cheaper, closer opportunity for
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a degree. Imagine La Grande as a
smaller athletic programs can’t
storybook college town, booming
thrive. It doesn’t mean arts and
with culture and ideas and energy
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and giving Eastern Oregon a shot
to campus life, with lectures and
of regional pride. Imagine a place
musicians and comedians bringing
mid-career Eastern Oregonians could the world to Eastern Oregon. And
go on nights and weekends to meet
it doesn’t mean that EOU has to
like-minded go-getters and further
be “Plan B” for Oregon students
their careers.
looking for a degree. It needs
The university has a lot going for
improvement, and we need to give it
it. If you’re a Portland high school
a chance.
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.
Pendleton road woes
dLre not Xn¿[aEle
The “Pendleton City Council
owes us honesty” editorial of
August 6, 2015, throughly covered
the issue regarding Pendleton
city streets. It is also time for
honesty from Jerry Cronin and
Rex Morehouse and other city
naysayers, the should-haves,
would-haves, could-haves in
our city to come forward with
a reasonable, feasible course of
action.
With this issue the naysayers
have a big opportunity to be
SURDFWLYHLQVWHDGRI¿QGLQJWKHLU
apparently perverse pleasure in
other’s misery.
Unlike naysayers, the city
council must deal with reality.
Unfortunately, they have tried
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themselves having pleased no one.
They themselves, busy competent
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Mayor Phillip Houk shares
OTHER VIEWS
ArgXPents to tr\ for Iran deal
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t would be a catastrophe for
to cheat, but it’s easier to catch and stop
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the cheating with the deal than without.
Congress killed the Iranian nuclear
Critics sometimes note that
deal.
President Bill Clinton reached an
Perhaps because the stakes are
agreement on nuclear weapons with
so high, the debate has become
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poisonous. Critics are (ludicrously)
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accusing President Barack Obama
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Nicholas is that it’s pointless to negotiate with
And Obama (petulantly) suggested
Kristof untrustworthy rogue regimes.
,¶YHFRYHUHG1RUWK.RUHDVLQFH,
that some opponents were “alarmist,”
Comment
was a young reporter in Asia in the
“ignorant,” “not being straight”
1980s, and the lesson is actually more
and “making common cause” with
like the opposite.
Iranians who chant “Death to America.”
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Obama’s rhetoric was counterproductive.
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so, in the eight years the agreement was
Texas Republican, told me, “At this point,
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the president has made it impossible for a
weapons, according to American intelligence
Republican to vote for it.” Constituent calls
estimates. After the deal collapsed in 2002,
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DJDLQVWWKHGHDODQGZLWK6HQ&KXFN6FKXPHU the Bush administration turned to a policy of
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defying the White House by opposing it, the
perhaps nine nuclear weapons.
opposition is more bipartisan than the support
— Third, if all goes south, or if Iran
is. That’s tragic, for killing the deal would
is stalling us and after 15 years races to a
infuriate many allies, isolate America rather
weapon, we retain the option of a military
than Iran and ultimately increase the risk of
strike.
ayatollahs with nuclear weapons.
I asked David Petraeus, retired four-star
I’ve already explained why I’m strongly in
favor of the deal, and I urge Obama to start over general and former head of the CIA, about
that. “I strongly believe,” he told me, “that
with his sales job and focus on three points.
there will continue to be a viable military
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option should Iran seek to break out and
it’s the best way to achieve a goal we all
construct a nuclear device after the expiration
share passionately — preventing Iran from
of many of the elements of the inspections
developing nuclear weapons.
regime at the 15-year mark of the agreement.”
The great majority of arms experts
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support the deal, some enthusiastically, some
grudgingly. They recognize shortcomings, but, LQ¿QLWHO\EHWWHUWKDQWKHDOWHUQDWLYHV7KH
on balance, as 29 of America’s leading nuclear criticisms of the deal strike me as reasonable,
but the alternatives that the critics propose
scientists and arms experts wrote in an open
seem unreasonable and incoherent.
letter last week, it has “much more stringent
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constraints than any previously negotiated
He should acknowledge that the deal has
nonproliferation framework.”
shortcomings but also emphasize that it must
Likewise, three dozen retired American
be judged not by a referendum on its terms but
generals and admirals released a joint letter
rather as a choice: deal or no deal.
declaring the deal “the most effective means
He can also take steps to reassure doubters.
currently available to prevent Iran from
We could boost funding for the International
obtaining nuclear weapons.”
