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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 10, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Tuesday, July 10, 2018 CHRISTOPHER RUSH Publisher KATHRYN B. BROWN Owner DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OTHER VIEWS Bridging the rural technology divide H igh-speed broadband access, both wired and wireless, is critical for participating in the 21st century economy. This is as true in Pendleton as it is in Portland. Eastern Oregonians need online access to start businesses, shop online, educate their kids, stay healthier through telemedicine, and make their farms and ranches more productive. But not all Americans are fully benefiting from the internet revolution, especially in Eastern Oregon. We can’t allow rural communities here and across the country to fall behind due to lack of broadband infrastructure. We call that disparity the digital divide, and we are both committed to closing it. To better understand how we can improve connectivity throughout Eastern Oregon, we recently visited Hermiston, Pendleton and Weston. We heard from folks who experience the divide every day. Local officials told us how the lack of high-speed broadband access is hurting the economy and even makes some residents less optimistic about the future. Rural health care providers told us how important telemedicine was in rural towns, and demonstrated how they use broadband to connect patients with doctors online, without patients needing to drive long distances to an office or hospital. Local law enforcement, first responders, and 911 dispatchers told us that next- generation networks, not the legacy infrastructure of today’s public safety system, will help them carry out vital emergency service operations, helping them save lives. Year after year, Oregon experiences catastrophic wildfires, Ajit reminding us all too well of Pai the importance of a strong Comment 911 system. All of these constituencies need better internet access. Getting there requires internet service providers (ISPs) — small ones in particular, since they tend to serve rural communities — to have a stronger business case for creating and improving that access. Several small ISPs told us about the substantial challenges they face in serving their communities, from sparse populations to regulatory burdens. Closing the digital divide won’t be easy, but the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Federal Communications Commission have made important progress. First, Congress passed and the President signed Ray Baum’s Act. This law reauthorizes the FCC for the first time in over 25 years, giving the agency additional tools to support broadband expansion. It has strong ties to Eastern Oregon, not least being named for our dear friend, policy advisor, and La Grande native Ray Baum. We lost Ray to cancer earlier this year, but his passion and commitment to his home community live on in this legislation. Ray Baum’s Act includes bipartisan provisions to make it easier to deploy broadband Greg infrastructure on federal Walden property. It improves Comment broadband mapping, which helps pinpoint underserved and unserved communities and ensures resources go to the areas that need it most. The bill also supports installing broadband conduits during highway construction, a commonsense step that expands broadband while saving time and money. The FCC has done its part to revise and remove burdensome regulations, like updating rules governing access to utility poles and conduits, and modernizing rules that delay service providers from replacing 1970s facilities with modern technologies like fiber. The commission has also allocated funding to support rural broadband deployment. For instance, this month it kicks off a nearly $2 billion program to promote high-speed home internet access in unserved parts of the country. Additionally, our efforts have helped secure $115 million in federal funds to transition to Next Generation 911 systems, which bring internet-based technology to our Public Safety Answering Points. We also boosted the FCC’s rural health program budget by $171 million a year to enable more rural patients to access telemedicine. Bridging the digital divide bridges political differences. We’re proud that much of our work has been accomplished in a bipartisan manner, and there’s even more we can and should do. The Energy and Commerce Committee continues to consider additional bipartisan legislation, including bills to coordinate and track federal broadband funding across all government agencies, as well as meet the broadband needs for precision agriculture in farming communities. Since the beginning of the year, the committee has gathered over two dozen legislative proposals from members on both sides of the aisle regarding broadband infrastructure. And you can learn more about all that the FCC is doing here: fcc.gov/digital-divide. All Americans should be able to participate in today’s digital economy, regardless of where they live. The committee and the FCC will continue working to make this a reality for Eastern Oregon and all of rural America. We’re committed to closing the digital divide and making a difference in the lives of Oregonians. ■ Ajit Pai is chairman of the Federal Com- munications Commission. Greg Walden rep- resents Oregon’s Second District in the U.S. House. OTHER VIEWS Democratic socialism is Dem doom A YOUR VIEWS City of Umatilla violating its own policy in choosing interim city manager Dear fellow citizens of the city of Umatilla, it’s time to wake up. Our city council is taking us for a ride through its violation of established personnel policy, and by not upholding its fiduciary responsibilities to taxpayers. Most of us are now aware that the current city manager has submitted his resignation. The council is taking action to search for his replacement. In the interim, the council has chosen a temporary replacement for the city manager — but not the person already in the position of deputy city manager and who has been trained, who has tenure, and was ready to assume responsibility. In March 2016, when the outgoing city manager was first named to his position, the council also took action to create a deputy city manager position. The deputy city manager and the finance director positions were combined. Creating the position helped solve some administrative issues. Based on the council’s actions and approvals made in 2016, upon receipt of resignation by the current city manager, the responsibilities for that position should have gone directly to the current deputy city manager/finance director. The person currently in the deputy