B6 THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Bend is right to
move forward on
homeless shelter
B
end city councilors agreed Wednesday night to a jump to do
much more to help the community’s homeless. The city is
going to try to buy a hotel.
Councilors authorized City Man-
ager Eric King to purchase the Old
Mill & Suites Motel located at 904 SE
Third St. in Bend for use as a home-
less shelter. Councilors authorized up
to $5 million. There are several condi-
tions, such as an appraisal and award
of a grant from the Oregon Commu-
nity Foundation.
If the purchase goes through, the
city is not planning on trying to run
a shelter by itself. It does not have the
expertise. It would work with partners
to make it happen. The shelter would
also not be a permanent place to live.
Homeless would be connected with
services to help them find more perma-
nent housing and to improve their lives.
Some will undoubtedly argue that
if the city provides more services for
the homeless, Bend will attract more
homeless or that homelessness is not
the city’s responsibility. Those excuses
My Nickel’s Worth
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Old Mill & Suites Motel in Bend.
have won for too long. Do nothing
and more of the deserted and deso-
late, the hungry, the addicted, and the
mentally ill will die unprotected on
Bend’s streets. We are our brothers’
and our sisters’ keepers.
Historical editorials:
Pick the right rulers
ý
Editor’s note: The following editorials originally
appeared in what was then called The Bend
Bulletin on Jan. 20, 1905.
I
n discussing the new county pro-
posal last week the Prineville Re-
view dropped this remark:
“The Bulletin insisted in the Bend
city election that the persons most in-
terested should rule the new city’s af-
fair. Is there, then, so great a difference
between governing a city and govern-
ing a county?”
Here is an inaccurate statement of
the position of The Bulletin, doubt-
less unintentional, and the conclusion
based on such premise is, of course,
much awry. The Bulletin’s contentions
in the Bend election campaign (and it
is not of general application) was that
those most interested in the welfare
of the city should rule it — not those
most interested in plucking it or who
had nothing to lose by neglecting it.
This principle, may it please the Re-
view, The Bulletin would apply to the
Jefferson county movement.
…
Now Laidlaw has a postoffice, or
will have when the postmaster com-
mission shall arrive. Establishment of
the postoffice has been authorized ,
with W.G. Stiles, the merchant as post-
master. His bondsmen are L. M. Coen
and E. B. James. Mrs. Coen will be
the deputy. Service will be by special
carrier from Bend. This is the third
new postoffice within a radius of five
miles in the Deschutes country in less
than a year all having large patronage.
Which speaks louder than words of
the growth of this locality.
…
It appears from recent manifesta-
tions that there is, after all, within the
borders of the proposed new county of
Jefferson, some hostility to the move
from division. An Ashwood man has
spoke right up in opposition to it. Over
in the Madras section there is also a
cry of pain. It is evident, however, that
that pain is produced by those who
want Madras for the county seat, and
is not really against the proposed new
county but only against the town on
Antelope. If the people of the proposed
county don’t want it that ought to set-
tle the matter. If they do want it their
wishes ought to have weight. The point
The Bulletin has made heretofore and
now restates is that the wishes of the
people in the proposed new county
should govern, rather than the wishes
of a distant county seat. By “the peo-
ple” is meant a substantial majority of
them; for it cannot be expected that all
the people will agree on anything. The
Bulletin is no disunionist but does be-
lieve largely in local government.
Applause for Ron Wyden
As Oregonians, we’re proud of
our wild places. From the Coast
Range, to the Wallowas, to the
Owyhee, our public lands are why
we live in Oregon, and why we’ve
built our businesses here. As Ben-
dites, we take special pride in our
rivers, especially the river that an-
chors our community and draws us
together; the namesake of our town
and an amazing resource that is
cherished by folks who come from
thousands of miles away to recreate
it. The Deschutes River is protected
as a Wild and Scenic River, and
now, thanks to Sen . Ron Wyden, we
have an opportunity to protect vital
tributaries of the Deschutes — like
Bridge Creek and Whychus Creek
— in a bill that will designate 4,700
miles of Wild and Scenic Rivers
across the state and make Oregon
the leading state in river conserva-
tion.
Water from Bridge Creek, a
tributary of Tumalo Creek, is the
source of clean water for our com-
munity, our pups and our beer.
Whychus Creek, another important
tributary of the Deschutes, is crit-
ical spawning habitat for salmon
and steelhead — which are finally
returning to our watershed after de-
cades of community investment.
We applaud Sen . Wyden’s ef-
fort to protect Tumalo Creek and
Whychus Creek as Wild and Sce-
nic Rivers, and to make Oregon the
leading state for river conservation.
— Michael LaLonde is the president
of Bend-based Deschutes Brewery,
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.
and Will Blount is the president of
Bend-based Ruffwear.
Headline was misleading
Depending on which numbers
you use, and there a quite a few
out there, your cover story of Jan.
28th, “One-third of Deschutes
County cases coming from Red-
mond” is misleading.
Here is what I see when I look
into the numbers. First of all,
Redmond’s Z IP code population
is listed as 38,844. If we use the
Deschutes County population as
106,023, then the Redmond popu-
lation is about 36% of the county.
Your article pointing out that
Redmond has one-third of the
COVID-19 cases isn’t particularly
news worthy.
In fact, if Redmond has 36% of
the county population and only
has 1349 cases (25.5%) of the cases
in the county, then it sounds to me
like they are doing better than the
rest of the county. Not the mes-
sage your headline suggests.
