OPINION
Wallowa County Chieftain
A4
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Wooing the Credit where its due: Cheers to
purple voter the Wallowa Memorial Hospital
A
s is true across the state, Eastern Oregon
is home to a sizable bloc of nonaffiliated
voters.
In fact, if gathered into a unified group, these
voters would make up the second largest party
in the state after Democrats. They would be the
second largest party in Eastern Oregon after
Republicans.
It doesn’t take a political scientist to figure out
how this came to be. Since the Motor Voter law
began in January 2016, hundreds of thousands of
people have
been auto-
of the
matically
registered as
voters after
receiving
or renewing a driver’s license. Unless they spec-
ify at that time that they’d like to register with a
particular party, they’re marked nonaffiliated, as
more than 330,000 people have since December
of 2015.
It also doesn’t take much political savvy to
understand the potential of unleashing the power
of these voters (32 percent of the voters in the
state, just behind the Democrats’ 35 percent) in
the primaries, where for now they are mostly
stuck on the sidelines.
One idea to get them off the bench is Sen-
ate Bill 225, crafted by Secretary of State Den-
nis Richardson, a Republican, and Alan Zundel,
who in 2016 ran against Richardson as the Pacific
Green Party candidate. It would allow candidates
to run as nonaffiliated, with the nearly 900,000
voters selecting a candidate to go on the Novem-
ber ballot.
We applaud the attempt to bring these voters
into the democratic fold. Increasing the number
of voters in Oregon has been a top priority, and
getting them engaged in the democratic process is
the next step.
However, we would urge caution as to whether
SB 225 is the best step forward.
The very nature of how a voter comes to be
nonaffiliated lends perspective as to why this bill
may not work as well as its proponents hope.
The bill attempts to corral a bloc of voters who
either don’t want or have chose not to identify
with any ideological restraints. By creating a non-
affiliated primary, the bill is pushing this group
toward the establishment of a “single-voice”
which takes compromise and a majority-minority
dynamic. Essentially, it limits a bloc of voters
with restraints when the thing that drives them is
the resistance to restraints in the first place.
Nonaffiliated is a default position. It means the
voter is either not swayed by any party platform,
or not interested enough to select one. Their vote
is as good as their neighbor’s in the general elec-
tion, but they don’t have a significant hand in
deciding who gets there.
As easy as it is to paint the state in red and
blue, on a personal level most of us are some
shade of purple. Very few, we would wager, buy
100 percent into their party of choice, and espe-
cially not into every person elected to represent
the party.
The good news is, Oregon is a good state in
which to be purple, especially when it comes
to voting. Switching political parties is a piece
of cake. Go on the Secretary of State’s website,
log-in with your driver’s license and select which
party you’d like to join. There are no dues, no
meetings, no papers to sign. A nonaffiliated voter
can effectively play the part of free agent, pay-
ing attention to primary campaigns and deciding
which race they’d like to be heard in.
We’re not so worried about the major parties
losing their influence, or a “nonaffiliated” can-
didate shaking up a general election. The red vs.
blue dynamic could use a bit of a shuffle.
But we’d rather see it in the form of a more
organically engaged voting public.
VOICE
CHIEFTAIN
W
allowa County’s own
hospital also ranked in the top 20
Most Beautiful Small Hospitals.
Wallowa Memorial
Frankly, each and any of these
Hospital and its staff
honors should make Wallowa
have been diligent these past sev- $19 million, and now sits as low
County
proud of its local hospi-
eral years under the sound lead-
as $11 million.
tal, particularly while it stands on
ership and guiding hand of Chief
The ambitious goals for Wal-
its own feet without the security
Executive Officer Larry Davy.
lowa Memorial Hospital and
of a larger umbrella network of
And it’s paying off. The apparent its leadership to be at the cut-
hospitals. But it’s the community
effort has culminated in a host of ting edge of rural and community focused mission that earns a full
healthcare has been well received
national awards and hon-
round of applause from the
ors as well as a round of
BEYOND ITS IMPRESSIVE AND editorial board at the Wal-
applause from the Wallowa
lowa County Chieftain.
ESTABLISHED PROGRESS
County Chieftain’s edito-
Beyond its impres-
TOWARDS
A
SOUND
rial board.
sive and established prog-
As we reported last
INFRASTRUCTURE OF
ress towards a sound
month, in 2018 the hospi-
infrastructure of finan-
FINANCIAL STABILITY AND
tal demonstrated a func-
cial stability and outstand-
OUTSTANDING MEDICAL
tional level of financial
ing medical care, Wal-
CARE, WALLOWA MEMORIAL
security both by making
lowa Memorial works
more money and grow-
directly to strengthen the
WORKS DIRECTLY TO
ing profits while simulta-
fabric throughout Wal-
STRENGTHEN THE FABRIC
neously offering more ser-
lowa County, all in addi-
THROUGHOUT WALLOWA
vices to individuals who
tion to its role as the coun-
otherwise might not be able
COUNTY, ALL IN ADDITION TO ty’s largest employer.
to afford to pay for the ser-
As of now, the hos-
ITS ROLE AS THE COUNTY’S
vices they’ve recieved.
pital
is on track to give
LARGEST EMPLOYER.
