VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Quick takes
EOTEC rodeo arena bids high
In my opinion, no boardmember should
be able to proit off work that is associated
with that speciic board, whether they are a
sitting member or recently left such board.
— Susan Craig-Conger
You’ll never ind a better contractor or
man than David Bothum. How sad.
— Alison Sullivan Ogden
Oh how terrible, not a failed attempt on
a new rodeo arena! Whatever shall we do
now?
— Alejandro Mendoza-Guzman
Deposit to climb to a dime
Stores should go back to the hand
counting method. Way faster and conve-
nient for the customer. People would be
more motivated to take them every time
they go to the store.
— Chris Thatcher
Oregon’s bottle recycling is the stupidest
I have ever encountered. The only way you
will get full scale recycling is to recycle by
the pound and a voucher ticket or direct
cash.
— Michael Lovejoy
I wonder how many will start stockpiling
their empties knowing they will be worth
double in only eight months.
— Amy Code Madden
One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is
that much can be summed up in just a few words.
Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours
@Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian.
com, and keep them to 140 characters.
P
eople go to farmers markets for many
reasons. The jovial, wholesome
atmosphere makes people feel good about
their communities and the hard work put in
by area farmers. Sometimes, we even want to
buy something. But actually purchasing food is
becoming an increasingly rare act, according to
a recent Washington Post article.
As one grower put it, the market has gotten
more crowded than ever, but his sales have
plummeted. The most likely culprit, I assumed,
must be the inlux of young, hungry farmers
stealing market share from
the aging lions who built the
locavore movement. Indeed,
census data from 2012
suggests that the number of
farmers selling directly to
consumers — presumably at
farmers markets — is on the
rise, despite a decline in the
overall farmer population. So
I was puzzled about the root
of the problem.
A farmer friend in my
hometown of Missoula,
Montana, said he didn’t blame the competition
for his woes. Instead, he blamed the “hipsters”
for sucking the oxygen out of the market. By
hipsters, he meant people who come to the
market but then don’t end up buying much
produce.
Sipping on their lattes, deep in conversation,
they care more about the scene than the
cilantro. They might purchase a breakfast
taco, he observed, but no basil. Maybe a pint
of strawberries, but no rhubarb. And in their
unhurried schmoozing they clog up the aisles
like arterial plaque, impeding the low of serious
shoppers looking for actual produce. But that’s
if the serious shoppers can even get to the
market in the irst place, because parking stinks.
Missoula provides a laboratory for testing
the idea that an invasion of hipsters can hurt
vegetable sales at the market. For years, the
Missoula farmers market was agonizingly strict
about which items could be sold. For instance,
only raw plant materials were allowed: No
pickles. No hot food. No meat. Not even a hide
from a farmer’s own sheep. Nonetheless, it was
a nice market, everyone loved it, and it got so
big that another one opened nearby, also on
Saturday, to get in on the action
From the get-go, the new market was a
showcase for the free market. Everything was
for sale, including prepared food, face painting,
balloons, hot chocolate, baked goods, fresh,
frozen and smoked meats, and (of course)
Page 5A
A better way for Oregon and America
s I listen to people during
Growing jobs and the economy:
meetings throughout
Too many small businesses, farmers,
our state (I recently
and ranchers in Oregon face
held my 51st town hall since
overbearing federal regulations that
the beginning of last year),
are often written by agencies far
Oregonians too often voice the
away in Washington, D.C. Last year
same concerns: an overreaching
alone, federal regulations cost the
federal government that ignores
national economy about $1.89 trillion
our pleas, overregulates our lives
in lost growth and
Greg
and depresses job growth in our
Our
Walden productivity.
communities.
plan
makes
sure
the
Comment
That’s why I put forward
regulatory regime
legislation that positively addresses
works for us—not
the problems we face. Seven of my
against us. For instance,
proposals have passed the U.S. House so far we’d require that the
this term—most with unanimous support—
Congress, accountable
including my bills to help bring commercial to the people, approve
air service back to Klamath Falls, provide
all major regulations.
