SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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EDITORIAL
Name the
city’s top
candidate
We know it’s likely that either Steve Ashworth or
Jonathan Cannon will be the new Baker City man-
ager.
We also know that the City Council prefers one of
the two.
What we don’t know is whether Cannon or Ash-
worth is the Council’s top choice.
We should know.
The City Council had the legal authority, under
Oregon’s Public Meetings Law, to discuss the three
city manager candidates — councilors dropped Scott
McClure from contention — during an executive
session, which was closed to the public, on Tuesday,
Nov. 17.
Councilors also rightly reconvened in a public ses-
sion after that discussion to announce that they had
authorized Mayor Loran Joseph to negotiate with
one of the two fi nalists, and also with the other if the
fi rst negotiation didn’t yield a tentative contract to
bring to the Council for approval.
When the Herald asked Joseph which of the pair
he’ll be negotiating with initially, he said the Council
didn’t want to reveal its preference because “they
were so close that we would feel comfortable with ei-
ther of these two candidates and what we don’t want
to do is to create any hard feelings.”
This isn’t the election of a high school student body
president.
Ashworth and Cannon are vying for a job that
likely will have an annual salary between $100,000
and $115,000. It’s farfetched to believe that if Joseph
can’t reach a tentative agreement with one candi-
date, then the other would turn down the job solely
because he wasn’t quite the Council’s top choice.
Baker City residents shouldn’t have to resort to
guessing which of the two candidates their elected
representatives most want to hire.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
OTHER VIEWS
Trump’s troop reductions too hasty
Editorial from The Los Angeles
Times:
President Donald Trump has
decided to end his presidency with a
fl ourish by withdrawing many of the
U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan
and Iraq. The drawdown, announced
Tuesday by acting Secretary of De-
fense Christopher Miller, is alarmingly
abrupt, and it pre-empts what should
have been a decision by President-elect
Joe Biden.
The announced reduction in U.S.
troops in Afghanistan is especially
troubling. The U.S. has more than
4,500 forces training and advising
the Afghan military and engaging in
counterterrorism operations there.
Trump plans to cut that number to
2,500, after suggesting last month
that all of the troops would be home
by Christmas. Meanwhile, U.S. forces
in Iraq will be reduced from 3,000 to
2,500. The target date for the reduc-
tions is Jan. 15, fi ve days before Biden
is sworn in.
We oppose a sudden withdrawal
from Afghanistan, but not because we
believe U.S. forces should remain per-
petually in that country. We welcomed
the Trump administration’s willing-
ness to negotiate with the Taliban. In
February, those talks produced a tenta-
tive agreement linking withdrawal of
remaining U.S. forces to a commitment
by the Taliban to prevent al-Qaida, Is-
lamic State and other militant groups
from using Afghan territory to launch
attacks on the United States.
However, further negotiations,
including those between the Taliban
and the Afghan government, have
been halting and not very productive.
Trump’s drawdown would deprive
the U.S. and the Afghan government
of leverage in those talks. A rushed
troop cut also could leave U.S. bases
in Afghanistan vulnerable to being
overrun.
Trump acted after fi ring Secretary
of Defense Mark Esper, who report-
edly wrote a memo opposing drastic
troop reductions, pointing to continu-
ing violence, potential dangers to
remaining troops and an adverse
effect on the peace negotiations. The
president also disregarded advice from
the secretary-general of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization — an
alliance that has played a key role in
Afghanistan — and Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
It’s understandable that, almost two
decades after U.S. forces were deployed
to Afghanistan in the aftermath of the
Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Ameri-
cans would tire of this commitment,
even though the number of U.S. troops
there now is minuscule compared with
the 100,000 deployed in 2010. Regard-
less of what happens in the negotia-
tions with the Taliban, the U.S. might
eventually decide to remove remaining
troops from Afghanistan and explore
other ways to protect this nation from
terrorists who might seek to operate
there.
But that decision should be made by
Biden, who, echoing Trump, has talked
about ending “forever wars.” And it
should be made deliberately and in
a way that doesn’t suggest political
calculation. Given Trump’s pattern of
confusing his political interests with
those of the U.S., it’s hard to resist the
suspicion that this decision is designed
primarily to allow him to claim that he
brought the troops home and pocket
that accomplishment for a possible
presidential campaign in 2024.
Feeling a chill wind blow during the ‘freeze’
For the fi rst time I have cause
to wonder whether I might come
under the scrutiny of the police, and
solely because a couple of cars are
parked in my driveway that aren’t
normally there.
It is a queer feeling.
Unsettling.
The comfortable cloak of security
that all responsible and law-abiding
citizens have a right to wear sud-
denly seems to me a threadbare
garment, the chill wind slithering
through gaps in the frayed fabric.
It is as if I have awakened in a
place which seems superfi cially the
same, except I understand that this
is not quite so.
It is a place where a passerby,
rather than casting a slightly jeal-
ous eye at the neighbor’s landscap-
ing skill, instead feels compelled to
count the number of faces briefl y
glimpsed behind a lighted window.
