A4
BAKER CITY
Opinion
WRITE A LETTER
news@bakercityherald.com
Saturday, September 3, 2022 • Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
School district’s
in tough spot
T
he Baker School District faces quite a
quandary.
Less than 16 months after voters in the district de-
cided to raise their property taxes for capital improve-
ments — the first such tax levy approved since 1948
— the district’s ability to deliver what it proposed to
do with those tax dollars is in jeopardy.
The culprits are familiar factors in the COVID-19
world, including inflation and supply chain issues that
have driven up the cost of construction.
The bottom line is that the biggest project the dis-
trict plans to undertake thanks to the $4 million tax
levy — constructing a 5,000-square-foot cafeteria/
multipurpose building at Baker Middle School, which
lacks a cafeteria — would as conceived cost consider-
ably more than the district estimated. The lone bid the
district received last month was $9.1 million, about
twice the amount the district had budgeted.
(The total budget for improvements across the dis-
trict is $14.5 million, and includes, besides the $4 mil-
lion tax levy, a $4 million state grant, $2 million from
another state program, $2 million from the district’s
capital budget and $1.5 million in federal COVID aid,
among other sources.)
The Baker School Board had no plausible option
other than to reject the $9.1 million bid. To accept it
would have left the district unable to do many of the
other projects that it touted when it put the levy on the
May 2021 ballot.
That list includes improving the security systems
and heating, air conditioning and ventilation at all dis-
trict schools.
Unfortunately, it appears that some of the other
work will also cost more than the district initially pro-
jected. Work at South Baker, including a new roof, is
now estimated at $3 million; the district budgeted $1.8
million.
The district has awarded contracts for improve-
ments at Brooklyn Primary and the HVAC system at
the middle school.
Board chair Julie Huntington and superintendent
Erin Lair said the plan now, with the middle school
cafeteria and security and HVAC projects at other
schools, is to try to find a construction manager/gen-
eral contractor that can work with district officials to
try to figure out a way to do work that meets the dis-
trict’s needs and is within its budget. Based on the dif-
ference between the lone bid for the cafeteria and the
district’s budget, that looks to be a daunting challenge.
But board members and district officials have little
choice but to try a different approach. As Huntington
noted, they understand the responsibility they have to
voters who made the historic decision last year to ap-
prove the levy.
The board will talk about the new strategy during a
special board meeting at noon on Sept. 12 in the dis-
trict office, 2090 Fourth St. That meeting will include
a public hearing for the board to potentially exempt
the bond-related projects from competitive bidding,
allowing the district to hire a construction man-
ager/general contractor. That firm would be picked
“through a competitive negotiation process in accor-
dance with the cost and qualification-based process
authorized by the District’s Board of Directors,” ac-
cording to a district document.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
CONTACT YOUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS
President Joe Biden: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington,
D.C. 20500; 202-456-1111; to send comments, go to www.whitehouse.gov.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: D.C. office: 313 Hart Senate Office Building, U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-3753; fax 202-228-3997. Portland office: One
World Trade Center, 121 S.W. Salmon St. Suite 1250, Portland, OR 97204; 503-
326-3386; fax 503-326-2900. Baker City office, 1705 Main St., Suite 504, 541-278-
1129; merkley.senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: D.C. office: 221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5244; fax 202-228-2717. La Grande office: 105
Fir St., No. 210, La Grande, OR 97850; 541-962-7691; fax, 541-963-0885; wyden.
senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (2nd District): D.C. office: 1239 Longworth House Office
Building, Washington, D.C., 20515, 202-225-6730; fax 202-225-5774. Medford
office: 14 N. Central Avenue Suite 112, Medford, OR 97850; Phone: 541-776-
4646; fax: 541-779-0204; Ontario office: 2430 S.W. Fourth Ave., No. 2, Ontario, OR
97914; Phone: 541-709-2040. bentz.house.gov.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254 State Capitol, Salem, OR 97310; 503-378-3111;
www.governor.oregon.gov.
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read: oregon.treasurer@ost.state.or.us; 350
Winter St. NE, Suite 100, Salem OR 97301-3896; 503-378-4000.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen F. Rosenblum: Justice Building, Salem, OR
97301-4096; 503-378-4400.
Oregon Legislature: Legislative documents and information are available
online at www.leg.state.or.us.
