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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 2016)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, August 20, 2016 Quick takes Tragic events in Hermiston Sending my love to all involved. I know you are hurting so bad right now, just know I’m hear if you need me. — Tonya Abbott I knew (JJ) from school. He was always so polite and nice, very handsome young man. He was too young to be taken. Prayers for the family, so tragic. — Kathy Moore This just makes me sick to my stomach. How heartbreaking. He is just a child. Condolences to the family and friends. As a mother, I can’t even begin to imagine. — Jennifer Bush RIP JJ. We love you and will miss you. Condolences to all families involved. — Carla-Pancho Atilano Know, please, that an army of strangers are sending love, prayers of strength and hopes of peace to the family and friends of the victims. — James Cluck R.I.P JJ. You were an awesome friend and very fun to be around and to joke around with. Prayers go out to his family and him. — Darius Peterson Praying for all involved in care giving and responding. Families of all. — Virginia Salter 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. East Oregonian Page 5A Pendleton goals may take time to develop T goals, let members of the public into his is an open letter to the process. Pendleton mayor-elect John But there is a middle ground Turner: between letting discussion go on to The irst meeting of your goal ininity or cutting it so short that many setting committee, on Monday, things go unaddressed. was kind of breathtaking: some 20 Pendleton is not just any town. invitees greeted with the task of Its classic reputation stems not just agreeing on 10-12 goals to guide from Pendleton Woolen Mills, the the 2017 city council, trying to Mike decide how general or speciic to Forrester Round-Up or colorful history of tribal members and pioneers but write a goal, Art Hill struggling to Comment from a community personality record key thoughts and categories that has spawned leadership in the for the electronic committee region and in the arts and many individual record. success stories. Many of us love this town After an hour, you called a timeout and care about its economy and its future. and summarized as chairman that you had Many of us would like to see storefronts wished to be able to write the goals in just and classrooms illed to levels of, say, the one hour-long meeting. But all the hands 1980s. At the same time, many feel strongly raised and the volume of material was forcing a second meeting, set for Monday, 4 that whatever new investments or new jobs come, we would oppose changes in p.m., at City Hall. Pendleton’s basic character. In the meantime, you told committee It is just as important to set community members to see if some worthy goals were goals with care as it is to adhere to an left out of the irst meeting and be ready arbitrary completion date. Getting off your for Monday to accept or reject goals in the fast track on goal setting needs to be done in draft. my view for a few reasons. “I expect the meeting on the 22nd to be ▪ Members of the public need to be able our last meeting,” you said. “After that, I to give their views while the goal setting will ask you to help me present these goals is going on — rather than taking the inal so we can get Pendleton’s taxpayers and document to the chamber or service clubs voters to weigh in.” later and saying, “What do you think of With your experience at the Pentagon what we’ve done?” and in heading up Blue Mountain This town belongs to all of us, not Community College, I can understand your just to the 20 members of the goal setting desire to expedite decision making. Setting committee. Pendleton residents need goals for a community can and should a few ways to register their proposals entail lots of work and can go on forever electronically and otherwise. In addition to if the chairman fails to move things along. presentations to the service clubs, a public Let people speak, take notes to help future event is needed for citizens to testify and meetings, guard against duplication, tell the ask questions. I know that idea gives you difference between strategic goals and task the heebie-jeebies, Mr. mayor-elect, but the people of Pendleton deserve it. With a skilled moderator, a public event can work. • Several of the goals that are to be discussed next Monday relate to boosting the Pendleton economy. That’s good. We need more and more diverse jobs and investment. But some questions need to be answered before the committee’s goals go to the city council. Steve Chrisman has so many responsibilities at the airport, expanded airport services and the Convention Center that the bases are not covered adequately. City Manager Robb Corbett knows that, but a way has to be found to lighten Chrisman’s load. ▪ Speaking of Chrisman, I believe he has never been told what kinds of business investment or jobs he should favor in trying to build Pendleton’s economy. Some city fathers and mothers favor attracting whatever