Saturday, February 27, 2021
VIEWPOINTS
East Oregonian
A5
The preciousness of the ordinary
STEVE FORRESTER
MATT WINTERS
WRITER’S NOTEBOOK
L
ike a gale that rips off the roofs in a
small town, the lingering trauma of
Jan. 6 has exposed basic truths about
American life. Some of these are intellectual,
as they pertain to the U.S. Constitution. The
12th Amendment to our founding document
was being implemented inside the U.S. Capi-
tol at the moment violent insurrectionists
were breaking down its doors and windows.
Another foundational element of Amer-
ican life was violated that day — an aspect
of American life that is more emotional than
intellectual, but one with a profound influ-
ence on our national prosperity and level of
contentment.
Many values constitute America. There is
freedom of speech. Also freedom of religion.
For many Americans, personal empower-
ment is defined by the right to bear arms.
Underneath these and other bedrock free-
doms lies an emotional truth that is not writ-
ten down. For lack of a better word, call it
consistency. In the most basic terms, we have
a justified expectation that when we wake
up in the morning the lights will turn on. We
expect that we will not find that there’s been
a coup overnight within City Hall. We expect
that when we drive down our city’s streets,
we’ll not be stopped by a mob. We assume
the banks will operate.
We take all of this for granted. But that
is not the case in many other countries. And
that’s one reason why the United States has
always beckoned immigrants as well as
investment.
Here’s how one local immigrant sees it:
“The ordinary is truly precious.” She adds:
“Immigrants know this.” They have come
to America from places where all manner of
Who wants to start a new family or busi-
ness in a place where officials are corrupt,
where public services are undependable,
where warring political factions can destroy
decades of work in a single riot?
This is what the U.S. risks if we are
unable to coalesce around a rational middle
ground that cherishes an element of stabil-
ity and predictability. Far from being boring,
the traits that made America great serve as
a foundation for creativity and risk taking.
Just as children who grow up in supportive
“THE HORROR SHOW OF JAN. 6 BADLY
BRUISED OUR REPUTATION FOR STABILITY.
PROLONGED CIVIL UNREST HAS ALSO
STRIPPED THE LUSTER OFF SEVERAL U.S.
CITIES, INCLUDING PORTLAND.”
daily disruption is commonplace. This kind
of chronic instability is like being in an ines-
capable bad relationship — inescapable, that
is, except by taking the drastic step of relo-
cating to a different nation.
Countries that become mired in cycles
of political volatility suffer “brain drain,”
as those with gumption and resources seek
security elsewhere. For the majority who
either choose to endure in place or who have
no practical choice, life becomes a toothache
dogged by worry and underachievement.
families with high expectations may never
fully realize how lucky they had it, citizens
of smoothly functioning nations can scarcely
recognize how privileged they are.
The dividends of living in such a country
may be invisible to most. But they enrich us
in countless ways. America’s stability means
we are able to inexpensively borrow what-
ever we need to springboard us out of what
might otherwise be a pandemic-induced
depression. Our reputation for strength
shields us, to some extent, from attacks by
our adversaries.
The horror show of Jan. 6 badly bruised
our reputation for stability. Prolonged civil
unrest has also stripped the luster off several
U.S. cities, including Portland.
It’s often said that the first step toward
getting better is recognizing you have a
problem. In today’s U.S., there’s no short-
age of those who decry both real and imag-
ined shortcomings — nor should we ever
cease striving to ensure political, legal and
economic justice for all. Our problems are
comparatively easy to see.
Ben Franklin, our pragmatic founding
father, wrote in 1789 that, “Our new Consti-
tution is now established, everything seems
to promise it will be durable; but, in this
world, nothing is certain except death and
taxes.”
If transported to today, Franklin would
worry about how many of us fail to appreci-
ate what we have. Franklin would recognize
citizens who cherish the extraordinary value
of normal operations are the key to an endur-
ing republic.
Even Franklin admitted he didn’t like
every bit of the Constitution, but he recog-
nized the whole package was a recipe for
enduring American success. Healing the
damage to our nation starts with recommit-
ting ourselves to preserving the preciousness
of the ordinary.
———
Steve Forrester, the former editor and
publisher of The Astorian, is the president
and CEO of EO Media Group. Matt Winters
is the editor of the Chinook Observer.
The future of our climate, and our world, is up to us
ANDREW
CLARK
A SLICE OF LIFE
W
hat is the biggest temperature
variation you have heard of in one
town?
A few days ago, I saw a copy of the
“TidBits” paper in Milton-Freewater. It had
a very interesting article on the Arctic and
mentioned that a town in Russia called Verk-
hoyansk had the lowest temperature ever
recorded in the Arctic — minus 89.9 degrees.
And then, in 2020, that same town recorded a
temperature of 100.4 degrees.
