A6 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Be transparent
about Bend’s police
bodycam videos
W
hen Mike Krantz began as Bend police chief in
August, the estimate was it would be 18 months
before Bend police officers would have bodycams.
That was too long for Krantz. He
and his staff worked together, and
now, they may be implemented this
summer.
Chemical irritants. Chokeholds.
Police discipline and training.
Changing when and if police should
be sent out on calls. Those issues
and more get debated about law en-
forcement. But communities, polit-
ical leaders and police tend to agree
about the need for body cameras.
They provide added transparency
and accountability for police and the
public.
Krantz did make a good point
Friday when he was interviewed by
Bulletin Editor Gerry O’Brien on
Facebook. Cameras “don’t tell every-
thing,” he said. They only show what
they show. Sometimes what you
want to see will be out of frame. But
he wants them, and thanks to his
efforts, the work of his department
and Bend city councilors providing
the money, Bend will have them.
There are going to be added costs.
It will cost the department $300,000
to $400,000 a year to properly store
the video. Krantz also asked for two
employees. One would handle re-
cords requests. Another would be
responsible for keeping the 120 or so
cameras and other equipment run-
ning right.
Krantz said department policy
will not be that the cameras must
be on all the time. He mentioned
several situations when it will be de-
partment policy to have them on:
when officers have reasonable sus-
picion or probable cause, during in-
terviews, when they are interacting
with people in a mental health crisis,
Krantz did make a good point
Friday when he was interviewed
by Bulletin Editor Gerry O’Brien
on Facebook. Cameras “don’t tell
everything,” he said. They only
show what they show. Sometimes
what you want to see will be out
of frame. But he wants them, and
thanks to his efforts, the work of
his department and Bend city
councilors providing the money,
Bend will have them.
BY GREG HARRIS
Special to The Washington Post
traffic stops and if what seems like
a routine contact turns adversarial.
That is not necessarily an exhaus-
tive list. He said it will be optional at
other times, such as when police are
transporting people who are not in
custody.
What’s not clear yet is how public
records requests for police videos
will work. What will it cost? How
long will it take to get a video?
We urge the Bend department to
track and release statistics, including
the length of time it takes to release
videos, costs charged and any deni-
als of requests. We also would like to
see records kept of officers who fail
to comply with department policy
for when cameras should be on. And
we urge the Bend City Council to re-
view the department’s performance
with the new technology and on re-
cords requests.
Should stimulus end up
increasing your state taxes?
T
he federal stimulus checks
helped a lot of Oregonians out
when they needed it. And it is
also going to help out Oregon gov-
ernment — about $100 million in
federal stimulus payments is going
to wind up in the state treasury.
The federal government is not
taxing the stimulus payments. In
Oregon, they are not taxed as in-
come, either. But the payments can
impact the federal tax calculations
used on your Oregon income tax.
And so the stimulus payment may
mean you owe state tax on more of
your income and wind up paying
more taxes or get a reduced refund.
Seniors turn to a 13-year-old
to get vaccination appointment
Does that sound right to you? The
stimulus checks sure seemed to be
aimed at helping individuals, not
helping state government.
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Dem-
ocrat, wants state lawmakers to pass
a bill to eliminate the state tax liabil-
ity owed by Oregonians on federal
stimulus payments. State Sen. Dick
Anderson, R-Lincoln City, is already
working on such a bill. The idea
has at least half a nod from Oregon
House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Dem-
ocrat. A spokesperson said Kotek
“supports the House Revenue Chair
evaluating this issue.”
Tell your legislator what you think.
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.
S
enior citizens across the coun-
try have been wrestling with
computer systems to sign up for
coronavirus vaccines. My mother,
who is 79, is among them. On a recent
call from a suburb of Chicago, where
she has been living alone throughout
the pandemic, she sounded defeated.
“I’m trying to figure it out! I can’t.
None of my friends can, either,” she
said. She couldn’t even explain the dif-
ficulty, just that it was hard.
Ours is a far-flung family. We specu-
lated on options to help: Could my sis-
ter, a software engineer, take over using
remote desktop control software?
Then my mother called back to an-
nounce: “I got the first shot!”
