A8 THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Court fees need to
be applied fairly
J
ustice should be fair no matter how much money a person
makes.
But the rich can hire better law-
yers. The rich have the money to be
released from jail. The poor can be
stuck in jail. The rich can afford to
pay many fines. Fines can just drive
the poor deeper into debt.
Oregon has started making some
changes. There have been debates
about moving away from a cash bail
system to one based on risk factors.
This summer, the Oregon Leg-
islature passed a law so people
would no longer get their license
suspended because they could not
afford to pay the fines from traffic
tickets. No car can mean no job, no
significant income and no place to
live. Putting people in that situation
makes no sense. House Bill 4210
essentially prohibited the practice.
People could still lose their license
for public safety reasons but not for
inability to pay fines.
This legislative session, the Legis-
lature could take another step in the
right direction. It’s a bill backed by
Oregon Chief Justice Martha Wal-
ters. House Bill 2176 aims to elim-
inate the requirement that courts
impose a minimum $50 fee to set up
a payment plan for collecting court
fines.
Oregon state law actually re-
quires the Judicial Department “to
add a fee ranging from $50 to $200
when a person cannot pay a judg-
ment in full,” the department said
in legislative testimony. “If a per-
son cannot afford to pay a $75 fine
in one payment, adding a $50 fee
to set up a payment plan is unfairly
burdensome.”
The bill also has a second compo-
nent. A court can adjust fines and
fees in a judgment in Oregon, but
only if the judgment does not in-
clude restitution or a compensatory
fine. The change would allow adjust-
ments to fines and fees even in those
cases. Crime victims would still re-
tain their right to receive restitution.
Oregon’s courts need to have the
flexibility to take into account the
inequitable burden fines and fees
can have on the justice system. Make
the change.
Affordable housing project
in Prineville needs help
T
oo many Oregonians don’t
have an affordable place to
call home. Across the state
communities are tackling the tricky
issue of creating more affordable
housing.
If you thought buying a home was
complicated, try financing afford-
able housing. A mortgage is usually
just one piece. There are tax credits,
bonds and grants. Each can have dif-
ferent requirements. Each may come
with different timing that may not
match up. And because there is only
so much money going around, many
are competitive. Some projects win
and some projects lose.
Oregon’s Housing Stability Coun-
cil makes a lot of decisions about
which projects get what. Later this
week it is scheduled to make a deci-
sion about a project in Prineville —
Barnes Butte Vista.
The council is considering ap-
proval of passing through federal
money of up to $6.5 million to help
the project move ahead. Housing
Works, the local housing author-
ity in Central Oregon, is doing the
project. There is also a partnership
with Saving Grace to use some of the
housing to help people who are sur-
vivors of family violence.
The project is a 44-unit complex
of town homes on about 4 acres of
a 10-acre site. The rest of the land
will be used for a park. There will be
a community room as well as a fit-
ness room. Every unit in the project
is restricted to people making at or
below 60% average median income
and can serve people with disabil-
ities. The project has already been
the recipient of a $4.7 million state
grant. Total construction costs are
about $13 million.
The proposed motion is for the
Housing Stability Council to ap-
prove the additional funding to
make the project happen. Let’s hope
construction can be completed as
planned by May 2022.
Editorials reflect the views of The Bulletin’s editorial board, Publisher Heidi Wright, Editor
Gerry O’Brien and Editorial Page Editor Richard Coe. They are written by Richard Coe.
GUEST COLUMN
Grateful for vaccination but remain vigilant
BY BRIAN SULLIVAN
T
his year started off with days
that registered the largest loss
of life in the history of our
country. The COVID-19 pandemic
ranks among the greatest public
health crises that our country has
ever suffered— daily we are losing
more people to COVID-19 than we
did in the attack on Pearl Harbor. At
the time of my vaccination, one in
15 Americans has tested positive for
SARS-CoV2 virus, one in 1,000 has
died from it, and these numbers are
rising quickly.
Yet I am filled with an immense
amount of gratitude as I receive my
first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine
along with my coworkers at Mosaic
Medical. I am grateful for the unprec-
edented amount of funding, research
and energy that was poured into the
creation of a vaccine to protect our
population, and to the courageous
tens of thousands of people who vol-
unteered to receive placebo or exper-
imental intervention in the name of
the public good.
I am grateful to the 17 million peo-
ple who received their COVID-19
vaccination before me, and to the
generations of citizens who lined
up to receive dozens of vaccinations
which eradicated previously com-
mon diseases so thoroughly that
the magnitude of such illnesses is
hard to recall. I am grateful to the
pharmaceutical and operational
staff who made our first vaccination
day for Mosaic employees remark-
ably smooth, and to my co-workers
who—based on current data avail-
able to us—acknowledged that the
personal risks of action are enor-
mously outweighed by the public
Sullivan
risks of inaction.
Today my heart was warmed by
watching co-workers support and en-
courage each other in their decision
on whether to receive a vaccination,
recognizing that while a decision
made on logic may be simple, we
are still emotional creatures whose
choices are guided by more than just
risk profiles.
On a personal note, I have lost a
family member to COVID-19 follow-
ing her exposure to an asymptomatic
carrier. As part of a low-risk demo-
graphic myself, I have always been
drawn to obtain vaccinations with
the hope of decreasing my chance
of being such a carrier. As a living,
breathing human, I recognize that I
am inherently a risk for the more vul-
nerable in our community. It is out
of respect for everyone in my com-
munity that I wear a face mask and
minimize social interactions. I am
immensely hopeful that by receiving
the vaccination, I am engaging in my
personal capacity to mitigate risk for
others.