That is a high/low variance in one place
of 190 degrees. The article also noted that
the 100-degree temperature set an all-time
record for the Arctic, “alarming meteo-
rologists worldwide.” Another interesting
statistic said if all Arctic ice melted, sea level
would rise 23 feet. And if all Antarctic ice
melted, global sea level would rise 197 feet, a
combined total of 220 feet of sea-level rise.
Look at a world map and note all the
major cities at the periphery of conti-
nents — all those huge cities that grew
from little seaports and now hold, cumula-
tively, hundreds of millions of people. As
those cities drown, coastal people all over
the world will move inland in an immense
migration and, although it will be very slow,
it will be inexorable.
All of our Oregon coastal cities are at sea
level zero and gone. Portland is at 50 feet
elevation and underwater. As the seawater
spreads out, the Willamette Valley would
become a very large saltwater lake. East-
ern Oregon would perhaps be less affected
by water than by the people fleeing Western
Oregon and elsewhere.
This won’t happen in our lifetimes or
for many, many lifetimes to come, but the
significant issue for us right now is that we —
right now, us — are part of the trajectory that
is making it happen. We are guilty parties.
We are creating the anthropogenic climate
change that is responsible for the 190-degree
temperature variance in the Arctic, and that
means a lot of what was previously stable
snow and ice becomes flowing water and
the process of ocean rise is happening as we
speak. The warmer air melts the snow from
Insolvency is at BMCC’s doorstep
KIM
PUZEY
OTHER VIEWS
I
n 1962, when Wallace McCrae was
selected as the first president of Blue
Mountain Community College, John F.
Kennedy was president of the United States.
Fertility rates were high and baby boomers
were graduating from high school. Trade
schools and community colleges were part
of a bright future for a growing population.
Federal, state and local funding sources
were available to build facilities, design
course curriculum and fully staff hundreds
of such institutions across the nation.
Almost anything imaginable was possible.
McCrae presided over a dozen years of
exciting growth.
Ron Daniels was the next president and
served for 23 years. Near the end of his
tenure, he invited me to fill a vacancy on
the Budget Committee, which led to an
appointment to the Board of Trustees where
I have had the privilege of serving for nearly
25 years. During that time I have worked
with the following presidents and interim
presidents, each of whom brought their
own management style and unique skills
set as the chief executive officer: Nicki
Harrington, Travis Kirkland, Paul McCa-
rrell, John Turner, Cam Preus, Connie
Green, Dennis Bailey-Fougnier and John
Fields.
Shortly after the myriad nationwide
technical schools and community colleges
were established, federal funds were
directed elsewhere, assuming each insti-
tution would be self sustaining through
prudent financial management. Ron Daniels
was a fiscal conservative and left a substan-
tial financial reserve when he retired. The
college was growing, bond measures were
passed and enrollment increased.
In 1994, Oregonians voted in favor of
Measures 11 and 17, which required manda-
tory sentencing for certain crimes and
work for the incarcerated. The impact of
these measures resulted in approximately
$1 billion in the construction of correc-
tional institutions and the diversion of state
funding to the maintenance and operations
of those facilities. The measures increased
the mandatory portion and decreased the
discretionary portion of the state budget,
which is the portion from which commu-
nity colleges are funded. K-12 and higher
education are in the mandatory portion of
the budget.
Measures 5, 47 and 50 placed limits on
property taxes, which had been the primary
resource for funding community colleges.
This left community colleges in a position
to lobby the Legislature for a larger portion
of discretionary funds or, alternately,
increasing tuition and fees.
By the time these measures were in
place and had begun to create unanticipated
tension between resources and require-
ments, costs across the board had increased
and fertility rates had fallen from a high
of 3.58 in 1960 to approximately 2.0 in the
mid-1990s, meaning there would be fewer
prospective students in the years to come.
Between 1998 and 2011, believing that
“if we build it they will come,” the public
continued to vote for more bond measures
to expand and improve existing facilities
and establish satellite campuses in Herm-
iston, Milton-Freewater, Boardman and
Baker City.
Each new facility came with operations
and maintenance costs that were intended
to be absorbed by increased enrollments.
Instructional and administrative costs
continued to increase as the aforementioned
fiscal reserve was gradually diminished.
For more than a decade the general trend
has been increased costs and decreased
enrollment.
Faculty, administrators, presidents
and trustees have planned and hoped and
worked toward reversing these intractable
trends, to little avail. President after pres-
ident after president has continued to face
what seems to have become inevitable.
From my perspective of almost 25 years
of associating with the governance of this
institution, I believe insolvency is at the
doorstep of Blue Mountain Community
College unless we reinvent a floundering
system.
———
Kim Puzey lives in Hermiston and is the
general manager of the Port of Umatilla. He
is a member of the Blue Mountain Commu-
nity College Board of Education.
above and the warmer water melts the ice
from below. And it is happening right now.
