Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current, September 21, 2016, Page A5, Image 5

Wallowa County Chieftain
RENTALS
Continued from Page A4
Cannon Beach
In Cannon Beach, the
council will continue to re-
fi ne its proposed amend-
ments with the hope of com-
pleting the task by the end of
the year.
The council will likely
hold a work session next
month to discuss the poten-
tial changes and other pro-
posals to the short-term rental
permitting process. Working
out the differences with the
Planning Commission should
be an obvious priority during
upcoming work sessions on
short-term rentals.
In both cities, the issue has
put elected offi cials and resi-
dents in motion.
Speaking about a possible
initiative after all the work
Gearhart offi cials have put
into the new rules, City Ad-
ministrator Chad Sweet hit
the nail directly on the head
when he told Daily Astorian
reporter R.J Marx that, “For
me, it’s all just part of the
process. It’s democracy in
action.”
He’s exactly right.
In Gearhart, the new rules
are going into effect and the
homeowners who oppose the
ordinance aren’t shut out of
the process, they still have the
opportunity to seek the ballot
initiative. If it gets that far,
voters will have the fi nal say
next year.
In Cannon Beach, the
short-term rental revisions
are still in the early stages and
should entail both the City
Council and the Planning
Commission working out the
details together and not be
on opposing sides before any
new changes are put in place.
That too, is part of the
democratic process.
WATER
Continued from Page A4
Good we found petroleum
to replace whale oil, shale
oil to replace crude, wind to
replace steam and water gen-
erated electricity. And, even-
tually, we’ll mine the moon,
asteroids and distant planets.
The Indians bring us back,
back to land and water. The
Umatilla Natural Resource
program has developed a pre-
sentation on “First Foods.”
They argue that ancient long-
house ceremonies served
foods in order of importance,
and if we do the same we will
be healthier and will live in a
healthier environment. Clean
water, of course, is fi rst, and
then salmon — think good
spawning grounds, deer, roots,
berries, etc.
Our Wallowa waters are
the envy of many. And while
local cattle ranchers argue
that “there is no such thing as
a bad rain,” and grass grow-
ers and ranchers measure the
snowpack and gauge hay cut-
ting and pasture moves against
the year’s weather, most of us
not making our living in agri-
culture and timber are bliss-
fully unaware of local water
dynamics. We like the look of
snowcapped mountains and
the rush of rivers. We fi sh, or
ski, snowmobile, hunt, run
rivers, or sit on the beach at
News
wallowa.com
September 21, 2016
A5
Oracle settles Cover Oregon lawsuit
$100 million deal
ends suit over
failed website
By Nick Budnick and
Paris Achen
Capital Bureau
The state of Oregon and
Oracle, the vendor on the $300
million Cover Oregon web-
site debacle, have settled their
wide-ranging legal dispute
for more than $100 million in
goods, services and cash.
Oracle will supply funds,
software and services to the
state to settle a case in which
Oregon had accused the Red-
wood City, Calif., software
giant of fraud and racketeering
on the state’s one-stop-shop-
ping health insurance website
project that never worked as
planned.
The state had been asking
for roughly $6 billion.
“Today’s settlement agree-
ment ends years of turmoil and
taxpayer expense related to a
troubled health care exchange
program I dissolved in March
2015,” Gov. Kate Brown said
in a statement.
The agreement, announced
early Thursday by Brown at
OMSI, includes only $35 mil-
lion in actual cash. Of that, $25
million will go to legal costs.
The other $10 million will go
toward science, technology,
engineering and math educa-
tion in public schools, to be
branded as “Oracle STEM Ed-
ucation Grants.”
The state’s $105 million
valuation of the settlement
also includes $60 million in
free customer service support
for yet-to-be-obtained Oracle
software.
Wallowa Lake and enjoy the
sun — and water.
A few people work to rec-
tify 20th-century technology
by putting meander back in
rivers, cooling water and in-
creasing spawning grounds.
Some think about our dam
and how sockeye salmon who
once fl ooded the lake might be
Paris Achen/Pamplin Media Group
From left, Deputy General Counsel Misha Isaak, Gov. Kate
Brown, and state Chief Information Officer Alex Petitt
answer questions at OMSI in Portland Thursday after Brown
announced a more than $100 million settlement with Oracle
Thursday over the failed Cover Oregon website.
