A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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news@bakercityherald.com
Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Oregon Trail is
a two-way street
T
he political leadership in the West needs to take note of the
growing number of farm families that are picking up stakes
and moving east.
In the 1840s, white settlers from east of the Mississippi River started
making the arduous journey west, pushing up the Oregon Trail to the
Pacific Northwest.
Others followed the trail to Fort Hall in present-day Idaho, then
turned southwest on the California Trail to reach the gold fields of the
Sierra Nevada and the farmland of the Central Valley.
Land was cheap and opportunity was within relatively easy grasp.
The West offered fewer restrictions than were in place in the estab-
lished eastern communities.
Many longtime farm and ranch families proudly point to their pio-
neer heritage.
But over the last decade or so, there’s been a small but growing num-
ber of farm families picking up stakes and moving east of the coastal
states to escape tough business climates.
It’s a reverse Oregon Trail of sorts, with modern day emigrants mov-
ing to Idaho, Montana, the Plains and the Midwest.
While it hardly can be described as a mass exodus, people are notic-
ing an uptick in the number of farm operations moving east.
“People have talked about moving for years and years, but now peo-
ple are actually doing it,” said Ryan Jacobsen, manager of the Fresno
County Farm Bureau in California. “Statistically, it’s still probably a
blip on the radar. But it’s crazy that it’s actually happening.”
Farmers cite several reasons for moving: seeking less crowded places;
political concerns; COVID-19 protocols; estate taxes, regulations and
associated costs; opportunities for expansion; “climate migrants” flee-
ing drought; and farmers seeking more secure water supplies.
The common thread is that farmers and ranchers are moving to
places where they believe their businesses, and families, can better
thrive.
The tax and regulatory climate on the West Coast has made it in-
creasingly difficult for family farming operations.
Carbon policies have made fuel more expensive. COVID-19 regu-
lations have reduced the availability of labor, and thus have reduced
yield while increasing costs.
State legislatures have grown openly hostile to agriculture, proposing
gross receipt tax schemes that would turn the already precarious eco-
nomics of farming on its head.
They have adopted alternative energy policies that encourage con-
verting farmland into wind and solar energy facilities. They’ve pro-
posed increasing riparian buffers. They have restricted common pesti-
cides, herbicides and fumigants.
Most farmers can’t pick up and leave. But, they can sell out to bigger
operations.
Through increased regulation and legislation, state governments will
hasten the consolidation of the industry, and the ruin of the rural com-
munities that depend on a viable population to thrive.
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.
YOUR VIEWS
Candidates should reject
terous behavior before the police
attempts to quell free speech were called; the “violators” were
City, county need to prevent
cuts to fire department staff
Isn’t it ironic that a Republican
candidate running on a freedom
platform participated in a forum
sponsored by Baker County Re-
publicans with “rules” that violated
basic rights?
I attended a local Republican
Party event hosted for candidates
for governor where “rules” were
enforced: No recording audio/
video, no livestreaming, and no
voicing of support or clapping
until the end. Penalty: eviction;
no second chances. Rules were
imposed with no consideration to
out-of-towners, citizen journalists
nor those with disabilities who
might want to watch/listen to the
event. Candidate McQuisten’s
folks were allowed to record and
video as “officials” of the event.
This twist was not articulated in
their “rules.”
To enforce their mandates
against “nonofficial” attendees, Su-
zan Ellis Jones (Republican Party
chair/candidate McQuisten’s cam-
paign manager/candidate McQuis-
ten’s mother) had a McQuisten
campaign worker actively monitor
the room for “violators.” When
one was spotted, Mrs. Jones or-
dered the police called and home-
town citizens were threatened with
forceable ejection in handcuffs.
There was no heckling or bois-
With regards to the “city am-
bulance service contract” articles,
I must respond! First, this city
must not lose its ambulance ser-
vice availability due to the “lack
of delivery of a written county
proposal!”
