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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, February 18, 2017 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager 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 OUR VIEW OSAA should imagine there’s no borders Each time the Oregon School whom will rely on academic Activities Association looks to scholarships and not athletic ones reclassify the state’s schools, once high school is over. It’s hard to Eastern Oregon has the most at justify so much time on the road. stake. There are two good options, in Our schools are spread out under our view. The first is a classification big skies, split apart by wheat fields waiver, allowing Hermiston to stay and mountain ranges. Where the with Pendleton, The Dalles and Portland metro area has dozens of Hood River in a schools of all league moving different sizes, forward. Sure, you must scour Each season, the Dawgs will tens of thousands each Hermiston increasingly of square miles in be the big the rural parts of team would spend dogs in such the state to find the equivalent of a conference, enough like-sized and competitive schools to create a bus trip from balance will be a balanced conference. Portland to Detroit, lost for the sake of classroom And the largest Michigan — for hours and cost two of those savings. But in northeastern league games our view, that’s Oregon alone. more than a groupings, the 5A reasonable trade Columbia River off. Conference and The second is a partnership with 4A Greater Oregon League, consist the Washington Interscholastic of just four teams each. Hermiston in particular is caught Activities Association, allowing in a difficult spot, with growth Hermiston to slide into a sixth spot outpacing all other nearby districts with Tri-Cities and Walla Walla and pushing them into the largest schools in the Mid-Columbia classification in the state. Conference. This idea, proposed Because of this, the OSAA is by Hermiston, could rightfully be considering putting Hermiston considered a long shot. Washington into a newly-formed Mt. Hood schools would get little out of Conference with Portland-area bringing Hermiston on board, schools or an Inter County and the Tri-Cities schools would Conference with a mix of Portland be adding miles to their own and Bend-area schools. schedules. On paper, the leagues make Logistically, though, it makes sense. Unless that paper is a map. great sense for Hermiston and is Size-wise, Hermiston fits worth vigorously pursuing. The nicely with schools like Gresham, teams often play in non-conference Centennial, Bend and Barlow and games anyway, and the case could is athletically competitive with all be made that adding Hermiston of them. The OSAA has posted its strengthens the league. league suggestions on its website There would be some hiccups. and the chart shows leagues with Washington schools play soccer both balance and depth. in the spring instead of the fall, But if you start adding up the for instance. And closing out the miles (and hours) it would take regular football season against to compete in such a league, the anyone other than Pendleton would competitive balance starts to matter just feel wrong. a lot less. But Hermiston’s growing pains Each season, each Hermiston aren’t going away. Until the school team would spend the equivalent of district splits the high school in a bus trip from Portland to Detroit, two — which is still more than a Michigan for league games alone, few years away — it will never fit according to calculations from well in any Eastern Oregon athletic Hermiston athletic director Larry conference. Usher. Thinking outside the box — and Remember that we’re talking state lines — is the best way to about student-athletes, most of balance academics and athletics. 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. OTHER VIEWS What a failed Trump Administration looks like I still have trouble seeing how the seems to be shrinking to his daughter, Trump administration survives a full her husband and Stephen Bannon. term. Judging by his Thursday press Bannon has a coherent worldview, conference, President Donald Trump’s which is a huge advantage when all mental state is like a train that long ago is chaos. It’s interesting how many of left freewheeling and iconoclastic, has Bannon’s rivals have woken up with raced through indulgent, chaotic and knives in their backs. Michael Flynn unnerving, and is now careening past is gone. Reince Priebus has been unhinged, unmoored and unglued. unmanned by a thousand White House David Trump’s White House staff is at war Brooks leaks. Rex Tillerson had the potential with itself. His poll ratings are falling to be an effective secretary of state, Comment at unprecedented speed. His policy but Bannon neutered him last week by agenda is stalled. FBI investigations denying him the ability to even select are just beginning. This does not feel like a his own deputy. sustainable operation. In an administration in which “promoted On the other hand, I have trouble seeing beyond his capacity” takes on new meaning, exactly how this administration ends. Many of Bannon looms. With each passing day, the institutions that would normally ease out or Trump talks more like Bannon without the remove a failing president no background reading. longer exist. Third, we are about to There are no longer moral enter a decentralized world. arbiters in Congress like For the past 70 years most Howard Baker and Sam nations have instinctively Ervin to lead a resignation or looked to the U.S. for impeachment process. There leadership, either to follow is no longer a single media or oppose. But in capitals establishment that