FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2019
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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news@bakercityherald.com
OUR VIEW
Record fee
unjustified
It’s hard not to believe there’s something wrong
going on in Douglas County. The district attorney
there rejected a request last week by The Oregonian
to reduce a roughly $2,000 fee the county proposes
to charge the newspaper for 170 pages of fi nancial
records. The DA argued the newspaper’s owner,
Advance Publications, can well afford the charge, and
thus, The Oregonian should be required to pay it.
But Oregon law says fees for public records should
be reduced or eliminated if releasing the records is in
the public interest. That’s clearly true in this case.
The Oregonian seeks records about how the
Douglas County Commission has spent more than
$75,000 in federal funds over the last fi ve years. It’s
clear that more than half that money was used for
travel to Washington, D.C., and there are indications
the balance may have been spent that way, as well.
What is less clear is whether or not commission-
ers in a county so broke it closed its public libraries
in 2017, fl ew fi rst class to Washington, D.C., to lobby
lawmakers. Or whether they stayed in fancy hotels
or dined in expensive restaurants, and the like.
The funds came to the county through the Secure
Rural Schools Act, which aimed to ease the pain
caused by the major decline in federal lands logging
that’s occurred since the 1990s. Using them as a
travel fund for lobbying trips doesn’t help efforts to
keep the program afl oat, says U.S. Rep. Peter De-
Fazio, D-Eugene.
Oregon’s fi rst public records advocate, Ginger Mc-
Call, in her fi nal report to the governor before she
left Oct. 11, called high fees for fi lling public records
requests the single most pressing issue facing Orego-
nians with regard to public records. The current law
is ambiguous, and as a result, she said, too often me-
dia requesters — in this case, The Oregonian — are
charged high fees, “even for requests that will clearly
forward legitimate public interests.”
Knowing how local governments spending tax
dollars is clearly a legitimate public interest. Douglas
County District Attorney Richard Wesenberg should
read McCall’s report and reconsider.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald.
Columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions
of the authors and not necessarily that of the Baker City Herald.
Honoring Vietnam veterans
On Nov. 11, 1969, Operation Fulton
Square in the Quang Tri Province was
in full force with the assistance of the
1st Marine Division, 101st Airborne
Division and the 5th Infantry Division.
This was one of 20 operations active
throughout Vietnam. There were over
500,000 United States military person-
nel assigned to the Vietnam War Zone.
Yes, Veterans Day 50 years ago was
very different than this year. While
today we have troops assigned to opera-
tions in the Middle East, we must real-
ize that in 1969, the Vietnam War was
raging. Identifi ed as the second most
deadly year of the Vietnam Era, 11,780
United States warriors were killed in
action.
All totaled, over 58,000 of our troops
died in Vietnam; 710 were from Oregon.
Those who survived the war and
returned home were never welcomed
or treated with respect or honor. Most
of these dedicated soldiers never heard
the words “thank you” or “welcome
home.” As a result, when it came to
Veterans Day in 1969 and subsequent
years, most Vietnam veterans did not
wish to participate. These warriors did
their duty, served our country and were
rebuked because of that unpopular war.
“We were not supported in the fi eld,
we were not supported by our govern-
ment, we were not supported by the
people and many of us were treated
poorly when we came home,” said
former Oregon legislator and Vietnam
veteran Sal Esquivel.
When you look around our capital
city of Salem, you can fi nd memorials
STEVE BATES
built to honor the veterans of every
war and confl ict with the exception of
Operation Desert Storm and the Viet-
nam War. Once again, there is evidence
of the poor treatment of our Vietnam
veterans.
Oregon can do better. There are
Oregonians who want everyone to
remember our Vietnam veterans. A
Vietnam War memorial on the Oregon
State Capitol grounds to the south of
the World War II Memorial is proposed.
Over the past two years, dozens of
volunteers have attended meetings
and performed research. The end result
of these efforts is a viable design for
a Vietnam Memorial on the capitol
grounds.
The proposed Vietnam War memorial
on the Oregon State Capitol grounds
will remember the Oregonians who
gave the ultimate sacrifi ce in Vietnam.
It will honor the four Oregon families
who lost two sons to that war. In addi-
tion to historic accounts of the Vietnam
War, the design includes a memorial to
the six Oregonians who died in Opera-
tion Desert Storm.
Just as Oregon saluted the Great-
est Generation with a World War II
memorial on the Oregon State Capitol
grounds, it is time for Oregon to do the
same for the Vietnam War veterans.
The Vietnam veterans are the sons
and daughters of the Greatest Genera-
tion. The Vietnam veterans went to war
to serve as their fathers and mothers
did. It is fi tting that our Oregon State
Capitol grounds would honor these two
generations. With the completion of the
Vietnam War memorial, these two me-
morials will honor over 75% of Oregon’s
war dead. But, memorials do not just
honor those who died. Memorials honor
all who served.
Veterans Day is designated to honor
our military veterans who are still with
us.
The average age of our Vietnam
veterans is now over 70. We are slowly
losing our Vietnam veterans. To show
our Vietnam veterans the esteem they
deserve, a goal has been established
to honor our Vietnam veterans with a
Vietnam War memorial on the Oregon
State Capitol grounds by Veterans Day
2022.