Only seems possible, that the
delivery could have been phoned,
emailed, texted, or even possible
for a walking delivery, between
the City Hall and the County
Courthouse involved persons?!
What a terrible example of
cooperation between commu-
nity agencies not working well
together for the good of the tax-
paying citizens of the designated
involved areas! Then to further
complicate the subject involved,
for the citizens to learn due to the
“delay fault of delivery” that the
situation now affects the status
not only of the “ambulance ser-
vice provider contract,” but the
possible reduction by 50% of the
current fire department staff. This
is NOT acceptable in any circum-
stance. Regardless of name, rank
or serial number, there was a lack
of responsibility/accountability
on the part of the involved agen-
cies. No excuses accepted. Just do
your job.
Cheryl Gushman
Baker City
seated on the side wall in the back
of the room politely listening to
the opening statements. The event
became disruptive only after Mrs.
Jones summoned the police on
peaceful citizens exercising their
Constitutional rights at an adver-
tised gathering open to the public.
In an effort to spin this debacle,
candidate McQuisten posted on
Facebook about the event, further
disparaging her hometown citizens
and misrepresenting what really
occurred that evening. She also
claimed that the mandates were
common practice, justifying the
actions since a few other counties
followed the same protocol at their
own events.
I am an American. It’s not OK to
impose mandates limiting lawful
behavior because other counties
think it’s okay to violate our legal
rights. It’s not OK for a candidate
to hide from constituents by im-
posing such mandates. It’s not OK
to impose mandates because a can-
didate is afraid of differing opin-
ions or her performance on stage
with her peers.
No candidate should stoop
to these measures to quell free
speech. We should elect a real con-
servative Republican for governor,
not an imposter.
Susan Bland
Baker City
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Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald,
P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
Email: news@bakercityherald.com
COLUMN
Transfer ‘portal’ wreaks havoc in college sports
T
he “transfer portal” sounds
like a cheesy prop in an even
cheesier sci-fi film, something
with lots of randomly flashing lights
that allows people to leap dozens of
parsecs in a single bound.
And perhaps it is.
My knowledge of cheesy sci-films,
and the names of their props that
seem to have been assembled by a
precocious 6-year-old who has more
access to adhesives than a 6-year-old
ought to, is rather less than encyclo-
pedic.
But whether or not that term has
made it into a B-movie screenplay,
its definition today belongs solely to
college sports — and to football and
men’s and women’s basketball in par-
ticular.
And it seems to me that sports,
and the way they keep myself and
other alumni linked to their univer-
sities, will never be what they once
were.
The transfer portal that clogs the
sports section these days refers to the
place, figuratively speaking, where
college athletes can go when they’re
interested in transferring to a differ-
ent school.
Although this movement, appar-
ently inevitably, is described as “en-
tering” the transfer portal.
It seems there is no other way to
get in. You don’t jump into the trans-
fer portal, or plunge into it or slip
through some concealed side en-
trance.
With the transfer portal, you just
enter. You must.
The portal isn’t as new as its recent
ubiquity implies.
It actually debuted on Oct. 15,
2018.
The NCAA’s idea was to create a
clearinghouse where all players con-
sidering a transfer could put their
names. Prior to the portal, athletes
had to get permission from their
coach to talk with other schools, and
the athletes had to in effect make
cold calls to schools where they were
interested in enrolling.
But the transfer portal didn’t be-
come ubiquitous until the spring of
2021.
That’s when the NCAA started
allowing Division I athletes in all
sports to transfer one time, as under-
graduates, and be eligible to play im-
mediately at their new school.
Previously this sort of
school-swapping was discouraged,
and quite effectively so, by the pen-
alty that undergraduate transfers
had to sit out one year before playing
(students who had already earned
their degree were exempt, in cer-
tain instances, by a rule that dates to
2006).
Most conferences also required
athletes transferring from one school
to another in the same conference to
miss a year of competition.
But those restrictions no longer
exist.
