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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, January 30, 2016 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 STEVE FORRESTER KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Chairman of the Board Astoria President Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer CORY BOLLINGER JEFF ROGERS Aberdeen, S.D. Director Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW Big issues in short session Oregon getting a fair shake will be Oregon’s third short session through the legislature. kicks off Monday, and it will be an <HWLIWKDW¶VQRWHQRXJKELOOVZLOO important one for the state. be pushed forward to restrict gun It will also be just 35 days long, sales, deal with the state’s housing by voter mandate, so the important crisis and — if there’s still time work that needs to get done will be — stop a little thing called global under the gun right from the start. So, too, will be the entire concept of warming. Good luck with that, Salem. the short session. Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena) has Oregon has only had these special a narrower focus on sessions biennially bills he hopes since 2010. That In only 35 days, two to get passed next was the year that Measure 71, a legislators have month. He told the legislatively referred a lot to discuss. editorial board constitutional before he ventured amendment, passed cross state that with 68 percent KHLQWHQGVWRXVHWKH¿UVWRIKLV of the popular vote. The measure WZRDOORWWHGELOOVWRUHDI¿UPWKH called for changing Oregon’s delisting of the wolf. He said if the every-other-year legislature into an legislature renews its support for the annual one, but with a short session Oregon Wolf Plan and the decision in even-numbered years. of the citizen board to delist, it may Proponents argued that the state give it more weight in the courts, was just too complex and too large where it is sure to head because an organization to leave unmoored of environmentalists. Rep. Greg for a full calendar year, and they Barreto (R-Cove) will likely be convinced the electorate on that working through the house on the issue. But they also promised that these same issue. Hansell’s other bill has to short sessions would be limited in GHDOZLWKZDWHUUHTXLUHPHQWVIRU scope. They would just be used just homeowner associations when to check in on the economy and a municipality is in a designated emergencies, and make changes to drought. When that’s the case, the state budget — even cut checks for residents in the case of a surplus. Hansell wants to allow state law to This special session will be much supersede homeowner association agreements, which could help reduce more than that. water usage during emergencies. Legislators have the intensely If issues big and small get dealt controversial, economically and with in a professional manner during socially impactful discussion of the this type of time crunch, maybe VLJQL¿FDQWKLNHWRPLQLPXPZDJH at the forefront. If nothing gets done the short session is working. If legislation is rushed, debate hurried this session, the blunt instrument of and there is little to show for it, then an initiative is sure to pass — long Oregon may have to rethink the term effects be damned. purpose and usefulness of the short Of course, that may happen anyway. But the best chance of rural session. 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. YOUR VIEWS Plute’s actions harm UHVLGHQWVRQ¿[HGLQFRPH Well, the petition has not even been approved yet, and already it is a “cheap shot” and backed by “cowards and bullies.” Al Plute claims in so many words I am a coward and a bully but doesn’t know me. I suppose with that train of thought anyone who signs the petition is a coward because they did not go to the city council meetings. A few years ago I did attend council meetings when there was the grand plan to beautify downtown Pendleton. I heard a lot of hindering of some real import, as in the sidewalks were ten feet wide when in reality they were 12 feet. Typical of most politicians to attack and marginalize because they believe they are more intelligent than you and they hold a position of power. That power came from me, Councilmen Plute. I helped vote \RXLQWRRI¿FH<RXKDYHEHHQDELJ disappointment because what I and others see is what you have done is to improve yourself and use the cliché of KHOSLQJ3HQGOHWRQDVSUR¿WIRU\RXUVHOI I did hear you say you wanted to turn Pendleton into a retirement community. Forty-nine percent of the people in Pendleton are on some kind of assistance that includes Social Security. So the water rate goes up an extra $5 dollars a month, for which no vote was needed by the people. I suspect the city council felt the gas tax would not pass and knew that they could approve the $5. Councilman Plute, if the petition is approved and the “cowards and bullies” sign it with enough signatures will we still be “cowards and bullies?” If there are not enough signatures then we lose nothing except time and energy and you can crow how shrewd and clever you are, that we are losers and your superiority trumped us. Roesch Kishpaugh Pendleton Ranchers deserve more respect and gratitude <RXUKHDUWIHOWHGLWRULDODERXWWKH Malheur Refuge standoff was excellent. I’m not sure I’d be as conciliatory on the subject of land management. On Jan. 5, just a few days after the occupation commenced, Rep. Greg Walden made utter mincemeat out of the BLM on the +RXVHÀRRU,WZDVDVDGHORTXHQWDQG WUXO\PDJQL¿FHQWVSHHFK\HW,KDYH seen no discussion in the wider media of anything he said. Anyone who hasn’t UHDGLWVKRXOG¿QGLWDQG\RX¶OOVHHZKDW I mean. There is a big problem: The people LQWKHVHVSDUVHO\SRSXODWHGIDUÀXQJ counties are resolutely ignored. And now that the “standoff” looks like it’s over, they’ll keep being ignored. That’s just wrong. Something needs to change. Something else: I might live in Seattle but I breathe in Eastern Oregon, which puts the beautiful in “America