— Mark Corbet, Redmond
Not unifying
Joe Biden has repeatedly spoken
of the need for unity. What was
unclear, however, was the real ob-
ject of said unity.
Most patriotic Americans
desire to be united as a nation
and governed by a democratic
process that resolves policy dif-
ferences through bi partisan ne-
gotiation and compromise legis-
lation, rather than with partisan
attacks, demonstrations, investi-
gations.
So how does the impeachment
of an ex-president, for whom al-
most half the nation voted, pro-
mote an amicable legislative pro-
cess and Biden’s call for unity?
( such unjustified hatred and vili-
fication of a former president by
the opposition I have never seen
in my lifetime ) Does this unnec-
essary action square with Biden’s
statement that he wanted to be
the president of everyone and not
just Democrats or Republicans?
Do his 40-plus executive actions,
most of which undo or undermine
policies enacted under President
Trump, promote unity? Many of
those policies, such as border con-
trol and protection of the unborn
were popular with, and desired by,
those who voted him into office in
2016. Also, how do Biden’s occa-
sional, disparaging remarks about
the previous president or his poli-
cies promote unity?
Since Biden’s actions are incon-
sistent with his call for unity, one
must ask about the rationale be-
hind them. I think one can easily
conclude that they are partisan
actions meant to satisfy the de-
mands of his radical, Democrat
base, which thus becomes uni-
fied. Beyond that, don’t expect any
more unity — unless the Repub-
licans decide to conform to the
legislative demands of Biden, Sen.
Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy
Pelosi.
— James Strelchun, Bend
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Where does the Republican Party go now without Trump’s influence?
BY RICH BELZER
W
hat now for the Republi-
can Party? For four years,
the Trump Administra-
tion piled up an incredible record of
lying; according to the Washington
Post fact-checkers, Donald Trump ex-
ceeded 30,000 lies and misstatements
as president, one-half of them com-
ing during 2020. For the most part,
Republicans in Congress addressed
this torrent of lies with silence. It is
not that they are unable to distinguish
fact from fiction; they understood the
political risk in going against the pres-
ident.
In his book, “Commander in
Cheat ,” sportswriter Rick Reilly dis-
cusses the many lies Trump told his
golf buddies, mostly lies about golf
and the quality of his golf courses.
They mostly greeted his statements
with eye-rolling — after all, these were
harmless lies. During the first three
years of his administration, Trump’s
lies, while not harmless, seemed to
provide the Trump base with what
they wanted to hear. During 2020,
however, his lies proved deadly, both
in regard to the coronavirus — “ just
like the flu ” and “ don’t wear a mask.”
— and the result of the November
election.
If you are inclined to believe that
the election was stolen and that Don-
ald Trump really won, try this exer-
cise. Pretend that you were hired by
President Joe Biden to rig the election
in his favor. How would you accom-
plish this task?
A presidential election is actually
51 separate elections, one in each state
plus the District of Columbia. The
good news is that you could focus on
six battleground states and their 412
counties. The bad news is that none
of these six states runs all-electronic
elections which could be hacked; they
all have paper ballots, so attempting
to corrupt the machines that count
the ballots could be easily revealed in
a paper recount as occurred in Geor-
gia. This would leave you with the
problem of convincing Republicans
on county election commissions to
falsify their results. Given that they
GUEST COLUMN
Belzer
Even after the attack, over 100 Republican
representatives (including our congressman)
continued to dispute results they knew were valid.
Without question, Donald Trump is maintaining his
hold on congressional Republicans.
would be acting counter to the inter-
ests of their own party and subjecting
themselves to future prosecution, it
seems to me that it would take size-
able bribes to make this happen. This,
of course, would be very difficult to
accomplish without leaving a money
trail, plus hundreds of people who
might later decide to come forward
with evidence that would lead to your
indictment. Do you really think that
this is remotely possible? If you had
been hired to get this done, could you
possibly have accomplished this task
without getting caught?
Now consider that over 60 court
challenges to the election have been
thrown out for lack of evidence.
Trump appointees Chris Kreb (“ the
most secure election in American
history ”) and William Barr have dis-
puted claims of a rigged election.
Trump, however, would not let it go,
and few congressional Republicans
stood up to defend the integrity of the
election, even after the Electoral Col-
lege vote. I have no doubt that con-
gressional Republicans understood
the validity of the election; their re-
fusal to acknowledge the truth was
one more indication of Trump’s stran-
glehold on the GOP.
What followed from mid-Decem-
ber until Jan . 6 was nothing more
than an attempted coup. Trump’s call
to the Georgia secretary of state was
not about locating fraud; Trump sim-
ply wanted him to fabricate, or “find,”
11,780 votes. The attack on the Capitol
was the final step as Trump attempted
to have his followers prevent Congress
from counting and accepting the Elec-
toral College results. Yet even after the
attack, over 100 Republican represen-
tatives (including our congressman)
continued to dispute results they knew
were valid. Without question, Don-
ald Trump is maintaining his hold on
congressional Republicans.
There remain a handful of ethical
and moral Republicans in Congress,
people such as Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen.
Mitt Romney and Sen. Ben Sasse .
Yet a majority appear willing to align
themselves with Trump and the very
people who invaded the Capitol and
threatened their lives, leaving the Re-
publican Party in tatters and our de-
mocracy at risk.
ý
Rich Belzer lives in Bend.