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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 14, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Saturday, July 14, 2018 CHRISTOPHER RUSH Publisher KATHRYN B. BROWN Owner DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW What to do about shrinking frontier Oregon? T here is a problem with funding public safety in rural Oregon, and nowhere is that more clear than in Wheeler County. Chris Humphreys, who has been sheriff there since 2013, declared his intention to leave the office — and that change in management caused each of his deputies to find work elsewhere. That will leave the rural Oregon county of about 1,400 people without any full-time law enforcement officers on the job when Humphreys exits. The Oregon Association of Sheriffs is on the case, hoping to recruit people to the position of sheriff (remember, it is an elected position.) Humphreys himself is going through his law enforcement Rolodex to try to find someone who has the skills for a job that he admits pays little, has few resources, requires being on the job 24/7 and makes for a difficult quality of life. Others are on the case to make it a more attractive position. Oregon State Representative Daniel Bonham lives in the The Dalles and because of a strange drawing of the legislative map, he represents Wheeler County. Bonham said he understands that the cities of Mitchell and Fossil have little in common with those in Mosier and Maupin, and that he may have to think outside the box to represent Wheeler County wisely. He has a few ideas about how frontier Oregon can survive as populations age, industry disappears and schools shrink and close. Bonham has considered making the highway to the John Day Fossil Beds a Staff photo by Kathy Aney The number of visitors to the Painted Hills have jumped considerably in recent years, taxing public safety and law enforcement resources in rural Wheeler County. toll road, even one that is unmanned with a collection box for visitors to throw in a dollar or two. He said that hundreds of thousands of visitors trek to the national monument, and often they spend very little in the local economy. And that number of visitors is growing, and public safety officers are responding more often to travelers who run out of gas, get lost, are dehydrated or have some other emergency. If a percentage of them were to drop a few dollars in the till on their way to fun and adventure, it could be used to support the law enforcement and infrastructure that serves those tourists. There are other ideas, too, that Bonham has heard from frontier Oregon locals. The Oregon Department of Transportation has rules banning unregulated advertisements along roadsides. For some of the small blink-and-you- miss-them Oregon towns, allowing a handmade sign along a state highway to let travelers know they can pull off to buy a can of Coke, a container of worms or a clean bathroom can make all the difference. “That’s something where rural Oregon needs different rules than the rest of the state,” Bonham said. Humphreys knows that economic development is really what the county sheriff’s office needs. There is little industry in the county, where mills closed in the 1970s and population numbers have been decreasing since the 1950s. According to the U.S. Census, from 2000 to 2013 the median age in Wheeler County rose from 48 to 56. By contrast, the median age of Multnomah County is 36.1. We reported in June about the three- person class of Wheeler County High School. Each of the three will continue to higher education, and each had no plans to return to the Fossil area. If generations are getting smaller, and none are returning, then the small cities still remaining in the county are not long for this world. That reality may provoke additional rethinking. What about a tri-county law enforcement operation that covers Wheeler, Gilliam and Sherman counties? Each county is of a similar size and similar population, and are contiguous. It would allow for place-based law enforcement, while also allowing for a better quality of life and perhaps even some time off the clock. The three counties are already looking at departments where they can partner and share resources. It makes plenty of sense. The real problem here is a lack of economic activity in Oregon’s rural places. Add to that an increase in recreation in our wildest places and you have a recipe for disaster. Our once- strong volunteer crews are breaking under the additional requirements of the remunerative-less job — and paid public safety officials are become exhausted, too. With little infrastructure, few resources and no connection to the worldwide economy, places like Wheeler County will continue to shrivel, become more lawless, become more wild, become poorer. Good luck being a sheriff there. OTHER VIEWS The quiet death of racial progress ver the past few months, American neighborhoods are I’ve been trying to write a desegregating slightly, but the situation is worse for children. The comforting column. The thesis percentage of black students who was going to be that even though are attending schools that are 90 to Donald Trump is doing his best to 100 percent minority went down in inflame racial division, we are still the South in the 1980s, but now is making gradual progress against shooting up. racism and racial disparities. David As a nation we seem to I was going to cite evidence Brooks have lost all enthusiasm for showing a steady decline in racist Comment racial integration. A culture of attitudes. I was going to point to a individualism has led people to steady rise in intermarriage rates. In focus more on individual outcomes and less 