While none of us can know the fi-
nal death toll of this pandemic, all of
us at Mosaic Medical are doing our
best to make a personal impact. And
for that, I am extremely grateful.
As our country struggles to
streamline the vaccination produc-
tion and process for distribution, I
would like our community members
to know that those of us in health
care are doing our best to ensure
that our patients and our commu-
nity have the opportunity to protect
themselves and others by being vac-
cinated as soon as possible. An enor-
mous amount of work is happening
behind the scenes to rise to the in-
credible challenge of this moment
with the goal of helping us all return
to normal lives and social engage-
ment as soon as safely possible.
It is hard to be patient after nearly
a year of unimaginable loss. And un-
til the pandemic ends, I encourage
everyone to continue to wear a mask,
keep a physical distance from others,
wash your hands often, avoid gath-
erings and stay home when you are
sick. These measures have dramat-
ically decreased the spread of influ-
enza and other respiratory viruses
this year. These actions work, and
they literally save lives.
To paraphrase one of my fellow
Redmond primary care providers:
Here is to all we have lost in 2020 and
to all we have conquered in 2020—
wishing everyone in our community
health, peace and happiness in 2021.
e e
Dr. Brian Sullivan is the Mosaic Medical Clinical
medical director in Redmond.
GUEST COLUMN
Migrant farmworkers and environmental racism in Oregon
BY ANIA TY
A
s climate change increases
Oregon’s temperature, low-in-
come Black, Indigenous and
people of color communities will be
disproportionately burdened
by the dangerous impacts
of heat waves, drought and
wildfires. Although urban
and rural communities alike
will suffer from the conse-
quences of these phenom-
ena, their experiences will be
unique. In major cities, heat Ty
islands will create a deadly
temperature disparity of more than
10 degrees between low-income
communities of color and wealthier
white neighborhoods. In farmlands
— which make up over 29% of the
state population and occupy 86% of
its land mass — acute and chronic
conditions will increase in their
frequency and severity among the
farmworkers cultivating Oregon’s
thriving farms.
Migrant workers are one of the
only groups of people more con-
sistent than our daily sunrise and
sunset, with many of them begin-
ning and ending brutal work days
in sync with the sun’s cycle. These
long days spent outdoors have led to
nearly a third of Oregon’s workers
experiencing two or more symp-
toms caused by heat-related illness;
this includes skin rash, painful mus-
cle cramps and spasms, dizziness,
fainting, headache, heavy sweat-
ing, fatigue, nausea and vomiting,
and confusion. In extreme
cases, this can even lead to
death; in the past decade,
“more than 350 workers
nationwide have died from
heat-related illness,” accord-
ing to Kaiser Health News.
This is likely due to a com-
bination of lacking key re-
sources (40% had no access
to cooling measures at work), edu-
cation (only 21% of workers were
aware of heat-related illnesses and
mitigation strategies), and effective,
pro-worker labor policies.
Currently, there are no sweeping,
federal labor laws to eliminate or
mitigate the effects of extreme heat
in the workplace, leaving this enor-
mous responsibility for state and
local governments to tackle. Few
states have labor policies addressing
the dangers of heat-related illnesses;
California and Washington’s poli-
cies protect outdoor laborers while
Minnesota’s only protects indoor
laborers. In the city of Waco, Texas,
they responded to this by training
employees on prevention strategies,
screening workers for diseases that
Bernadine Strik/OSU, file
Farm workers wearing masks pick organic Liberty blueberries in July 2020.
would increase their risk of heat-re-
lated illness, providing more breaks,
supplying adequate water supplies,
and adjusting people’s order of
tasks. A decade later, the number
of “heat-related illnesses had essen-
tially been cut to zero and median
worker compensation costs were cut
in half,” according to Kaiser Health
News. The necessity of strong, fed-
eral labor laws will only become
more apparent as new disasters —
like wildfires — continue to devas-
tate migrant worker populations.
Migrant farmworkers are at in-
creased risk of developing asthma,
due to the high amounts of “or-
ganic and inorganic dusts, par-
ticulate matter, microbial agents,
gases, volatile organic compounds,
cleaning agents, fertilizers and feed
additives” they are constantly ex-
posed to, according to an article in
the Journal of Agromedicine. Rates
of work-related asthma and other
lung conditions will only increase as
wildfires caused by climate change
continue to ravage the state. During
2020, several wildfires in Oregon,
Washington, and California painted
the sky Armageddon orange and
filled the air with enormous clouds
of smoke, plunging the state’s air
quality to all-time lows. Despite
these apocalyptic-like conditions,
migrant farmworkers were forced to
persevere. Though some employers
discouraged their employees from
working, many families could not
afford unpaid time off. Additionally,
lack of internet access and transla-
tion resources prevented many la-
borers from accessing critical infor-
mation posted online.
Community activists at Pineros
y Campesinos Unidos del No-
roeste and other organizations al-
lied with Oregon Climate Action
Plan’s Health Policy Table have been
working to reframe environmen-
tal racism as a public health crisis.
With consistent exposure to ex-
treme heat, toxins, pollutants, and
natural disasters, the time to act and
ensure the health and safety of mi-
grant workers is now.
e e
Ania Ty is a student at Oregon State University.