shapes how around the world, intelligence the country sees the president. agencies are drafting memos This is no longer a country in with advice on how to play which everybody experiences Donald Trump. the same reality. The first conclusion is Everything about Trump obvious. This administration that appalls 65 percent of is more like a medieval America strengthens him with monarchy than a modern the other 35 percent, and he nation-state. It’s more “The can ride that group for a while. Even after these Madness of King George” than “The Missiles horrible four weeks, Republicans on Capitol of October.” The key currency is not power, it’s Hill are not close to abandoning their man. flattery. The likelihood is this: We’re going to The corollary is that Trump is ripe to be have an administration that has morally and played. Give the boy a lollipop and he won’t politically collapsed, without actually going notice if you steal his lunch. The Japanese gave away. Trump a new jobs announcement he could What does that look like? take to the Midwest, and in return they got First, it means an administration that is presidential attention and coddling that other passive, full of sound and fury but signifying governments would have died for. nothing. To get anything done, a president If you want to roll the Trump depends on the vast machinery of the U.S. administration, you’ve got to get in line. The government. But Trump doesn’t mesh with Israelis got a possible one-state solution. The that machinery. He is personality-based while Chinese got Trump to flip-flop on the “One it is rule-based. Furthermore, he’s declared China” policy. The Europeans got him to do a war on it. And when you declare war on the 180 on undoing the Iran nuclear deal. establishment, it declares war on you. Vladimir Putin was born for a moment such The Civil Service has a thousand ways to as this. He is always pushing the envelope. ignore or sit on any presidential order. The After gifting Team Trump with a little court system has given itself carte blanche campaign help, the Russian state media has to overturn any Trump initiative, even on suddenly turned on Trump and Russian planes the flimsiest legal grounds. The intelligence are buzzing U.S. ships. The bear is going to community has only just begun to undermine grab what it can. this president. We’re about to enter a moment in which Trump can push all the pretty buttons on U.S. economic and military might is strong the command deck of the Starship Enterprise, but U.S. political might is weak. Imagine the but don’t expect anything to actually happen, Roman Empire governed by Monaco. because they are not attached. That’s scary. The only saving thought is Second, this will probably become a this: The human imagination is vast, but it more insular administration. Usually when is not nearly vast enough to encompass the administrations stumble, they fire a few people infinitely multitudinous ways Donald Trump and bring in the grown-ups — the James Baker can find to get himself disgraced. or the David Gergen types. But Trump is ■ anti-grown-up, so it’s hard to imagine Chief of David Brooks became a New York Times Staff Haley Barbour. Instead, the circle of trust Op-Ed columnist in 2003. Everything about Trump that appalls 65 percent of American strengthens him with the other 35 percent. YOUR VIEWS Pendleton fire station, and EOTEC update 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. Public safety, though important, did not make it into the top four goals of the mayor and new city council. Could it be because of the dramatic increase in the estimated cost of a new fire station at near double the original estimate? Perhaps it was due to the inclusion of a museum and the need for a satellite police station, since the proposed location is at the opposite end of town from the proposed site? Never fear, though, the city has decided to realign the fire station bond issue into the maintenance of buildings, roads, water and sewer category, moving it from the number 5 category right up to number 1. I guess those 245 respondents to the survey were just wrong. Perhaps a more realistic alternative such as a central location, elimination of the museum and satellite police station would have rated a more favorable public response. Sometimes the public just can’t get it right. I guess we’ll find out in May if a bad plan is better than no plan at all. As for EOTEC, George Anderson is correct, the fairgrounds needed to relocate. No argument there. Maybe, since he appears to be the expert on the project, it’s time to step up and take control, and since EOTEC is asking the county and Hermiston city manager to pay their fair share as per their agreement, perhaps he should be counseling them on their responsibilities. Rumors abound that after ignoring numerous warnings of the pitfalls in signing such a generous agreement, the EOTEC board may now have to sue the county and city for postponing payment of the $45,190 each for their share of expenses, and charge a late payment fee for questioning the management of the project. Meanwhile, Commissioner Larry Givens, worried about the extremely dangerous environment of working in the courthouse, might consider moving his office to a more secure location such as the county jail. Killing two birds with one stone, this move could add security and deflect interest away from the precarious situation with EOTEC. Other security measures that should be considered are installation of retinal scanners on all office doors, enclosing all customer service counters in bulletproof glass, adding armed guards at all entrances, or permanently banning public access altogether. Rick Rohde, Pendleton
