A4 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Walkout may only
succeed in changing
state’s quorum rules
D
o you think Gov. Kate Brown should do more to get
schools to reopen? Do you think more should be done
to vaccinate seniors sooner?
Do you think the state should
look to speed up reopening of
businesses?
Those are reasons why Oregon
Senate Republicans walked out on
Thursday. They say their efforts to
get Brown’s attention to these issues
have gone unacknowledged. So they
walked out to get her attention.
Yes, they got her attention. But
Republicans didn’t compel her to
make any changes. And we can’t
imagine she will fundamentally
change her approach.
Perhaps Senate Republicans did
succeed in a few ways. Just getting
people’s attention these days takes
more than making a speech. The
walkout got the Oregon public’s at-
tention for at least a news cycle. And
in that moment Republicans high-
lighted what the difference might be
if they were governing.
They also reminded their fellow
legislators that they still have the
power to shut down the making of
new laws.
Oregon is one of only a handful
of states that requires by its consti-
tution that two-thirds of lawmakers
must be on the Senate floor and the
House floor for work to be done.
The narrow Democratic margin in
the Senate means the Democratic
majority is not walkout-proof. A
walkout is some of the only raw
power Republicans in Oregon really
have.
For how long? Will voters tire of
this tactic? It seems inevitable that
through a bill or an initiative a mea-
sure will be put on the ballot for a
constitutional amendment to change
Oregon’s quorum rules to a simple
majority.
Perhaps Senate Republicans
did succeed in a few ways. Just
getting people’s attention these
days takes more than making
a speech. The walkout got the
Oregon public’s attention for at
least a news cycle. And in that
moment Republicans highlighted
what the difference might be if
they were governing. They also
reminded their fellow legislators
that they still have the power to
shut down the making of new
laws.
BY MOEY NEWBOLD
That might not be something
to celebrate. Yes, it would work in
the favor of Democrats now. It is,
though, one of the few tools to pre-
vent a tyranny of a simple majority.
Oregon voters are roughly evenly
split between Democrats, unaffil-
iated voters and Republicans — in
that order. There is probably far
more that unites Oregonians than
divides them. On some issues at
least, majority opinion is slim or
hard to find.
Democrats hold power now. They
may not always. Democrats have
used the power of the walkout be-
fore, in 1971, 1995 and 2001.
In these unsettled times, Orego-
nians need legislators and a gover-
nor who find ways to work together,
not write new exclusionary rules.
Get an early warning
for earthquakes
W
hen contractors were dig-
ging at OSU-Cascades
in 2019 to reclaim the
pumice pit, campus officials took
the editorial board on a tour. We
saw the geographic fault line run-
ning through the property. An
eye-catcher.
OSU-Cascades isn’t putting a
building on the fault, of course. But
it was a reminder that as much as it
may feel like fault lines are a some-
where-else-in-Oregon issue, they are
really all over the state. Mostly, they
are quiet.
The Cascadia Subduction Zone
off Oregon’s coast is the one that’s re-
ally “active” in geological terms and
has produced intense earthquakes.
It’s last quake was in 1700 with a
magnitude of 9.0. They have come as
We can have healthy communities
and affordable housing in Oregon
few as 190 years apart or as often as
1,200 years apart. The state says Or-
egonians along the coast can expect
to be without services and assistance
for as long as two weeks if one hits.
Central Oregon will be a staging
area for relief efforts.
Beginning in March, Oregonians
will get a new tool to at least give a
few seconds warning, perhaps be-
fore the earth starts shaking for an
earthquake.
That’s the best scientists can do, so
far. Those few seconds can make a
difference, though.
The ShakeAlert Earthquake Early
Warning will go live on mobile de-
vices in Oregon on March 11. If you
search ShakeAlert and Oregon on
the web, there’s more information.
It’s worth checking out.
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.