1967, 3 percent of American newlyweds married outside their race or ethnicity. As of on the components of each community. We have settled into a reality that is separate 2015, 17 percent do, including 24 percent and unequal, and we seem not too alarmed of African-American men. about that. I’d say the correct response is I was going to point out that in 2017, an attitude I encounter a lot among people 87 percent of blacks 25 and older had who are working in these communities, completed high school. which you might call left on structural I was even going to note some positive racism and right on cultural accountability. economic statistics, too. The black That is to say, the left-wingers have unemployment rate was at a record low. it correct when they point to the systems After you control for parental income, of oppression that pervade society: the black women now out-earn their white legacy of residential segregation; the racist counterparts. In 1960, only 38 percent of attitudes in the workplace that demonstrably black men were members of the middle make it much harder for African-American class or above. Today, 57 percent are. In men to get jobs; the prejudices — in the 1960, more than 40 percent of black men schools, in the streets and in the judicial lived in poverty. Now only 18 percent do. Unfortunately, this is not that comforting system — that make it much more likely column. The deeper I dug into the evidence, that African-American males will be punished, incarcerated and marginalized. the more I came to doubt the idea that we But conservatives are right to point are still making progress on race. to the importance of bourgeois norms. Let’s take that statistic about the decline in poverty among black men. It comes from Three institutions do an impressive job an excellent report by Bradford Wilcox and of reducing racial disparity: the military, marriage and church. As the AEI study others at the American Enterprise Institute. shows, black men who served in the As their report clearly shows, the vast bulk military are more likely to be in the middle of that decline happened between 1960 class than those who did not. Black men and 1975. If you look at poverty data since who attended religious services are 76 1980, there’s been little progress. percent more likely to attain at least middle- The recent famous study co-produced class status than those who did not. The by Raj Chetty points to an elemental truth: general presence of fathers — not just one’s There is still a strong, steady societal wind own — in the community is a powerful pushing against African-American men. determinant of whether young men will be Those born into poverty are much less able to rise and thrive. likely to be able to climb out than their We’ve fallen into a bonus logjam in counterparts in other races. Those born into affluence are much more likely to fall down which progressives emphasize systems of oppression and conservatives emphasize the income scale. cultural norms. Both critiques are correct. When it comes to segregation, the If we’re going to do something about story is even worse. One of the things this appalling retrogression on race, we we’ve learned over the past decades is that probably need to be radical on both ends. place really matters — the nature of your — David Brooks, New York Times neighborhood and surroundings. O OTHER VIEWS A denunciation of Donald Trump The Scotsman Edinburgh, Scotland onald Trump, due to arrive in the UK Friday, is a racist, a serial liar, and either a sex abuser or someone who falsely brags about being one in the apparent belief that this will impress other men in a metaphorical “locker room.” To take each of these charges in turn, when black American football players protested against police shootings of innocent people of color by refusing to stand for the national anthem, Trump said the players “maybe ... shouldn’t be in the country.” And when white supremacists, neo-Nazis and armed militia groups demonstrated in Charlottesville, Virginia, over plans to remove a statue of a Confederate general — and a counter- protester was killed and others injured as a car was driven deliberately into them — Mr. Trump claimed there were “very fine people” on both sides. Trump persistently pushed the lie that Barack Obama, the first African American president, was not born in the U.S. He has called for “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” claimed Mexican immigrants were rapists and criminals, said Nigerians would never go back to “their huts” after seeing the U.S. and described African countries, D 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. along with El Salvador and Haiti, as “s***holes.” Trump also argued that an Indiana-born judge handling a lawsuit against “Trump University” was biased against him and unfit to take the case because he was a “Mexican.” One of Trump’s favourite pastimes is decrying “fake news.” But, according to one count by The Washington Post, the president lies an average of 6.5 times a day. In May, Rex Tillerson, sacked as U.S. Secretary of State in a Trump tweet, warned: “If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.” Before his presidency, Trump was recorded saying he was able to grope women whenever he liked because “when you’re a star they let you do it.” When the tape emerged, Trump said his boast was untrue and just “locker room” talk. And when several women came forward to say he had done this to them, he insisted they were lying. So, as British politicians hide their distaste in an attempt to get a much-needed post-Brexit trade deal, we should all remember what kind of man Trump really is. 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.
