A4
PAGE LABEL HERE
East Oregonian
ANDREW CUTLER
Publisher/Editor
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
PHIL WRIGHT
News Editor
Thursday, July 29, 2021
JEFF BUDLONG
Interim Hermiston Editor
THURSDAY, JULY 29, 2021
A4
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Oregon
Forest
Resources
Institute
still needed
T
he Legislature created the Oregon
Forest Resources Institute 29 years
ago during the timber wars, which
featured battles over logging, fierce debates
over the role of state and federal forests in
the timber industry and, most remarkably,
the protection of the northern spotted owl
under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The stakes were huge for Oregon’s econ-
omy. Since 2001, the timber industry has
lost 15,000 direct jobs — a drop of almost
18%.
The Legislature’s primary goal was to
create an agency that would provide infor-
mation and educational material to the
public and schools about the timber indus-
try and how it operates.
The problem: The legislation creating the
OFRI was vague about how that would be
done.
Fast forward to 2021 and a state audit
that found the institute needs more over-
sight and direction.
The audit, requested by Gov. Kate
Brown, followed criticism that the OFRI
had lobbied the Legislature. Though many
state agencies have “legislative liaisons”
that do pretty much the same thing, critics
felt the institute was out of line.
Any confusion can be attributed to the
poorly written state law.
“Portions of OFRI’s statute are broad
and vague, contributing to this ongoing lack
of clarity as to what exactly OFRI is and
what rules it is expected to follow,” accord-
ing to the audit.
The legislative record referenced in the
audit shows lawmakers themselves were
unclear about how the institute should
operate. If legislators didn’t know and
didn’t write a law that was clear, how could
OFRI’s leaders know?
The audit compares the OFRI to the 22
commodity commissions, which the state
Department of Agriculture oversees. The
trouble with that comparison is that in 1991,
when the OFRI was created by the Legis-
lature, commodity commissions weren’t
state agencies. They were taken under
the ODA’s wing years later because of a
series of judges’ rulings that found the state
could not require growers to give money to
private commissions.
By transforming the commissions into
state agencies the Legislature solved that
problem. That allowed them to promote the
crop and fund research — and lobby the
Legislature.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the
Legislature probably could do the same
with OFRI, except put it under state Depart-
ment of Forestry instead of the ODA.
We would encourage legislators to
consider doing that.
In the meantime, the audit makes four
suggestions to the OFRI and one to the
Legislature. In its response, the institute’s
director agreed to all of them. They include
writing a single mission statement to follow
and policies to make OFRI staffers follow
what the state statute appears to say but
does not specify. Again, the statute is the
root of the problems.
Earlier this year, some legislators tried
to slash the OFRI’s budget — which comes
from the timber industry in the form of
harvest taxes — as some sort of retribution
for past transgressions, real or imagined.
That would be wrong.
The OFRI can and should play a role
in keeping the public informed about the
timber industry, which continues to be an
important part of the state economy.
A twist in the race for governor
DICK
HUGHES
OTHER VIEWS
T
he craziness known as Oregon
politics took another twist last
week. An Oregon-bred national
journalist jumped into next year’s race
for governor — maybe.
Nicholas Kristof grew up on a farm
outside Yamhill before heading off to
Harvard, a Rhodes scholarship and
eventually two Pulitzer Prizes as a New
York Times reporter and columnist.
Journalists seem mesmerized by
Kristof’s potential candidacy, compar-
ing it with Oregon’s legendary Gov.
Tom McCall, who ascended from the
newsroom. Of course, those were differ-
ent times, and Republican McCall,
besides the exposure provided by his
journalism career, had the political
experience of a losing bid for Congress
and being elected secretary of state
before running for governor in 1966.
For the record, I’ve known Nick
since he was a high school journalist at
the McMinnville News-Register, where
my professional career began. I’m
not making an endorsement of him or
any candidate. That is not my role as a
columnist. Since Nick is a friend, it also
would be a conflict of interest to specu-
late on whether he should run, whether
he could win and whether he would be a
good governor. I’ll leave that to others.
Mark Hester, a former Portland jour-
nalist turned communications consul-
tant, wrote an insightful piece about
Kristof on The Oregon Way blog.
“I have no interest in running for
governor, but as a semiretired jour-
nalist who grew up on a farm and has
lived in Oregon the past 25 years I do
have some thoughts on traits that voters
should expect from gubernatorial candi-
dates and whether growing up on a farm
or working as a journalist would help
produce those traits,” Hester wrote.
Hester went on to list his opinion on
desirable traits in a governor, adding:
“In other words, success in executive
office, especially elected office, often
comes down to temperament and lead-
ership. Where you grow up and your
profession play a role in forming your
temperament and forging leadership
skills but so do a lot of other things.”
