A4
Opinion
wallowa.com
April 19, 2017
Wallowa County Chieftain
Community
is strong in
Wallowa
County
Y
ou don’t need to spend much time in Wallowa
County to get a good sense of community. Every-
one seems to be involved in one way or another,
and most of them appear to be open to a newcomer
joining in the fun.
That was evident Friday night at an event featuring
several readers at Fishtrap in Enterprise. The place was
packed out; we were lucky
to get a seat.
Writers are near and
dear to my heart. I can’t
really remember ever
wanting to be anything
Paul Wahl
else when I “grew up.”
Although journalism is
somewhat at the opposite end of the spectrum from what
was read Friday, the amount of talent in and around the
community is obvious. And I’m pleased to say that two
who shared their works are columnists for the Chieftain.
Maybe one of these weeks I’ll write this column in
quatrain or perhaps Haiku.
Fishtrap is taking a “reading” breather for the summer
months, but we anticipate many more such events this
fall and into next winter.
ANOTHER GREAT example of community was the
full house that turned out for the Enterprise School Cen-
tennial Celebration Thursday. All of the children in the
district, along with around 200 members of the commu-
nity, packed into the gym for the event.
And although it was a substantial ceremony, everyone
down to the youngest students seemed to enjoy each
minute.
The star of the day was 101-year-old Neva Forstrom
Grover who traveled from Portland to attend. She attend-
ed Enterprise schools beginning with her sophomore year
and graduated in 1932. Now that’s longevity.
AROUND 200 folks packed into the Joseph Commu-
nity Center Saturday night to see Haley Miller crowned
queen of the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo. It was a terrific
evening highlighted by some really great grub.
It is encouraging to see the level of support for the ro-
deo and all that goes with it. We’ve lived in several com-
munities where the idea of hosting a PRCA-sanctioned
rodeo had come and gone. It’s a lot of work, as anyone
who has ever served on a rodeo committee will tell you.
This year’s event seems to be coming along nicely
under the direction of Terry Jones and his board, and we
can’t wait to attend in July. There was even an announce-
ment about a spinoff event from the Eschler family. We’ll
have more to report on that shortly.
ONE THING a new resident of the county can-
not help but notice are the amazing supplies of wood
chopped and ready for consumption. Our neighbor must
have at least a year’s supply on hand. It’s like a second
currency.
Rich Wandschneider is looking for several specific
pieces of wood –– ponderosa, Douglas fir or cottonwood
–– from which a traditional Nez Perce dugout canoe will
be fashioned. It will be built following old photos and
historic canoes held by the Nez Perce National Historical
Park in Spalding, Idaho.
Wandschneider is assisting artist Allen Pinkham Jr.
in finding a 30- to 40-foot straight run that is 26 inches
or greater in diameter. Not dead, but dying is okay, Rich
says. If you can help, call the Josephy Center at 541-432-
0505.
Wahl is editor of the Chieftain and can be reached
with story suggestions at editor@wallowa.com.
WAHL
TO WALL
USPS No. 665-100
P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828
Office: 209 NW First St., Enterprise, Ore.
Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921
Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884
Enterprise, Oregon
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Paul Wahl, editor@wallowa.com
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Contents copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. Reproduction
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Volume 134
Luck — and getting back to even
My brother Phil is an economist. I’d
never taken a class in economics, so one
day on a three-hour drive, I asked him to
give me Econ 101 — and he did.
That was 45 years ago, and since then
there have been several updates. One
long-standing discussion has been about
the nature of “luck.” Phil once wrote a
paper describing the impact of making
choice A or B — maybe by the flip of a
coin — about which college to go to or
what job to take and how that random
choice impacts the rest of a life and that
of many others.
He recently told me that several new
studies discuss the role of luck in eco-
nomics and that they generally conclude
that luck has its impacts, and that rich
people have more of it than poor people
do. As Alec Baldwin, playing Presi-
dent Trump on “Saturday Night Live,”
says to his son-in-law, “You’ve shown
everybody that if you’re born rich and
marry my daughter, you can do anything
you want.”
When I took the Extension Service
job in Wallowa County 46 years ago, I
took a small pay cut — I’d been making
$11,000 a year on Peace Corps staff, and
the OSU job paid $10,400. One of my
Washington, D.C., friends told me that
I would never be able to afford the city
MAIN STREET
Rich Wandschneider
again — that this discrepancy would
get multiplied by percentages, meaning
smaller raises and that “coming back” to
an urban job, I would get pegged lower.
I’ve never wanted to go back to an
urban job, but the idea makes me think
about the tremendous dollar differentials
in hip, urban places and most rural plac-
es in the country. On our spring break
trip to Sacramento, we learned that mod-
est houses in decent neighborhoods there
sell for almost a million dollars.
Rents in the Bay Area hover at
$4,000 per month. A high school class-
mate who keeps us current on goings-on
in Oceanside, in Southern California,
says that houses in South Oceanside —
now the toniest part of town, average
$600,000.
My dad, bless his soul, happened to
pass away in Oceanside while California
was going through one of its period-
ic housing slumps. The house he had
paid $35,000 for 40 years earlier sold
for a modest $100,000. I and my three
siblings each received $25,000 — a
wonderful gift, but one that might have
been double or triple that had he lived
a few more years, or even, dare I say it,
died sooner.
There is much discussion of the
increasing blue and red divisions across
the country, of how people with similar
values tend to congregate, and thus
some counties and states are becoming
predominantly Republican or Democrat.
Other migration trackers site Sun and
South as attractions; still others technol-
ogy centers and youth.
