A6 The BulleTin • Sunday, March 28, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Should Oregon stick
with mandatory
minimum sentences?
W
hat is fair punishment for a murder, a rape or
compelling someone into prostitution? How
long should someone be in jail? Should there be a
minimum sentence or should that depend on the circumstances?
After voters passed Measure 11 in
1994, Oregon has mandatory min-
imum sentences for serious crimes.
It’s 25 years for murder. It’s eight years
and 4 months for Rape 1. It’s five
years and 10 months for compelling
prostitution. A judge in Oregon gen-
erally has no choice but to at least im-
pose the minimum.
The idea behind mandatory min-
imums is that certain crimes deserve
a base level of punishment. A judge
could be more severe, but not less.
Mandatory minimums also ensure
certainty for the public that crimi-
nals get similar sentences for similar
crimes. Some argue, though, manda-
tory minimums don’t achieve justice.
Judges aren’t allowed enough discre-
tion for the facts of a case or the ab-
sence of a criminal history of a con-
victed individual.
This legislative session, Senate Bill
401 would convert Oregon’s manda-
tory minimums for certain felonies
to presumptive sentences, excluding
murder. Judges could give greater or
lesser sentencing. Judges could judge.
It will almost inevitably mean shorter
sentences for many people convicted
of violent crimes.
The Oregon District Attorneys As-
sociation does not want the change.
Three district attorneys have come
out in favor of the bill, including De-
schutes County District Attorney
John Hummel.
Two justifications for keeping Mea-
sure 11 are voters voted for it and state
crime rates dropped after it passed.
“When voters passed Measure 11 in
1994, violent crime rates in Oregon
were at historically high levels. Since
the passage of Measure 11, violent
crime dropped by over 50%, to its low-
est level since the 1960s. While violent
crime declined nationwide during this
period, Oregon violent crime declined
more than anywhere else in the na-
tion,” Oregon’s District Attorneys As-
sociation said in its testimony.
Hummel argued it’s hard to know
exactly if Measure 11 was responsi-
ble or contributed significantly to the
drop in crime. Correlation is there.
Causation is difficult to prove.
The Oregon District Attorneys
Association points out that manda-
tory minimum sentences are not ab-
solutely mandatory. If judges make
particular findings in court, they can
impose less prison time or even no
prison time in some cases. Some ar-
gue Measure 11 sentencing has an
advantage because it makes decisions
based on conduct, not skin color.
Hummel, along with Mike
Schmidt, the Multnomah County
DA, and Matt Ellis, the Wasco
County DA, highlighted in their testi-
mony what has been a concern about
what mandatory minimum sentenc-
ing does to the legal system. It con-
centrates more power in the hands of
district attorneys instead of judges.
DAs can use the threat of a Measure
11 charge as clout in negotiations be-
hind closed doors. “In a system of
criminal justice where over 90% of
cases are resolved via plea offer rather
than trial, the incredible leverage
provided by (Ballot Measure) 11 pro-
vides prosecutors — and prosecutors
alone — the ability to decide the sen-
tence by voluntarily declining to pur-
sue a BM 11 charge, often by electing
to reduce a charge to a lesser offense
or an ‘attempt,’” they wrote.
We aren’t going to tell you what
you should think about Measure 11
or the proposed changes to it in SB
401. We do believe judges are in the
best position to determine what is
just punishment. The changes in SB
401 would not wash away problems.
But it does tilt more power into the
hands of judges where we believe
more power belongs.
Plan to control health costs
may not share your priorities
T
he cost of health care is grow-
ing faster than the wages of
Oregonians. Deductibles and
premiums keep climbing and house-
hold income is not keeping up.
What should Oregon do? A state
committee is working right now on
putting a lid on the growth in health
care costs. It meets again Monday.
Under the plan, Oregon would set
a health care cost growth target. In-
surance and provider cost growth
would be compared to the target and
reported to the public. If costs exceed
the target, insurers and providers
would have to improve or would get
punished. The proposed target is 3.4%
through 2025 and then 3% until 2030.