State Sen. Lynn Findley (R-Ontario): Salem office: 900 Court St. N.E., S-403,
Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1730. Email: Sen.LynnFindley@oregonlegislature.gov
State Rep. Mark Owens (R-Crane): Salem office: 900 Court St. N.E., H-475,
Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1460. Email: Rep.MarkOwens@oregonlegislature.gov
Baker City administration: 541-523-6541. Jonathan Cannon, city manager; Ty
Duby, police chief; Sean Lee, fire chief; Michelle Owen, public works director.
OTHER VIEWS
Biden buying votes, not solving problems
BY SAL RODRIGUEZ
In my global travels over the
last year, I’ve heard my share
of vote-buying stories.
In Armenia and Colombia,
I’ve spoken with people who
claim to have personally been
offered cash in exchange for
their votes. In the nation of
Georgia, I learned of an in-
stance where distributions of
potatoes and onions were used
to buy votes.
But these are things that
just happen in Latin America
or former Soviet Republics,
right?
Well, no. We have our own
vote buying in America, it’s
just slightly more sophisti-
cated.
President Joe Biden’s magic
wand order wiping $10,000
to $20,000 in student loan
debt off the books for certain
Americans is self-evidently the
actions of a failing president
desperate to boost his party’s
prospects in the upcoming
elections.
“That’s 20 million people
who can start getting on with
their lives,” Biden said.
What he really means is
that’s 20 million people who
might be slightly more likely
to return the favor for the
Democrats.
These people, on average,
it must be said, mostly don’t
deserve a federal bailout. Peo-
ple who go to college earn far
more over their lifetimes on
average than people who don’t.
All this order does is help a
population that doesn’t need
help at the expense of every-
one else and all the potential
iterations of Americans who
could’ve benefited from the
many billions of dollars this
entails.
It also doesn’t get to the root
of the problem, which is the
absurdly high cost of a college
degree. That would require ac-
tual leadership, which Biden is
incapable of.
But Biden, looking at prob-
ably losing the House and
maybe (but maybe not be-
cause the GOP fields buf-
foons like Dr. Oz) the Senate,
needed to pump his low ap-
proval numbers up. Hence,
this is what we got.
It reminds me of the vote
buying Gov. Gavin Newsom
did last year ahead of the re-
call election. Newsom sent out
$600 checks to Californians
earning up to $75,000 per year
just before the recall election.
He’s doing the same this
year in the form of $350 to
$1,050 checks set to go out
starting October. He’s not do-
ing it for himself, per se. He is
going to cruise to re-election,
after all, but no doubt he’s
aware this sort of thing will
help Democratic candidates
generally.
Now, I can already hear the
liberal screeching. Yes, Repub-
licans buy votes, too. That’s
what their tax breaks — which
are never followed by cuts to
government spending — are
for. Yes, of course President
Donald Trump wanted to
make sure his name was tied
to the often frivolous COVID-
era checks that went out under
his administration.
This all makes sense. Pol-
itics is, after all, the game by
which people steal from and
try to control others through
the government. And ev-
eryone basically knows that,
right?
Sure, some of us who follow
politics have genuine princi-
ples in mind and grand, in-
tricate narratives about the
nature of government and so-
ciety and blah, blah, blah. At
the end of the day, politics and
government are about gaming
the system to focus the thug-
gery of the state in service of
whatever the team in charge
wants.
Biden is a fool, but he still
has his tricks. According to
an aggregate of polling by
FiveThirtyEight, just 41.5% of
Americans approve of the job
he’s doing, which is actually
lower than where Trump’s ap-
proval rating was at this point
in his presidency.
However, he also knows
most people aren’t political
addicts who follow every sin-
gle policy fight. By pulling
this Hail Mary vote-buying
scheme, he might soften the
hit Democrats could take in
the midterms.
It’s bad policy, it’s a waste of
money. But it’s not supposed
to be good policy or an opti-
mal use of money. It’s just vote
buying. That’s all.
Sal Rodriguez is the opinion editor
for the Southern California News
Group.
COLUMN
Exhausted, and inspired, by a hike with Scouts
I
might well have been bored except for
the half dozen Cub Scouts I shared the
trail with.
It is, I submit, impossible to be bored in
the presence of a bunch of kids who can
still tally their ages by showing their own
fingers.
It is, by contrast, easy to be exhausted
in the presence of their apparently
boundless energy.
And envious of their flexible limbs
and accommodating joints, which seem
oblivious to the sorts of contortions and
jarring that would leave more aged anato-
mies writhing in pain.
Mine, for instance.
