SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
A4
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EDITORIAL
Your views
City should seek quiet zone
There is no legitimate
reason for Baker City, with the
aid of a citizens group that has
been working on the project for
about two years, not to con-
tinue pursuing a railroad quiet
zone designation.
Yet three members of the
City Council — Mayor Kerry
McQuisten, Joanna Dixon and
Johnny Waggoner Sr. — voted
against a motion to do just that
on Tuesday evening, Oct. 12.
The motion failed by a 3-3
vote. Councilors Jason Spriet,
Heather Sells and Shane
Alderson voted in favor of the
motion.
The confl ict is over whether
the city should continue the
process of seeking a quiet zone
through the Federal Railroad
Administration, or whether the
city should put the matter on
the ballot in May 2022.
McQuisten, in a recent post
on her Facebook page, wrote
“I truly don’t see any way to
decide this controversial is-
sue other than a ballot vote.”
McQuisten also wrote: “Going
by past elections, straw polls,
and what I hear out in public,
my general perception is that
roughly 1500 people are in
favor of the quiet zone and
roughly 8500 people are not.”
That’s hardly a credible
public survey.
Moreover, the level of op-
position to a quiet zone that
McQuisten cites seems improb-
ably high were city residents to
understand how different the
current proposal is from what
happened before.
The past election McQuisten
cited took place almost 20
years ago, in May 2002. In that
election city voters soundly
rejected a proposal for the city
to seek a quiet zone, with 82%
opposed and 18% in favor.
But there’s a key differ-
ence between then and now.
The 2002 measure noted that
the city would have to build
dividers at railroad crossings to
prevent vehicles from reach-
ing the tracks when a train is
passing, at an estimated cost of
$40,000 to $60,000.
In other words, voters in
2002 were not asked whether
they supported a quiet zone,
per se, but whether they were
willing to devote city dollars to
the project.
Money, as the saying goes,
changes everything.
The situation now is differ-
ent.
The citizens group promot-
ing the quiet zone has vowed
that it will raise the money
needed to build dividers or
make other changes to railroad
crossings that make them
safer. Those changes are re-
quired for a quiet zone designa-
tion, so it can’t happen unless
the group actually raises the
money.
When the quiet zone issue
involved the possible spending
of public money that hadn’t
already been budgeted, it was
reasonable for the city to take
the matter to voters, as hap-
pened in 2002.
But with no city money
on the table, it’s no longer
necessary to do so, any more
than it would be if the city, for
instance, were to install a new
stop sign or build a wheelchair
cut in a curb.
So long as there is no cost to
taxpayers, there is no downside
to the city qualifying for a quiet
zone.
With the construction of
dividers, it would be much
more diffi cult, if not physically
impossible, for a driver to get to
the tracks when a train is pass-
ing and the crossing arms are
down. An October 2017 report
from the Government Account-
ability Offi ce — the offi cial
auditor of federal programs
— concluded that analyses in
2011 and 2013 by the Fed-
eral Railroad Administration
“showed that there was gener-
ally no statistically signifi cant
difference in the number of
accidents that occurred before
and after quiet zones were
established.” The FRA studied
359 quiet zones in 2011, and
203 more in 2013.
In any case, train engineers
can still sound their horns in
a quiet zone at their discretion
— if a person is walking on or
near the tracks, for instance.
Eliminating most train
horns would improve the
quality of life — a benefi t our
neighbors in La Grande, which
earned quiet zone designation
at the end of 2019, and Pendle-
ton, which has had a quiet zone
since the 1970s, already enjoy.
Regardless of whether the
blaring horns bother you a lot
or a little or even not at all, the
noise is particularly obnoxious
at South Baker Intermediate
School, which is very near the
tracks.
Given that the quiet zone
can be accomplished at no
expense to taxpayers, and with-
out sacrifi cing safety, the only
plausible reason to oppose the
designation is on the decidedly
subjective grounds of ambi-
ence — that the echoing horns,
perhaps by invoking nostalgia,
add more to the city than they
take away.
It’s easy to understand why
a lot of city voters in 2002
didn’t think the city should
spend money to silence most
train horns. Many no doubt feel
the same now.