A place where the holiday
season is marked not by amity and
congeniality but by suspicion and
bitterness.
Already I feel nostalgic for the
era when the biggest problem likely
to happen during Thanksgiving
dinner was that that one uncle —
and every family has one — would
quaff a couple too many cans of
Keystone Light and start cursing at
the TV because the Cowboys were
down by three touchdowns.
This year a person could end up
with his name on a misdemeanor
citation because somebody dropped
by unexpectedly while the pumpkin
pie was being sliced.
I suspect the whipped cream
wouldn’t taste quite so luscious if
JAYSON
JACOBY
you were looking at 30 days in jail
and a fi ne of $1,250, penalties that
Gov. Kate Brown says she has the
emergency authority to impose
under the guise of thwarting the
coronavirus.
That’s better than a bout with
botulism from a bad can of peas, I
suppose.
But only barely.
I’m not especially worried about
having my dinner interrupted by
an offi cial knock on the door from a
police offi cer checking to see if guest
numbers comport with what the
governor has deemed proper.
My family, which numbers consid-
erably more than six when its vari-
ous branches congregate, canceled
our annual gathering at Sunriver.
It’s a Thanksgiving tradition that
started when The Knack’s “My
Sharona” was still getting regular
radio play, when the Empire had
only recently struck back but before
the Jedi had returned.
(I’m sure I could think of other pop
culture references to indicate how
venerable this holiday celebration
is, but that trio apparently tops my
memory’s list when I think of 1980.)
My own driveway scarcely has
room for one additional car so I’m
not likely to attract unwanted
interest during the 2-week “freeze”
that the governor has decreed will
continue through at least Dec. 2.
But this episode of the govern-
ment fl exing its beefy regulatory
muscles still troubles me.
I have a boundless affi nity for
America, and for its fundamental
principles that elevate the individual
over the government. And so when
I sense that this foundation, which
has served us so well for nearly two
and a half centuries, is perhaps not
so solid as I believed it to be, I feel
a cold dread. I expect I would feel
much the same if I were sitting in a
waiting room and the doctor walked
in, holding an X-ray and looking
grave.
We are not living in ordinary
times, of course. Pestilence lies
heavy on our land, and I give the
viral scourge the respect I believe it
deserves.
It is all well to quote the fatality
rates.
But I am not altogether comforted
by the notion that people I love have,
say, a 2% chance of dying from a
disease none of us had heard of a
year ago.
Because a year ago there was no
chance at all that they would die
from this disease. And zero happens
to be the only odds, in this context,
that I can treat with equanimity.
And so I endorse and practice the
precautions that have become as
familiar as the admonitions to brush
our teeth twice a day and cut back
on the saturated fat.
I keep my distance from people
outside my circle of family when
possible.
I wear a mask when it’s not
possible or when it’s required, as in
businesses.
But these are buildings fre-
quented by the public, and with
the commensurate responsibilities
required of patrons.
Our homes are different.
Or anyway they’re supposed to
be.
A business can tell me to leave if
I refuse to wear shoes.
But in my home I can wander
around barefoot all day.
A more appropriate analogy, as
related to Oregon’s current CO-
VID-19 restrictions, is that the gov-
ernment doesn’t allow me to stroll
around public parks with a beer
in my hand, but I’m free to have a
bottle of suds in my backyard.
I understand the argument that
the pandemic changes everything,
that in matters of life and death
the usual standards no longer
apply.
But I look around, with a wide
view, and I see no compelling evi-
dence to support this notion.
The threat from COVID-19 is not
dangerous enough to warrant the
government signifi cantly restrict-
ing access to grocery stores, much
less closing them. But if seven
people gather in my dining room
to demolish the roasted bird then
a violation has occurred, and the
government has cause to detain me
and take some of my money.
The consensus among police
agencies seems to be that if they’re
alerted to potential violations they
intend to educate residents about
the restrictions rather than dole
out punishments.
Police certainly will fi eld reports.
Only the most naíve person could
believe that there aren’t among us
those who would sprain a fi nger in
their haste to dial the police when
they see half a dozen rigs parked
across the street.
But I don’t much care if police
never cite anyone for being a bit too
hospitable during the holidays.
The issue isn’t whether the
government punishes people for
exceeding an arbitrary limit with
their guest list, it’s that the govern-
ment has asserted that it can do so.
We can get over the virus.
The vast majority of those
infected recover. Our bodies are
amazingly resilient vessels, our
cells capable of replicating, and in
some cases they can repair damage
infl icted by invaders.
And of course we have brains
that allow us to create vaccines
that make our already formidable
immune systems even more robust.
But I’m not so sanguine about
the likelihood of healing wounds
that are deeper than physical, that
are beyond the bounds of medicine.
I fear that the boundary between
the government and the citizen se-
cure in his home, once pierced, will
be diffi cult and perhaps impossible
to rebuild.
I fear that many of us have lost
forever the certainty that some
rights are inviolate, the confi dence
that in our homes, unique among
the spaces we inhabit, we can
feel that immeasurable sense of
security of being in the place that is
ours alone.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.