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OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, July 20, 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
OUR VIEW
Rangeland fire
protection groups
are valuable
Nearly every summer, ranchers are
forced to risk their lives to rescue their
cattle as wildfires approach.
When they offer to help state and
federal firefighters by plowing fire lines,
the offers are often refused.
In some instances,
fire crews stand by,
choosing not to stop
an approaching fire
because they are unsure
which federal, state or
local agency should be
in charge.
In the meantime,
grazing land — which
ranchers depend on
to feed their livestock — is allowed to
burn.
We hesitate to criticize firefighters.
They have one of the toughest jobs in the
West, bringing massive wildfires to heel
under hot and dirty conditions.
But on occasion ranchers find
themselves in the position of having
to stand up for themselves and their
livelihoods when firefighters get
wrapped up in what appears to be
bureaucratic fumbling.
Washington state rancher Molly
Linville recently was forced to jump on
an ATV and race to the rescue when a
wildfire roared across the land where her
cattle were grazing. A neighbor, Justin
Sachs, offered to build a fire line with
his equipment but U.S. Forest Service
firefighters turned him away.
Unfortunately, such anecdotes are
too common around the West, where
wildfires rage across public and private
land.
In past years, firefighters from as far
away as Australia and New Zealand
have been flown to Washington state to
fight wildfires while ranchers’ offers of
help were rejected.
We understand how bureaucracies
work. But it’s also important to
understand how ranchers work. Grazing
lands need to be protected. They are
the life blood of most
livestock operations.
In parts of the
West, such as Oregon,
fire officials work
with farmers and
ranchers, who are
ready, willing and able
to provide manpower
and equipment to
fight wildfires. By
setting up rangeland fire protection
associations — the first was established
in Oregon in 1964 — the states, federal
Bureau of Land Management and
ranchers have figured out ways to work
together instead of arguing with one
another. The states’ legislatures provided
funding for training, protective gear and
equipment to these volunteer, nonprofit
associations.
Now 22 rangeland fire protection
associations are operational in Oregon
and nine are in Idaho, standing ready to
help BLM and state wildfire crews.
These volunteer associations have
repeatedly demonstrated their value in
stopping wildfires before they can grow
and in fighting large fires in Eastern
Oregon and southern Idaho. Nevada has
also set up similar associations.
Every state in the West should follow
their examples.
It’s time to stop arguing and work
together to fight wildfires that roar across
the rural countryside each year. It’s time
to look for solutions, and rangeland fire
protection associations are just that.
Oregon is home
to 22 rangeland
fire protection
associations.
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
Important jobs, few candidates
The Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette
ere’s a question for the future:
Where will America get enough
firefighters?
A report describes the difficulty of
finding and keeping new volunteer
firefighters. The number has been
falling for decades, dropping by
about 12 percent from 1984 to about
788,000 volunteer firefights in 2014,
says Stateline, a publication of the Pew
Charitable Trusts.
Work and life have changed, the story
says. People drive farther to work and
have less flexibility to leave when the
firebell rings. Firefighters, mostly men,
are more involved in child care, and their
wives are more often working. Younger
people have left rural areas to find work
in cities.
The changes are particularly hard on
rural areas, which depend on volunteer
fire departments. Some states are trying
to make the volunteer work more
attractive by offering tax breaks.
About 87 percent of U.S. fire
departments are run mostly or entirely
by volunteers.
Citing a report from the National Fire
Protection Association, the Stateline
story says volunteer firefighters are
estimated to save local governments
$139.8 billion a year in pay, benefits,
operating expenses and maintenance.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press
reported last fall that police departments
are loosening up on qualifications such
as educational requirements and some
prior drug use. The reason is to draw
more recruits in a time when interest
is down because of low pay, physical
demands, danger and public scrutiny.
There could be an upside to
rethinking those requirements.
Responsible police chiefs want
departments that look like and
communicate well with the populations
they protect. It can be tough for some
minority applicants to get past a criminal
background check because black citizens
are more likely to have encounters with
the justice system, the report says.
In Baltimore, Police Commissioner
Kevin Davis is working to change the
rule prohibiting the city from hiring
someone who admits to having used
marijuana within the previous three
years, the top reason applicants are
disqualified from the force.
“I don’t want to hire altar boys to be
H
police officers, necessarily,” Davis told
The Baltimore Sun. “I want people of
good character, of good moral character,
but I want people who have lived a life
just like everybody else — a life not
unlike the lives of the people who they
are going to be interacting with every
day.”
Empathy is an important quality in
police officers.
Burnout among social workers is
nothing new. A combination of low pay
and emotionally demanding duties can
wear people out. Still, some places,
including West Virginia, managed to
keep social workers in public and private
positions in the past, where they built up
institutional knowledge and mentored
the next generation.
That has been changing for years.
A recent story in Governing magazine
highlights the difficulties — and costs
— of high turnover among people who
do things such as find permanent homes
for abused or neglected children or help
parents navigate programs to get help,
comply and keep their children.
It has gotten so bad in some places
that states are trying new things —
lowering educational requirements to
make the price of preparation more
commensurate with the low pay new
hires will receive. Some are trying to
weed out people who might not be
able to handle the emotional toll of
the job, and they are shortening and
reconfiguring on-the-job training time.
The stakes are high. Social workers
develop relationships with the families
they are responsible for helping.
Conditions that interfere with those
relationships erode trust in individuals
and in the programs intended to help.