W
hether it’s the Zoom Effect
or the curse of being a re-
gion known for its unsur-
passed livability, Central Oregon is
feeling a housing crunch. Affordable
housing is almost nonexistent and
available inventory is at all-time lows.
There is a pervading narrative that
the way to solve these issues is to
simply bring more land into Urban
Growth Boundaries (UGBs) or to al-
low for more housing in our rural
communities. Doing these things will
not solve our housing affordability is-
sues and instead come with real and
lasting consequences.
Where and what we build matters.
Haphazard sprawl takes a toll on our
communities. High infrastructure
costs, negative health impacts, and
environmental degradation are the
price of hastily attempting to solve
one problem without considering the
long-term impacts on the people you
are trying to help.
The places we live have a direct
effect on our health. What is your
neighborhood’s air quality like? Do
you have child care and health care
nearby? Are your neighbors welcom-
ing and supportive? How long is your
commute? The answers to these ques-
tions make an impact on how long
people live and what quality of life
they lead. Studies show that the loca-
tion of our homes determines up to
80% of our personal health outcomes.
When we build housing further
away from community centers, we
push people away from job oppor-
tunities and services. While longer
GUEST COLUMN
commutes add to
overall traffic and
pollution (includ-
ing the greenhouse
gases that cause cli-
mate change), they
also have profound
Newbold
health impacts. A
longer commute re-
duces life satisfaction, physical, and
mental health — so much so that
workers who commute 31 miles or
more can expect to die sooner than
people who live closer to their jobs.
Expenses go up when owning and
maintaining a car is required for liv-
ing in far-flung locations.
Developing housing in commu-
nity-oriented settings means people
aren’t required to spend 20% of their
income and a good chunk of their
time driving to access the jobs, parks,
schools, health care, and services they
need. Housing prices and demand
are typically higher in neighborhoods
that meet these needs — just look at
walkability scores touted by Realtors.
But across Oregon, people with low-
wage jobs are priced out of living in
these vibrant, mixed-use areas with
safe transportation options. It isn’t
that these types of neighborhoods are
inherently more expensive to build
(in fact, the opposite is true when in-
frastructure is accounted for); it is be-
cause there are not enough of them.
Central Oregon’s approach to hous-
ing should balance health equity
and affordability. We know that the
past century of racist and exclusion-
ary housing policies barred Black and
Latino people from the neighborhoods
that offered jobs, good healthcare, safe
transportation, and well-funded educa-
tion systems. In many places, basic city
services like lighted sidewalks and clean
water were not provided. As a result,
people living in high-poverty neighbor-
hoods today have poorer health than
their peers in affluent (often predomi-
nantly white) neighborhoods. We can’t
risk replicating planning that increases
inequity and separates families from
the social and environmental fabric of
a thriving community.
The answer to the housing crisis is
not to continue with outdated models
of sprawling suburban development.
Instead, we should add more housing
and transportation options that prior-
itize health and equity. Oregon’s state-
wide land use planning system pro-
vides a framework for cities to grow
this way, and encourages the creation
of compact and thriving cities and
towns that leave rural areas open and
intact for farming, recreation, and
wildlife habitat.
We need to tackle the housing crisis
with real solutions that don’t sacrifice
community well-being. Instead of add-
ing housing in places where jobs and
services don’t already exist, we can im-
prove the fabric of our cities and add
homes to make more complete com-
munities. Before hastily jumping into
rushed expansion, let’s consider what
we want our community to become
and ensure our plans lead us there.
e e
Moey Newbold is director of urban planning
at Central Oregon LandWatch.
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How a generation of 1930s rocketeers led us to unlock the secrets of Mars
BY DAVID VON DREHLE
The Washington Post
O
n the campus of the California
Institute of Technology, circa
1936, a little group of scien-
tists and hobbyists began to get seri-
ous about building rockets. This was
crackpot science at the time, and back
then, crackpots weren’t generally en-
couraged. Today we give them IPOs
and make them billionaires.