city manager position is both highly capable and experienced with the operation of the city, and would have afforded a totally seamless transition. Instead of following its own policy and personnel procedure established in 2016, the council chose a more recent addition to city staff, with far less experience with the city, to fill the interim city manager vacancy. In addition, now the city taxpayers will have to pay an additional salary to this city staffer. That cost equates to about $5,000 annually. Had the council followed the city’s own plan, the transition would have been seamless and there would have been no additional costs to taxpayers because those responsibilities were already included in the salary of the current deputy city manager/finance director. Not all of the council voted for this interim personnel choice and they should be acknowledged and thanked for following the rules of the city. However, the decision to not advance the deputy city manager/finance director into the temporary position means that the council has reneged on promises they made to you and me in 2016, and in so doing they have proven reckless in their fiduciary responsibilities to taxpayers. Your voices should be heard. David Trott Former mayor, Umatilla CONTACT YOUR U.S. SENATORS Ron Wyden 221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg. Washington, DC 20510 202-224-5244 La Grande office: 541-962-7691 Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. Jeff Merkley 313 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 202-224-3753 Pendleton office: 541-278-1129 political novice who calls pretty well? You wouldn’t know herself a “democratic it by the way Europeans are socialist” wins an voting. France’s Socialists ran a unexpected Democratic Party left-wing candidate in last year’s primary victory, and now political presidential election, and crawled taxonomists are racing to explain away with barely 6 percent of the just what the term means. Here’s vote. Germany’s Social Democrats my definition: political hemlock for had their worst electoral result Bret the Democratic Party. since 1933. Italy’s center-left was Stephens trounced by a combination of I write, of course, of Alexandria Comment Ocasio-Cortez. She’s the onetime populists and right-wingers. Bernie Sanders organizer whose You can argue that the major victory over long-term New York goals of social democracy — universal congressman Joe Crowley is being health care and other social provisions — compared to Tea Partyer Dave Brat’s 2014 were achieved long ago in Europe. But primary defeat of the Republican House they aren’t so fully realized, and are thus majority leader, Eric Cantor — a sign of potentially popular, in America, never what’s to come for the Democratic Party mind our own robust welfare state. and the country at large. But that misses the deeper point. Well, maybe. It wasn’t long ago — Today’s social democracy falls apart on March — that Marine reservist and former the contradiction between advocating federal prosecutor Conor Lamb was feted nearly unlimited government largess and as the Democratic future for winning a nearly unlimited immigration. “Abolish House seat in a Pennsylvania district that ICE” is a proper rallying cry for hard- Donald Trump had carried by 20 points. core libertarians and Davos globalists, not The shared secret of Lamb’s and Ocasio- democratic socialists or social democrats. Cortez’s success is that they ran energetic A job guarantee is an intriguing idea — campaigns, reflected the values of the assuming the jobs are for some defined “us” that doesn’t include every immigrant, people they sought to represent, and faced asylum-seeker or unauthorized worker. lackluster or entitled opponents. Not Trump gets this, as does the far right every political contest is a battle of ideas. Sometimes it’s just a matter of showing up. in Europe, which is why they attract such powerful working-class support. Want to Still, it should be said: “Democratic preserve the welfare state? Build a wall socialism” is awful as a slogan and — or, in Europe’s case, reinstate border catastrophic as a policy. And “social controls. Want more immigrants and democracy” — a term that better fits the amnesty? Lower the minimum wage and belief of more ordinary liberals who want, abolish the closed shop. say, Medicare for all — is a politically But please choose. It’s one or the other. dying force. Democrats who aren’t yet It’s possible Democrats will surrender sick of all their losing should feel free to to the illusion that they can have both, embrace them both. puffing the sails of Ocasio-Cortez and Start with democratic socialism. her fellow travelers. But a Democratic The Democratic Socialists of America, Party seriously interested in defeating of which Ocasio-Cortez is a member, congressional Republicans in the fall believe in economies defined by state- and Trump in 2020 isn’t going to win by owned enterprises and worker-owned turning itself into a right-wing caricature cooperatives. Versions of this have been of the left. If Trump is the new Nixon, the tried to varying degrees before: Israel in right way to oppose him isn’t to summon its first decades; post-independence India; the ghost of George McGovern. Try Sweden in the 1960s and ‘70s. It always led to crisis: hyperinflation for some version of Bill Clinton (minus the grossness) for a change: working-class Israel in 1980s; an International Monetary affect, middle-class politics, upper-class Fund bailout for India in 1991; a banking meltdown for Sweden in 1992. It’s usually aspirations. I’ve written elsewhere that a chief a recipe for corruption: State-owned danger to democracy is a politics in which enterprises such as Pemex in Mexico or the center bends toward the fringe instead Eskom in South Africa are local bywords for graft and mismanagement. It frequently of the fringe bending toward the center. It’s the way Trump became president. But the leads to dictatorship. Hugo Chávez was antidote to one extreme isn’t another, and also a democratic socialist. Democrats will only win once they reclaim People used to know this stuff. That the vital center of American politics. someone like Ocasio-Cortez apparently The center is Dayton and Denver, not doesn’t is a fresh reminder that, in politics Berkeley and Burlington. Democrats who as in life, the most obvious lessons are the want to win should know this. ones you can least afford to stop teaching. ■ What about social democracy? Isn’t it Bret Stephens, The New York Times the norm in Europe, and isn’t it working 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. 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.
