Th e Bu l l eTin • Fr iday, FeBr ua r y 19, 2021 A5
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
The plan for the
Bend Parkway will
mean traffic jams
H
ead up to the north end of U.S. Highway 97 in Bend
around 5:15 p.m. on a Friday and motorists can be
mummified by bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Move. Stop. Inch forward. Stop.
It can take several sequences of the
traffic light at Cooley Road to clear
the intersection.
That mummification at the
north end of town? Expect to see
that same sort of thing come to
town. In fact, the Oregon Depart-
ment of Transportation is seeking
permission in its Bend Parkway
plan to allow the gridlock to grow.
The Bend City Council got a pre-
view of the plan Wednesday night.
In Bend’s future, peak demand
on the parkway will come very
close to capacity, if not exceed it.
The offramps in town, the Third
Street intersections, the Empire Av-
enue corridor will have a volume to
capacity ratio of 1 or very close to
1. That’s stop and start.
It’s not the future traffic engi-
neers dream about. ODOT and
the city of Bend are indeed mak-
ing some changes that should help
keep traffic moving and keep peo-
ple safe.
You know those right in, right
outs that create all sorts of parkway
drama, such as at Lafayette Avenue,
Hawthorne Avenue and Truman
Avenue?
Most of those are being com-
pletely eliminated along the park-
way. The only thing that will remain
will be the right ins at Lafayette and
Hawthorne. Those will get longer
deceleration lanes. Drivers will no
longer be able to do a quick right
out anywhere along the parkway.
Other plans include relocating
the bike and sidewalk paths along
the parkway to adjacent streets.
And there are long-term plans for
safe crossings over the parkway for
pedestrians and bikes.
Despite those changes and more,
congestion is coming. Why does
that have to be the future?
Most parkway traffic is actually
Bend to Bend — 90% of it. Are you
going to give up your car for most
local trips? Will your neighbor?
Going to take the bus? Bike? Get-
ting people to use alternative trans-
portation is not easy.
The bus system is not that conve-
nient. Biking around can be exhil-
arating with moments of terror as
an escort.
You likely aren’t surprised to
learn the cost of road improve-
ments is also staggering. Here’s just
one example: $10 million for the
Highway 97 northbound onramp
and southbound offramp at Mur-
phy Road.
A kicker is if ODOT doesn’t get
permission to allow more gridlock
in Bend, local development could
grind to a halt. The state’s volume
to capacity ratio for roads is basi-
cally at .85, or 85%. Because some
parts of Bend are anticipated to go
over that amount, a developer that
had a project that would push ca-
pacity over .85 would have to pay
for the very expensive road project
that would push the volume/capac-
ity ratio back down.
A similar problem had threat-
ened to scotch development at Ju-
niper Ridge.
So in March, the Bend City
Council is likely to vote on this
ODOT plan that Bend drivers will
have plenty of time to ponder in the
future — as they sit stuck in traffic.
Healthy Homes bill could be
good for low-income families
L
ead, radon, allergens, energy
inefficiency are just some of
the things people don’t want in
their homes. But improvements cost
money and low-income households
are going to have trouble paying for
them.
House Bill 2842 aims to do some-
thing about it. State Reps. Jason
Kropf, D-Bend, and Jack Zika,
R-Redmond, are sponsors.
The bill creates a Healthy Homes
Program in the Oregon Health Au-
thority. It would provide grants to
homeowners and landlords so im-
provements to tackle those problems
do happen.
A proposed amendment aims to
clarify that the money could also be
spent on fire and seismic resistance
and appropriates $20 million for the
program.
A long list of people submitted
testimony in favor of the bill. The
question we have: Would it be more
important for Oregon to invest that
$20 million in creating more afford-
able housing for people that don’t
have it, rather than improving what
some people have?
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.
My Nickel’s Worth
Kebler’s odd view of taxes
Bend Councilor Melanie Kebler’s
recent guest column about parking
exposes her lack of understanding of
the greater good. She lumps together
several diverse cohorts of non-drivers,
non-vehicle owners to justify her idea
that people falling within this seg-
ment of residents are somehow being
treated unfairly; that they are unjustly
paying taxes to support free parking.
