A4
East Oregonian
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
ANDREW CUTLER
Editor
WYATT HAUPT JR.
News Editor
JADE McDOWELL
Hermiston Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Move government closer to the governed
L
ast week it was reported
that the Trump administra-
tion has decided to move
the headquarters of the Bureau of
Land Management from Wash-
ington, D.C., to Grand Junction,
Colorado.
The Interior Department, the
parent agency of the BLM, has
yet to confi rm the news, but the
administration has made moving
the headquarters to a western state
a key part of its plan to reorganize
the department.
A bipartisan coalition of mem-
bers of Congress from western
states put forward legislation last
year to mandate such a move.
Interior Department offi cials
have said they were considering
Grand Junction as well as Denver;
Albuquerque, New Mexico; Boise,
Idaho; and Salt Lake City for the
new headquarters.
Whether western Colorado
or some other city becomes the
BLM’s new home, we support the
move.
As we said when the idea was
fi rst fl oated last year, the logic
of moving the BLM west isn’t
hard for people in the West to
understand.
Federal land by state
Land area by percent of state
0-10%
11-30%
31-50%
There has been a buzz around town
for quite some time as to what will be
the eventual outcome of Hamley &
Company. It was founded by Parley
Pearce and Blair Woodfi eld. The bank-
ruptcy of Woodfi eld changes everything
as to who now will own this historic
company.
Over the years Hamley’s has become
an Eastern Oregon Old West icon —
the western store in particular since
1905 — the oldest business in Oregon
still in the same location (according to
Travel Oregon). The Hamley Western
Store, driven early on by the worldwide
renowned Hamley Saddle Company,
alone has had some pretty famous cow-
boys in the early years grace its portals
— the likes of Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill
Cody, Monte Montana, Hoot Gibson
and Tom Mix — and made saddles for
Roy Rogers and his contemporaries. I
mention this because of the signifi cance
with which Hamley’s is to our Pendle-
ton history.
It has come to the attention of many
in this community who I know that
with the bankruptcy of one of the Ham-
ley partners (Mr. Woodfi eld) that Mr.
Pearce intends to buy his partner’s
interest in the business. It’s my under-
standing an offer has been made to the
bankruptcy court and accepted, with
the exception that a third party has a
small window of time in which to make
an “overbid.” Many around the commu-
nity know the Confederate Tribes have
intended to make an offer.
Mr. Pearce has remained the one
partner that doesn’t want to sell to any
bidder — including the Confederated
Tribes. He has spent nearly a life’s for-
tune and years of passionate invest-
ment into preserving Hamley’s histori-
cal integrity, with many of the artifacts
in the western store and steakhouse
from his own Wild West collection.
It’s pretty well known that the Con-
federated Tribes continue to have their
eyes on Hamley’s and certainly would
enter any bidding with a much bigger
checkbook.
It is my belief and experience in
helping to preserve similar historic
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.
> 80%
Wash.
N.H.
Mont.
Ore.
Idaho
Wyo.
Nev.
Utah
D.C.
Colo.
Calif.
Ariz.
Source:
Congressional
Research Service
N.M.
Alan Kenaga/
EO Media Group
Alaska
Fla.
Hawaii
Ninety-nine percent of the 250
million acres managed by the
BLM is west of the Mississippi
River. Its decisions impact the
livelihoods of people who populate
rural communities but those deci-
sions are made far from the for-
ests, grasslands and high deserts
they call home.
Not everyone is in love with the
idea, particularly members of the
ruling class and the special inter-
ests that court infl uence inside the
Washington beltway.
Critics say the BLM and other
agencies need to be headquar-
tered in the capital to be included
in budget and policy discussions.
But having all those discussions in
Washington is part of the problem.
That’s better for K Street lobby-
ists and the environmental special
interests, but not so good for the
people those policies impact.
While it’s true that fewer than
5% of the bureau’s 9,000 employ-
ees are stationed in D.C., they have
more say and less access to the
YOUR VIEWS
Hamley’s should stay in
Pearce’s hands
51-80%
locations in Pendleton that protect-
ing Hamley’s traditional signifi cance
(as is) is a whole different venture than
even the monumental accomplishments
that the Confederated Tribes have built
on their own reservation properties.
Who knows what their business plans
for Hamley’s would be, especially in
regards to owning the oldest saddle
company and keeping the traditional
western ambience that attracts so many
visitors.
If the Confederated Tribes owned the
Hamley property and put those prop-
erties back into a CTUIR trust, a big
question is: would the city of Pendleton
lose that tax revenue? What would hap-
pen to the longtime employees? Does
the Old West business model change?
As much as I admire the Confeder-
ated Tribes’ contributions to Eastern
Oregon, I call upon them not to bid on
Hamley’s and keep this Pendleton his-
torical resource in the hands of one who
rescued, rebuilt and has the passion for
preserving this great old landmark.
Bill Dochnahl
Pendleton
All loads must be secured
for highway travel
We drove through Pendleton via
Interstate 84 on July 21, 2019. We
were in the right-hand lane going 70
mph. A pickup truck in the left-hand
lane passed us, going at least 80 mph.
