SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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EDITORIAL
Timber pact
has potential
It was going to be the battle of the forest ballot
initiatives.
Oregon Wild, the conservation group, had three.
They would expand protected areas around streams,
crack down on the spraying of herbicides, and ban
logging on especially steep ground.
The Oregon Forest & Industries Council counter-
punched with its own. Landowners would have to be
compensated when the state made land use changes
and the forest industry would get more control over
the Oregon Department of Forestry.
Who would have won at the ballot box? Maybe
nobody, really. But instead what has happened — at
least temporarily — is that those ballot measures
are on hold. Conservation and industry groups met
together to come to an agreement. Gov. Kate Brown
deserves credit for helping to create a deal.
The deal has new rules for timber management,
including harvests on some 10 million acres of
private forest land in the state. Conservation groups
get new environmental protections. Industry groups
get more certainty about the law, going forward.
They reached the deal on Oct. 30, as The Oregonian
detailed. There’s more protections for streams and
wildlife, and for forestland owners, they get to at least
be able to do minimum harvests.
It still could all fall apart. Legislative action is
needed in the short session. Brown will try to make
that happen. And there are also federal approvals in-
volved. But with all the talk of impenetrable partisan
divisions and that the chasm between environmental
and industry goals can’t be bridged, this deal could
prove that wrong.
We hope so.
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.
OTHER VIEWS
COVID vaccine for kids an important step
Editorial from The Dallas Morning
News:
Children have been mostly spared
from the pandemic’s ravages, but
they’re not immune. Pediatric intensive
care units fi lled up this summer with
delta variant cases, and across the
country, nearly 800 children have died
from COVID-19. That’s a minuscule
percentage of the total underage
population, but every death is a tragedy
for a family.
This week, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention approved a
smaller dose of the Pfi zer vaccine for
children ages 5 to 11, essentially cover-
ing the remainder of the school-age
population that was still waiting on ac-
cess to the shots. We expect that millions
of families and teachers are sighing with
relief after almost two tumultuous years
of remote learning, special campus pro-
tocols and, in some cases, social exile.
The CDC approval means that the
series of two shots, at lower doses, will
be rolling out in the next few days.
The question now is whether enough
parents will get their kids vaccinated
and move their communities closer to
herd immunity.
We urge them to do so. While we
understand parents’ instinct to be extra
cautious when making decisions about
their children’s health care, the sci-
ence overwhelmingly shows that the
COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective
at protecting kids. And as advertising
around town from Children’s Medical
Center reminds us, the vaccine tech-
nology is older than the kids who will
receive it.
The clinical trial showed that the
Pfi zer vaccine was 91% effective in
preventing symptomatic COVID-19
among more than 2,000 children ages
5-11. Vaccine experts say the benefi ts of
getting the shots outweigh the risks for
kids in this age group.
Moreover, millions of children ages
12-17 have been safely vaccinated
against COVID-19 since May.
Families also have to contend with
the risk that a child with COVID-19
might spread the illness to a vulnerable
relative, even if the child is asymptom-
atic or ailing from a mild version of
the disease.
Unfortunately, there is still a lot of
vaccine skepticism among families. A
recent Gallup poll showed that only 55%
of parents in the U.S. with kids under
age 12 say they would get their children
vaccinated if the shots became available.
Pediatricians will do a lot of the
heavy lifting in informing and convinc-
ing parents, but our public health au-
thorities should once again turn to other
trusted community voices to amplify the
importance of vaccinating children.
As in previous campaigns, civic
leaders will have to think creatively. For
example, Dallas ISD Superintendent
Michael Hinojosa told us that a $50
incentive to families whose children got
the shots proved successful in driving
parents to school vaccine clinics.
The more kids who get vaccinated,
the closer we are to normalcy and the
closer we are to leaving those bitter
battles about mask mandates behind.
What a comfort that would be.
Your views
Yes on the quiet zone
I want to go on record as support-
ing the quiet zone for Baker City.
My husband and I have pledged
to help cover the costs of the safety
enhancement project that will allow
the train horns to be largely si-
lenced. Others have done so and I’m
sure that more will as the project
progresses.
I was born in 1950 and lived the
fi rst 12 years of my life at 3005 10th
St., which at the time was part of
the national highway system. It was
only two lanes and was changed
to four sometime during my early
years at North Baker School. Imag-
ine how little cross-country traffi c
there must have been for that size
of street to accommodate it all. Now
imagine all the traffi c on I-84 pass-
ing through town today!
I suspect that the increase in
train traffi c mirrors that of the
highway system. Our national popu-
lation has increased a great deal
and many more consumer goods
are being transported across the
country. Much of that cargo is being
carried by trains, trains whose horn
blasts are much louder than they
were even 20 years ago.