the Beautiful.” I like to tell friends that the high desert’s not for everyone, but if you like it you will more than like it. I love that land in ways that my words cannot capture. I also have a great affection and deep appreciation for the ranchers, a group of people who I think deserve a good deal more respect and gratitude than they get. As far as I’m concerned, we are all in this together. Damn close to the top my list are the hard-working cattlemen and their families. Someone ought to say it, so I will: Thank you for feeding us so well. Beef is what’s for dinner, and ranchers’ lives matter. Charles Pluckhahn Seattle OTHER VIEWS What Republicans should say F or a few decades, American and modules” for schools, so that there British conservatism marched are intentional programs that teach in tandem. Thatcher was resilience, curiosity, honesty and philosophically akin to Reagan. John service. He would expand the National Major was akin to George Bush. Citizen Service so that by 2021 60 But now the two conservatisms have percent of the nation’s 16-year-olds split. The key divide is over what to are performing national service, and do about the slow-motion devastation meeting others from across society. He being felt by the less educated, the wants to create a program to recruit David working class and the poor. Brooks 25,000 mentors to work with young Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have teenagers. Comment appealed to working-class voters To address concentrated poverty, he mostly by blaming outsiders. If would replace or revamp 100 public we could kick out all the immigrants there housing projects across the country. He would wouldn’t be lawbreakers driving down wages. invest big sums in mental health programs and If we could dismantle the create a social impact fund to Washington cartel the unlock millions for new drug economy would rise. and alcohol treatment. In Britain David Cameron It’s an agenda that covers is going down another path. the entire life cycle, aiming This month he gave a speech to give people the strength called “Life Chances.” Not and social resources to stand to give away the ending on their own. In the U.S. we or anything, but I’d give a could use exactly this sort of lung to have a Republican agenda. There is an epidemic politician give a speech like of isolation, addiction and that in this country. trauma. )LUVWKHGH¿QHGWKH According to an AARP role of government: basic survey, one-third of adults security. In a world full of over 45 report being risks, government can help chronically lonely. Drug furnish a secure base from which people can overdose deaths of people ages 45 to 64 work, dream and rise. increased elevenfold between 1990 and 2010. Cameron argued that both sides in the More than half the American births to women debate over poverty suffered real limitations under 30 are outside marriage. Poorer parents because they still used 20th-century thinking. are too strained and stressed to spend as much The left has traditionally wanted to use the state TXDOLW\WLPHUDLVLQJWKHLUNLGV$FFRUGLQJWRWKH to redistribute money downward. The right has sociologist Robert Putnam, college-educated traditionally relied on the market to generate parents spend 50 percent more “Goodnight the growth that lifts all boats. Moon” time with their kids than less-educated The welfare state and the market are parents. important, but, he argues, “talk to a single mum Meanwhile social support systems are on a poverty-stricken estate, someone who fraying, especially for those without a college suffers from chronic depression, someone who GHJUHH5HOLJLRXVDI¿OLDWLRQLVSOXPPHWLQJ perhaps drinks all day to numb the pain of the Since 1990 the number of people who declare sexual abuse she suffered as a child. Tell her no religious preference has tripled. Social trust WKDWEHFDXVHKHUEHQH¿WVKDYHULVHQE\DFRXSOH is declining. Only 18 percent of high school of pounds a week, she and her children have seniors say that most people can be trusted. been magically lifted out of poverty. Or on There are two natural approaches to help the other hand, if you told her about the great WKRVHZKRDUHIDOOLQJEHKLQG7KH¿UVWZH¶OO opportunities created by our market economy, call the Bernie Sanders approach. Focus on I expect she’ll ask you what planet you’re economics. Provide people with money and actually on.” jobs and their lifestyles will become more Cameron called for a more social approach. stable. Marriage rates will rise. Depression He believes government can play a role in rates will drop. rebuilding social capital and in healing some The second should be the conservative of the traumas fueled by scarcity and family approach. Focus on social norms, community breakdown. bonds and a nurturing civic fabric. People need He laid out a broad agenda: Strengthen relationships and basic security before they can family bonds with shared parental leave and respond to economic incentives. a tax code that rewards marriage. Widen But Republicans have walked away from opportunities for free marital counseling. Speed their traditional Burkean turf. The two leading up the adoption process. Create a voucher Republican presidential candidates offer little program for parenting classes. Expand the more than nativism and demagogy. Troubled Families program by 400,000 slots. Ŷ This program spends 4,000 pounds (about David Brooks became a New York Times $5,700) per family over three years and uses Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He has family coaches to help heal the most disrupted been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, households. and a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Cameron would also create “character Atlantic Monthly. Conservatism is split over what to do about the slow-motion devastation being felt by the working class. 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. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