How Oregon executes this plan
raises many fascinating questions
that we don’t have room to discuss
in this short editorial. One issue
that got our attention is punishment
for those who exceed the cap or re-
fuse to participate. The plan is for a
“meaningful financial penalty” to be
made with concern for the financial
solvency of the business. But “others
felt that there should be no guaran-
tee that ‘flagrant offenders’ who con-
tinue to exceed the cost growth tar-
get should remain in business.”
What will that mean for the idea of
profit? What will it mean for the qual-
ity of care, availability of care, options
for care? We don’t mean to suggest the
committee isn’t thinking about those
things, too. But does it assign them
the same priority as you do? Read
more at tinyurl.com/theoregoncap.
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.
The evolution of Bend’s parking
P
BY MIKE WALKER
arking in Bend has evolved over
the last fifteen years and for
many residents, not in a good
way. This article describes how Bend’s
parking requirements have evolved in
preparation for the upcoming April
21 City Council work session on
parking.
The starting point is the 2006 re-
write of the development code, which
relied on encouraging on-street park-
ing to reduce off-street parking. For
example, restaurant parking require-
ments were reduced by 70% and med-
ical offices by 57%.
Another “reduction” came with a
smorgasbord of parking credits op-
tions that an applicant can use to
further reduce their parking require-
ments by another 20%. For example,
credits were allowed for providing
lockers and showers or having a tran-
sit line within 660 feet.
In 2016-17, city staff advocated the
“right-size” parking movement, which
is based on gathering data on local
parking demand to strike a balance
between local parking supply and lo-
cal parking demand. This movement
was started by Donald Shoup, a pro-
fessor at UCLA who documented a
significant over-supply of parking in
many metropolitan areas where trans-
portation planners used “suburban”
parking requirements in urban envi-
ronments. The Downtown Bend, Gal-
veston Avenue and citywide parking
studies completed in 2017 all used the
principles of “right-size” parking.
Meanwhile, the 2016 urban growth
boundary expansion adopted lower
parking requirements for “mixed-
use” projects and in the Bend Central
GUEST COLUMN
District. In 2019, the parking require-
ments in the Bend Central District
were reduced even further.
In August 2019, the Oregon Leg-
islature passed HB 2001 requiring
“middle housing” in all areas where
single-family housing is allowed.
Plus, no city regulation could cause
unreasonable cost or delay to mid-
dle housing. DLCD, the state agency
tasked with providing “technical as-
sistance” to communities, began a
yearlong process to draft new state
regulations. Parking requirements
were a constant point of contention
in the DLCD’s committees drafting
these proposed regulations. In the last
DLCD committee meeting on Nov.
24, Bend’s Planning Division repre-
sentative lobbied unsuccessfully to
remove an option that would allow
the community to continue to choose
their parking requirements. On Dec.
9, the Land Conservation and Devel-
opment Commission wisely adopted
regulations that allowed three paths to
compliance, which included the path
allowing communities to choose their
parking requirements.
Bend immediately began the pro-
cess to bring Bend’s development
code into compliance. An ad hoc
committee has been meeting every
two weeks, and parking requirements
are a point of contention. In the initial
meeting, staff claimed there was only
two paths to compliance. When some
members pointed out the existence of
the third path (community’s choice),
staff stonewalled any efforts to use
this third path by claiming the proof
required for the third path was too
hard for staff to handle.
In committee meetings, “urbanists”
argue that reducing or eliminating
off-site parking requirements would
remove barriers to affordable hous-
ing. “Right-size” advocates argue that
reducing or eliminating off-street re-
quirements will not achieve the bene-
fits claimed by the urbanists and lead
to burdening adjacent existing busi-
nesses and residents.
In February, Councilor Melanie
Kebler requested and was granted a
work session to consider the elimina-
tion of minimum off-street parking
requirements for all new develop-
ment. Urbanists argue that this new
trend (“social engineering by force”)
is necessary to shift the community
to tall, mixed-used urban cores and
more walkable neighborhoods.
In response, a group of neighbor-
hood association land use chairs com-
piled months of research on this new
trend and created doesparkingmatter.
com to display both sides of the is-
sue. A survey was sent to members of
neighborhood associations to gauge
members’ opinion. The survey is
available to anyone at the website. The
sponsors of the website support right-
size parking requirements based on
local data and a community dialogue.