But a recent radio news blast — I
admit I can’t locate the source right now
— said that a decade or two ago three
percent of us, 3 in 100, moved from one
state to another in a given year, and that
the percentage is now half that.
Among other things, they cited
the cost of housing. It makes sense:
someone who bought a Wallowa County
home for $50,000 a decade ago cannot
easily sell — for $100,000 or $150,000
— and move to Portland, where the av-
erage home price is more than $400,000.
Unless, of course, they have rich parents
or in-laws or have made a pile of money
in some previous high-end occupation.
See LUCK, Page A5
Do your part in ending child abuse
In honor of National Child Abuse
Prevention Month, Building Healthy
Families is issuing a call to action for
residents of Wallowa County to stand
against child abuse and take action to
support children who have been abused
or neglected.
At any given time, there are at least
5 children in foster care in Wallowa
County. In addition to foster care,
Building Healthy Families staff have also
noticed an increase in the needs of all
family support services that help reduce
child abuse and neglect. Services are
often needed to support families with
risk factors including substance abuse,
poverty, risky behaviors and lack of
parenting skills.
Throughout April, we are calling on
members of the community to help our
program serve more of Wallowa County’s
most vulnerable children. Opportunities
include attending a Darkness to Light
Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Training
9 a.m. to noon April 14 to learn how
GUEST
COLUMN
Maria Weer
to prevent, recognize and react to child
sexual abuse, volunteering with CASA or
donate needed items to Building Healthy
Families.
The needs of Wallowa County’s
children are more complicated than ever
before. Every child deserves the support
of caring, consistent adults with the
training to help them heal and thrive.
Without intervention, the odds are
stacked against children in foster care. A
child with a CASA volunteer, however,
will leave the foster care system two-
and-a-half months earlier, on average,
compared to a child without a CASA
volunteer. Studies show children with a
CASA volunteer receive more services
that are critical to their well-being than
children without an advocate, and those
children are more likely to achieve
educational success.
CASA volunteers are a constant for
the child in a time of chaos, according
to Julie Rogers, Wallowa County CASA
Program Manager. A child may have
multiple social workers, attorneys,
therapists and foster placements
throughout the life of the case but only
one CASA volunteer, which can make all
the difference for the child’s future.
Building Healthy Families is a
member of the National Court Appointed
Special Advocate Association (National
CASA), a nationwide network of
programs in nearly 1,000 communities. In
Wallowa County, there are two volunteer
advocates fighting for the best interests
of five children, but three more children
need the care and support of a CASA
volunteer.
Maria Weer is executive director of
Building Healthy Families.
Development threatens Lostine wildlife area
A group of concerned citizens who
hunt, hike, horseback ride, mountain
bike, ski, observe, track and photograph
wildlife and explore historical home-
stead and mining sites became alarmed
when they recently learned that Wallowa
County’s Planning Department had se-
cretly approved development of 38 acres,
zoned Timber Grazing, surrounded by
the Lostine Wildlife Area and the Lostine
River, without telling ODFW, affected
neighbors or the public.
ODFW has designated the Lostine
Wildlife Area as critical winter habitat for
bighorn sheep, rocky mountain elk and
mule deer.
Jim Akenson, conservation director
for the Oregon Hunters Association, says
this: “Hunters’ dollars provided the funds
[for the purchase of the Lostine Wildlife
Area]... as representatives of Oregon’s
hunting community, OHA opposes any
development of the property ... Any de-
velopment within this area is a potential
threat to the purpose of this area.”
ODFW’s wildlife biologist, Michael
Hansen, says: “Development of addition-
al dwellings in that constricted area will
have an adverse impact on the movement
of big game (especially elk) into and
through the property to our Lostine Wild-
life Area. The adverse impact on animal
movement is cumulative and because
LETTERS to the EDITOR
of previous building in this portion of
the Lostine River Valley, the property
straddles the only remaining undeveloped
travel corridor for these animals.”
An appeal of the Planning Depart-
ment’s approval of the 38-acre develop-
ment filed by the “Friends of the Lostine
Wildlife Area” will come before the
Planning Commission 7 p.m. Tuesday,
April 25, at the courthouse. Please con-
sider writing an email or letter, attending
the hearing or joining the Friends of the
Lostine Wildlife Area to help protect this
important public resource.
Michael Eng
Eng is affiliated with Friends of the
Lostine Wildlife Area.
Lostine
Not all government
entities are secretive
I am responding to your editorial
of April 12 in which you write that the
Malheur Enterprise was denied records
regarding the mental health or lack of
mental health of a fellow who killed two
people after the Security Review Board
released him. Because we are a country
of government of the people, for the
people and by the people, you are doing
your part as a citizen to point out a per-
ceived wrong committed by this board. I
commend you for that.
As I see it, you are right to say that
taxpayers will be footing the bill for the
Security Review Board suit against the
newspaper that asked for the records. It
is your citizenship duty to point out this
incident that you believe is wrong.
You are right to point out that informa-
tion held by government agencies should
be transparent. When citizens, especially
newspapers, are aware of a wrong taking
place, it is the right thing to do to object
and work toward correcting that wrong.
In these things mentioned in your ed-
itorial, I have no objection, and I believe
you are doing as you should by pointing
them out.
In your editorial, you extend this in-
cident to imply that the government in
general has “become more aggressive
about shutting down public record releas-
es” and you talk about “brazen attempts
of government agencies to obscure the
truth.” You are insinuating that these
“brazen attempts” of “shutting down”
happen throughout the government.
See LETTERS, Page A5