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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, January 29, 2022
Kristof:
Continued from Page A1
homelessness, Kristof had a
number of ideas of what the
state needed to do to reverse
it. He recited a rapid-fi re list
of concepts he said already
worked at the local level or
elsewhere: turning more
motels to emergency shelters,
tiny home villages, improv-
ing the permitting process
for new housing and creating
incentives for homeowners
to rent out excess rooms and
living spaces.
“Many of these things are
not perfect,” he said. “This
probably sounds too glib.
These are hard problems, but
they’re not impossible. Other
states have chipped away at
them using some of these
strategies.”
While Kristof would need
to fi nd a way to fund these
initiatives, he said money
wasn’t the main factor in
getting them done.
“In Oregon, the cost is
not really the constraint,” he
said. “Especially in the Port-
land metro area, there’s been
a huge amount of money that
has been allocated, so that is
less of a constraint.”
Should Kristof win the
Democratic nomination and
then the general election, he
would be the fi rst person in
decades to hold the gover-
norship without any previous
experience in elected offi ce at
the local, state or federal level.
Kristof compared himself
favorably to Tom McCall, a
former print and TV reporter
who went on to win the gover-
norship in the 1960s and shep-
herded lasting policies like
public beaches and urban
growth boundaries into law.
But McCall had ran unsuc-
cessfully for a U.S. House
seat and served as Oregon
secretary of state for two
years before he was elected
governor. The last person to
be elected governor with-
out any elected experience
was Charles A. Sprague,
who won the governorship in
1938. Sprague, also a former
journalist, served a full term
in Salem but his reelection
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Democrat Nick Kristof touts
his journalism “toolbox” as
providing him with the abil-
ity to deliver on campaign
promises where other Dem-
ocrats fail if he wins the race
for Oregon governor.
campaign sputtered after he
lost the Republican primary
in 1942.
But the headlines that
have dominated Kristof’s
campaign haven’t been about
his policies or profession.
Instead, most attention has
focused on his residency.
Secretary of State Shemia
Fagan on Jan. 6 determined
Kristof did not meet the
Oregon Constitution’s resi-
dency requirements to run
for state office — namely,
a candidate must have lived
in the state for at least three
years before the general elec-
tion date. One of Fagan’s key
pieces of evidence is Kristof’s
voting history, which shows
him voting from New York in
2020.
Kristof appealed Fagan’s
decision to the Oregon
Supreme Court, arguing he
has a long public history of
calling Oregon his home state
and has maintained a house in
Yamhill.
In the interview, Kris-
tof said he was confi dent the
Supreme Court would rule
in his favor and declined to
say what he would do if the
justices didn’t. Kristof may
not have lived his entire life in
Oregon, but he said the state
is “in my blood,” and he’s
already committed to making
it the place he’s laid to rest.
It’s where my ashes will be
scattered when I’m gone,” he
said, “on the family farm and
maybe on the Pacifi c Crest
Trail in Oregon.”
Camp Riverbend Youth Transitional Facility/Contributed Photo, File
Youth with the Camp Riverbend Youth Transitional Facility near La Grande train in wildland fi refi ghting techniques April,
2021. A state law now in eff ect automatically expunges juvenile arrest records of everyone who turns 18.
Records:
Continued from Page A1
arrest never happened with-
out having to file paper-
work with the juvenile
department. However, they
still will have records for
any federal-level arrests,
which operate on a diff erent
system.
That distinction is
important for individuals
in the system if they seek
careers with exhaustive
background checks, such as
public service, military or
security clearance investi-
gations. They also may face
challenges when fi lling out a
rental application.
“I think it’s great for kids
to be able to do this because
a lot of them grow up and
forget the original records,”
said Digna Moreno, Umatilla
County Juvenile Division
supervisor. “And so I think
it’s great that we’re able to do
this for them. Some of them
want to enlist in the service
and sometimes their records
may get in the way. So with it
being automatic, it helps the
process.”
Sgt. Kyle Conner of
the Bend Marines Corps
recruiting office said he
advises recruits to disclose
everything. He tells them
it’s a lesson he had to learn
personally when he joined.
“I had a thing and not
being very familiar with the
military at the time, I didn’t
think it’d pop up. And the
recruiter found it,” he said.
“So that’s one thing I tell
everybody: even if you got it
expunged, it defi nitely will
still show up.”
It’s not uncommon that a
recruit will have a blemish
or two on his record, Conner
said. The Marines typically
don’t take people with felo-
nies on their record, though,
ultimately, it comes down to
the individual, he said.
Conner puts it to young
people in terms of green
and red weights. The green
represents all the good
things a person has done
in their life — community
service, good grades, etc.
— and the red stands in for
problems like arrests.
“We just want the green
weights to outweigh the red
weights,” he said.
Moreno said the new law
will increase the amount of
work for her department, but
that it won’t be a bother.
“It’s a little bit more time
consuming, but I think it’s
also great for the kids when
they come into our system
when they see they have this
opportunity for the record
to be destroyed at the age of
18,” Moreno said. “It gives
them a huge carrot to work
toward completing their
conditions of supervision,
being successful and stay-
ing out of legal trouble.”
According to a support-
ing testimony to the bill,
a comprehensive analysis
conducted by the Oregon
Juvenile Department Direc-
tors’ Association showed the
cost of this legislation will be
$1.35 million annually.
“If a kid recognizes the
error of his ways and grows
up out of it,” Bowen said,
“then by all means, have a
clean slate when you become
an adult.”
— Reporting f rom
Garrett Andrews with The
Bulletin in Bend contributed
to this article.
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