Page 4A
East Oregonian
Saturday, November 17, 2018
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
WYATT HAUPT JR.
News Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Code enforcement
more than aesthetics
L
iving in the country can be
heavenly — unless you’ve got
problem neighbors. Then it can
be pure hell.
And as much as some would like
law enforcement to solve their disputes
large and small, that’s simply not a
reasonable expectation.
In weighing competing priorities,
counties and other local governments
understandably struggle with how to
allocate funds. In the most clear-cut
example, in a contest between hiring
a sheriff’s deputy or a code officer,
protecting the public against outright
criminals is always likely to win.
Hermiston did step up its code
enforcement efforts this summer,
adding a second part-time officer to
help address problem properties. The
police department now oversees the
program, where parks and recreation
used to be in charge. That is a smart
move, as there can be a link between
code violations and criminal activity.
“Livability issues can have an
impact on crime,” police chief Jason
Edmiston said in an interview with
the East Oregonian earlier this month.
“A well-kept, well-lit property is less
likely to be a victim of a crime.”
And it’s essential to recognize that
code disputes can also blow up into
crimes. Tempers flare when dogs bark
all day or chase other pets. Arguments
about illegally burning smelly garbage
can turn into escalating threats and
even assault.
Looming over all this are
protections for private property rights.
One person’s awful mess may be
another’s cherished stockpile of old
farm equipment and vehicles kept
for parts. Even the most egregious
violators deserve due process.
But landowners who neglect
basic management functions permit
smaller issues to fester and grow into
neighborhood-wrecking free-for-alls.
Violators themselves may be rotten
jerks, or simply overwhelmed by
poverty, illness or substance abuse.
The Umatilla County Sheriff’s
Office dealt with the worst of this issue
last year when it forcefully closed the
Rodeo City Inn west of Pendleton. The
motel had become a dangerous place,
and the owner proved unwilling to
make necessary improvements, so the
county shut it down and boarded it up.
Carried to an extreme, such
properties negatively affect the value
of neighboring addresses. Lack of
appropriate rule enforcement drags
Staff photo by Jayati Ramakrishnan
Code Enforcement Officer Mike Marcum looks at a ditch where people have dumped
trash behind the Hermiston movie theater.
everyone down.
Beyond admonishing everyone to be
better neighbors, what’s the solution?
While it will always contain some
gray area, code enforcement should be
addressed in black and white.
It ought to include larger fees
for problem properties and shorter
time periods before action is taken.
Facing the prospect of liens against
their property to pay for cleanup and
damages, most owners will step up
efforts to avoid allowing problems to
get out of control.
From a broader public perspective,
we all can help by letting elected
and appointed officials know this is
a high priority, and by supporting
personnel doing their jobs. Area real
estate brokers and agents should wield
their considerable influence to make
the point that the county’s future
depends in part upon a reputation
for protecting property values and
quality of life. Chambers of commerce
should be vigilant to the negative
effects of neglected properties around
businesses.
As the 21st century moves forward,
our region will have to accommodate
more and more residents. It’s vital that
we get along. Intelligent and diligent
code enforcement is a key way to
ensure this result.
OTHER VIEWS
The rise of the resentniks
T
here’s a powerful moment at the start
around the world, in Britain, Italy, Germany
of Anne Applebaum’s recent essay in
and the U.S.
The Atlantic. She’s recalling a party
Some conservatives stayed on the
she threw on Dec. 31, 1999, at her home in
political trajectory they were on in 1999.
Poland. Many of the hundred-odd guests
Others embraced populist nativism. They
were Polish, but others flew in from around
wandered into territory that is xenophobic,
the world for a weekend together, to greet
anti-Semitic, authoritarian. Still others were
the new millennium.
driven leftward by the reactionary revival.
Most of the guests were
What happened? This is the story
conservatives — which in those
I would tell.
days meant being anti-communist
During the Cold War, being a
and pro-market, but also believing
conservative was a moral cause. You
in international alliances like NATO.
were fighting communist tyranny —
The party was a great success, lasted
aligned with Alexander Solzhenitsyn
all night and continued into brunch
and Lech Walesa. But you were
the following day. Everybody felt a
somewhat marginalized in your
part of the same team.
own society. Liberals controlled the
David
“Nearly two decades later,”
Brooks universities, the news media, the
Applebaum writes, “I would now
Comment
cultural high ground, so the right
cross the street to avoid some of
attracted many people with outsider
the people who were at my New
personalities.