But the rocketeers were led by a vi-
sionary scientist named Frank Malina,
who was a favorite of the esteemed
Caltech professor and bon vivant
Theodore von Karman. Von Karman’s
sponsorship kept them going, even as
campus wags dubbed them “the Sui-
cide Squad” on account of the volume
of shrapnel their haywire experiments
produced.
Perhaps mindful of insurance pre-
miums, von Karman helped to arrange
the acquisition of a remote testing
ground in the Arroyo Seco — the dry
creek bed — north of Pasadena’s fa-
mous Rose Bowl stadium, at the edge
of the San Gabriel Mountains. And that
is why, some 85 years later, if you go to
that dry gulch you’ll find the magnifi-
cent Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of
the world’s citadels of science, explora-
tion and advanced manufacturing.
Many of the cheers that erupted
when the rover Perseverance settled
gently on the surface of Mars the
other day were voiced by the people of
JPL, the descendants of those daunt-
less Caltech crackpots. Perseverance
is more than a catchy name for this
mission; it’s a one-word summation of
the JPL culture. Perseverance through
the early skepticism about rocket tech-
nology; perseverance through the mis-
guided space shuttle decades; perse-
verance through high-profile failures
to arrive at a mission that bristles with
confidence and purpose.
Those who watched the rover land
on Feb. 18 get the picture. A package
full of miracles, launched into space
atop an Atlas V rocket last year, fi-
nally drew near to the Red Planet and
began falling through the thin atmo-
sphere, pulled by weak gravity. Sud-
denly, a parachute deployed at precisely
the right moment and a heat shield
fell away, tumbling downward as we
watched from many millions of miles
away. Closer to the surface, the lander
began firing rockets to steer its final de-
scent, until — just above ground — the
rover itself deployed on wires like a spi-
der on its silk. Perseverance settled gen-
tly, and the lander flew off to die.
Now Perseverance is on the move,
beginning what promises to be a long
career of exploration, prowling a now-
parched seabed for signs of long-ago
life. The rover carries a drone helicopter
on its belly — another miracle to be re-
vealed on another day — as it makes its
way over the Martian terrain. Among
its tasks is to package up some scientific
samples to be collected and returned to
Earth by a future mission.
This is JPL’s sweet spot — where star-
ry-eyed imagination meets can-do en-
gineering. JPL has sent Voyager craft
into interstellar space; flown a probe
that encountered the rings of Saturn;
synced up with Venus and Mercury;
and snapped close-ups of volcanoes on
moons of Jupiter. When NASA lost its
way after the glories of the Apollo lunar
missions and nearly vanished into the
sucking black hole of the space shuttle
program, its JPL field center kept the
true flame of exploration kindled in
Pasadena. The shuttle — too small to
be very useful, but big enough to ab-
sorb virtually every available dollar
— was dangerous, by far the deadliest
craft in the history of spaceflight. Sci-
entifically, it was a three-decade dud.
Human spaceflight has always had
an edge in sexiness and romance over
the tirelessly productive JPL robots.
With Perseverance, that gap may be
starting to narrow, though. Choosing
its own landing spot, guiding itself
to that perfect touchdown, and im-
mediately snapping a selfie of its own
Martian shadow, the automobile-size
rover displayed a brand of intelligence
amazingly anthropomorphic. And it’s
just getting started.
We will unlock the secrets of Mars
— not by sending vulnerable human
flesh into its desperately harsh and
deadly environment, but by send-
ing ever wiser, ever hardier ambassa-
dors designed to be our eyes, ears and
hands. And not just Mars, but, as Buzz
Lightyear says: to infinity — and be-
yond. It is a possibility worth dream-
ing of despite derision, worth working
for despite obstacles, through decade
after decade along a dry creek bed in
Pasadena. And when it comes true
in spectacular style, it’s worth all the
cheers and tears of joy that a roomful
of visionaries and geniuses can muster.
e e
David Von Drehle writes a twice-weekly column
for The Washington Post.