We were baffled. How did she even
get the appointment?
It turns out a 13-year-old boy han-
dled it for her.
She didn’t know him — he was the
grandson of a friend of a friend of hers
— and she didn’t fully understand how
he’d done it.
“Something on Twitter?” she
guessed. “But he’s amazing!”
“He got me one appointment, then
he called back and told me, ‘No, you
don’t want that one, they won’t guaran-
tee a second shot.’ So he canceled it and
found a better one. He’s gotten appoint-
ments for all my friends.”
For all her friends? A 13-year-old. I
had to understand how this was hap-
pening, so I called him.
I reached him by phone in the Chi-
cago suburb where he lives with his
younger brother and parents. Eli, who
didn’t want his whole name used, had
to check first with his mom whether
it was OK to talk to me. We set up a
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Zoom call.
Meanwhile, I talked to another
woman he’d helped.
“He’s doing this just out of concern
for others,” she said. “It’s not part of his
business.”
“His business?”
“Oh, he runs a tech support busi-
ness, where he fixes problems with your
computers and phones, and researches
how to save you money on your cell-
phone plan. He’s saved me, oh, thou-
sands of dollars. Has his own website
and everything.”
“At 13?”
“Yes, such a boy you never saw,” she
continued. “I went to his bar mitzvah,
which was virtual because of the pan-
demic. He refused gifts and didn’t want
a party. He just wanted donations for a
community composting program he’s
started.”
“What makes him so good at getting
vaccine appointments?” I asked.
“At my age, we’re all slow at comput-
ers,” she said. “So even if we find an ap-
pointment, and start to enter our infor-
mation, it’s gone. His fingers fly over the
keyboard like wind. Did you know he’s
helping people in Florida now?”
The day I connected with Eli over
Zoom, he appeared with tousled dark
hair and a gangly build. He was dis-
armingly earnest. I was glad his mother
had joined the call, because she, in her
pride, coaxed out the stories where he
was perhaps too humble to tell them.
They couldn’t agree on how many
people Eli had helped, for example. She
thought 28, but he didn’t want to count
some who had canceled their appoint-
ments. “I didn’t technically help them,”
he said.
When I asked how much time
he was spending, he answered, “not
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How to submit
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My Nickel’s Worth or Guest Column and
much.” His mother pointed out he’d
been on hold on the phone for three
hours the day before. “But I was doing
other things during that time,” he said.
“Why don’t you want your name
used?” I asked. Talk about doing good
deeds — didn’t he want credit?
He pointed out that the internet has
a way of generating fan and hate mail
— neither of which he wants. And he
doesn’t have the capacity to help more
than five or six people at a time, and he
has more than that on his list.
More surprisingly, and to his credit,
he saw the problems of equity and was
aware of the phenomenon where more
affluent white people snag vaccination
appointments in poorer communities
of color.
Astonished by his political aware-
ness, I asked, “So what can fix this vac-
cination rollout?”
In response to my question, Eli
looked, for the first time, frustrated.
“Honestly, what the providers need
to do is just create phone systems for
the elderly who don’t have access to the
internet.”
Immediately, though, he realized the
problem of such a system — the end-
less queues, people calling in simulta-
neously on a dozen devices, enlisting
their friends to call — and he trailed
off.
He circled back later to the idea that
he might build a website to help more
people find appointments. But fun-
damentally he has come to the same
conclusion most analysts have. “There
needs to be a national, coordinated
system. That would help.”
e e
Greg Harris has taught writing at Harvard
University for 18 years, in the College, the John
F. Kennedy School of Government and the T.H.
Chan School of Public Health.
mail, fax or email it to The Bulletin. Email
submissions are preferred.
Email: letters@bendbulletin.com
Write: My Nickel’s Worth/Guest Column
P.O. Box 6020
Bend, OR 97708
Fax:
541-385-5804
Congress already went ‘big’ on coronavirus relief
BY STEVE SCALISE AND TIM PHILLIPS
Special to The Washington Post
P
resident Joe Biden says the risk
of coronavirus relief legislation
is not in going too big but in
going too small. This is a false choice,
and we shouldn’t let platitudes about
“going big” mask the need for smart
and effective policy.