Year’s Eve party.” She estimates that half
Then with the election of Reagan
the people at that party are no longer on
and Thatcher and in the years afterward,
speaking terms with the other half.
conservatives built their own counter-
For example, in recent years Applebaum
establishment — think tanks, publications,
has not had a single conversation with a
broadcasting outlets. As conservatism
woman who was once one of her closest
professionalized, it despiritualized. After
friends and is godmother to one of her
the Soviet Union collapsed, conservatism
children. She tried to reach out to this
no longer had a great moral cause to
woman and suggested they get together, but rally around. It became a technocratic,
the woman refused. “What would we talk
economics-focused movement concerned
about?” she texted.
with small government and entitlement
Those of us who came of age in
reform. Compassionate conservatism and
conservative circles know exactly what
the dream of spreading global democracy
Applebaum is talking about. The same kinds were efforts to anchor conservatism around
of rifts have opened up among conservatives a moral ideal, but they did not work out.
YOUR VIEWS
Pardon a turkey, eat
vegetarian this Thanksgiving
While President Trump is pardoning two
turkeys for Thanksgiving, every one of us
can exercise that same presidential power
by choosing a non-violent Thanksgiving
observance.
And here are some other good reasons:
• You can brag about pardoning a turkey
— like Trump (or not).
• You will stay awake for your entire
favorite football game.
• Your sensible vegetarian kid won’t
have to boycott the family dinner.
• Plant-based holiday roasts don’t have
to carry government warning labels.
• You won’t have to call Poultry Hotline
to keep your family out of the hospital.
• Your body will appreciate a holiday
from the fat, cholesterol, and hormones.
• You won’t sweat the environment and
food resources devastation guilt trip.
• You won’t spend a sleepless night
wondering how the turkey lived and died.
Seriously, this Thanksgiving, let’s give
thanks for our good fortune, health, and
happiness with a life-affirming, cruelty-
free feast of plant-based holiday roast,
vegetables, fruits, and grains.
Our own dinner will feature a store-
bought, plant-based holiday roast,
mashed potatoes, stuffed squash, candied
yams, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin
pie. An internet search on “vegetarian
Thanksgiving” is getting us more recipes
than we could possibly use.
Patrick Lawson
Pendleton
Yoncalla’s young mayor not
the city’s only claim to fame
This is not the first time that my
hometown of Yoncalla has been in the
news, because in the Nov. 2, 1920, election
the mayor was named Mary, and the city
council was Bernice, Jennie, Nettie and
Edith, making Yoncalla the first city in
America to have all those positions filled by
women.
Rodney Thompson
Pendleton
Many conservatives simply could
not succeed in the new conservative
counterestablishment. In any meritocracy,
there are going to be a lot of people who
lose out and do not get the glittering
career they think they are due. Sooner
or later those people are going to rise
up to challenge the competition itself
and to question its idea of excellence.
“Resentment, envy, and above all the
belief that the ‘system’ is unfair — these
are important sentiments among the
intellectuals of the Polish right,” Applebaum
writes.
At the same time, they resent how
spiritually flat conservatism has become.
“The principles of competition, even when
they encourage talent and create upward
mobility, don’t necessarily answer deeper
questions about national identity, or satisfy
the human desire to belong to a moral
community,” Applebaum continues.
In such a situation, you’re almost bound
to get a return of blood-and-soil nationalism.
The losers in the meritocratic competition,
the permanent outsiders, seize on ethnic
nationalism to give themselves a sense of
belonging, to explain their failures, to rally
the masses and to upend the meritocracy.
In office, what the populist nationalists
do is this: They replace the idea of
excellence with the idea of “patriotism.”
Loyalty to the tribe is more important than
professional competence. In fact, a person’s
very lack of creativity and talent becomes
proof of his continued reliability to the
cause, as we’ve seen in the continued fealty
to King Trump.
While there is a sprinkling of good
professionals in the Trump administration,
they are there by accident, not by
intent. Many of those staffing the White
House could not get a job in any normal
Republican administration, which selected
people according to any traditional criteria
of excellence.
And now, as Trump reshuffles his
administration yet again, we see the
remnants of the B and C teams replaced
by members of the D team. Over the past
few days, there’s been a lot of gossip over
whether Acting Attorney General Matthew
Whitaker will keep his job. But it almost
doesn’t matter, because from here on out,
it’s Whitakers all the way down.
If conservatism is ever to recover, it
has to achieve two large tasks. First, it
has to find a moral purpose large enough
to displace the lure of blood-and-soil
nationalism. Second, it has to restore
standards of professional competence and
reassert the importance of experience,
integrity and political craftsmanship. When
you take away excellence and integrity,
loyalty to the great leader is the only
currency that remains.
■
David Brooks has been a senior editor at
The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor
at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly, and
he is currently a commentator on “The New-
shour with Jim Lehrer.”