When that vehicle was 50-75 feet
ahead of us, the unsecured gas grill in
the bed of the pickup fl ew up into the
air and into the path of our vehicle.
Sheer luck allowed me to be able
to swerve and brake to avoid the path
it was on, and the hundreds of pieces
it broke into. Had we been directly
behind, or if it had fl own out two sec-
onds sooner, that grill would have
smashed into our windshield.
Please, people that could have killed
us, do not drive with an unsecured
load, no matter how heavy you think
it is, or how unlikely it would be to fl y
away. Your irresponsibility could have
killed us.
Nancy Freitag
Spokane
national treasures they administer
than their colleagues in the fi eld.
The BLM isn’t the only agency
the administration seeks to move
out of the greater District of
Columbia. There are also plans to
move the Economic Research Ser-
vice and National Institute of Food
and Agriculture to Kansas City.
The elite hates that idea, too.
They proffer the same argu-
ments in both cases. It will cost
money to move these agencies
out to the countryside, and proba-
bly won’t save any in the long run.
They say valuable employees will
be lost if forced to move from the
beltway.
All of these moves will cost
money, and we’ve yet to see the
government do anything that actu-
ally saves any money. We have a
harder time believing that we will
lose a huge amount of human cap-
ital if agencies are moved from
Washington. It is probable there
are a great many people who
would fi nd government service
more rewarding if it carried with it
an affordable duty station outside
D.C.
We think the real value of these
plans is to keep the government
close to the governed.
OTHER VIEWS
Steps forward and
backward for open records
Corvallis Gazette-Times
B
y some measurements, this year’s
legislative session wasn’t a bad
one for proponents of a transpar-
ent state government.
On the plus side, legislators passed a
bill that could give some teeth to an ear-
lier measure that established deadlines
for governmental entities to respond to
requests for records. A law passed by the
2017 session requires governmental bod-
ies to acknowledge requests for records
within fi ve business days after receiv-
ing a request. And the law requires those
bodies to fulfi ll those requests within 15
days, although the law does offer a vari-
ety of escape hatches in cases where it
would be unduly burdensome to produce
the records in that time frame.
Under the terms of a bill passed by the
2019 session, governments can be fi ned
up to $200 or ordered to waive fees for
gathering the records if a district attor-
ney or the state attorney general deter-
mines that the delay is unreasonable.
This probably won’t amount to much
(the fi ne isn’t particularly huge, and we
suspect most district attorneys will not
have much of an appetite to slap sanc-
tions on entities under their jurisdiction),
but this measure at least represents a
small step forward.
The Legislature also approved a bill
that made permanent the state’s Pub-
lic Records Advisory Council; when the
2017 Legislature fi rst approved creation
of the council, it made it temporary. But
these public records issues aren’t going
away any time soon, so lawmakers made
the right call when they made the council
permanent.
And the Legislature did block a mea-
sure that would have represented a big
step backward: a bill that would have
required requesting parties to explain
why they wanted access to the records
died after word of the legislation spread.
If a record is public, the government has
no business asking why a citizen wants
access to it. It is the business of the gov-
ernment to release that public record, no
questions asked.
That’s the good news. The bad news
is that this session ended up infl icting
another two dozen or so wounds to the
state’s open records laws.
It happens every session: Legisla-
tors pass bills that exempt from public
inspection records that used to be open.
In many cases, these bills are passed
without much notice or public debate;
in some cases, they slide through in the
frenzy that accompanies the fi nal few
days of a session.
In any event, the end result is the
same: The public loses access to yet
another set of records that used to be
open to inspection. Some of these
so-called exemptions to the public
records law are justifi ed for privacy or
other reasons. But many of them are not,
and exist primarily because it’s more
convenient for parties to keep that infor-
mation confi dential.
No one knows for sure how many of
these exemptions exist in state law; the
best guess now is more than 650. And
no one knows yet for sure how many
new exemptions the Legislature added
during its 2019 session. Ginger McCall,
the state’s public records advocate, told
members of the Oregon Newspaper Pub-
lishers Association last week that her
best guess now is somewhere around 25,
but she’s still plowing through all the
legislation that passed during the session.
Another committee, the Oregon Sun-
shine Committee for Public Records
Law Reform, is working to review all
the exemptions in state law, with an eye
toward identifying the ones that no lon-
ger can be justifi ed (if they ever could).
The timeline for that work stretches out
over the next 10 years, and this year’s
Legislature has added to the task.
We’ve always argued that govern-
ment works best when it functions in
the sunshine — and when citizens have
easy access to records that help illumi-
nate its workings. Oregon’s records laws
used to be among the best in the nation,
but the sunshine fades a bit with every
new exemption lawmakers approve. It
will require sustained work to turn up
the light.
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 the editor to
editor@eastoregonian.com,
or via mail to Andrew Cutler,
211 S.E. Byers Ave.
Pendleton, OR 97801