At this rate, our future progeny will have
good reason to curse our irresponsibility
for not addressing this problem when it was
reconcilable, because by their time, alterna-
tives are likely to be limited or nonexistent.
As of Jan. 20, we are back in the Paris
Climate Agreement — a good, solid first step
in terms of national policy — but what do we
do as individual citizens? There are several
potentials.
We need to drop the unfounded state-
ments denying climate change and start
relying on solid science. We need to encour-
age our legislators at both state and federal
levels to support legislation that reduces use
of greenhouse gas-producing fuels. We need
to examine our own individual activities that
create CO2 and methane. We need to think in
terms of trading small engine implements for
electric replacements. To drive cars gently.
With all the technical advancements and
efficiencies regarding production and usage
of energy, many changes can be made if we
make ourselves aware of available alterna-
tives and take individual responsibility.
And all together that can add up to a lot of
positive action.
How can we learn more?
Based right here in Pendleton, there is
an organization called the Eastern Oregon
Climate Change Coalition — EOC3. This is
a group of concerned citizens who strive to
learn, together, how to deal with our chang-
ing climate and ensure a sustainable future
for themselves, their families and everyone
else, including you.
EOC3 members make themselves more
aware of the causes of climate change, the
issues surrounding its effects, and mitiga-
tions that all of us can consider in response
to a changing climate. Anyone — especially
you — can be a member, involved in aware-
ness and solutions.
For more information, please contact
EastOregonClimateChange@gmail.com
or check out their Facebook page at Easter-
nOregonClimateChangeCoalition. Please be
involved. Please think of our grandchildren
in the distant future — futures that we now
hold in our hands.
———
Dr. Andrew Clark is a livestock veterinar-
ian with both domestic and international work
experience who lives in Pendleton.
Act will protect more
Oregon rivers and streams
RON
WYDEN
OTHER VIEWS
O
regon is special for many reasons.
But two attributes are near and
dear to my heart: our state’s
unmatched natural treasures and our firm
commitment to democracy that I call the
“Oregon Way.”
With those attributes in mind, I was
proud this month, along with Sen. Jeff
Merkley, to introduce the River Democ-
racy Act.
The legislation proposes to protect our
natural treasures by adding nearly 4,700
miles of rivers and streams in Oregon
to the national Wild and Scenic Rivers
system — the largest Wild and Scenic
Rivers effort in U.S. history.
And the bill takes its name from the fact
that the proposed rivers and stream addi-
tions came directly from more than 15,000
nominations submitted by Oregonians
statewide.
That open public process encouraged
Oregonians to nominate rivers that are
outstanding for their recreation, fish and
wildlife habitat, or because they provide
clean drinking water. This bill represents,
for example, nominations for the Umatilla
River and Middle Fork John Day by the
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation.
In addition to reflecting Oregonians’
desire to protect our spectacular rivers
for generations to come, the bill would
continue to rev up our state’s outdoor
recreation economy — which, according to
the Outdoor Recreation Industry, supports
224,000 jobs statewide and generates $15.6
billion in consumer spending. The legis-
lation was crafted with the input of small
businesses across Oregon who know these
protections support hunting, fishing, and
outdoor recreation, and will help them as
they fight to recover from the pandemic as
more and more Oregonians find refuge and
safety in the outdoors.
And we did this the “Oregon Way.”
We solicited nominations from the people
who interact with these rivers every single
day. And we listened to concerns these
folks were having in real time by taking a
21st century conservation approach that
considers the climate emergency, and
the sobering risks that wildfire poses to
Oregon families and small businesses.
In the devastating aftermath of the
historic infernos that ripped through
Oregon communities in fall 2020, I made
sure the River Democracy Act takes multi-
ple, necessary steps to protect homes, busi-
nesses, and our state’s special places from
wildfires.
Those steps include the requirement
that federal land management agencies
assess the risks of wildfire in Wild and
Scenic River corridors, as well as near
homes and businesses, and develop a risk
reduction plan that must be implemented
immediately.
The bill also allows federal land
management agencies to enter into coop-
erative wildfire-fighting agreements with
states and local governments and estab-
lishes a federal grant program for states
and local governments to help repair
drinking water quality, watersheds, and
infrastructure.
I intend this bill to protect federal public
land, and believe strongly that private
property rights must be upheld. This
includes farming and ranching, which are
vital to many local economies around the
state. The legislation takes great care to
state in plain English that “Nothing in this
Act or an amendment made by this Act
affects private property rights.”
And finally, the bill includes language
that explicitly makes it clear that valid or
vested water rights will not be affected;
and the state of Oregon can still administer
water rights in accordance with state laws
and regulations.
So it’s in the true spirit of the “Oregon
Way” that the proposed River Democracy
Act now opens a new round of conversa-
tion among us as Oregonians.
———
Ron Wyden is Oregon’s senior senator.