Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Capitol
construction
The Oregon State Capitol is
getting a $50 million upgrade,
which will increase security at the
Depression-era building but not
protect it in the case of a severe
earthquake.
It’s a scaled-back version of a
$337 million overhaul of the building
that lawmakers
were unable to
push forward in the
last full legislative
session. That
version would
have included
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to ensure the
building would not
crumble in all but
the most powerful
earthquake.
As Hillary
Borrud reported
from our Capital
Bureau, Governor
Kate Brown signed legislation
Tuesday that will pay for $30 million
of the project by issuing bonds.
Where the other $20 million will
come from is not yet known.
Part of the upgrades are necessary
and overdue. The Oregon State Police
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basement — in case of emergency
that’s a bad place to have the good
guys. Moving them up to the ground
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legislators and the public, who are
often walking the halls of the capitol.
The rest of the $50 million will
be used to build two additional
wheelchair accessible entrances,
replace leaky skylights, remodel and
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vaults for electrical and mechanical
equipment.
Senate President Peter Courtney,
D-Salem, said the capitol was
a dangerous place for women,
especially after-hours, because it
allowed for easy access through
locked doors. He wouldn’t elaborate,
for security reasons.
But he did elaborate on why
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schoolchildren.
Courtney said he was concerned
about the safety of
young Oregonians,
especially the bus
loads of children
who visit the
capitol.
“This building
is in deplorable
conditions,” said
Courtney at a
March 3 press
conference. “It’s a
safety threat. It’s a
health threat. And
we’re not stepping
up.”
Yet since 2007,
after completing a seismic needs
assessment, the state has known there
are hundreds of Oregon schools —
mostly on the west side of the state
— that are in deplorable conditions
when it comes to their ability to
withstand a serious earthquake. These
are places where our students spend
many hours most days of the year, as
opposed to a place where most will
visit once or twice in their lives.
Clearly, upgrading hundreds of
schools is a more expensive and
more complex issue. The state has
estimated the cost at more than $500
million. But if Courtney believes it
really is a safety threat and a health
threat, legislators are not stepping up
to discuss and solve that issue.
Perhaps it is just human nature.
Schools are places legislators may
visit just once or twice in their lives,
instead of a place where they spend
many hours many days of the year.
Legislators will
fix the capitol
building for
$50 million, but
$500 million in
school upgrades
remain unfunded.
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
Finicum shooting deserves Milton-Freewater schools
thorough investigation
need local support
I had to stop taking my narcotic
drugs (they’re doctor prescribed
following hip replacement surgery on
March 14) to make sure I was reading
what I was reading when I was reading
Carlin Sacco’s letter to the editor
in the March 25 edition of the East
Oregonian.
Ms. Sacco and I have locked horns
on these pages before, but never to
this extent. The last time she and I
crossed swords I intimated that she was
speaking authentic frontier gibberish.
This time I’m not sure her letter rises to
that level of comprehension.
It’s too bad. If Ms. Sacco would take
the aluminum foil off her head long
enough so that it’s no longer blocking
her ears, she would become aware that
there is really something troubling in
the death of LaVoy Finicum. While far
from the peaceful protester painted by
Ms. Sacco, Fincicum did not deserve to
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Oregon State Police.
I don’t know whether the shooting
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thorough, objective investigation.
Finicum was shot in the back. That
raises a strong presumption in my mind
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shot did so improperly. What the right
has been ignoring for a long time is that
even “thugs” like Finicum deserve the
protection of the police. Bad behavior
does not justify the police resorting to
deadly physical force.
Too often in the past months and
years, that is exactly what has happened
in case after case.
Last fall we were visiting our kids in
Washington, D.C. They took us to a little
restaurant that specialized in Middle
Eastern food. We were surprised to see
signs on the wall that this restaurant
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building schools in the Middle East.
We asked the waiter some questions
about this and soon the owner was at
our table. He told us how he went about
helping people build schools.
“First an advocate of the community,
usually in this country, contacts me,”
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get commitments to fund one third
of the cost. If they return with the
commitments then I board a plane and
travel to that community. I gather the
leaders that want the school and tell
them they must commit to one third of
the cost. Then I leave for six months
and when I return if they have the
commitments then I commit the fund for
the remainder and we start planning a
school.”
Here in Milton-Freewater the poverty
rate, in the 2010 census was one of
the highest in Oregon for city’s with
more than 5,000 residents. There are
good reasons not to pass a bond; people
struggle to make ends meet. Yet even
people in an impoverished village in
a third world country are expected to
“have skin in the game” up to one third
the cost. This is the way things are done
now; there is no better deal down the
road.
