A8 The BulleTin • Thursday, June 3, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Should the county
invest in public
health for students?
K
ids need to be back in school. Once that’s stable, the new
challenge will be making up for any learning lost.
But the old challenges have not
gone away.
Deschutes County has one of the
highest rates of youth suicide in the
state. The county rate is 18.9 suicides
per 100,000. Suicide is preventable.
About 90% of people with suicidal
intent that receive intervention do not
die by suicide.
Use of e-cigarettes is spiking in
Oregon. And substance abuse in De-
schutes County youth trends higher
than in other parts of the state. About
29% of county 11th graders reported
e-cigarette use in a 2018 survey. Binge
drinking and marijuana use among
11th graders were both at about 20%.
Teens and young adults also have
the highest rates of sexually transmit-
ted infections across the country. In
Deschutes County about 30% of the
chlamydia cases have been in people
19 and younger. And there were 25
teen pregnancies among 10-17 year-
olds in the county in 2019.
Those factors can sabotage a stu-
dent’s ability to learn. They can derail
the ability of students to get jobs. They
can damage students physically and
mentally.
Teachers can teach. They have less
expertise with these other issues.
Almost a year ago Bend-La Pine
Schools went to the county for help.
They proposed a novel partnership
with the professionals at Deschutes
County Public Health. The county
would embed health educators in
schools to work with students on
health promotion and prevention. It
was going to be a three-year pilot.
If ever there was an issue that de-
served a thorough policy debate, it
was this. It didn’t get it last year. Com-
missioners had questions. Nobody
from the district was there to answer.
The school district’s own budget
meetings conflicted with one county
meeting. District officials were not
notified that it was going to be dis-
cussed at another county meeting. No
surprise, the county didn’t fund it. It
was a failure that such an important
issue got scant attention. Commis-
sioner Phil Chang, elected in Novem-
ber, made that part of his election
campaign.
This year, on Tuesday, the Youth
Success Partnership got the debate it
deserved. School board member Me-
lissa Dholakia was joined by other
school district staff at the county.
Leaders of the county’s health services
department explained the program.
The cost would be about $323,000
in the first year and $770,000 by the
third year. That’s primarily person-
nel with 5.8 FTE at the end of the
third year. The county and the district
would split the cost, 50/50.
Yes, it’s a lot of money for an un-
proven program. But there are social
costs and financial costs that it might
offset. Outpatient substance abuse
treatment can cost $8,000. A teen
pregnancy can cost double that. And
those are just immediate costs. The
plan is the program’s performance
would be measured to attempt to
demonstrate if the investment works.
Another consideration is fairness.
If such a program works, Sisters and
Redmond school districts deserve
to be able to participate. That would
mean even more county money.
And a third issue is the other com-
peting needs for county dollars. The
Youth Success Partnership is just one
of many worthy, additional requests
for money in the county budget. It
was actually put behind others in pri-
ority in the proposed budget. It’s be-
hind things such as a new perinatal
care position (net cost about $89,000),
converting a substance abuse preven-
tion position to full-time (net cost
about $32,000) and more than six
new positions in the county’s behav-
ioral health and adult services pro-
grams (net cost about $480,000).
Of course it would be nice to do
all of them. Commissioner Chang
told us commissioners won’t likely
decide until Friday when they weigh
all the requests and the money avail-
able. Should services that will help
more adults come first? Should kids
come first? Is that even the right way
to weigh the options? At least this
year, the county and the school dis-
trict ensured the Youth Success Part-
nership got a fighting chance.
Deschutes has a $9.2M
surplus in tourism taxes
W
eighing special requests
for funding — as we de-
scribed in today’s other
editorial — isn’t the only budget
challenge Deschutes County com-
missioners face. The county has a
surplus of some $9.2 million in its
tourism dollars. What should it do
with the money?
This is money from transient
room taxes. The tax is paid by peo-
ple staying overnight in lodging in
the county’s unincorporated areas.