needed funding for bridges in the Columbia Our plan would also help
Gorge and to improve rural internet service
boost affordable, reliable
for consumers.
energy and preserve internet innovation so
Within the past year, Congress has given
that jobs can lourish.
law enforcement and drug prevention
Combating poverty: Fifty years ago,
advocates new tools to help ight addiction
the U.S. government launched the “War
in our communities. We’ve passed plans
on Poverty.” American taxpayers have
to help veterans get better health care in
invested $22 trillion since then, yet you are
the communities where they live. Seniors
just as likely to stay poor if you were born
no longer face a planned drastic spike in
poor today as you were then. And according
Medicare premiums or a cut for Social
to a state report last year, Oregon’s poverty
Security disability recipients. A long-term
rate is higher than the national average
transportation funding plan and a major
(and the rate is even higher in many rural
education reform proposal have also
counties). The current system too often
become law.
replaces work, instead of encouraging it.
While I’m proud of these successes, there There’s a better way to help the over 46
is still much to be done to push back against million Americans who are trapped in a
an overreaching federal government. That’s
cycle of poverty. Our plan offers solutions to
why House Republicans have proposed a
expand opportunity and reward work.
new agenda — called “A Better Way” — to
Implementing real health reform: The
offer solutions to some of the biggest
new health care law, known as Obamacare,
challenges we face in Oregon and America.
is driving up insurance costs and reducing
Some highlights of our plan include:
choices for too many Oregonians. The state
A
wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer
dollars on Cover Oregon and now is mired
in costly litigation. Meanwhile, people are
left to cope with more insurers leaving the
market, and two new health “co-ops” set up
by the law have already folded.
There’s a better way to give everyone
access to quality, affordable health care.
Our plan would replace
Obamacare with a
new one that provides
consumers more choices,
lowers costs, focuses
on curing deadly
diseases like cancer, and
strengthens and preserves
Medicare.
Our “Better Way”
plan upholds our
Constitution rights and
makes government more accountable and
transparent to the people. We have ideas
to boost our national security, combat
terrorism, and ensure our troops and
veterans have what they need. And we
propose reforming the nation’s tax code
to make it simpler and fairer for Oregon
families and small businesses.
I’d encourage you to go read the
entire plan, with hundreds of ideas to
solve problems in our communities, on
my website at https://walden.house.gov/
abetterway. There, you can let me know
what you think of these ideas or offer some
of your own. Together, there’s a better way
to get Oregon and America back on track.
■
Greg Walden represents Oregon’s Second
Congressional District, which covers 20
counties in southern, central and eastern
Oregon.
The current
system too
often replaces
work, instead of
encouraging it.
Farmers markets — spoiled
by their own success?
By ARI LEVAUX
Writers on the Range
East Oregonian
coffee drinks. The feeling was strong that this
was what the old market had always “wanted”
to become, if only the folks in charge would
have let it. The new market was everything that
we, the shoppers, desired: a diverse, festive
atmosphere rooted in, but not shackled to,
farm-fresh produce.
The once-booming original market was
suddenly a backwater, and you could almost
hear the cheers and laughter drifting over from
its rival. The free market had spoken.
Fast-forward a few years, though, and the
original market, amazingly, is still around. I still
go to buy certain items from vendors I’ve long
patronized, and I’m not alone. That market,
which many of us had left
for dead 10 years ago, now
offers a surprisingly valuable
commodity: a peaceful,
pleasant shopping experience.
The new market is bigger,
with more vendors, and offers
a lot more choices of produce
and other stuff. But it’s always
jammed. If you have kids in
tow, it also feels like more
work to visit.
“It’s more of a social event
than a shopping event,” says
Stephen Paferi, a grower at the new market who
jumped ship from the other one. Like many who
had done the same, he’s begun questioning his
choice.
Another farmer, Mike Duda, observes,
“They are here for the scene, for the coffee and
breakfast sandwich or whatever.” His loyal
customers, he says, have to arrive early to
avoid the craziness. “They hate the crowds. I
can’t believe how many people bitch about the
crowds. The regulars show up early.”
