THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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news@bakercityherald.com
OUR VIEW
Child care
bill has
promise
State Reps. Jack Zika, R-Redmond, and Cheri Helt,
R-Bend, are asking Oregon lawmakers to approve
a measure that should make a dent in the state’s
damaging lack of child care. House Bill 4096 may
undergo tweaking, to be sure, but the pair’s approach
to the problem is both thoughtful and likely to be
successful.
Now it’s up to the full Legislature to make the
measure law.
Oregon’s child care problems may change from
county to county, but they’re statewide and they
make life tough for both employees and the compa-
nies they work for. Consider: According to the Eco-
nomic Policy Institute, an Oregonian with an infant
will spend, on average, $13,616 a year on care , well
above the $9,165 they’d pay in tuition at the Univer-
sity of Oregon or Oregon State, and more than the
average cost of rent in the state.
Worse, even at those prices there’s not enough to go
around. In fact, according to an Oregon State Univer-
sity study released in 2019, all 36 counties in Oregon
are child care deserts, with three or more children in
need of care for each slot available.
HB 4096 seeks to change those numbers in several
ways. It proposes grants to a child care provider with
a contract to provide child care for large employers. It
would make several tax credits available, to land-
lords leasing to child care facilities, to care providers
whose staff members got 18 hours of training per
year, and so on.
And, it would make child care facilities an outright
use on land zoned for residential or commercial use.
More controversial is a proposal to allow child care
centers as a conditional use on land zoned for exclu-
sive farm use. There’s opposition to the idea and it
could be dropped with minimal harm to the rest of
the bill.
Child care is expensive to provide and, for land-
lords, a business with built-in liabilities. Pay is low,
and turnover is high. HB 4096 seeks to address those
problems in a concrete way. It should be approved.
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.
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Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald,
P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
Email: news@bakercityherald.com
Your views
Better cell coverage
important for rural residents
I attended the Planning Commission
meeting of Jan. 21 to try and under-
stand what is going on with putting a
cell tower in town, and also the extent of
the coverage to the Baker Valley outside
the city limits. I personally do not see
any problem where it was intended,
being quite some distance from private
housing. From my take, this cell tower is
intended for use by the interstate travel-
ers as the location is nearest to I-84. My
view on this and to Verizon, AT&T and
others, is why not build a tower or two,
maybe more, a bit farther out in the
country on open fi elds, or hills surround-
ing the town, to access the people who
have trouble using cellphones while
living out in the country. Northeastern
Oregon is one of the least accessible
areas for cell service to a lot of people on
both sides of the freeway corridor. Most
of the hill country to the west of Baker
City, including Sumpter and points
eastward, southward and northward,
are not very compatible to cell service.
On the eastern side of the freeway to the
western edge of the Wallowas is another
dead spot. I was hoping to get informa-
tion at the meeting on how to get better
access to any of these carriers’ services.
There is more than an abundance of
open land, both public and private, that
can accommodate these towers, and for
public safety would be greatly appreci-
ated.
As I travel I-84 between Baker City
and Boise there never seems to be a
lack of cell coverage. And the closer one
gets to Boise, cell towers become more
frequent. So, the few of us who do enjoy
the sparsely populated areas, our cell
coverage becomes non-existent when
traveling outside the city limits. It’s not
too terrible unless one happens to have
an accident.
As for the cell “tree” at 70 feet, it didn’t
look that bad to me. Our home in Baker
Valley has a landline which works most
of the time, but we also rely on cell-
phones, and that is not always available.
Phillip Reindl
Baker City
OTHER VIEWS
What is our goal in Afghanistan?
Editorial from The Pittsburgh Post-
Gazette:
The U.S. military marked its 18th
year in Afghanistan last year and, in the
process, set a depressing new record by
dropping 7,423 bombs in the country,
the highest number since U.S Air Forces
Central Command began tracking the
fi gures in 2006.
This number comes on the heels of
the December publication of internal
government documents by the Washing-
ton Post. These documents, which came
from the Special Inspector General for
Afghanistan Reconstruction, confi rmed
what millions of Americans already
knew: The war in Afghanistan, costing
more than $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars
as well as the lives of thousands of U.S.
soldiers, is a war without a mission. The
upper echelons of the federal govern-
ment don’t know what purpose a U.S.
military presence in Afghanistan serves.
So why, then, does the U.S. govern-
ment continue to drop nearly 7,500
bombs on Afghanistan, killing hundreds
of civilians each year? Who are the
targets supposed to be? What purpose
does the destruction serve? What is the
objective?
Getting answers to such questions is
practically impossible. Those responsible
for U.S. policy in Afghanistan will not ex-
plain their decisions. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo and Acting Secretary of
Defense Mark Esper refused to attend a
congressional hearing on the war in Af-
ghanistan last month. President Donald
Trump has long said he wants to wind
down the confl ict, yet it persists.