The report cites one study that found
that a child with one caseworker had a
74 percent chance to get a permanent
and stable home. But if the child had
two caseworkers in a year, the chance
dropped to 17 percent, and with three
caseworkers, it was only 5 percent.
Getting this stuff wrong costs. It
costs states and governments time and
money in training and retraining. It
costs overburdened employees in stress
and lost income when they give up
and quit. It costs families and children
who need the professionals assigned to
helping them to be healthy and capable.
Interventions at these moments can
affect the trajectory of the rest of their
lives, for good or bad.
OTHER VIEWS
What campaign wouldn’t seek
motherlode of Clinton emails?
he public learned on March 10,
“Trump believes that,” the aide
2015, that Hillary Clinton had
added. Still, the aide also said he had
more than 60,000 emails on her
never heard of Smith, and didn’t know
private email system, and that she had
of any effort to find the emails.
turned over “about half” of them to the
Both Lewandowski and the other
former aide stressed the greatest
State Department and destroyed the
political value of the missing emails,
rest, which she said were “personal”
as far as Trump was concerned, was
and “not in any way related” to her
work as secretary of state.
that they gave Trump a way to “poke”
Byron
The public learned later the lengths
and “troll” his Democratic opponent.
York
to which Clinton went to make sure
The Clinton team was BleachBitting
Comment
the “personal” emails were completely
and swinging hammers to smash
and permanently deleted. Her team
devices -- and she says everything was
used a commercial-strength program called
on the up and up, that she has nothing to hide?
BleachBit to erase all traces of the emails,
Candidate Trump could riff on that all day.
and they used hammers to
But at least one
physically destroy mobile
high-ranking Trump
devices that might have had
team member apparently
the emails on them. The
did believe the missing
person who did the actual
Clinton emails still existed.
deleting later cited legal
In August 2016, Gen.
privileges and the Fifth
Michael Flynn, then the
Amendment to avoid talking
Trump campaign’s top
to the FBI and Congress.
national security adviser,
Clinton’s lawyer, David
discussed the emails with
Kendall, told Rep. Trey
a conservative radio host
Gowdy, chairman of the
named John B. Wells.
House Benghazi Committee,
“Does somebody have
that investigators could
the 30,000?” Flynn asked.
forget about finding any of
“The likelihood somebody
those emails. Sorry, Trey, he
has all of those emails, at a
said; they’re all gone.
nation-state level, meaning
Still, there were people
Russia, China, Iran, North
who did not believe that Clinton’s deleted
Korea, or even other countries, or some other
emails, all 30,000-plus of them, were truly
large hacktivist group, like the WikiLeaks
gone. What is ever truly gone on the internet?
group that we know exists — the likelihood is
And what if Clinton were not telling the truth? very high, and I’m talking, like, better than 95
What if she deleted emails covering more than percent.”
just personal matters? In that event, recovering
Which leads to a question. Would it have
the emails would have rocked the 2016
been appropriate for the Trump campaign
presidential campaign.
to try to find the emails? After all, the
So if there were an enormous trove
emails were under congressional subpoena,
of information potentially harmful to a
under FBI investigation, of intense public
presidential candidate just sitting out there
interest, and a potentially explosive issue in
-- what opposing campaign wouldn’t want to
the presidential campaign. What opposing
find it?
campaign wouldn’t want to know what was in
There have been recent reports that last
them?
summer a Republican named Peter W. Smith
Talking with a number of veteran
made some sort of effort to find the missing
Republican operatives, the answer is: Yes, of
Clinton emails, getting in touch with hackers,
course, the campaign would want to know
some of whom may have been Russian.
what was in the emails. More importantly,
But nothing came of it, and no evidence has
they would want the emails to become public.
emerged that Smith was connected to the
But the campaign wouldn’t want to touch
Trump campaign. (The 81-year-old Smith
them, would want no fingerprints on them.
later committed suicide, apparently distraught
None would have met with Russians, as
over failing health.)
Donald Trump Jr. did in June 2016, because
In a recent phone conversation, Corey
they would want nothing to do with shady
Lewandowski, the Trump campaign manager
people offering information. (That information
who was fired on June 20, 2016, said he never was not, as far as we know, related to
heard of or communicated with Smith, and
Clinton’s emails.) But the operatives would
wasn’t aware of any effort to find the missing
have searched for a third-party, arm’s-length
Clinton emails.
way to get the information to the media.
“I never solicited, or asked anybody to
“You can get easily burned with bad info,”
solicit or find a way to get these potential
said one operative. “This is why everyone
emails,” Lewandowski said. “And to the best
outsources research.”
of my knowledge, nobody [in the campaign]
And that is what baffles some of them
did either.”
about what Trump Jr. did. Why put the
Still, Lewandowski added that, “In the
campaign’s fingerprints — and palm prints
world of cybersecurity, it’s fairly well known
and footprints, too — on such a sketchy
that when you delete emails, they’re not
enterprise? Terrible political judgment is
gone.”
not against the law. If it were, the operatives
Another former top Trump aide said that
suggested, the Trump team would be guilty,
was a common view in the campaign. “The
guilty, guilty.
feeling was that they [the emails] must exist
■
somewhere,” the former aide said, “because
Byron York is chief political correspondent
once something is digital, it’s never truly
for The Washington Examiner.
gone.”
T
There were
people who did
not believe that
Clinton’s deleted
emails were truly
gone. What is
ever truly gone
on the internet?