SATURDAY, MAY 1, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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news@bakercityherald.com
EDITORIAL
Pass the 5J
measure
Voters in the Baker School District spoke clearly,
and with considerable volume, when the district
asked them in November 2018 to approve a $48
million property tax hike to build a new elementary
school and make other improvements.
“No” was the answer.
More than twice as many voters — 4,725 — re-
jected the measure as supported it — 2,185.
The 2018 proposal, though warranted based on the
distribution of students and the age of schools, was
just too much.
Too expensive, specifi cally. The measure would
have boosted property taxes in the district for 30
years, at a rate of $1.97 per $1,000 of assessed prop-
erty value.
The measure on the May 18 ballot, which went
in the mail on Wednesday, April 28, has in common
with the 2018 version that it addresses important
needs that have long been neglected due to lack of
money.
But this current proposal is also a very different
one, and its biggest differences directly refl ect that
resounding statement by voters two and a half years
ago.
This new measure — 1-108 — deserves voters’ sup-
port.
At $4 million, it is a much more modest request.
Property owners would repay the bond in one-sixth of
the time — fi ve years rather than 30. The rate is also
comparatively small, raising property tax rates during
those fi ve years by about 66 cents per $1,000.
That money would leverage twice as many dollars —
$4 million from a state grant, and $4 million from the
district’s capital projects — for a total of $12 million.
There’s nothing fancy about this proposal. Many of
those dollars would pay to ensure that the buildings
which previous generations of local residents paid to
build will continue to serve our students for decades
to come. South Baker Intermediate would get a new
roof. All buildings would have new, more effi cient
heating, cooling and ventilation equipment installed,
as well as improved security systems. The district
would build a cafeteria and kitchen at Baker Middle
School, the only school that lacks such facilities.
These buildings have proved to be among the
fi nest investments Baker citizens have ever made,
the places where so many thousands have received
the immeasurable gift of an education. But 73 years
have gone by since we passed a bond measure. It is
time to do so again.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
Disappointed that more
people aren’t vaccinated
I am amazed as I visit with people
and read about the turnout for CO-
VID-19 vaccinations. I understand
some amount of hesitancy but with
all of the information available about
the vaccines, I do not understand why
more people are not getting them. I
believe they don’t understand how safe
the vaccines are. Until enough people
are vaccinated, the virus will be here
with us. I surely don’t like that idea.
Linda Miller
Baker City
Grateful for City Council’s
support of school measure
I want to thank the Baker City
Council for their support of the Baker
5J School District’s bond measure.
This bond measure does a great job of
addressing some urgent maintenance
and security issues at our schools as
well as fi nally getting a cafeteria at the
middle school. It leverages matching
funds from outside the district to get
the most bang for each property tax
dollar. This has been a long process
with many hiccups along the way, but
I am glad that Superintendent Witty,
our School Board, and volunteers have
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
continued their work to identify needs
and balance that with what we can
afford. Our children and students are
such an important resource and must
have our support as a community to
achieve their best results. I hope that
you join me and the Baker City Council
in voting yes on Baker School Bond
Measure 1-108.
Loran Joseph
Baker City
The great disorder over the
Idaho-Oregon border
Upon crossing into Idaho on I-84
there used to be a sign reading Idaho
is too great to litter. I used to joke the
sign should read: Idaho is too illiter-
ate to be great. The joke hit home,
however, when a Greater Idaho leafl et
landed in my mail, claiming that I’d be
better off if I was an Idahoan; it would
be effortless, I wouldn’t even have to
move, they would simply elasticize
Idaho’s boundary and stretch it around
Oregon’s more desirable acreage and
call it good. That done, I’d supposedly
be happy with the lacking infrastruc-
ture; why, for example, waste good
tax money fi lling in those unattended
potholes that a kid could fall into and
never be seen again? What’s an unli-
accuracy of all statements in letters to
the editor.
• Writers are limited to one letter every
15 days.
• The writer must sign the letter and
include an address and phone number
(for verifi cation only). Letters that do
not include this information cannot be
censed 4-wheeler for anyway?
No, I live in Eastern Oregon and
hopefully will continue to do so. Be-
sides, I wouldn’t be caught dead driving
around with license plates that cham-
pion Famous Potatoes. It’s true Eastern
Oregon is often overlooked by Salem or
that we have to apologize for Portland’s
behavior — but that’s no reason to
surround us by Idaho. Besides, Idaho is
moving here and already is taking over.
Fortunately, there are alternatives.
If I want the Idaho experience I can
always move to Douglas or Josephine
counties and watch old episodes of
Duck Dynasty. Or, seriously, why not
physically move Idaho farther away.
Ship it to the Middle East; plunk it
down right between the two other
“I” countries, Iran and Iraq. There, it
wouldn’t be such a tempting distraction
and, it would at least give a mask-less
Ammon Bundy something to really
whine about. Meanwhile, I’m happy liv-
ing here with Eastern Oregon’s present
borders, values and laws. And should
I begin speaking disparaging words
about my home on this range, I’ll create
a new movement. I’ll call it Greater
Hawaii. That’ll fi x everything.
