A8 The BulleTin • Tuesday, april 20, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Another parking
debate for the
Bend City Council
O
ne of the most dangerous places on earth can be in
downtown Bend between a parking spot-hungry driver
and an empty spot. The driver’s eyes light up, the jaws
drop down and there can be a herky-jerky swerve across lanes to
stake a claim.
Just as impassioned can be the
debate over parking in Bend. Paid
parking. Requiring permits. Angled
or straight? These may not sound
like the varsity in the world of pub-
lic policy topics. They do hit home,
or at least on the street right in front
of the home.
So when the Bend City Council
turns again to the subject of parking
this week, limbic systems can shoot
to 10. First to consider on this week’s
agenda are parklets. Those are those
little carve outs of parking spaces to
give businesses more room to op-
erate during the pandemic. They
could not save every business. They
did allow restaurants and bars to
spread their footprint out into the
street, giving them more of a fight-
ing chance due to the spacing re-
quirements of the pandemic.
Parklets were a temporary mea-
sure. They do devour parking
spaces where they can be scarce. If
they help more businesses stay open
and thrive, what is so wrong with
that?
The council is going to be consid-
ering allowing parklets more per-
manently. If you have concerns and
objections, read up on the idea and
sound off. More information on this
page: tinyurl.com/bendparklet. You
can email councilors at council@
bendoregon.gov.
The second parking matter on the
council agenda is not clearly spelled
out. It just says: “minimum parking
requirements.” Those three words
pack a wallop. Groups have rallied
for and against. Should Bend re-
quire a minimum amount of park-
ing for new homes, apartments and
businesses? Or should it let the de-
veloper decide? And what should
any shift in policy mean for parking
lots that already exist?
Hefty questions. The answers the
councilors pick won’t get them pro-
moted to governor. They are im-
portant. As for you, you could lose
out if you don’t get your thoughts
on the matter to councilors. You can
write them at council@bendoregon.
gov or write us a letter to the editor
of up to 250 words and email us at
letters@bendbulletin.com.
Prescribed burns
are worth the smoke
S
pring brings budding flowers,
hopefully showers and also
smoke from prescribed burns.
We can guess which people don’t
like the most.
Remember though how bad the
smoke got last year. It was terrible,
and the air was unhealthy to breathe
for days on end. Air quality was the
worst it had ever been, at least since
the state started recording.
Prescribed burns will not pre-
vent forest fires. The fires will come,
anyway. Prescribed burns can lower
the intensity of fires and sometimes
make it easier to fight them. They
can also actually help improve the
health of the forest. Historically for-
ests weren’t as dense as many are
now.
One of the best ways to learn
more is to go to the Deschutes Forest
Collaborative’s website. It even has a
live map of planned burning.
When they burn, forest officials
do try to pick the right conditions
and do their best to ensure commu-
nities don’t get wreathed in smoke.
The smoke from prescribed burns
can be unpleasant even unhealthy
for some people. But it is much bet-
ter to do it now and to have fewer
situations where the smoke is less
under control.
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
Brown’s vaccination policy was right
As seniors, age 76 and 80, and former educators, my
husband and I fully support the priority given to teachers
for the vaccine. We understand the visceral fear of mor-
tality risks in our age group, but the fact is, our ages make
us more vulnerable to everything, including falling, dete-
riorating joints, organ issues and a variety of terminal dis-
eases.
The flip side is our privilege of staying safely at home
with no obligation to work supporting a family or ensur-
ing our societal wheels keep turning! Teachers and support
staffs have no more choice in fulfilling job contracts in get-
ting our kids back to school than doctors and nurses have
in keeping us healthy. Likewise, any necessary group living
populations have no choice for safety, including prisoners,
essential retail workers and any senior living facilities. They
all keep our immediate lives functioning!
Yes, some folks have been lucky to nab leftover doses out
of order, but overall, our friends support Governor Kate
Brown’s team efforts to meet as many needs as possible. At
this age, patience counts more than privilege.
— Wendie Vermillion, Sisters
Lawler for the library board
I would like to thank The Bulletin for its April 7, en-
dorsement of my bid for reelection to the Deschutes Pub-
lic Library’s board of directors. I’m the incumbent repre-
sentative for Zone 3 which primarily encompasses south
Deschutes County, including La Pine where I’ve lived for
almost 17 years.
I have volunteered at the La Pine Library for 16 years.
For the last 10 years, I’ve had the privilege of serving on the
library board and am currently board president. The board
works closely with the library director to ensure that our
facilities and services keep pace with population growth
and changing community needs.
I’m proud to be associated with this organization. Our
library branches provide extensive, free resources that all
county residents can readily access, either in person or on-
line. Our library system is considered one of the best in Or-
egon and has achieved national recognition as well. This is
due to the hard work and dedication of our amazing staff
– from the employees who greet you when you visit any of
our branches, to the many folks (both paid and volunteer)
who work behind the scenes to ensure the excellent service
you have come to expect.
If you think as highly of your library as I do, I would
again like to ask south county residents for their vote so I
can continue my involvement on the board of this first-rate
library system.
— Martha Lawler, La Pine
On your left
I have been bicycling in and around Bend for many
years, east side, west side, all-around Central Oregon, and
even beyond, and I have a pet peeve that I want to air. No,
it is not about drivers in their cars versus riders on their bi-
cycles; it is about bicyclists versus bicyclists. I mostly ride
on my heavy steel touring bike, so I am pretty slow going
up Century or Skyliner, or doing the Twin Bridges scenic
route, and thus am often passed by other riders on lighter
bikes, and with younger legs.
