ANDREW CUTLER
Publisher/Editor
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
WYATT HAUPT JR.
News Editor
JADE McDOWELL
Hermiston Editor
THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021
A4
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Child care
recovery
solutions
R
ural Oregon is facing a difficult post-
COVID economic recovery. The $1.9
trillion federal coronavirus relief
package will undoubtedly help, but without
addressing some long-standing barriers to
economic development, we will not grow
and thrive.
The lack of child care is one of those
barriers. We live in a child care desert, where
the number of available slots is a fraction of
the need.
Without adequate and affordable child
care options for children younger than age 5,
a laundry list of problems arises:
• Parents (women, mostly) who want to
work or attend school may need to drop out
of the workforce or college, harming their
family’s long-term economic future.
• Employers trying to recruit and retain
employees have limited options, as potential
workers are not available.
• A “brain drain” ensues, as professionals
leave rural Oregon to pursue their careers in
areas with more child care options.
• Rural school districts suffer from dimin-
ishing student enrollment year after year, as
young families move away.
• When there are few preschool options,
many 5 year olds are not ready to learn when
they start kindergarten, which undermines
their chances of future academic success.
A strong child care system is needed to
solve these problems.
The Ford Family Foundation’s recent
report, “Child Care in Rural Oregon,” charts
a path to improve the quantity and quality
of child care. Their five recommendations
should be quickly enacted.
Their first recommendation is for the
Oregon Department of Human Services to
use data from surveys of child care provid-
ers across the state to accurately model the
actual costs of providing child care, to calcu-
late reimbursement rates that are fair across
the state and don’t put rural areas at a disad-
vantage.
Second, do away with the state’s current
system of paying more for child care in
urban areas than is paid in rural areas, and
permanently waive or significantly lower the
co-payments for low-income families who
receive child care assistance.
Third, recognize that both home-based
child care providers and child care centers
need consistent and reliable funding. They
need to receive payments based on a child’s
enrollment rather than their daily attendance.
Fourth, launch a statewide system to link
child care provider networks so that admin-
istrative services, such as bookkeeping and
payroll, can be shared by home-based child
care and child care centers across the state,
lowering costs for all.
Fifth, make changes in Oregon’s child
care regulations to allow small child care
centers to be located in nonresidential
settings, so they can be licensed as “Certi-
fied Family Child Care.” This would allow
for mixed-age groups of up to 16 children in
“micro-centers” located in schools and other
existing buildings.
These steps don’t solve the underlying
problem causing the shortage of child care:
This care is expensive to provide because
of the high caregiver-to-child ratios needed
for the safety of very young children, and is
not subsidized by the government except for
very low-income families. The brunt of the
cost of child care is primarily borne by fami-
lies. For many families, child care costs more
than their mortgage, and can be as high as
college tuition.
Ultimately, we as a nation need to face the
fact that a child’s education does not start in
kindergarten. It starts at birth, so the more
tax dollars we spend on high-quality child
care and education, the less we will spend
on remedial services and social welfare
systems, and the better off we will be in the
long run.
One week of winter
LARRY
NIERENBERG
EYE TO THE SKY
fter a relatively warm and dry
December and January with very
little lowland snow, many of us were
wondering if we would make it through
the entire winter without having to use our
trusty snow shovels.
Well, February started out similarly to
the rest of winter but around mid-month
things changed — and rather quickly. So,
what happened?
First of all, snow in February is certainly
very common, (just think back to 2019)
but so much in a short period of time can
be overwhelming. The February snowfall
in Pendleton of just under 20 inches (19.6)
made the month the second snowiest Febru-
ary on record, and all of that snow fell in five
days.
Similar amounts occurred across other
portions of Northeast Oregon as well. The
record still remains February 2019, when
more than 32 inches of snow fell. The area
also had four straight days of 4 inches or
more of snow. The previous record is two
days.
One factor that came into play was the
polar vortex. This term has been discussed
across the media for weeks, but what
exactly is the polar vortex and what does it
do?
The polar vortex is a large area of low
A
pressure and cold air that surrounds both
of the earth’s poles. It is always present,
whether summer or winter. In the winter
it often gets stronger, but its strength will
vary and it sends colder air southward into
Canada and the United States. How strong
the vortex gets will determine how far south
the cold air gets.
This year, it was particularly strong and
sent very cold air into the northern plains.
Portions of Montana and the Dakotas had
low temperatures of minus 20 to minus 30,
and even lower. The cold air modified as it
moved south, but in spite of this, record cold
was felt all the way down into Texas.
Along with the cold came snow, with
snow being recorded in Houston. Multiple
snowstorms were recorded in Dallas/Fort
Worth. I lived in Dallas/Fort Worth for a few
years, and while occasional snow is possi-
ble, multiple snowstorms back-to-back are
extremely rare. The duration of subfreezing
temperatures even led to widespread power
outages and frozen water pipes that many
areas are still cleaning up from.
You may be asking how does the polar
vortex affect the Pacific Northwest? Gener-
ally, when cold outbreaks move into the
midsection of the country, they then move
east and south and impact the central and
southern plains, and eventually the East
Coast. The Rocky Mountains protect
the West Coast from the severe cold, as
happened this year.