She says “unfair subsides for parking
also create revenue we can do other
great things with.”
Kebler says: “more than 2,500 people
in Bend don’t own cars, and more than
5,000 people live in households that
either have no car or multiple adults
share a car, … the vast majority of
which are economically disadvantaged,
disabled or elderly.” Those are three
distinct situations lumped together to
make her concern appear valid.
As an elected official, I would hope
Councilor Kebler would have a better
understanding of taxation. Using her
logic, one could make the argument
that anyone without children in school
should not have to subsidize schools.
No kids; no taxes. No subsides (prop-
erty tax money) for school districts,
special education districts, community
college districts, higher education.
Simply, Councilor Kebler exposed
her naivete. I hope the other six coun-
cilors guide city policy with a better
understanding of what constitutes the
“greater good” for our residents.
—Don Ptacnik, Bend
Indigenous lives matter
The Bulletin’s Feb. 16 obituary
of Native American activist Joyce
Nelson, 86, correctly credited her ad-
vocacy to Portland’s indigenous com-
munity for over fifty years. Nelson
was a Lakota, as was her husband,
John “Buzz” Nelson, a Marine Corps
veteran and great-grandson of re-
nowned Chief Red Cloud, an Oglala
Lakota.
While I never met the Nelsons, I
was struck by their compassion and
community service given to Portland’s
indigenous people and read of the dis-
crimination they encountered from
the larger white community.
Aboriginal people have lived in the
American hemisphere for many thou-
sands of years. Europeans came much
later, first the Vikings, followed by
Columbus in 1492.
The Europeans were late exploring
the New World. But when they en-
countered the natives, it was mostly
with killing disdain. Consider the
Spanish conquistador Hernando de
Soto, whose romp through the south-
east pillaged and killed thousands at
will. The United States policy regard-
ing the Indian problem was often ar-
ticulated as “the only good Indian is
a dead Indian.” Guns, smallpox and
broken treaties were the rule. Darwin-
ian theory of natural selection sought
to “Kill the Indian, save the man.”
Ojibwa native David Treuer, 2019,
wrote in “The Heartbeat of Wounded
Knee” that the Indian cultures de-
served to be saved.
And that brings me back to the
work of Joyce and “Buzz” Nelson in
Portland.
Their influence should not be for-
gotten by the native community, but
celebrated by all. Indigenous people do
matter, and they deserve our respect.
—John Schwechten, Bend
Bring back a timber tax
Many of Oregon’s small towns are
cash-strapped and struggling. Some
blame this on a decline in revenue
from logging due to environmental
protections. But despite conservation
efforts, timber harvests on state and
federal land have remained about the
same for the past 25 years. So why ar-
en’t communities benefiting?
The answer is that timber compa-
nies have finagled outrageously pref-
erential tax treatment for themselves,
allowing them to wring money from
our forests without putting much back
into the communities where they op-
erate. In the 1990s, logging industry
representatives successfully lobbied
Oregon politicians to eliminate the
severance tax. This tax was a major
funding source for schools and local
governments. Washington, California
and Idaho still have this tax, and the
money it generates helps fund schools,
sheriff’s offices and public libraries.
Communities are suffering another
blow as logging practices contaminate
their drinking water, damage their
water systems, and threaten their wa-
ter sources, leading to tax and water
rate increases for residents and small
businesses. Some claim that bringing
back the severance tax would lead to
job losses. But the timber industry has
been slashing jobs for decades, replac-
ing workers with machines and clos-
ing mills to export logs overseas.
Why should Oregonians subsidize
an industry that exploits our land and
cripples our communities? It’s time
for lawmakers to put small towns
ahead of corporate interests and rein-
state the severance tax.
— Reagan Fisher, Portland
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Who won’t shut up in meetings? Men say it’s women. It’s not.
BY ADAM GRANT
Special to The Washington Post
T
he Japanese Olympic Com-
mittee was discussing steps for
bringing more women onto
boards in sports. The male leader of
the Tokyo Olympics organizing com-
mittee voiced a grave concern: “When
you increase the number of female
executive members, if their speak-
ing time isn’t restricted to a certain
extent, they have difficulty finishing,
which is annoying.” The man was
Yoshiro Mori, a former prime min-
ister of Japan. He resigned from the
Tokyo committee last Friday over the
remarks, which he’d made at a virtual
meeting Feb. 3.