I had the privilege recently to accom-
pany some Scouts from the Keating area
on a hike to Indian Rock, the modest
mound of stones just north of Highway 7
near Union Creek campground.
Leader Patti Pickard asked me to give
a quick tutorial on using a map and com-
pass to navigate. I’m not sure the Scouts
were exactly entranced by my descrip-
tion of magnetic declination. I know I
wouldn’t have been when I was 7, 8 or 9.
But they were quite interested in get-
ting on the trail.
And, occasionally, off it when they
noticed a potentially interesting rock or
stump.
I’m inclined to write that the Scouts
scampered up the path. That verb, at any
rate, has always seemed to me ideal for
describing the gait that carries us through
early childhood but that we all seem to
lose about the time we become teenagers.
Scamper, which is often associated with
squirrels and other small animals with an
abundance of fast-twitch muscle fibers, also
captures the carefree wandering that distin-
guishes how kids get around on foot.
Children walk much as they talk, it
seems to me — in short and slightly hys-
terical bursts of activity. They are, to shift
briefly into automotive analogy, drag rac-
ers, capable of accelerating from motionless
to full speed almost instantly. We adults,
meanwhile, are stolid sedans, puttering
along at or just below the speed limit.
I find it safer to stay out of their lane, so
to speak, to avoid potential collisions.
This isn’t feasible, though, on a trail
scarcely wider than a curb. I tried to main-
When we came to a ponderosa snag
that had toppled across the trail, I didn’t
have a chance to mutter to myself about
annoying obstacles.
Instead I watched the Scouts delight in
clambering onto and over the log, walk-
tain a reasonable gap, a buffer I thought
prudent in part because some of the Scouts ing on its thick scaly bark, exclaiming
over the carpenter ants scurrying along
were carrying walking sticks. Very stout
the trunk.
walking sticks. And they
I remembered, at least The kids instinctively re-
were deployed not only for
their usual purpose, which of
acted to this interruption not
course keeps one end close to to the extent that a
by hiking faster, as I might
the ground, but for a variety
person beginning his have done, as though I were
of other uses. Considering the
engaged in a race, but by
second half century doffing their little packs and
great difference between my
reflexes and the Scouts’ — I’m can remember days
extracting snacks.
thinking here of tortoises and
The whole of the hike was
so distant, what it
hares — I tried to stay out of
like that.
range. Especially my head.
The Scouts approached
Notwithstanding the slight was like to see every
the endeavor in an unpre-
risk of a concussion, rarely
dictable and utterly uncon-
outing through
have I more enjoyed a hike.
trived way that I found irre-
The Indian Rock trail, as I eyes unclouded by
sistible.
implied, is ordinary. The ter- experience.
They spread out at times
in small groups, separated by
rain is moderate. The forest,
a few hundred feet.
mainly young ponderosa pines
For a while they marched together,
with scattered junipers and a few Doug-
las-firs, lacks grandeur. It passes no streams. chanting in unison and singing bits of
songs, only one of which I recognized —
No water at all, come to that.
Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” which
I have hiked the trail at least a few
came out when I was not much older
dozen times, and I find it more inviting
either during the spring, when the grass is than the Scouts are today.
They stumbled over rocks and kicked
lush and green and the lupine blooming
pine cones and swung their sticks at old
purple, or in snow, which lends its inimi-
decaying logs beside the trail.
table grace to the scene.
And everything they did was with good
In late summer, though, the grass has
humor — not the contrived version that
cured and the bitterbrush, which crowds
adults and even teenagers can muster, but
the path in many places, is dry and
the genuine article.
scratchy, the shrub version of psoriasis.
I was a trifle jealous.
But as I watched the Scouts gambol
Jealous of their energy and their inno-
along I wasn’t thinking about how unin-
cence and their capacity to react to the
spiring the scene was.
Moreover, I wasn’t thinking about how events of the day with enthusiasm.
But I was also refreshed.
long the trip was going to take, or the
Or at least I hope I was.
tasks that awaited when I was finished, or
I’m going to try to remember what I felt
any of the other trifling matters that tend
during those two hours among the pines,
to intrude on what’s supposed to be a lei-
to remember that it is possible, at any age,
sure activity.
to go for a walk in the woods and while
I just walked.
you’re there to ignore every thought that
And watched.
I remembered, at least to the extent that tries to bludgeon its way in, to focus on
the path and the trees and the ants.
a person beginning his second half cen-
To focus on the now.
tury can remember days so distant, what
it was like to see every outing through
eyes unclouded by experience.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.
Jayson
Jacoby