Whit Deschner
Baker City
published.
• Letters will be edited for brevity,
grammar, taste and legal reasons.
Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald,
P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
Email: news@bakercityherald.com
Vaccine-hesitant? Let’s talk about Krispy Kreme
I ought to have known that the
solution to the COVID-19 vac-
cination challenge would involve
doughnuts.
Frankly I’m embarrassed that I
didn’t think of it myself.
If there exists a problem that
can’t be fi xed, or at least put in
its proper perspective, by the
consumption of deep-fried dough
coated with sugar, I have not had
the misfortune of being affl icted
with it.
I’m referring here not to an ordi-
nary doughnut.
This is the Krispy Kreme origi-
nal glazed doughnut, the existence
of which proves that God wants us
to be happy, and that the deity’s
benefi cence extends to the pastry
business.
Krispy Kreme announced
recently that if you visit one of the
company’s stores any time during
2021, and present a card showing
you’ve been vaccinated against
COVID-19, you will be rewarded
with a free glazed doughnut.
And this is not a one-time deal.
You can obtain one free dough-
nut each day for the rest of the
year so long as you don’t lose that
precious vaccination card.
JAYSON
JACOBY
I can only hope that the pharma-
ceutical companies are prepared to
boost vaccine production posthaste.
I also presume that Krispy
Kreme has instituted the most
sophisticated system available to
detect fraudulent vaccination cards.
I appreciate the company’s gen-
erosity in service of such a worth-
while cause as inoculating people
against the virus that has fouled
up so much that is great about
America.
But I don’t want Krispy Kreme
to get into a fi nancial pickle
because it underestimated the
nation’s collective appetite for the
company’s signature concoction.
(I presume if any outfi t would be,
well, immune to this miscalcula-
tion, it would be Krispy Kreme,
which makes about 2 billion dough-
nuts per year. But still I worry.)
It happens that a couple weeks
before Krispy Kreme announced
its vaccination incentive, I watched
an episode of the History Chan-
nel’s excellent “Modern Marvels”
documentary series exploring the
technology of fast food. Krispy
Kreme was one of the purveyors
profi led.
It was a fascinating watch.
(Also a vaguely unsatisfying one
— the show had the predictable
effect on my appetite, but alas the
nearest Krispy Kreme outlet is in
Meridian, Idaho, rather too far to
make a quick jaunt for a hot dozen
before bedtime.)
I learned, among much else,
that the recipe for Krispy Kreme’s
dough is classifi ed and that it’s
stored in a vault (although I sus-
pect the vault was just a prop for
TV).
This puts the recipe in the same
category as the formulas behind
other beloved products such as
Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dr Pep-
per and Coca-Cola. I suppose I un-
derstand the secrecy. But it strikes
me as implausible to believe that
even if some real-life Slugworth
stole the equivalent of Wonka’s
process for everlasting gobstoppers,
it would give the thief a guaranteed
windfall in the market.
Even if I knew how to repli-
cate, say, Coke, I’d have to brand
the soda something else. And the
power of the brand name that Coke
has amassed over more than a
century is no trifl ing thing. Perhaps
a competitor — WalMart, for
instance — by virtue of its ability to
sell the same product at a discount
could turn its copycat cola into a
fortune (well, a bigger fortune). But
I’m skeptical.
I was surprised that Krispy
Kreme protects its recipe so obses-
sively.
The fl avors that comprise a soda,
or the mixture of spices applied to
fried chicken, seem to me formu-
las more diffi cult to mimic than
a doughnut, which has just a few
simple and bland ingredients, none
of them likely to impart a unique
fl avor to the fi nished product.
But it’s not so much the recipe
that distinguishes Krispy Kreme.
It’s the process.
I learned from the documentary
that the real breakthrough hap-
pened in 1962. That’s when the
company, which had for the previ-
ous decade or so used an automatic
cutter to shape doughnuts (before
then they were made by hand),
switched to an “extruder” — a ma-
chine that uses compressed air to,
in effect, shoot a continuous stream
of doughnuts onto trays.
(How this miraculous milestone
has escaped the notice of whoever
decides on the creation of national
holidays, I can’t begin to explain.)
The extruder made possible the
famous scenes you’ve probably
seen, if not in person then on TV, of
battalions of doughnuts bubbling in
the hot fat before sliding under the
waterfall curtain of glaze.
I have occasionally had a day-
dream in which I wonder what it
would be like to be there, among
the glistening doughnuts, lying
on my back with my mouth open,
drooling in anticipation.
I also imagine sneaking into the
section of the Oreo plant where the
cream fi lling is made, a large spoon
in hand.
I worry slightly about this,
whether it might be a precursor
to a cranial tumor or something
similarly unpleasant.
But so far I haven’t had any
other symptoms.
My teeth are another matter.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.