State offi cials were expect-
ed to notify the federal gov-
ernment of the settlement lat-
er Thursday morning, Brown
said. Brown declined to answer
a question about whether the
state will be required to give
any of the settlement money to
the federal government.
“We received a very limit-
ed amount of cash as you will
see; the cash is $35 million,”
Brown responded. “These set-
tlements are very challenging
to resolve, and all of the parties
had to do some give and take
in order to resolve the matter.”
The federal government
contributed $305 million for
Cover Oregon.. But federal
offi cials may fi nd it hard to
recoup any part of the settle-
ment’s ostensible value. Not
a penny of the amount will go
to repay the state for the $240
million it paid Oracle in con-
nection with the project, or re-
imburse the state for any of the
brought to it again. Immigrants
from California and central
Oregon shake the dust off and
water lawns and pastures. And
Washington irrigators follow
the dam condemnation and
potential reconstruction thirst-
ily — they’ll buy that extra
water from us.
Indians from diverse cul-
related damages cited in the
state’s lawsuit against Oracle.
Kristen Grainger, a spokes-
woman for Brown, said the
settlement was “carefully” and
“creatively” constructed to let
Oregon keep as much of it as
possible, hopefully the whole
amount.
“We are hopeful that (the
federal government) will see
that the needs of consumers
are met,” she said.
Sharing the blame
Under the agreement, nei-
ther side admits liability or
wrongdoing. It also calls for a
close working relationship be-
tween the two sides.
Besides the $35 million in
cash and $60 million in cus-
tomer support, the settlement
also includes a six-year li-
censing agreement that would
allow the state to get free soft-
ware to upgrade some of its in-
formation technology systems.
tures across the country camp-
ing in North Dakota remind us
that water is not just a com-
modity to be bought and sold,
but the fundamental principle
of all life.
Columnist Rich Wand-
schneider lives in Joseph.
The expansion of the state’s
relationship with Oracle rep-
resents a major departure from
state offi cials’ past representa-
tions that the company provid-
ed fl awed software, did shoddy
work and engaged in unethical,
even criminal business practic-
es. In fact, the state’s lawsuit
had asked a judge to ban Or-
acle from ever doing business
with the state again.
Asked whether the state
could entrust its IT systems to
Oracle after the Cover Oregon
failure, Brown said she was
confi dent in the company’s ex-
pertise around business enter-
prise software.
The settlement is “an in-
credible opportunity for us to
take advantage of that exper-
tise,” Brown said. “Oregon
had a bad experience with Or-
acle in terms of developing the
Cover Oregon project.”
But the state had no issue
with the software services
that Oracle provided the state
during the past several years,
she said.
Oregon House Minority
Leader Mike McLane, R-Pow-
ell Butte, said Thursday that
the settlement “marks the end
of one of the most embarrass-
ing chapters in Oregon’s histo-
ry.”
“While Oracle clearly made
mistakes, there is no escap-
ing the fact that the state, too,
shares blame for the failure of
Cover Oregon,” McLane said.
“From the very beginning, the
project was mismanaged and
wracked by the failures of our
bureaucracy.
“Despite the state’s obvious
culpability, Attorney General
Rosenblum put tens of mil-
lions of taxpayer dollars on
the line for a legal strategy that
was motivated by politics and
never stood a realistic chance
of recovering everything that
was lost.”
Rosenblum responded that
the settlement wouldn’t have
happened had she not pursued
the litigation.
“We now intend to work
together again, and I call upon
the good representative to let
go of the acrimony and polit-
ical bashing and join Oregon
and Oracle in making positive
changes in our IT systems go-
ing forward,” the attorney gen-
eral said.
The state’s lawyers in court
said they’d obtained other doc-
uments showing that Oracle
knew its software products
could not provide the services
it had promised while trying to
win the Oregon contract.
Grainger, the Brown
spokeswoman, said election
considerations or other politics
did not play a role in the desire
to settle the case.
David Friedman, a Willa-
mette University College of
Law professor who has been
sympathetic to Oracle’s argu-
ments in the case, said “I really
do think this is a win-win. The
state is getting a substantial
amount of services and value
from Oracle ... and Oracle can
say ‘Hey look, we’re not rack-
eteers, we’re not fraudsters.’”
Tough talk is normal in a
case like this, but “They’re
skipping off holding hands
now through the wildfl ow-
ers,” he said, “essentially back
in business with one another.”
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