The change naturally had the
greatest effect on the sports that are
vastly more popular, and profitable,
than the others — football and men’s
basketball.
The transfer portal is so widely
used today that if it were an actual
structure it would need to be stadi-
um-sized.
Jayson
Jacoby
More than 1,400 football players
from the FBS — which includes ma-
jor conferences such as the Pac-12,
Big 12 and SEC — have inhabited
(I’m already tired of writing, much
less hearing, the verb “entered”) the
portal during the current eligibility
period, which started Aug. 1, 2021.
I’m ambivalent about what is likely
the most significant change in college
football since the NCAA instituted
the limit of 85 scholarships for Divi-
sion 1 schools (prior to the limit, the
top schools could in effect stockpile
talent, leaving relatively few of the
best players for other schools and en-
suring a top-heavy situation).
On the one hand, college athletes,
who don’t get paid, now have more
options to, in effect, market their tal-
ent.
(Players are now allowed, through
another recent rule change, to profit
from their “name, image and like-
ness,” but the new NIL policy isn’t
likely to benefit anywhere near as
many students as the transfer por-
tal is.)
Yet the transfer portal and the
much less restrictive transfer rules
have also wrought such drastic
changes in college football that fans
— not to mention coaches — have
scarcely had time to adjust to this
suddenly unfamiliar situation.
The circumstances at my alma ma-
ter, the University of Oregon, epito-
mize the upheaval.
Just a couple years ago, I would
have spent most of the (terribly) long
offseason, between the bowl game
and the start of fall camp in August,
pondering the Ducks’ returning play-
ers and being able to predict, with a
certain degree of certainty, which po-
sitions would thrive, due to returning
starters, and which might struggle
come September.
No longer.
Earlier this year, Oregon acquired
one high-profile player through the
transfer portal — former Auburn
quarterback Bo Nix — and lost an-
other — Travis Dye, who was the
Ducks’ top running back and most
consistent offensive player in the
2021 season.
Prior to the portal, Oregon’s run-
ning back situation would have been
set, barring an injury to Dye.
More recently, three key play-
ers from Oregon’s women’s basket-
ball team declared their intention
to transfer (I’m fatigued with typing
“entered the portal”) in little more
than a one-day span.
I’ll concede that these frequent
transfers enliven things, and pro-
vide consistent fodder for the dwin-
dling sportswriting departments at
media outlets.
Had Nix not moved from Auburn,
the major topic of discussion among
Duck fans this spring and summer
likely would have been the candi-
dates to play quarterback, all of them
inexperienced, when Oregon travels
to Atlanta to open the 2022 season
against defending national champion
Georgia on Sept. 3.
But with the veteran Nix in the mix,
it’s probable that the young quarter-
backs will remain on the sideline.
And, as must be considered all but
inevitable, one of those quarterbacks
opted for the transfer portal not long
after Nix committed to Oregon.
Committed, of course, is the word
typically used when a player decides
which school to attend.
But it is a word that no longer
means what it once did.
In the carefree days before the por-
tal opened, fans could reasonably ex-
pect that a player who committed to
their favorite school would be around
for at least a few years. Players get
hurt, of course. And some of the best
leave school early for the NFL.
But situations common today
would have been unthinkable then.
Dye, the former Duck, is an exam-
ple. Not only will he not don the Or-
egon uniform this fall. But after leap-
ing into the portal he committed to
one of the Ducks’ main rivals in the
Pac-12, Southern Cal.
I don’t begrudge Dye, or any other
athlete, for deciding that they would
do better at a different university.
But the portal, and the liberal
transfer rules, are quite enough to
give fans whiplash, uncertain about
who they ought to be rooting for.
In a world where Ducks became
Trojans overnight, and Tigers turn
into Ducks, the formerly useful team
roster rather suddenly seems as use-
ful as a telephone that, like a dog
which is prone to roaming, is forever
tethered to a cord.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.