There is no doubt in Duda’s mind that the
people there for the scene are suffocating the
market. “People with strollers; four people
having a conversation, which is ine, but it’s
frustrating. And if you’re a customer that wants
to go to the farmers market and get some food,
you’re like, ‘Nah.’”
Josh Slotnick sells produce at both markets.
He told me that he does twice the business at the
original market that he does at the new one.
If farmers can earn more at the relatively
dead original market than at the bustling new
version, something must be amiss. Surely the
ierce competition plays a role, but the case
against the hipsters is compelling as well. In
Missoula, we’re just lucky we have both.
■
Ari LeVaux is a contributor to Writers on
the Range, the opinion service of High Country
News. He writes about food from his home in
Montana.
The market
has gotten
more crowded
than ever, but
sales have
plummeted.
Making Hastert pay: Sex abuse
victim sues for $1.8 million
Chicago Tribune
ennis Hastert, serial child
molester, is paying for his
misconduct by serving 15
months in prison. He got off easy.
Hastert pleaded guilty to a white-
collar banking
crime in October.
The statute of
limitations had
expired long before
federal prosecutors
uncovered the former
U.S. House speaker’s
dark secret — that
he had sexually
abused several high
school wrestlers
he’d coached in the
1970s. Eight years
ago, Hastert agreed to
pay one of them $3.5
million.
To the victim, known in court as
“Individual A,” it was a private out-of-
court settlement — compensation for
the lifelong damage caused by Hastert’s
abuse — that included a conidentiality
agreement.
To Hastert, it was hush money, pure
and simple. He’d paid $1.7 million by
the time federal agents starting asking
about the curious bank withdrawals
he’d been making for four years. That
investigation eventually cost Hastert
his freedom and his reputation — but it
saved him $1.8 million, according to his
lawyers.
That’s the balance that Individual A
says he is owed (plus interest). In April,
he iled a lawsuit.
Hastert has acknowledged that he
molested Individual A and several
other boys that he coached at Yorkville
High School. Hastert went on to
become a state lawmaker, congressman
and eventually the longest-serving
Republican House speaker in history.
Individual A, meanwhile, struggled
with depression, suffered panic attacks
and had trouble keeping a job. In 2008,
he put a price tag on that lasting harm:
$3.5 million.
Hastert agreed to pay it. He stopped
when the feds found out what he was
D
doing, and why.
And now the predator and his
victim are trading legal arguments in a
breach-of-contract dispute.
Hastert’s lawyers say Individual A
broke his end of the bargain when the
FBI came knocking and he opted not
to lie about what was
going on. (Unlike
their client, who irst
said he was being
extorted by a former
student making false
accusations.)
They also say
Individual A didn’t
really trade his right
to ile a personal
injury lawsuit for
that $3.5 million. By
the time he struck
the agreement with
Hastert, the statute of
limitations had expired on that too. So
he had nothing to trade.
They say the contract isn’t
enforceable anyway because it’s not in
writing.
And they say that enforcing the
agreement — supporting Individual A’s
attempt to “sell his silence” to conceal
alleged wrongdoing — would be
contrary to public policy.
That’s a high-minded argument,
coming from the guy who once was so
eager to buy that silence.
The guy who was able to run out
the statute of limitations because his
misconduct, by its very nature, was
excruciatingly painful for his victims to
report. It took decades for Individual A
to confront his abuser. The victim still
hasn’t told his story publicly.
Hastert likely would have spent
decades in state prison if his actions
had come to light in time to charge
him with sexual abuse of minors, U.S.
District Judge Thomas Durkin observed
at sentencing. Instead, the serial child
molester — Durkin’s words — got 15
months for evading federal banking
regulations.
He’ll pay his debt to society at a
deep, deep discount. And his debt to his
victim? As far as Hastert is concerned,
that’s paid in full.
Former U.S.
Speaker Dennis
Hastert, a serial
child molester,
got off easy
with a 15 month
prison sentence.
Be heard!
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