Congress has already gone “big”
— so big that more than $1 trillion of
previously enacted assistance remains
unspent. Doing more of the same
won’t solve the country’s problems.
We need to get pandemic relief right.
But instead of working with lawmakers
of both parties on legislation that could
more effectively overcome the pan-
demic and help our country recover,
the president is mustering support for a
$1.9 trillion package loaded with a par-
tisan wish list of items that have noth-
ing to do with the pandemic.
We’ve heard firsthand from friends
and family who want to get vaccinated
but can’t. We’ve heard from neighbors
who simply want to get back to normal
and get back to work. What the coun-
try needs is focus. That involves an ap-
proach to COVID-19 relief spending
that is timely, temporary and targeted
to those hit hardest by the pandemic.
Congress has already enacted
roughly $3.7 trillion to develop and
distribute vaccines, save small busi-
nesses and fund schools. Scientists
developed multiple safe and effective
vaccines, and distribution recently
began reaching more than 1 million
Americans a day. Just the first round
of the Paycheck Protection Program
(PPP) helped keep more than 51 mil-
lion workers employed last year.
As of Thursday, the more than $1
trillion of that assistance that remains
unspent or is still in the process of being
disbursed includes $183 billion for an-
other round of the PPP, $199 billion for
health care, $136 billion for expanded
unemployment insurance and $46 bil-
lion for direct stimulus payments.
We have no business borrowing an
additional $1.9 trillion from our chil-
dren’s future when all of that remains
to be spent to help our country re-
open safely.
No doubt, people are hurting — es-
pecially in the restaurant and hospi-
tality industry. We agree that targeted
relief is appropriate for those individ-
uals, families and businesses hit the
hardest. But we shouldn’t be blind to
the fact that Americans are also adapt-
ing and innovating. Our economy is
significantly stronger than many had
predicted last year that it would be.
The nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office projected last week that
the U.S. economy will grow 3.7 per-
cent this year without any additional
stimulus. The economic downturn last
year “was not as severe as expected,”
the CBO said, and “the first stage of
the recovery took place sooner and
was stronger than expected.” As more
and more Americans are vaccinated,
lockdowns will end, businesses will re-
open and jobs will return.
Even state governments are faring
better than anticipated. Collectively,
they have already received hundreds
of billions from the federal gov-
ernment over the past year. “From
the start of the pandemic in March
through October, tax revenues in 38
states were down 5% or less from the
same period the year before,” the New
York Times reported in December,
drawing on data from the Urban In-
stitute. Some states, including Cali-
fornia and Minnesota, experienced
budget surpluses. Another bailout for
these states to cover fiscal irrespon-
sibility that predated the pandemic
doesn’t make sense — yet that’s what
the president is calling for.
There are people who desperately
need help, but the country is not in a
free-fall. The president’s relief package
isn’t just focused on the wrong things
— it also contains unrelated provi-
sions that would undermine the re-
covery already in progress.
Take the proposed federal $15-an-
hour minimum wage. The CBO
recently estimated that this heavy-
handed wage hike could cost up to 2.7
million American jobs. Why would
we double the minimum wage at a
time when thousands of businesses
are struggling to make payroll and
millions of Americans are looking
for jobs? For small businesses such as
restaurants that have survived a year
of incredibly tough conditions, a fed-
eral requirement to raise wages up to
600 percent for employees who work
off tips would be a death blow.
We need to increase vaccine pro-
duction and distribution so people
have confidence they can safely get
back to work and get the economy go-
ing again. We should not spend need-
lessly on things that don’t directly af-
fect COVID.
The president’s $1.9 trillion relief
package isn’t the way to get there. It
fails to accomplish the key goals of de-
feating the virus and recovering stron-
ger. It would pile up debt and impose
counterproductive policies that would
hurt the people who need help.
We shouldn’t confuse big spending
with smart or effective policy. Ameri-
cans deserve better.
e e
Steve Scalise, a Republican, represents Louisiana’s
1st Congressional District and is minority whip
of the U.S. House. Tim Phillips is president of
Americans for Prosperity, a grass-roots advocacy
group.