The American people deserve to know
why the war in Afghanistan continues,
in spite of what is plainly obvious to
most citizens, soldiers and veterans.
This confl ict has gone on unabated for
nearly two decades. Children born just
after the initial invasion are now old
enough to fi ght the same battle. Who
can justify the unjustifi able?
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., may have said
it best: “Our young men and women
that we send to war, our best and our
brightest, they deserve better.” An expla-
nation is the least we are owed.
From union support to Marxism?
Editorial from The New York Daily
News:
What on earth was director Julia
Reichert thinking at Sunday night’s
Oscars?
“American Factory” is a very good
documentary, backed by Barack and
Michelle Obama, about the growing
and shrinking pains that result when a
Chinese company takes over a former
General Motors manufacturing plant
in Ohio. Its lesson, to the extent there
is a clear one, is that in a tough global
economy, employees must fi nd new
ways to bridge cultural divides, save
their unions and protect their jobs.
When Reichert and her team took
the stage to accept the statuette for best
documentary, she said a few smart-
enough things about it being tough
out there for workers in a world of
multinational corporations and rising
automation.
She then ended her remarks with
this sentence: “Workers of the world,
unite!”
Remedial education alert: This is,
word for word, the call to action made
famous by Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels in their Communist Manifesto.
Anyone who says it uncritically is
either utterly ignorant of its unmis-
takable context or actually urging
the overthrow of free markets and
capitalist economies across the planet
via a worldwide revolution of workers
against those who control the means of
production.
For an Academy Award-winning di-
rector to cap her acceptance speech with
those words, at a moment when Repub-
licans breathlessly and in most cases
baselessly warn of socialists taking over
the Democratic Party, is a caricature
straight out of right-wing dreams.
Reichert is a believer in unions, as
are we. She clearly believes that, at the
plant in question, workers have lost
valuable leverage because management
is hostile to unionization. She’s right to
be upset about that.
But she cannot possibly be leaping
from that to a call for global Marxist
revolution. Can she?
CONTACT YOUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS
President Donald Trump: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania
Ave., Washington, D.C. 20500; 202-456-1414; fax 202-456-2461; to
send comments, go to www.whitehouse.gov/contact.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: D.C. offi ce: 313 Hart Senate Offi ce
Building, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-3753;
fax 202-228-3997. Portland offi ce: One World Trade Center, 121
S.W. Salmon St. Suite 1250, Portland, OR 97204; 503-326-3386;
fax 503-326-2900. Pendleton offi ce: 310 S.E. Second St. Suite 105,
Pendleton 97801; 541-278-1129; merkley.senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: D.C. offi ce: 221 Dirksen Senate Offi ce
Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5244; fax 202-228-2717.
La Grande offi ce: 105 Fir St., No. 210, La Grande, OR 97850; 541-
962-7691; fax, 541-963-0885; wyden.senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (2nd District): D.C. offi ce: 2182 Rayburn
Offi ce Building, Washington, D.C., 20515, 202-225-6730; fax 202-
225-5774. La Grande offi ce: 1211 Washington Ave., La Grande, OR
97850; 541-624-2400, fax, 541-624-2402; walden.house.gov.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254 State Capitol, Salem, OR
97310; 503-378-3111; www.governor.oregon.gov.
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read: oregon.treasurer@
ost.state.or.us; 350 Winter St. NE, Suite 100, Salem OR 97301-
3896; 503-378-4000.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen F. Rosenblum: Justice
Building, Salem, OR 97301-4096; 503-378-4400.
Oregon Legislature: Legislative documents and information
are available online at www.leg.state.or.us.
State Sen. Cliff Bentz (R-Ontario): Salem offi ce: 900 Court
St. N.E., S-301, Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1730. District offi ce:
P.O. Box 1027, Ontario, OR 97914; 541-889-8866.
State Rep. Lynn Findley (R-Vale): Salem offi ce: 900 Court
St. N.E., H-475, Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1460. Email: Rep.
LynnFindley@oregonlegislature.gov
Baker City Hall: 1655 First Street, P.O. Box 650, Baker City,
OR 97814; 541-523-6541; fax 541-524-2049. City Council meets
the second and fourth Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers.
Mike Downing, Loran Joseph, Randy Schiewe, Lynette Perry,
Arvid Andersen, Larry Morrison and Doni Bruland.
Baker City administration: 541-523-6541. Fred Warner Jr.,
city manager; Ray Duman, police chief; John Clark, fi re chief;
Michelle Owen, public works director.
Baker County Commission: Baker County Courthouse 1995
3rd St., Baker City, OR 97814; 541-523-8200. Meets the fi rst and
third Wednesdays at 9 a.m.; Bill Harvey (chair), Mark Bennett,
Bruce Nichols.
Baker County departments: 541-523-8200. Travis Ash,
sheriff; Jeff Smith, roadmaster; Greg Baxter, district attorney;
Alice Durfl inger, county treasurer; Stefanie Kirby, county clerk;
Kerry Savage, county assessor.