Atomic Energy Agency to make oversight
Iran would go from maybe a few months
more effective. We could do more to speak up
from a bomb to a year away. The agreement
for human rights in Iran and to counter Iranian
doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but it
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may buy us 15 years.
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Yes, it would be nice if Iran gave up all
Republican security experts, tells me that
its enriched uranium. But isn’t it better that it
he supports the Iran deal in part because it
give up 98 percent of its stockpile than that it
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give up none?
Everyone knows Prime Minister Benjamin global issue. I agree, and for Congress to kill
it will not just set back American leadership,
Netanyahu of Israel opposes the deal, but not
it will also increase the odds that Iran gets the
everyone realizes other Israelis with far more
bomb.
security expertise support it. Ami Ayalon,
Ŷ
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Nicholas Kristof has been a columnist for
service, describes it as “the best possible
alternative.” And Efraim Halevy, former head
The New York Times since 2001. He grew up
of the Mossad, says, “What is the point of
on a farm in Oregon, graduated from Harvard,
canceling an agreement that distances Iran
studied law at Oxford University as a Rhodes
from the bomb?”
Scholar, and then studied Arabic in Cairo.
LETTERS POLICY
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.
YOUR VIEWS
some responsibility in this and
has some responsibility in the
resolution.
There is enough blame to go
around. By no means does the
Pendleton voter have a clean
slate in all this. The voter too
often has remained uninformed
and equivocal, characterized by a
mixture of opposing feelings and
open to misconception. Because of
this the city voter must share in the
responsibility for any conceived
mistakes or mismanagement over
the years.
What now is to be done?
The EO editorial stated the
reality of this dire situation, and
the fact that not everyone can be
served at once.
Are we to withhold our help
to our long-suffering neighbor in
need while believing that we will
not be helped also, and then in
our denial continue to go deeper
in debt as cost of street repair and
replacement mounts, or are we
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follow the best course of feasible
action?
Councilman Neil Brown has
appealed to the public at a recent
city council meeting to stay patient
during the process of creating new
charges and raising existing ones.
‘’Nobody wants to be scaring
people to death,” he said. “We’re
talking gas taxes. We’re talking
about system development charges,
water rates going up, sewer rates
going up. There’s a lot to absorb.”
Brown could also have said there
is likely a $5 million bond issue
request in the not too distant future
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much to be considered and reality
must play a critical part.
Everyone uses the city streets
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per gallon fuel tax paid by the
out of state visitor, the out of city
resident, the city resident, is the
fairest way and the least egregious
way to the city resident to take care
of the city streets.
Pendleton is a hidden jewel.
Tourism is underdeveloped here
and could bring in much-needed
gas tax dollars. Other cities (you
can bring to mind your own
favorite), to their advantage, have
successfully engaged in this.
Ron Gavette
Pendleton
Pendleton Downtown
Association asking for
feedEack
In March of this year the
Pendleton Downtown Association
was reorganized and expanded
to serve the downtown area. The
Pendleton downtown area is
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the railroad tracks on the south and
the Umatilla River on the north.
On July 31 the PDA mailed out
a survey to the downtown area.
The purpose of the survey is to
give those in the downtown area an
opportunity to share information on
issues that are important to them.
The results of survey will form
the basis of future PDA planning
sessions designed with the goal
of serving the best interest of
businesses in the downtown core.
The names of those responding to
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the survey tally is performed by
an out-of-town entity. If you have
not already returned your survey
please do so; if you need a survey
please contact us.
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Thursday of the month from
7-8 a.m. at the city of Pendleton
FRPPXQLW\URRP6:
Emigrant Ave. All are welcome to
attend and we encourage you to do
so. This organization is dedicated
to serving the interests of the
downtown business community. If
you would like to join the PDA or
volunteer to serve on a committee
please contact us.
The PDA mailing address is:
3'$60DLQ6W3HQGOHWRQ
OR 97801. You are also welcome
to contact us by email at
fbradbury@vahoo.com.
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Angela 7KoPSson secretar\