When people make claims about
behavior in groups, my job as an or-
ganizational psychologist is to look at
the evidence. The pattern is clear and
consistent: It’s usually men who won’t
shut up. Especially powerful men.
In a study of U.S. senators, those
who had more leadership roles, se-
niority, committee assignments,
influence, legislative activity and
earmarks in spending bills took up
more time on the Senate floor — but
only if they were men.
Why didn’t having status and in-
fluence lead women to be more
vocal? Experiments showed that
women weren’t worried about build-
ing rapport. They were afraid of be-
ing perceived as too dominant and
controlling, which is exactly what
happened when they did speak up.
Gender stereotypes persist. People
expect men to be assertive and am-
bitious but women to be caring and
other-oriented. A man who runs his
mouth and holds court is a confident
expert. A woman who talks is aggres-
sive or pushy.
This helps explain why meetings
are full of “manologues.” Political sci-
entists find that when groups of five
make democratic decisions, if only
one member is a woman, she speaks
40 percent less than each of the men.
Even if the group has a majority of
three women, they each speak 36 per-
cent less than each of the two men.
Only in groups with four women do
they each finally take up as much air-
time as the one man.
In too many teams and too many
workplaces, women face the harsh re-
ality that it is better to stay silent and
be thought polite than speak up and
jeopardize their careers. As Mori said
of the Tokyo committee, “We have
about seven women at the organizing
committee, but everyone understands
their place.” If you think women talk
too much, it could be because you ex-
pect them to talk so little.
When women take the risk of
speaking up, they’re often silenced by
men. In the Supreme Court, research
reveals that male justices are about
three times as likely to interrupt fe-
male justices as one another. Over a
12-year period when women were
24% of the justices, they were the per-
petrators of just 4 percent of the inter-
ruptions but the recipients of 32%. In
2015, when there were six men and
three women on the bench, 66% of
the interruptions were of the women.
Manterrupting — as journalist
Jessica Bennett calls it when men
are guilty of “talk-blocking” — is
widespread. In a meta-analysis of 43
studies, men were more likely than
women to talk over others — espe-
cially in intrusive ways that silenced
the rest of the room and demon-
strated their dominance. At least
Kanye West promised to let Taylor
Swift finish when he took the mic
from her.
But maybe men don’t intend to of-
fend. Maybe men see interruptions
as a sign of engagement, whereas
women take them as a display of dis-
respect. Not so, says a recent study
of 5,000 Americans listening to men
and women interrupt with identi-
cal scripts. Men judged women as
ruder, colder and less intelligent than
men interjecting with the exact same
words. Women showed no gender
bias; they evaluated male and female
interrupters the same way.
One hallmark of a patriarchal cul-
ture is precarious manhood. The core
idea is that masculinity is hard to win
but easy to lose. Men face pressure
to demonstrate their superiority and
strength. An assertive woman can
be a threat to a fragile male ego. In
countries and companies dominated
by alpha males, women are often ex-
pected to be seen but not heard. Much
ink has been spilled helping them fig-
ure out how to walk this tightrope.
Women have received many tips on
how to disagree without seeming dis-
agreeable, challenge without being
too confrontational, raise their voices
without shouting.
But maybe it’s overconfident men
who need to change.
It’s not that women are necessarily
naturally better listeners and leaders
than men, but that women have had
to master these skills to succeed within
the shackles of gender stereotypes.
If a woman pointed all this out,
she’d be accused of whining and com-
plaining. A growing body of evidence
reveals that when women (and racial
minorities) advocate for diversity,
they tend to get penalized for being
self-serving and nepotistic. When
(white) men make the same case,
we’re more likely to get heard. Recog-
nizing this injustice is the first step to-
ward changing it.
When asked at a news conference
whether he genuinely thinks women
talk too much, Mori responded, “I
don’t listen to women that much
lately, so I don’t know.” And therein
lies the problem.
e e
Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist
at the Wharton School.