But it’s much more diffi cult
to believe that a signifi cant
number of residents are so en-
amored of that particular noise
that they would feel bereft in
the comparative tranquility of
its absence.
Besides which, the 20 or so
trains that roll through town
daily wouldn’t become silent.
Their steel wheels would still
squeak and clatter, sounds
evocative of the railroad and
its history here dating to 1884,
but also much gentler sounds,
ones less likely to interrupt
a teacher in the classroom or
awaken someone in the dark.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City
Herald editor
Local businesses are vital to
Baker City, County
Not only are small local
businesses the backbone of the
American economy, a successful
small business provides many
unsung services. I learned this
lesson in Homer, Alaska, where I
worked as a pianist for AJ’s Old
Town Steak House. AJ’s employed
me all summer, and then to my
surprise continued the job through
the winter when tourism and res-
taurant receipts went down. AJ’s
employed me for six years (until
COVID). Such loyalty to employ-
ees helps keep the local economy
prosperous; for AJ’s the bottom line
is more than money. Their bottom
line includes loyal and grateful em-
ployees, maintaining a place of free
speech and assembly for people
to gather, dine and celebrate, and
preventing poverty in the local
economy by providing steady jobs.
Here in Baker City many small
local businesses similarly provide
unsung services, for example:
Elkhorn Custom Meats & Deli.
I consider this business, at 2970
H Street, to be a treasure of our
local economy. Elkhorn Custom
Meats processes local grass-fed
beef (the most healthy beef there
is) and pork in a spotless, odorless
facility. Elkhorn is an old-fashioned
butcher shop. They know the
names of their customers, appreci-
ate everyone who comes through
their door, and go out of their way
to make sure every customer is
satisfi ed. Their prices are reason-
able. They take food stamps. Their
smoked meats are excellent. They
employ and train local people —
and are always looking for honest
hardworking people to become
part of their family business. Our
family thrives on their healthy
beef. Your trade will help keep this
business open and provide an im-
portant market for local ranchers.
I urge the people of Baker
County to visit and support this
business and other like-minded
small local businesses in Baker
City. Such local businesses help
make Baker County and Baker
City a great place to live.
Lindianne Sarno
Baker City
Computer spurs nostalgia for the mixed tape
I was muttering curses at my
computer the other evening and it
occurred to me that life was slower,
but rather less annoying, when the
word “megabyte” meant as much to
me as the Cyrillic alphabet.
The computer, obstinate as only
a machine (or a teenager) can be,
repulsed my efforts to dislodge
whatever was clogging its clever
little circuits.
Among the myriad ways in
which digital devices differ from
analog, perhaps the most frustrat-
ing, it seems to me, is that the latter
generally fail to respond to the sort
of forcible repair techniques that
hamfi sted people (me, for instance)
resort to when more sophisticated
tactics fail.
A carburetor, for instance, is a
crude way to introduce the fuel-air
mixture to an internal combustion
engine, at least compared with
modern fuel injection systems,
which have as much computing
power as an Apollo capsule.
But sometimes you can wrestle
a carburetor into submission
simply by giving it a hearty whack
with a hammer in just the right
spot.
Start thumping around with a
blunt instrument under the hood
of a new car, by contrast, and you’re
apt to end up with a hefty repair
bill.
And perhaps a hand wound
from a shard of plastic, which is the
predominant material visible under
most hoods these days, the greasy
bits being mostly concealed.
The problem that prompted my
softly uttered profanity involved not
cars but music.
These two things go together
nicely, of course.
Who among us hasn’t had a
long and otherwise boring road trip
suddenly enlivened by a particular
song blaring from the speakers?
(We all have our favorites, of
course. Mine are too numerous to
list here, but a couple that never
fail to rouse me from a freeway-in-
duced stupor are U2’s “Where The
Streets Have No Name” and Eddie
Rabbitt’s “I Love A Rainy Night.”)
Indeed, the portability of music
is to me one of its greater attributes.
For more than half a century,
since the advent of the affordable,
handheld transistor radio, we’ve
been able to bring music pretty
much wherever we go.
But not whatever music you
wanted to hear.
With a radio you’re limited, of
course, to the stations the antenna
can pull in, and further, by what-
ever songs those stations choose
to play.
