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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (July 19, 2017)
A4 Opinion wallowa.com July 19, 2017 Wallowa County Chieftain Legislators left Salem with unfinished business The Legislature closed its 2017 session a few days ahead of schedule, and there has already been plenty of political posturing about the successes, missed opportunities and issues that need to be revisited. Many veteran lawmakers say the session was one of the toughest they’ve participated in and Voice of the Chieftain they closed it with a feeling of unfinished business. As state Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said in a statement afterward, “We had some satisfying wins. At best, our successes are tempered by disappointment.” On the plus side, lawmakers were able to balance a $21 billion operating budget that began with a $1.4 billion shortfall even though the state experienced record revenue leading up to the session. Along the way, they managed to approve: • A long-term, $5.3 billion transportation improvement package. • A $600 million tax on insurers and providers that preserves health care for about 350,000 Oregonians who gained Medicaid coverage under the expanded federal Affordable Care Act. • Record funding for K-12 public schools, up 11 percent from the current biennium. For most of the state’s 200 or so school districts, lawmakers say it’s enough money to keep current services going. • A controversial $10 million reproductive health bill expanding funding for no-cost abortions, family planning services and postpartum care. Oregon’s bill is unique to other states in that patients would have access to the procedure for virtually any reason, at any time, including sex-selective and late-term abortions. • A plan to reduce state spending over the next two years by $200 million. Lawmakers also approved the state becoming REAL ID compliant, which will allow residents to upgrade their driver’s licenses or identification cards to federal standards in the future. Oregon will now also be joining a handful of other states that give judges the power to take guns away from suicidal or dangerous people. The state also became the third in the nation to raise the tobacco sales age to 21, although tobacco possession isn’t affected. With successes, though, there were certainly failures. Lawmakers couldn’t agree on revenue reforms that included a corporate income taxing structure that would stabilize and provide long-term school funding, and they declined to tackle the elephant of the session, the spiraling costs of the Public Employees Retirement System and instead kicked that $22 billion problem down the road. Gov. Kate Brown has vowed to get all parties to the table to work out solutions to the major issues, but her lack of leadership was evident throughout the session, so the jury is out on whether she can follow through. It also remains to be seen what the session’s impact will have in our region. Lawmakers drastically cut funding from Measure 98, which voters had approved, that would have provided money to help schools raise graduation rates and provide more vocational and technical education, something that would be very helpful in rural areas of Eastern Oregon. Community colleges also didn’t get as much funding that they need, which can hurt Blue Mountain Community College. It’s also uncertain what the taxing impacts will be on our region, especially combined with local city, county and school taxes, and what benefits the transportation package will provide our area. What is certain, though, is that there is unfinished business. Democrats and Republicans alike should start thinking about how to address those issues, and about who among them is up to providing bipartisan leadership that all Oregonians can look up to. EDITORIAL 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 M eMber O regOn n ewspaper p ublishers a ssOciatiOn Publisher Editor Reporter Reporter Newsroom assistant Ad sales consultant Office manager Marissa Williams, marissa@bmeagle.com Paul Wahl, editor@wallowa.com Stephen Tool, stool@wallowa.com Kathleen Ellyn, kellyn@wallowa.com editor@wallowa.com Jennifer Powell, jpowell@wallowa.com Sheryl Watson, swatson@wallowa.com p ublished every w ednesday by : EO Media Group Spending 46 years on Main Street In July of 1971, just before Chief Joseph Days, I pulled into the Mountain View Motel in my new used 1967 VW bug and thought about my first day on my new job at the Wallowa County Extension office. I’d flown from Washington, D.C., to Portland, spent a week learning about Oregon State University’s ag and commu- nity development programs, bought the bug and headed east. They forgot to tell me how extension agents –– or anyone else –– dressed in Wallowa County, so on that first Mon- day in mid-July, I put on a dress shirt and tie, slacks and sport coat and drove into Enterprise and parked in front of the court- house. The extension office was on the second floor of the courthouse, where the D.A. now sits. Extension secretary Ruth Makin wel- comed me and told me that County Agent Chuck Gavin would be in shortly –– he was probably across the street at Homan’s Drug Store having coffee. I stood in what would become my new office and looked down as people slowly filtered into the courthouse. There were no sport coats, so I took mine off and hung it in the closet. The tie followed, and I rolled up my sleeves. Chuck Gavin clambered up the stairs and into his office, sat back in his chair, threw his legs and boots up on the desk, and asked me in. There must have been a quick handshake, and then, as he scratched his ear on the side of his face that had been left partially paralyzed as a result of one of his WW II Purple Hearts, he began pep- pering me with questions. “Where are you from?” “Well, I came here from Washington D.C. and before that the Peace Corps in Turkey and…” “Where’d you grow up?” “Well, I went to high school and col- MAIN STREET Rich Wandschneider lege in California, and ...” “Where’d you start out?” “Minnesota, I was born there and we moved to California when I was 10 and ...” “How big a place?” “Must have been about 1,500 people in Fosston, Minn. ...” “You might make it here.” And then Rose Reynolds at Homan’s made us some tuna salad sandwiches, and Keith Zobell, the Chesnimnus District Ranger, picked us up for a county tour. We drove highways and back roads, went to Imnaha and Flora, Buckhorn and Billy Meadows, where we looked in a small cabin built by CCC workers in the ‘30s and saw wooden water troughs built at the same time that were now being replaced with steel tanks. I don’t remember who all we met, but it was ranchers, farmers, loggers and for- esters. And 10 or 12 hours later we were back in Enterprise, and I crawled into the VW with socks full of wheat chaff and stickers, pockets full of dust, and the notion