That is fine with me; but here is why I get peeved: maybe
1 in 10 will let me know they are overtaking me, no shout-
out, no howdy, just suddenly they are there, whizzing by, at
arm’s distance (or less), often startling me. I believe that it is
only good biking etiquette to let someone know when you
are approaching and going to pass. It is not only good eti-
quette, but also safer for both bicyclists, and more friendly
to do so. So, I am asking all cyclists out there, whether you
are on a road bike, mountain bike, or e-bike, to join me in
a campaign this riding season to ride more courteously,
safely, and friendly, and give a shout out when you are
about to overtake another cyclist. “Hey Bob, on your left”
or just “Hey, on your left!” Even if it is not me, your gesture
will be appreciated! Thanks!
— Bob Sanders, Bend
Traffic enforcement is broken in the United States. Here’s how we can fix it.
BY CHRISTY E. LOPEZ
The Washington Post
I
f we are serious about prevent-
ing needless deaths and routine
humiliation of Black and Latino
drivers at the hands of police, we
need to change how we promote traf-
fic safety in the United States.
Police make 20 million traffic stops
every year. That means millions of
opportunities for things to go tragi-
cally wrong, as they did not only for
Daunte Wright this month in Min-
nesota but also for Philando Cas-
tile, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott and
countless others who escaped with
their lives but whose lives nonetheless
were forever impacted.
Are these 20 million stops worth
this cost? Absolutely not. In fact, only
a fraction of them are for the purpose
of traffic safety. Traffic stops often are
about one of two things instead: rais-
ing revenue, or using minor traffic
violations as a pretext to investigate
people for something entirely unre-
lated to traffic safety.
There is some indication that the
stop of Army 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario
by Windsor, Virginia, police — the
video of which went viral this month
because of the dehumanizing way
Nazario was treated — may be an ex-
ample of what happens when towns
use police traffic enforcement to raise
revenue. Windsor has a population
of 2,700. It is fair to ask why it has any
police — there is already a county
123RF
sheriff, after all — much less seven of
them. Part of the reason may be that
6% of Windsor’s revenue comes from
traffic fines.
And Windsor pales in compar-
ison to many other small towns in
the United States that generate more
than half of their revenue from fines
and fees grounded largely in traffic
enforcement. Cities with more Black
residents rely more on traffic tickets
and fines for revenue, and these sys-
tems can push people into poverty.
What happened to Nazario is an
inevitable consequence of this ap-
proach: Police are encouraged to pri-
oritize traffic enforcement; people,
especially Black and Latino people,
experience these stops as somewhere
between annoying and terrifying and
respond accordingly; police — desen-
sitized to the harm of the intrusion
and emboldened to expect submis-
sion — overreact.
It may also be that Nazario was
stopped, as Wright appears to have
been, as a “pretext” to conduct an
otherwise legally unjustified investi-
gation. The Supreme Court legalized
this tactic in Whren v. United States.
Under Whren, as long as police can
find some infraction, they can stop
and question the driver, often con-
duct a limited search of the car, re-
quire the occupants to sit on the curb,
and try to get the driver to consent to
a more thorough search of their bod-
ies or their vehicle. This might not be
so bad if these searches had a good
chance of preventing serious crimes.
But data shows that few stops serve a
significant public safety purpose —
usually less than 1% turn up any con-
traband at all.
What’s more, police spend a lot of
time on traffic stops that even some
agencies have found not worth the
effort. One study found that in just
11 law enforcement agencies, police
spent 85,000 officer hours over 10
years just on potential nonmoving vi-
olations.
This means that for little public
safety payoff, we’ve created a racially
biased, time-consuming and danger-
ous traffic enforcement system, and in
the process relinquished our constitu-
tional rights. We have made our roads
a Fourth Amendment-free zone in
which officers literally can stop any-
one they want based on random se-
lection or, worse, racial bias. Study af-
ter study shows that Black drivers are
searched more often than white driv-
ers during stops, but found to have
guns or drugs less often.
There are at least three things we
can do to reduce the harm and ra-
cial disparities of traffic enforcement
without compromising public safety.
First, we can take much of traf-
fic enforcement out of the hands of
police. Some places are shifting traf-
fic enforcement to unarmed traffic
safety experts. Relatedly, we can make
better use of transportation design
and technology. There are legitimate
concerns about where red-light and
speed cameras are placed, but I’ve
never seen one pepper-spray a mo-
torist or show a strange proclivity
for targeting Black drivers when it
was light enough to see skin color.
This shift would reserve police stops
for immediate threats — such as
drunken driving — that arguably re-
quire a police response.
Second, cities and states should
reject pretext stops, by prohibiting
their use, reducing the infractions
for which police can stop people, and
cleaning up often-antiquated vehicle
codes to remove violations that have
little to do with public safety and ev-
erything to do with allowing police
to stop people at will. Pro tip: Pro-
hibiting air fresheners hanging from
rearview mirrors is not motivated by
a traffic safety concern.
Third, cities should shift the re-
sources currently used for our
harm-inefficient traffic enforcement
system to evidence-informed pro-
grams for preventing gun violence
and reducing the harm of illicit
drugs.
We should encourage and learn
from those efforts to create a traffic
safety system that does not kill and
humiliate.
e e
Christy E. Lopez, a Washington Post contributing
columnist, is a professor from practice at
the Georgetown University Law Center in
Washington, D.C.