A4 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Free parking is an
endangered species
in Bend’s downtown
F
inding a free parking spot in downtown Bend is going to
be as rare as a warm summer day with nobody floating
the Deschutes.
Paid parking is not just coming to
the downtown parking garage. It’s
the plan throughout downtown.
For the next six months at least,
on-street parking will remain free in
much of the heart of downtown and
have a two-hour limit, according to
city plans. Plans for paid parking for
the parking garage have been an-
nounced. Later this year the city in-
tends to “develop strategies and an
action plan to move to paid on-street
parking” in downtown.
That plan is not all new. It has
been coming since the Bend City
Council adopted the Downtown
Strategic Parking Management Plan
in 2017. The plan’s catchphrase is
“getting the right parker in the right
spot.” There’s a lot of smarts and re-
search put into it.
One thing the plan does not men-
tion is equity. Not once. Paid park-
ing — even though it may be a token
cost to many — is regressive. It hits
the poor the hardest. It could also
have a disproportionate impact on
communities of color. Is that what
Bend wants? Shopping downtown to
be an exclusive experience? Nobody
wants that, right?
Well, unfortunately some people
do think like that. Some members
of Bend’s downtown parking advi-
sory committee pushed in 2018 the
rapacious attitude that paid parking
could tilt parking availability to peo-
ple with more money to spend. Not
a proud moment in the evolution of
Bend’s parking strategy.
One thing the plan does not
mention is equity. Not once. Paid
parking — even though it may be a
token cost to many — is regressive.
It hits the poor the hardest. It could
also have a disproportionate
impact on communities of color. Is
that what Bend wants? Shopping
downtown to be an exclusive
experience? Nobody wants that,
right?
Bend’s parking plan also gives
short shrift to how much easier it
will be for businesses elsewhere
in Bend to compete with those
in downtown. Two words: Free
parking.
Arguments about equity and
competition don’t necessarily over-
ride the reasons for moving to paid
parking downtown. Parking fees are
far from prohibitively restrictive. But
other costs of living in Bend aren’t
going down, either.
You may remember the Forest
Service made plans to start charging
people a small amount for limited
permits for wilderness access in the
Cascades. When it did, it made a
special effort to find ways to ensure
low-income people would not be
disproportionately impacted.
Make a splash
with state audits
G
etting zinged by the auditors
from the Oregon Secretary of
State’s Office can be embar-
rassing for state agencies.
The more important outcomes
can be: accountability and improve-
ment in how the state is run. The
2018 audit of Oregon’s child welfare
system is a great example.
As good as the auditors are, they
only can do so many audits. Choos-
ing which audits get done is a key
decision. Legislators talked about
that Thursday as Secretary of State
Shemia Fagan and state auditors
previewed their plans in the Joint
Committee on Legislative Audits.
The plan includes a look at un-
employment benefits, wildfire re-
sponse, vaccine distribution, 911
response, Oregon’s mortgage inter-
est deduction and more. Those are
smart topics.
If anything, we wonder if it
would be smarter to do many more.
That would require more staff and
expense.
Something cheaper that could be
done would be for Fagan to try to
make a splash with a news confer-
ence when audits note significant
problems.
Of course, some people would
call that grandstanding. The subject
of the audit won’t like it one bit. Fa-
gan has enough good sense to know
when it is warranted.
Former Secretary of State Den-
nis Richardson did it with the 2018
child welfare audit. We can’t say it
would have made any difference,
but imagine if the same clamor was
made every time auditors and other
state staff warned about the prob-
lems modernizing the state’s delivery
of unemployment benefits. We all
know how that turned into a mess
when the pandemic hit.
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.
Focus on improving higher education,
not criticizing OSU-Cascades’ success
BY NEIL R. BRYANT
I
n 1999 when I was a state senator,
I introduced a bill to allow COCC
to award four-year degrees. At that
time, Central Oregon was the larg-
est geographic area in the U.S. with a
population of over 100,000 that did
not have a four-year
university. Central
Oregon students and
businesses were not
being adequately
served by the state
system.
The governor,
Bryant
the Oregon Board
of Higher Educa-
tion and chancellor opposed my bill,
but they acknowledged something
needed to be done. Over the next
two years, working with the Central
Oregon region, the board eventu-
ally proposed a branch campus in
Bend, and conducted a competition
between OSU and the University of
Oregon over which university would
administer the new campus. A branch
campus of a major university offered
many benefits including a recognized
“brand,” and lower administrative
costs. Ultimately — working with a
group of Central Oregonians — the
state board of higher education ap-
proved OSU’s proposal for Oregon’s
first branch campus.
Gov. John Kitzhaber included $7
GUEST COLUMN
million in funding for the new cam-
pus in the state budget, and with leg-
islative approval in 2001 the journey
began with one building at COCC.
In 2011, the state created the
Higher Education Coordinating
Commission (the HECC). I was ap-
pointed to the HECC. In 2013, the
Legislature dissolved the chancel-
lor’s office and the Oregon Board
of Higher Education and replaced
them with seven independent boards.