investment or jobs are available while others feel the community should favor jobs that pay $20 and more an hour. Gary Neal says the Port of Morrow requires new companies to pay at least family wages in order to operate at Boardman. ▪ Pendleton city government has so many committees that it intimidates some citizens who might otherwise volunteer. Could some committees be merged with others? Pendleton negativity needs to be addressed. Some of the complaints — not all of them — stem from poor decision making at City Hall, or poor customer service attitude or citizens feeling shut out from city decision making. ■ Mike Forrester is a former editor of the East Oregonian. He lives in Pendleton. Combating mental illness Biking bill is a smokescreen for opening up wilderness and drug addiction A cross Oregon, I’ve talked be boosted around the country. with many families who With our bill, we can ensure are struggling with mental better access to treatment, we illness and drug addiction. can reduce the number of legally These touch every segment prescribed pills that shouldn’t be of our communities, no matter out there and save lives. where you live or what you look Meanwhile, the Helping like. Tragically, they often carry Families in Mental Health Crisis with them a major stigma in Act would be the irst signiicant Greg society, and help is hard to ind. Walden overhaul of the nation’s mental Fortunately, Congress is working health system since the Kennedy Comment in a bipartisan way to help solve administration. these problems and offer relief to Our bill reforms the 112 those who need help. federal programs that address mental The size of the crisis is staggering. health, ensuring they effectively Nearly 10 million Americans have coordinate and streamlining the a serious mental illness, and yet 40 bureaucracy currently creating serious percent of them aren’t receiving the barriers to care. It allows families to treatment they need. In Oregon, more better work with health care professionals people are dying from drug overdoses to care for loved ones, and helps ix than car accidents, with our state ranked the shortage of 100,000 psychiatric consistently at the top for non-medical hospital beds in this country. Our bill also use of prescription pain relievers. advances tele-psychiatry to help mentally I’ve heard the heartbreaking personal ill patients in rural and underserved areas. stories from people who are most According to the National Institute of affected. At roundtables in Medford, Mental Health, those patients with severe Bend and Hermiston, I spoke with mental illness who do receive care are parents whose children experienced 15 times less likely to commit, or be the homelessness, violence, and worse due victim of, violent acts than those who go to mental health issues or drug addiction. untreated. I’ve heard from law enforcement While the vast majority of people oficials about how the default place for with mental illness are not violent, the the mentally ill is often the local jail. Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Local physicians and caregivers told me Act works to make sure that those who how they severely lack the resources to are struggling do not go on to harm effectively help patients suffering from themselves or others. addiction. Both of these bills addressing mental The good news is recently the health and opioid abuse have passed the U.S. House passed two key pieces House with overwhelmingly bipartisan of legislation: the Helping Families support. I’m proud to say that the drug in Mental Health Crisis Act and the addiction plan has also been passed by Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery the Senate and signed into law by the Act to tackle this crisis head on. President. And I hope that the Senate will The Comprehensive Addiction and soon pass the mental health reform bill so Recovery Act focuses on improving that we can deliver help quickly to those drug abuse treatments, addressing the who need it. underlying causes of addiction and Mental health and drug addiction helping those most at risk. Our bill issues do not discriminate based on age or expands access to care and prevention gender or where you live or what political services in our communities, and party you belong to. They impact our establishes best practices that will help neighbors, our friends, and our families in prevent lawful prescription use from Oregon and across the nation. spiraling into abuse. It gives new tools For the sake of our children, our to law enforcement and prevention safety, and our society, we must ix this advocates to combat the epidemic of broken system that allows those who are painkillers and heroin. suffering from mental illness and drug Importantly, we’re increasing irst addiction to fall through the cracks. responders’ access to the potentially ■ lifesaving anti-overdose drug naloxone. Greg Walden represents Oregon’s While some states, such as Oregon, Second Congressional District, which have already broadened its availability, covers 20 counties in southern, central, I believe the use