However, the political reality is that
the No. 1 asset for becoming governor is
electability.
In Oregon, that means A) being a
Democrat, unless you’re the unusual
candidate who is sufficiently conser-
vative to win the Republican guberna-
torial primary yet sufficiently centrist
to appeal to a broad swath of indepen-
dents, Democrats and Republicans at
the general election; and B) have power-
ful financial and volunteer support,
as is personified by Oregon’s public
employee unions, unless C) the chaos in
Portland, plus burgeoning dissatisfac-
tion with the state’s direction, opens the
door for a savvy, centrist, well-financed
independent candidate.
You’ll note that A and B seem contra-
dictory. As for C, The Cook Political
Report rates Oregon’s 2022 gubernato-
rial race as among the nine nationwide
that are solidly in the Democratic win
column.
If anyone had doubts about the
impact of Oregon labor unions, those
should have been dispelled by last
year’s race for secretary of state. After
former state Rep. Jennifer William-
son abruptly dropped out, state Sen.
Shemia Fagan jumped in three months
before the Democratic primary — and
won, defeating more middle-of-the-road
candidates. Fagan had an advantage that
she already was a darling of Portland
progressives, with her self-described
reputation as a fighter and her raised-fist
commitment to progressive causes. But
she won because unions overwhelm-
ingly backed her with their financial
might and manpower.
Fagan, by the way, has said she would
not run for governor in 2022. Specula-
tion has centered on other well-known
Democrats: Attorney General Ellen
Rosenblum, State Treasurer Tobias
Read, Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle,
Multnomah County Chair Deborah
Kafoury, House Speaker Tina Kotek and
union leader Melissa Unger.
A host of legislators and other office-
holders also are quietly evaluating
whether to stay put, leave politics or
go for the governorship. A few less-
er-known candidates, such as Yamhill
County Commissioner Casey Kulla,
already have formally declared their
candidacy.
As a former state treasurer, Portland
Mayor Ted Wheeler would have been
a likely contender. Instead, the city’s
turmoil has him facing a possible recall
election.
For the most part, potential candi-
dates have offered little clarity in recent
days when asked about their ambitions.
The typical answers — none of which
tells us anything official — are that
they’re focused on their current job or
they’re evaluating their political future,
or they have no comment. Barring an
outright denial of interest, such answers
suggest they’re conducting polling,
checking potential support and deter-
mining whether there’s a viable path to
make it through the Democratic primary
and into the governorship. Candidates
also spread unofficial word of their
candidacy to lock up support and deter
challengers.
Under the Oregon Constitution, a
candidate for governor must be a U.S.
citizen, at least age 30 and have resided
in Oregon for the three years prior to
being elected.
Eight Republicans have filed
campaign committees. They include
Salem oncologist Bud Pierce, the
Republican nominee in 2016.
As for columnist Kristof, he’d
planned to keep his political interest
mum for now. Here’s what happened, as
he described this week in his newsletter,
which is going on hiatus:
“I had tried to keep this secret,
but since I’ve spent a career trying to
ferret out the secrets of others, maybe
it’s karma that mine was reported. An
Oregon newspaper, Willamette Week,
correctly reported over the weekend that
I’m considering running for governor of
Oregon, and other news organizations
including The Times have reported on
this since. ... In June, I told my editor
that I was thinking of a political run, and
we agreed that to avoid any perceived
conflict of interest, I would take a leave
until I made a decision. If I decide to
run, I will depart The Times. If I decide
not to, I’ll return to the column.”
———
Dick Hughes has covered the Oregon
political scene since 1976.
For more than a year, we’ve lost
much of our freedom to this “damn-
panick,” and because I’m in my elder
years, that’s a significant percentage of
my remaining life.
Do the unvaccinated actually real-
ize they are likely stretching out the
time of those restrictions? How many
times are we now hearing from very
sick people “I wish I had gotten the
vaccine”? Were these folks ever in the
company of family/friends who might
have encouraged them to do so?
Yes, I’m irritated by the unnecessary
holdouts and the possibility of contin-
ued restrictions because of these folks; it
is hard to accept. By the way, gosh, I’m
wondering if I should have gotten the
measles vaccine back in the late ‘40s?
After all, what did they know, back
then, about vaccines?
So, is there a sensible response to the
above comments? Maybe. After all, I
don’t know everything.
Lloyd Corliss
Bend
YOUR VIEWS
Get vaccinated for others,
not yourself
Yes, in some sense, refusing to get
the COVID-19 vaccine is a personal
choice, but in a much larger sense, that
choice is having a adverse and very
selfish effect on the general public.
Granted, there may be a few valid
circumstances for not being vacci-
nated, but I’d like to address the folks
who could have the vaccine but are
holdouts.