Even more impressive for
away $1 million in health-
Wallowa County’s larg-
care to those without ade-
by more than a couple different
est employer, which offers an
quate health insurance or other
healthcare ranking and analyt-
average pay rate higher than that
means to cover health expenses.
ics institutions it seems. Wallowa
of Wallowa County’s median
Davy expressed the force behind
income, is that these accomplish- Memorial Hospital earned a spot
in the top 20 Critical Access Hos- that agenda, saying, “our goal
ments came during a tumultuous
pitals out of 1,340 nation wide by is to make sure no one is turned
time as rural American hospitals
the National Rural Health Associ- away.” But he also noted that “A
face new increasing challenges.
ation in both 2017 and 2018. And million dollars is a lot of money
As Davy himself pointed
the hospital has been on iVantage for a small hospital.”
out, just under 50 percent of
As we were reminded by one
Analytics radar for some time
the remaining 1,300 rural hos-
now, earning a spot in its Top 100 of our readers just a couple weeks
pitals are struggling finan-
ago, we need to remember that
cially at least to some extent. Yet Critical Access Hospital ranking
our country is great. We’ll expand
list each year between 2013-18.
Davy’s emphasis on the impor-
that sentiment to say our county
Wallowa County’s sole hos-
tance of financial sustainability
is great. So we give credit where
pital was further honored by
as it relates to continued quality
its due with a round of applause
Healthgrades with a Patient
of service has been remarkably
for Wallowa Memorial Hospital
Safety Excellence Award, while
effective. Just four years before
Woman’s Choice Awards credited and all those who contribute to its
Wallowa Memorial Hospital’s
Wallowa Memorial for its “Over- success, because its contributions
profitable 2018 year, the con-
to Wallowa County help make it
all Patient Experience” for small
struction debt for the roughly 10
hospitals across the nation. The
year old building stood at about
even greater.
EDITORIAL
How far ahead do we — can we — see?
I
t’s been almost 60 years since a col-
lege professor named Wheelwright
suggested that we can all imagine the
world as it was prior to our arrival, but
cannot easily imagine the world going
on after our deaths. He was talking about
the origins of political and religious
beliefs, and how descriptions of hell are
always stronger than those of heaven—
we’ve seen the hellish in our lives, but
get fantastical when we try to see par-
adise. The distant future is too far from
our lives.
Mothers and fathers tell us stories
about themselves and the world—their
worlds especially—before us. Textbooks,
parades, sports teams, teachers, coaches,
uncles, neighbors and the immediate
world we come into is invariably linked
to a past full of stories, places, and rel-
atives—some of whom looked like us
when they were young!
And the present is all around us,
sometimes painful, sometimes good, and
at all times part of a bigger world that we
understand from growing experience,
from seeing and listening and absorbing
life as it happens. Our lives seem preg-
nant in the present with the past and the
world around—and in good times ready
to burst into the future. Past and present
link us to a semi-predictable tomorrow.
Living in chaos, as the children of
war in Europe and Asia did in the 1940s,
Vietnam did in the 1960s, and Syria and
Iraq and Afghanistan do now, must be
hell. Yesterday was hell; today is scary;
and there might not be a tomorrow. Liv-
ing in drought, political turmoil, and hun-
ger in Central Africa or Venezuela today
shrinks the past and the future to the
grains of rice and pieces of bread eaten
MAIN STREET
Rich Wandschneider
or wished for today.
Here, we count our blessings, attribute
them to good family, good religion, good
country. And we imagine our children in
the same or very similar worlds. They’ll
go to church like we do, school like we
did, find jobs like we did (or a little bit
better). The jobs will be ones we know
and can name: running the ranch, teach-
ing school, practicing medicine or law,
welding, plumbing, cutting trees, news-
paper reporting or maybe even writing
computer programs—whatever that is!
How good it is to have a son or daugh-
ter stepping over our lead, doing some-
thing that didn’t exist when we were
young, living somewhere exotic that we
can visit, working with smart people we
want to meet.
We’re stretched by an ever-changing
present: a generation ago we would not
have imagined our daughters running the
ranch, doctoring, or driving big trucks,
our sons working as nurses or elementary
teachers. There is a story in today’s New
York Times about women as early com-
puter programmers. Bright women had
worked breaking codes in WW II. After
the war, with law schools and medical
schools still largely off limits for women,
some found their way—by taking apti-
tude tests—into early computer work
The important thing in all this imagin-
ing is that we see a future world—not too
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Contents copyright © 2019. All rights reserved.
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General manager, Jennifer Cooney, jcooney@wallowa.com
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distantly—as if we are in it, watching our
grandchildren and maybe great-grand-
children carry on lives not too distant
from our own.
When those easy visions become dif-
ficult, some of us bolt. In less than a gen-
eration, the idea that some of our children
would be with same-sex partners—imag-
ined I am sure by a small percentage of
our fathers and grandmothers, but not by
most of us—has become a reality. When
a grandchild marries someone of another
color or religion—as has always hap-
pened but now becomes more frequent,
most but not all of us adjust those movies
of future lives.
It’s like that with weather and climate.
We imagine some hot summers and cold
winters, the occasional forest fire, flood,
or hurricane. Weather seems a series
of random but recurring events in our
ordered world. Our grandchildren will
have the same good years and bad in the
same hayfields.
But what if the hayfield stays dry for
a decade, as farms and fields in Syria and
Iraq have? What if the tide rises above
our coastal homes, or swallows the small
island, Kiribati, that its citizens call a
country?
Futurists, like the writer Ursula
LeGuin, can imagine a world with-
out war and one where color and gen-
der matter less, and climate scientists
make pictures of land and water 50 and
100 years from now. But it is when 100
years becomes tomorrow, when the fires
and floods lap at our doors, when climate
becomes weather, when brown grand-
children come to our houses, when the
future touches us at one child’s remove,
that the future becomes real.
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