of naloxone should and eastern Oregon. By JOHN KELLEY Writers on the Range A re you ready for mechanized vehicles on every wilderness trail in the United States? That’s what you’ll get if a deceptive piece of federal legislation becomes law. Portrayed as a “modest” proposal for mountain bike access, the legislation is a Trojan horse that would throw open all designated wilderness areas to bikes and prevent federal land managers from later excluding them. The “Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Areas Act” was introduced into Congress by Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, both known for their efforts to roll back environmental protection. You can read it online at https://www. congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate- bill/3205/text. Hatch calls the legislation “a reasonable approach to allowing the use of mountain bikes on trails.” Lee says it would allow local land managers to decide whether to allow mountain biking in wilderness areas. Both statements are smokescreens designed to hide what’s really going on. How would this legislation open all wilderness areas to bikes? It would give federal land managers a two-year deadline to determine whether bikes should be allowed on wilderness trails. If the deadline passes without formal decisions, bikes automatically would be allowed. Problem is, the deadline is rigged for failure. The two-year window would be consumed with federal agencies developing rules to guide the process, not with land managers rendering decisions. Federal actions can’t be arbitrary. Decision criteria would need to be established and a lengthy rule-making process would ensue to igure out what makes one wilderness trail acceptable to bikes and another one off-limits. Even assuming an unrealistic timeframe of one year for establishing criteria, the environmental review process required by federal law for the decisions would devour the second year, and most likely take longer. With the deadline blown and all wilderness areas automatically opened to bikes, federal land managers then would be in the position of deciding whether to remove mountain bikes from wilderness areas, rather than determining if they should be allowed in the irst place. Here, the legislation contains another trap: It predetermines a decision in favor of mountain bike use by making mountain bikes “rebuttably presumed to be in accordance with the preservation and maintenance of the wilderness character of a wilderness area.” In other words, the legislation would not only open wilderness areas to mountain bikes, it would lock in their use. Further, in a reality-warping maneuver that reads like something from an Orwell novel, the bill would enable mountain bikes to sidestep the 52-year-old prohibition on mechanized transportation in wilderness areas by declaring bikes a non-mechanized form of travel. The bill states: “The term ‘mechanical transport’ does not include any form of human-powered travel, regardless of whether the travel is mechanically assisted, in which the sole propulsive power source is one or more persons.” It escapes comprehension that a machine with gears, derailleurs, wheels, bearings, disc brakes, cables, gear shifts, a whirling chain and pedals does not add up to “mechanical transport.” Also worth noting: The legislation’s contortion of “mechanical transport” would leave wilderness areas open to whatever pedal-powered contraptions emerge in the future. Seem far-fetched? Fifty years ago, who would have imagined bikes could penetrate the farthest reaches of nation’s wildest lands? And what if there are “undue conlicts” (in the words of the bill) on trails between people biking and people walking? The legislation would allow federal land managers to separate the two uses by day, time of day or season. For example, bikes in your favorite wilderness area from 8 a.m.-2 p.m.; hiking from 2 p.m.-8 p.m. Or, bikes on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays; hiking on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Or: Summer’s for biking! Fall’s for hiking! Is anyone looking forward to all this? The Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Areas Act is a sham. It would undermine one of the most farsighted conservation laws in the world, the 1964 Wilderness Act, which was enacted to protect the nation’s wild areas from the “growing mechanization” — to quote the law — of American culture. And if there’s a symptom of growing mechanization on public lands, it’s mountain bikes. The bike industry may frame the activity as “human-powered” in an effort to obfuscate any difference between walking and riding. Advocates may employ the dark arts of modern politics. But deception and sly tricks shouldn’t deprive the American people of a uniquely American heritage: The opportunity to wander through the nation’s most highly protected lands at a truly human-powered pace, step-by- step, free from the machines and speed of an ever-urbanizing, ever-industrializing society. ■ John Kelley is a contributor to Writers on the Range, the opinion service of High Country News.