Urbanist believe off-street parking
will still occur, but they want the com-
munity to trust developers to decide
how much. The council needs to hear
the community’s voice (one of coun-
cil’s new goals).
e e
Mike Walker is a retired civil engineer who worked
over 40 years in land development including the
redevelopment and management of two multi-
tenant properties in Bend.
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Beverly Cleary taught girls to asked to be loved for who they are
BY MONICA HESSE
The Washington Post
A
mong the many indignities en-
dured by Ramona Quimby is
a midyear progress report sent
home by her first grade teacher, which
informs her parents that she is a busy-
body and needs “to learn to keep her
hands to herself.” Ramona, devastated
and misunderstood, tries to explain:
she wasn’t bugging her seatmate, she
was trying to help him. She was doing
her very best.
There, in the penultimate chapter
of “Ramona the Brave,” our 6-year-old
heroine collapses in tears. Her mother
pats her back and murmurs, “What
are we going to do with you?”
And then: “With red eyes, a swollen
face, and a streaming nose, Ramona
sat up and glared at her mother. ‘Love
me!’”
Ramona, sigh. Headstrong and ex-
asperating and grubby and irrepress-
ible. She tries to crack a hard-boiled
egg on her head; it turns out the egg
is raw. Her sheep costume isn’t fin-
ished in time for the Nativity play; she
is forced onstage in her pajamas. The
family’s cat passes away, and though
he never liked Ramona anyway she
still frets over the correct liturgy for a
feline funeral.
Beverly Cleary, whose death at 104
was announced Friday, first intro-
duced Ramona as a minor charac-
ter in a different children’s novel. But
over the next 50 years and eight books
she became her own protagonist, a
real girl suffering the real problems
of childhood, in all of their smallness
and their enormity.
“She does not suffer fools. She is full
of vim and vigor,” wrote Amy Poehler
in the forward of a recently rereleased
Romana novel. “Ramona was a pest!
She was irascible and uncompromis-
ing! She was allowed to be angry and
not afraid to stand up to boys!”
Today these traits would be unre-
markable for a female literary heroine
— standard, even, obsessed as we are
now with the hazy notion of “strong
female characters.” In 1950, when Ra-
mona made her first appearance, they
were not unremarkable; they were
trailblazing. Cleary took every attri-
bute that girls were then warned away
from — bossiness, brashness, hot tem-
per — and she tucked them all into
one character. And then she made that
character into an inspiration.
“Upon a cursory read, it might be
tempting to describe Ramona as mis-
chievous, but Cleary herself has pro-
tested against this accusation, and
with good reason,” read a LitHub
analysis of the character from a few
years ago. “Ramona loves the world
with ferocity; she does not so much
want to disturb it as she yearns to dis-
cover, to turn it over, examine every
piece and crook and marvel at why
each creature, commodity, and sub-
stance exists the way it does.”
First lady Jill Biden put it more sim-
ply. “Millions of girls saw themselves
in Ramona Quimby,” she tweeted on
Friday. “Thank you from all the ‘pests’
out there.”
To identify with Ramona Quimby
was to understand that the world
didn’t fit you yet, but it might one day.
To hold your loved ones to high stan-
dards, and yourself to even higher
ones. To belt out “99 Bottles of Beer on
the Wall” at top volume in the middle
of a rainstorm and to — just once, just
for the bragging rights — get all the
way down to one bottle of beer.
To identify with Ramona Qui-
mby was to never question whether
you were too improper, too loud,
too much. To demand that space be
made for you, and for all the girls like
you, who have more than once heard
someone murmur, “What are we go-
ing to do with you?”
Love me.
Love me.
What a brave and beautiful request.
Some days we are all snot-filled and
red-eyed, wishing the world would
better understand us.
Some days we are not princesses
or princes; we are grubby, unyielding,
irrepressible children, asking for the
one thing every one of us deserves.
e e
Monica Hesse is a Washington Post columnist
writing about gender and its impact on society.