South Baker School was built
in the early 1950s to replace the
original school that had been built
adjacent to it in 1901. With fewer
trains, and horns that blew at a
lower decibel level, it probably felt
like a more suitable location than it
does today. Why deny current and
future students a quieter and safer
learning environment, and the com-
munity a good night’s rest, now that
we know more about the impact on
health of high decibel train horn
blasts?
I urge City Council to revisit the
quiet zone and give it its full sup-
port. We live in a world full of noise
that we can’t control. We can control
the noise of the train horns. Let’s
embrace this opportunity to contrib-
ute to the health and safety of our
beloved community! I am thankful
to the “newcomers” and the “old-
timers” alike who have taken on this
project and dedicated untold hours
to explaining and promoting it.
Carolyn Kulog
Baker City
Balmy autumn night, and missing the light show
I stepped onto my back porch on
a recent evening, long after the dark
had come, and I winced slightly as
you do when you expect to encoun-
ter a draft of chilly air that slinks
down your neck.
But the light breeze on my
cheeks was as soft as a mother’s
caress.
It was the third day of October.
October is a milestone month by
my reckoning.
Once September has gone, I no
longer trust Baker County’s climate,
at least not after the Elkhorns have
done away with the sun for the day.
If I’m going outdoors in the
gloaming I don a jacket, even if I
doubt I’ll need the garment to ward
off hypothermia.
The air in our mountain valley,
once deprived of sunlight, tends to
shed degrees with a speed shocking
to those accustomed to more moder-
ate climes.
But this year, as sometimes hap-
pens, a vestige of summer persisted
for the fi rst few days of October.
Later that evening the weather
station next to my bed showed 68
degrees at 8 p.m. On many a July
evening it’s not that warm so far
into the day.
I don’t much mind such unsea-
sonable intervals, to be sure.
Winters hereabouts are suf-
fi ciently cruel, and long, that I
don’t feel bereft because of a balmy
night in fall, when it might well be
frosty instead.
Still and all it was a slightly
queer sensation to stand there on
the stoop, with a pumpkin perched
on the top step, and willow leaves
thick on the lawn, and the stars
already sharply defi ned against
the black backdrop not long past 7
o’clock.
The body adjusts to the seasons,
and though the transition is not so
precise as on the calendar or the
thermostat, it is no less tangible.
Well before Halloween, I come
to instinctively associate darkness
with at least a palpable chill, and
quite possibly with outright frigidity.
I brace for the shock every time
I step outside, and when it goes
missing I notice its absence, though
I don’t mourn it.
Soon enough, I know, the crisp-
ness of a fall day will seem nostalgic
as I struggle to scrape the layer of
hoarfrost the car windows have
accumulated after another arc-
tic night.
A 40-degree evening that in
October provokes a minor chill,
tinged with pleasant pine smoke
that wafts from nearby chimneys
rather than from distant wildfi res,
will, in the depths of January, seem
positively springlike.
On the night before Halloween
we drove out to the dark lands east
of town, hoping to see the northern
lights.
We did not.
At least we did not see the shift-
ing swathes of green and red, danc-
ing across the sky, that defi ne the
popular image of the phenomenon.
JAYSON
JACOBY
Living as far as I do from the
arctic circle I have no reason,
of course, to expect that sort of
light show.
Only rarely does the sun get
feisty enough to paint the night sky
here, halfway between the equator
and the north pole, with even a pale
version of the spectacular scenes
common in Alaska or Canada.
But the mere possibility is
enough to compel me to stand in the
dark, blinking away the tears pro-
voked by the bracing breeze of late
October and trying to discern any
hint of brightness on the northern
horizon.
We met my daughter, Rheann
Weitz, and her husband, Jesse,
where the Keating Road branches
off Highway 86. It’s plenty dark out
there, and with a sprawling view to
the north.
I stood beside their pickup truck
and tried to entertain my grandsons,
Brysen, 4, and Caden, 2. Caden
was belted into his car seat and not
terribly interested in the proceed-
ings. Brysen was not so confi ned.
And although he didn’t seem to care
much about the northern lights, he
was awfully insistent about being
able to get out of the pickup.
My wife, Lisa, and I thought we
detected a slight greenish glow in a
narrow band on the horizon.
Probably this was the product
of wishful thinking rather than of a
coronal mass ejection.
But it was nice enough to stand
there, listening to the ever-inter-
esting chatter of a 4-year-old, until
the wind, which is far more reliable
than celestial spectacles, overcame
our optimism and drove us into the
shelter of the car.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.