Will you join this effort? Please send
your contribution by check to: Vietnam
War Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 1448,
Boring, OR 97009. You can donate by
credit card on the secure website at:
www.vietnamwarmemorialfund.org
On Veterans Day, we should thank
all of our veterans for their service.
Especially our Vietnam veterans.
Steve Bates has resided in Boring for
42 years and is a life member of the
Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America.
He serves as chair of the Committee on
Memorials & Remembrance and as
president of the Vietnam War Memorial
Fund. He can be reached by email at
vietnamwarmem@aol.com
Letters to the editor
• We welcome letters on any issue of public
interest. Customer complaints about specifi c
businesses will not be printed.
• The Baker City Herald will not knowingly
print false or misleading claims. However, we
cannot verify the accuracy of all statements in
letters to the editor.
• Letters are limited to 350 words; longer letters
will be edited for length. Writers are limited to
one letter every 15 days.
• The writer must sign the letter and include an
address and phone number (verifi cation only).
Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald,
P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
Email: news@bakercityherald.com
Halloween happiness, and a baby’s sweet smile
I hadn’t thought of trick-or-treat-
ing as a particularly poignant event
until I went to Meadowbrook Place
and saw the smiles of residents as
they dropped candy bars and lol-
lipops into kids’ bags.
I smiled too.
I suspect, though, that it looked
like a forced smile, or at least a
saccharine one. I never passed in
front of a mirror to gauge for myself
whether my grin appeared more
sincere than it felt.
It’s not that I had to muster
ersatz enthusiasm to mask my
indifference.
Nor was I bored or tired or feeling
any of the other ways that some-
times prompt fake smiles.
Quite the opposite.
As my wife Lisa and I strolled the
halls of the assisted living facility
on Halloween evening, escorting
our son, Max, who’s 8, while he
made his sugary rounds, I felt the
sort of emotional overload that
makes your throat seem constricted
and your eyes heavy with moisture.
The feeling that if someone asked
you a question at that moment,
you wouldn’t trust that you could
JAYSON
JACOBY
answer without your voice cracking
and giving away the reality behind
the plastered on facial facade.
I did not expect the experience
would affect me so profoundly.
Although in retrospect I suppose
I ought not have been especially
surprised.
Visiting such a facility — what
we used to call a retirement or
nursing home, although it seems
to me that these days, with our
increasing reliance on euphemisms,
that those terms, however accurate,
are no longer favored — strikes me
as something inherently fraught
with emotion.
For me this has always been a cu-
rious mixture. It is a concoction that
includes sadness, as when I wonder
whether some residents often feel
lonely or confused. But there is also
joy, when I consider that for others
this home, the last home they might
ever know, is a place where they
needn’t worry about cooking dinner
or digging leaves from the gutters
but where they can instead focus
on whatever pursuits bring them
happiness.
What I felt on Halloween was
like this — but it was also different.
I watched Max walk into apart-
ments where TVs were tuned to the
evening news and the walls were
plastered with photographs of rela-
tives. I watched women, and a few
men, pluck fi stfuls of sweets and
deposit them into Max’s pumpkin
made of soft cloth.
I saw them smile and exclaim at
his costume — Captain Jack Spar-
row from the “Pirates of the Carib-
bean” fi lm series — and I heard his
soft “thank yous” and their slightly
quavering “you’re welcomes.”
And as I watched these brief
scenes I couldn’t help but hope that
many of these residents were, in
those moments, recalling Hallow-
eens from years and decades past.
Halloweens when they sat in their
living rooms, a bowl of treats at
hand, and waited for the knock on
their front doors.
I wondered too whether those
residents who are themselves par-
ents were also reminiscing, perhaps
for the fi rst time in many years,
about distant days when their kids
donned costumes and ventured out
into the autumn twilight to fi ll their
bags and their bellies.
As I stood in the doorways and
looked into those rooms at Mead-
owbrook I felt the great weight of
all the years those residents have
experienced, and all the memories
of Halloweens and other holidays
and milestones.
And I hoped that at least some
of those residents who shared a
minute or two with Max were able
to reclaim, in those moments, one
of the things they cherished but
maybe believed they had lost for-
ever when they left their homes.
I hoped that it meant as much to
them as it did to me.
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My grandson Caden is a little
over 3 months old and he’s reached
the stage when I can convince my-
self that he recognizes me.
It’s a pleasant thought, anyway.
When Caden fi xes his gaze on
you, and his tiny face suddenly
stretches into an obvious smile, you
can’t help but feel immensely for-
tunate, as you might when you see,
for instance, a sunrise of intense but
ephemeral beauty.
It is a unique experience, watch-
ing a child’s development. And a
miraculous one.
A newborn for the fi rst month or
two can’t be said to have much of a
personality, to be sure — no matter
how cute and how precious we
inevitably think them to be.
But then comes the day when,
as you’re holding the child and
cooing in the way that otherwise
sober adults do at such times, the
baby grins at you, his eyes boring
in on yours, and you start yelling at
everyone in the room to come quick,
and to see what Caden just did. He
smiled, you exult, and not only that,
but he smiled at me.
Which is to say, he smiled for me.
And no smile is quite so sweet as
that one.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.