Turntables put you in control,
but they’re hard to balance when
you’re walking — and downright
dangerous to try to bring along on
a bicycle, what with the extension
cords — so it was hardly feasible to
bring along your personal collection
once you left home.
Until the cassette tape arrived
in the 1970s.
This milestone, and the subse-
quent debut of Sony’s Walkman
and its many imitators, marked a
true milestone.
Now people could not only buy
their favorite albums in a truly
portable format, they could use
blank tapes to create their own
unique concerts.
Thus was born the mix tape, the
JAYSON
JACOBY
analog version of what we know
today as a playlist.
This fl exibility made it possible
to compile eclectic collections of
songs that not even the wizards at
K-Tel would deign to put together.
Have an affi nity for Iron Maiden
as well as The Carpenters?
No problem.
You can follow Bruce Dick-
inson’s feral yowling on “The
Number of the Beast” with Karen
Carpenter’s syrupy smooth tones
on “Superstar.”
Or inject a dollop of Air Supply
between helpings of The Ramones
and The Clash.
The possibilities, as the saying
goes, are truly endless.
But the digital wave has
inundated music just as surely as
it did internal combustion, and
today the cassette tape is as dated
as shag carpet.
We measure music in mega-
bytes rather than in minutes.
For sheer convenience, this
progress is miraculous.
Most cassette tapes had the
capacity to store 60 or 90 minutes
of music. A digital music player the
size of a pack of matches can hold
several thousand songs.
But even those players have
been supplanted, to a considerable
degree, by the immense capabilities
of the smartphone.
Which brings me back around to
my tussle with a computer.
I was trying, and in the main
failing, to transfer the thousand
songs or so stored on a player to my
phone.
This task, as with so much else
these days, is accomplished by
manipulating a mouse and drag-
ging various folders across a virtual
desktop.
In theory.
What struck me, as I clicked
and dragged and cussed — mostly
the latter — is how impersonal the
procedure is, how utterly lacking
in tactile sensation compared with
the way I used to make tapes for
remote listening.
When I was a teenager in the
1980s, the apex of the cassette
tape’s reign before it gave way
to the compact disc in the ’90s, I
recorded music onto those cunning
little plastic cases from multiple
sources — my dad’s LPs, other
cassettes, even the radio.
(For the latter, this mostly
involved waiting for the awesome
block party weekends on KGON,
the great classic rock station at
92.3 on the FM dial in Portland.
There was no easier, or cheaper,
way to amass a collection of Zep-
pelin and Rolling Stones and Pink
Floyd classics than to wait for rock
blocks with three straight songs
from the same artist.)
The recording process was
laborious but I don’t recall, even
though impatience tends to be a
hallmark of the teenage personal-
ity, that it ever felt like toil.
I would get annoyed occasional-
ly when I missed a cue, as it were.
I mainly used my boombox — with
detachable speakers, naturally —
to record from radio to cassette,
and you had to simultaneously
deploy both the “play” and “record”
keys. These were not, in the sort
of egregious ergonomic gaffe that
makes you wonder what the de-
signers were thinking about, next
to each other.
This process was the antithesis
of the immediate gratifi cation
we’re accustomed to today.
There was no way to speed the
recording — “Stairway to Heav-
en,” which runs a tad over eight
minutes, had to play in its full
and complete glory to transfer
onto the cassette.
I got frustrated with my com-
puter because, whenever I tried
to move more than 100 songs in a
single swipe from player to phone,
the microprocessors balked.
But the computer would trans-
fer 75 songs or so without a glitch,
and do the job — I kept track — in
less than 90 seconds.
For comparison, that’s enough
music to fi ll about three 90-minute
cassette tapes. In the distant, pre-
digital days, moving that many
songs would have been the work of
about fi ve hours.
And that’s presuming I didn’t
have to ride my bike to Radio
Shack to buy another tape.
I preferred TDK even though
Memorex had cooler commercials.
And also that iconic poster of
the guy sitting in a chair in front
of stereo speakers, his hair and
necktie blown back as though the
volume — thanks to the crystal-
line quality of music on a Memo-
rex tape — was so powerful that it
created its own artifi cial gusts.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.