OSU-Cascades remained a branch
campus. There was no proposal to
make OSU-Cascades independent
like the other universities.
With additional capital improve-
ments, OSU-Cascades begin to build
its own campus. The creation of a
stand-alone campus was unanimously
approved by the HECC, included in
the governor’s budget, and approved
by the Legislature.
In the intervening years, Central
Oregon has flourished with legislative
capital investments, OSU-Cascades
has helped the region become the
state’s fastest-growing producer of in-
come tax revenues.
I am not suggesting that OSU-Cas-
cades should always be a branch
campus. It takes time to build suc-
cessful programs, alumni and a dis-
Rather than criticizing
OSU-Cascades, Rep. Paul Evans
and the Legislature should focus
on what needs to be done to help
higher education. All Oregonians
should celebrate the success of the
branch campus. It has been a good
decision.
tinct brand. Independence should be
discussed when the campus has 4,000
students. At that time, the “economies
of scale” and successful curriculum
may make independence an option.
Rather than criticizing OSU-Cas-
cades, Rep. Paul Evans and the Legis-
lature should focus on what needs to
be done to help higher education. All
Oregonians should celebrate the suc-
cess of the branch campus. It has been
a good decision.
We need to move beyond territorial
bickering and concentrate our lim-
ited resources on actions that will help
students to succeed. We are all best
served by supporting all of our uni-
versity campuses as they strive to en-
able students to compete in a difficult
and challenging world.
e e
Neil R. Bryant is a resident of Bend was a state
senator from 1993-2001.
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What’s the matter with the political culture in Madras?
BY KEVIN FRAZIER
T
o be clear, nothing that’s
“wrong” with Madras is dis-
tinct to Madras. The causes of
the political wrecks that recently dis-
rupted the city have derailed politics
at the local, state and national levels.
Unfortunately for
Madras, social me-
dia and incivility
collided to make the
city a case study in
how our political
culture has been to-
taled.
Frazier
In case you
missed in, two
events recently sent Madras City Hall
into a tailspin and resulted in some se-
rious democratic damage.
First, Austin Throop was forced to
resign after carelessly, thoughtlessly and
recklessly calling another councilor a
“terrorist.” A photo of Councilor Jen-
nifer Holcomb and three other people
not wearing masks at a local gym in-
cited the social media comment.
This wasn’t the first instance of
Throop failing to mince words. This
paper reported that Throop had also
penned “professional communica-
tions” to city staff. These episodes re-
veal how easy it is to attack people via
an email and over social media. Bul-
lies like Throop, from the comfort of
their living room, can belittle others
with ease.
Unfortunately, Throop is not the
exception. Elected officials and vot-
ers alike have sunk to the low level of
communication enabled by avoid-
ing face-to-face communications (or
Zoom talks in this COVID era).
Elected in November, resigned in
January, Throop “served” his com-
munity for two meetings. The coun-
cil will now appoint a replacement,
a process that’s far less participatory
GUEST COLUMN
than an election.
Throop was right to be peeved
about Holcomb’s behavior, but wrong
to think that social media was the
forum to resolve the dispute. As it
turns out, social media is just about
the worst place to problem solve. Yet,
so much of our politics is centered
around tweets, ‘grams and posts. The
result is a doomed attempt at solving
problems and a poor effort to truly
listen to community members.
Our reliance on social media has
also contributed to our politics revolv-
ing more around personal squabbles
rather than policy debates. The min-
gling of personal with the political was
the second source of damage to Ma-
dras’ democracy. During a public com-
ment period, a resident used the forum
to criticize the wife of City Councilor
Royce Embanks. As a result, Embanks,
“raised his voice and stormed out of
[the] meeting,” according to this paper.
Of course, mudslinging in politics is a
tradition as old Smith Rock, but it ap-
pears as though we’ve all become far
more accustomed to crossing the line
between personal and politics.
A one-off public comment may not
seem like a big deal, but it’s another
piece of snow in an avalanche of dis-
incentives for people to get involved
in politics. These sorts of displays un-
dermine the idea that our democratic
institutions are places for meaningful
deliberation and robust participation.
When we emerge from this pan-
demic, we should use our collective
desire to get outside as a justification
to take our politics offline and restore
a focus on the issues, rather than the
individual. These are cultural fixes
we’re collectively responsible for and
capable of making.
A one-off public comment may not
seem like a big deal, but it’s another
piece of snow in an avalanche
of disincentives for people to get
involved in politics. These sorts of
displays undermine the idea that
our democratic institutions are
places for meaningful deliberation
and robust participation.
What’s the matter with Madras?
What’s the matter with our collective
democracy? We’ve stopped communi-
cating. We’ve stopped listening. And,
we’ve stopped prioritizing good gov-
ernance.
e e
Kevin Frazier was raised in Washington County,
Oregon. He is pursuing a law degree at the
University of California, Berkeley School of Law.