that I had arrived at a special place with terrane-trees, rivers, canyon breaks and white-capped mountains –– that was new to me and as old as forever. And history too. My knowledge of the Nez Perce began right there. “Imnaha,” “Wallowa,” “Chesnimnus,” “Chief Joseph” and other places and names rat- tled around. It didn’t take long to figure that the Nez Perce War was less than a 100 years Subscriptions must be paid prior to delivery See the Wallowa County Chieftain on the Internet Wallowa.com facebook.com/Wallowa | twitter.com/wcchieftain POSTMASTER — Send address changes to Wallowa County Chieftain P.O. Box 338 Enterprise, OR 97828 Contents copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Volume 134 1 Year $40.00 $57.00 Rich Wandschneider lives in Joseph and writes a monthly column for the Chieftain. The summer is going by too fast So how has your summer been going? Although I was warned the day I arrived that summer was über busy, I didn’t really catch the meaning until this week. It seems like this week’s edition is a special edition for all of the events about to hit. Several things stand out for me regarding summer in Wallowa County. The number of people who flock to our door is amazing. I haven’t found a handy number, but somewhere between a half-million visitors and a million has been quoted to me, and that seems plausible. From my window on the world here on First Street, I am amazed at the number of vehicles that pass through Enterprise, some of them on their way north to Lewis- ton and some on their way south to Joseph and Wallowa Lake State Park. It would be interesting to spend a Fri- day sitting at the intersection of Hwy. 82 and Hwy. 3 and take a count of the num- ber of vehicles and which ones go which directions. And these people come from all across the country. Again, it would be interesting to stop each one and ask them how they heard about Wallowa County. A cursory WAHL TO WALL Paul Wahl track of license plates is also revealing. We have a lot of visitors from California, in addition to Washington and Idaho, not to mention Oregon. The other item of note is the number and quality of events that are produced here to attract folks to come and spend their money. Last week, both Fishtrap and Wallowa Valley Music Alliance produced events that from all reports were tremen- dous in scope and participation. I didn’t get nearly as much time to hang out with fellow writers at the Sum- mer Fishtrap as I would have liked. Carla Arnold invited me out to Wallowa for the final performance of the Wallowa Fiddle Camp Tunes Camp Friday. The audito- rium was alive with excited children and adults making music and having a ton of fun. If you missed the concert by the camp faculty Thursday night on the courthouse Periodical Postage Paid at Enterprise and additional mailing offices Subscription rates (includes online access) Wallowa County Out-of-County from us, and that a couple of the old tim- ers –– Ben Weathers for one –– had prob- ably been here to shake the hand of Joseph when he came in 1899 and tried to buy back some of his land. I remember hearing that “you weren’t a native in Wallowa County until you’d been here four generations.” But I had been in Turkey, where native meant lan- guage and culture and dirt, and spent a year in the American East, where white people bragged on the Mayflower. Four generations didn’t seem like much, and I quietly answered –– trying not to sound too smartish –– that I imagined the only true natives here were Indians. Forty-six years later I’d stand by that statement, but with a much broader and richer understanding of the Indian peo- ple who once lived here and everywhere across this country, and of the waves of immigration and movements of people that get us to the globe we share now. Rootedness in place is a luxury that few people have. I think of millions of displaced people in and from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Cambodia, among others. But also of restless Ameri- cans, shuffling from state to state, north to south, job to job. Could it be that the rants about immi- grants are really loss of and fears of los- ing our own frail tethers to the places we live and work? And that wherever we go or live, we can’t find or be the Chucks and Keiths who welcomed me to this place 46 years ago? And that we fear and to not lis- ten to the ancient ones –– the Indians –– who really know the geography and old habits of this and any place? etters to the Editor are subject to editing and should be lim- ited to 275 words. Writers should also include a phone num- ber with their signature so we can call to verify identity. The Chieftain does not run anonymous letters. In terms of content, writers should refrain from personal attacks. It’s acceptable, however, to attack (or support) another party’s ideas. We do not routinely run thank-you letters, a policy we’ll con- sider waiving only in unusual situations where reason compels the exception. You can submit a letter to the Wallowa County Chieftain in person; by mail to P.O. Box 338, Enterprise, OR 97828; by email to editor@wallowa.com; or via the submission form at the news- paper’s website, located at wallowa.com. (Drop down the “Opin- ion” menu on the navigation bar to see the relevant link). L lawn, you missed a great event. Another aspect of life in Wallowa County that can hardly be described is the vast natural beauty that surrounds us. Whether it’s the view from the top of Mt. Howard or the deep blue of Wallowa Lake, the babbling brooks or the rushing Wallowa River, bountiful vistas await. My wife and I have found ourselves taking refuge at Wallowa Lake State Park as often as time will permit. Strolling or taking a leisurely bike ride through the park has rapidly become our favorite sum- mer pastime. Well, eating ice cream from one of the many wonderful vendors in the area is near the top, as well. Next up, its the Tamkaliks Celebration in Wallowa and then what is shaping up to be the largest event of the summer, Chief Joseph Days the week after that. Don’t miss the Chautauqua coming to Enterprise. It’s a day full of fun and activities. The early portion of August brings us the Back Country Bash, the Sunrise Iron Antique Tractor Show and of course the Wallowa County Fair. We are all going to be exhausted by Alpenfest. Charge ODFW an access fee In response to Mike Harshfield’s conviction on shooting elk on his prop- erty for causing damages: If Mike has to pay for the dead elk, then why doesn’t the Oregon Depart- ment of Fish and Wildlife have to pay for the dam- ages the elk caused? Therefore, as of Aug. 1, 2017, ODFW will have to pay an access fee of $50 per access to any land owned by Tippett Ranch Inc. LETTER to the EDITOR Payable prior to any access to cover damages caused by their wildlife. This is the only way to recoup money from ODFW to cover damages. Casey Tippett Joseph