If people in a third world village can
make a new school and a new hope, so
can we. Vote yes on the school bond.
Patrick J. Delaney
Hermiston
John D. Mitchell
Milton-Freewater
OTHER VIEWS
College admissions shocker!
PALO ALTO, California —
several essays, one haiku and one
Cementing its standing as the
original recipe using organic kale.
most selective institution of higher
“Compositions of 750 or even 500
education in the country, Stanford
words give some students syllable
University announced this week that
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it had once again received a record-
others exhibit their greatest creativity
setting number of applications and
around roughage. We want to meet
that its acceptance rate — which had
them on their turf, especially if it’s
dropped to a previously uncharted low
leafy and a rich source of vitamin B6.”
Frank
of 5 percent last year — plummeted all
Current high school seniors who
Bruni
the way to its inevitable conclusion of
had set their sights on Stanford
Comment
0 percent.
responded to its announcement with
With no one admitted to the class of
astonishment and fury.
2020, Stanford is assured that no other school
“This is the worst thing that has happened
can match its desirability in the near future.
to anyone, ever,” said Alissa Parker, 18, a
“We had exceptional
senior at Sidwell Friends
applicants, yes, but
in Washington, D.C.
not a single student
She added that whether
we couldn’t live
she accepts an offer of
without,” said a Stanford
admission from MIT or
administrator who
one from Duke, she’ll
requested anonymity. “In
defer enrollment and
the stack of applications
take a gap year to regain
that I reviewed, I didn’t
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see any gold medalists
Taylor Abramovich,
from the last Olympics
a 15-year-old senior
— Summer or Winter
at the Horace Mann
Games — and while
School in New York
there was a 17-year-old
City, blamed his parents
who’d performed
for his dashed Stanford
surgery, it wasn’t open-
dream. When he was a
heart or a transplant or
toddler, they hired the
anything like that. She’ll thrive at Yale.”
lawyer David Boies and successfully sued
News of Stanford’s unprecedented
Horace Mann to let Taylor begin kindergarten
selectiveness sent shock waves through
far ahead of schedule.
the Ivy League, along with Amherst,
“If I’d been held back a year, I would have
Northwestern and at least a dozen other
been applying to the Stanford class of 2021,
elite schools where, as a consequence,
when the school might start accepting students
there could be substantial turnover among
again,” Taylor fumed. He said that his one
underperforming deans of admission.
consolation for not getting in was knowing
Administrators at several of these
that none of his peers did, either.
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still north of 6 percent, chided themselves for
seem to jeopardize its fundraising. The
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thousands of rejected applicants included
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hundreds of children of alumni who’d donated
it would quadruple the number of applicants
lavishly over the years, their expectations
from Greenland. The University of Chicago
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announced plans to host a college fair in Ulan
$50,000 checks to photographs of Emma
Bator.
playing an obscure woodwind in an Umbrian
2I¿FLDOVDWWKH8QLYHUVLW\RI3HQQV\OYDQLD chamber orchestra or Scott donning the
meanwhile, realized that sweatshirts, T-shirts
traditional dress of an indigenous people
and glossy print and web catalogs weren’t
for whom he tailored a special social-media
doing nearly enough to advertise its charms,
network while on spring break.
and that the university wasn’t fully leveraging
But over recent years, Stanford
the mystique of its world-renowned business
administrators noticed that as the school
school. So early next fall, every high school
rejected more and more comers, it received
senior in America who scored in the top 4
bigger and bigger donations, its endowment
percent nationally on the SAT will receive,
rising in tandem with its exclusivity, its luster
in the mail, a complimentary spray bottle of
a magnet for Silicon Valley lucre.
Wharton: The Fragrance, which has a top note
In fact just 12 hours after the university’s
of sandalwood and a bottom note of crisp,
rejection of all comers, an alumnus stepped
freshly minted $100 bills.
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Seniors who scored in the top 2 percent
enough for Stanford to begin construction on
will get the scented shower gel and reed
its long-planned Center for Social Justice, a
diffuser set as well.
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On campuses from coast to coast, there was Santiago Calatrava, who also designed the
soul searching about ways in which colleges
pedestrian bridge that will connect it to the
might be unintentionally deterring prospective student napping meadows.
applicants.
Ŷ
Were the applications themselves too
Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed columnist for The
laborious? Brown may give next year’s
New York Times since June 2011, joined the
aspirants the option of submitting, in lieu of
newspaper in 1995.
As the school
rejected more and
more comers, it
received bigger and
bigger donations, its
endowment rising
in tandem with its
exclusivity.
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 Man-
aging Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or
email editor@eastoregonian.com.
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