However, sometimes cold air does
manage to make it west of the mountains
and down through the Columbia Basin to
east of the Cascades. In mid-February we
ended up with the coldest temperatures of
the winter season, where temperatures did
not climb above freezing for several days.
Nevertheless, these temperatures were not
particularly cold for winter in the Inland
Northwest, where temperatures can be in
the teens and 20s or even colder, especially
following a heavy snow event. Needless to
say, we did end up with a modified version
of the polar vortex.
When temperatures are cold, there is
always a chance that if moisture comes at
the right time there will be snow, and sure
enough the Columbia Basin, Blue Mountain
foothills and much of the Inland Northwest
had three storms in quick succession that
dropped at least 12 inches of total snow in
many areas. None of the storms were partic-
ularly strong, but the air was plenty cold
and there was enough moisture for a rather
prolonged period of snow. Amounts in the
lower elevations ranged from around 10 to
20 inches, with some of the nearby moun-
tain locations measuring the snow in feet
rather than inches.
So, if you are someone who likes winter
and snow, you had your winter this year, just
in a short period of time. On the other hand,
if you don’t like winter and thought perhaps
you were going to sneak by into March with
no snow, you just had to grin and bear it for
one week.
———
Larry Nierenberg is a senior forecaster for
the National Weather Service in Pendleton.
Nierenberg leads National Weather Service
community outreach and hazardous weather
preparedness and resiliency programs.
Umatilla County has been proclaimed
as a known high-intensity drug traffick-
ing area in America since 2006. Our law
enforcement has been in a position to step
it up and rise to this horrific drug abuse
situation. Has BMCC? Is there a drug
counseling program yet?
When I graduated as a teacher, EOU
prepared me as a fully licensed educator.
Why is it that the agriculture graduates
are not licensed, or even have CDLs? It
is imperative that BMCC support local
agricultural communities by instructing
students that there are strict requirements
for agricultural jobs. For instance, a sign
outside the agricultural classroom might
also read: You must pass a drug test to gain
a job in agriculture, have specific license
requirements for the state in which you
will be employed, and submit your entire
career to random drug tests.
Ron Daniels utilized student work
study programs to support the college. If
you needed a job, you got one.
The misspending of money will upend
BMCC if actions looking from Walter
McRae’s and Ron Daniels’ perspectives
are not taken.
Sally Walden Sundin
Walla Walla, Washington
second time that he lost the popular vote,
and is hiding out in Florida.
Trump has appeared only once, giving
a speech in Florida in which he put down
some Republicans that are in his party. He
doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He
doesn’t even care that some of his voters
are financially struggling because he ended
his speech asking for his followers to send
money directly to Donald J. Trump, not to
the Republican Party but to him personally,
because he’s going to need a legal defense
fund.
Hopefully, they are not that gullible
because he made $1.9 billion while he was
in office (according to Forbes magazine),
much of it taxpayer money at his resorts, so
let him use his own money to fight his legal
battle.
Asking for donations to his personal
account only shows that he isn’t in support
of the Republican Party now, but once
again he’s only for himself, the party of
Trump.
If the Republicans ever want to restore
their party to what it was “Before Trump
Decided to be a Republican” — a working,
two-party system — they have to stand up
to him and expunge him from the party.
President Joe Biden is busy keeping his
eyes on the road to make America better
and on the path of helping the American
people, all people regardless of party. Biden
is on his way to restoring our country to
greatness with an approval rating of 62%,
something Trump never accomplished.
Glad we now have a real president, a qual-
ified president with years of public service
experience and a president with empathy.
Sue Ooten
Madras
YOUR VIEWS
BMCC has many issues to
solve to remain solvent
The column by Kim Puzey (To save
community college, consider a K-14 struc-
ture/Saturday, March 13) about how soon
BMCC won’t be able to pay its bills is
inevitable.
BMCC should have few locations, but
invest in affordable housing for students.
There should be many full-time teach-
ers, small secretarial pools with a strong
college work study program supporting
the college, and administrators who under-
stand physical fitness is tied to learning.
While wasteful spending for buildings
happened, the upkeep of essential physical
fitness facilities were demolished. Think
about it. BMCC had a deep diving pool,
Olympic-sized swimming pool and classy
tennis courts, which promoted physical
fitness. Harvard on the Hill was a compli-
ment.
When programs address local opportu-
nities, BMCC will survive and thrive.
Immediately, buildings built that are a
loss should be sold. An example would be
Milton-Freewater.
The BMCC leadership that built build-
ings was wasteful. The remodeling of
those buildings was even more wasteful.
Safe housing has been needed for student
populations to grow.
Mr. Puzey pointed out the concept of “if
we build it they will come.” The problem
with that thinking was they could come,
but there was no place to stay. Housing for
students is needed today. And despite this
ignorance to address drug issues related
to adult students, there will need to be
student housing for felons.
Votes reveal GOP remains
Trump’s party
I hope that all voters remember when
they get their American Rescue check that
not a single Republican voted to help you.
Polls showed that Americans were in
favor of this bill. The Republicans continue
to be afraid of former President Donald
Trump even after he lost the election, the