For the last several years, the
county has underestimated how
much that would bring in. The sur-
plus or technically “unallocated”
money is money left over after the
county fulfills its commitments to
the Central Oregon Visitors As-
sociation, the Sheriff’s Office and
the county’s environmental health
efforts.
The county can’t just spend the
surplus however it likes. Just how
such tourism money can be spent
has been an ongoing battle in Or-
egon. Basically the rules have been
that it has to be related in some way
to tourism or the additional burdens
tourism puts on the community.
The county might consider using it
for a big ticket item — courthouse
expansion. It could give more to the
Sheriff’s Office to reduce the need
to raise tax rates. It could keep some
in reserves, among other options. If
you have an opinion, let the com-
missioners know. You can email
them at board@deschutes.org.
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
The border is a travesty
Losing the glue
In Sen. Jeff Merkley’s recent virtual
townhall, he dismisses concerns about
rampant illegal immigration and re-
peats the adage that immigrants have
lower crime rates than citizens.
One has to wonder what the sena-
tor would say to the parents of Mol-
lie Tibbets of Iowa who was brutally
stabbed to death in 2018 by an indi-
vidual here illegally, or the parents of
Sara Root killed by a man here ille-
gally from Honduras who was street
racing while legally intoxicated and
ran into Sara’s car, killing her.
It is estimated by Pew Research that
over 12 million individuals live in the
U.S. illegally and the number is grow-
ing with more than 178,000 appre-
hended at the border in April.
According to the Oregon Depart-
ment of Corrections, more than 6% of
the felons in Oregon’s prisons are here
illegally and cost taxpayers $33 mil-
lion per year.
Under President Biden’s “open
border” policies, many are simply re-
leased into the U.S.
A majority are looking for higher
paying jobs, but if only 1% of the 12
million commit a serious crime, that
adds up to 120,000 crimes that would
not have been committed had these
illegal migrants been prevented from
entering the country.
Most citizens support legal im-
migration with reasonable numbers
allowed in who will be vetted and re-
quired to learn about our government
and laws.
What is occurring on our border
now is a travesty and should reflect
badly on our senators and president.
— Larry Nelson, Bend
This Memorial Day as I watched
our city’s familiar ceremony, I was
struck by a few things. First, the
crowd of folks was smaller than ever
— and this a trend. Second, the crowd
of faces was aging. Third, and most
importantly, I saw that the reason we
few still show up no longer resonates
with younger folk ... or even with
older folk who have no service con-
nections. Fourth, I glimpsed a future
where nobody shows up — a Memo-
rial Day become a sterile political rit-
ual devoid of deep meaning.
I am not criticizing the lack of car-
ing evidenced by others. They have
not had the same life-changing expe-
riences we had. How can you know
how we feel about our comrades, liv-
ing and dead, when you have never
been part of a team where job per-
formance is a matter of life or death...
when you have never lost a loved one
who was serving...when you have not
spent years turning strangers into
brothers and sisters; sharing long pa-
trols and living a code of values that is
uniquely military.
No, I don’t blame anyone... it just is.
For my part, I am proud of my time
in the service. I was able to help save
the lives of my countrymen in time
of war. These experiences shaped the
rest of my life into something I am
proud of. I am truly glad that we are
not so deeply engaged in war any-
more, but I think we are losing some
of the glue that used to bond us.
— Anne Graham, Redmond
Follow up on reporting
I am concerned about The Bulle-
tin’s reporting focus and the safety
of our community. Your Wednesday
5/26 edition contained a front-page
story about the removal on Tuesday
of a camp shelter next to a highway,
while a more serious threat caused by
a fire Monday at an apparent transient
camp in the Deschutes River canyon
received scant attention. The Bulletin
published only a short press release
from Bend Fire & Rescue inside the
same edition.
The fire was caused by an explosion
at a camp in the canyon below SW
Bend neighborhoods. Bend Fire &
Rescue responders had to downclimb
a very steep and dangerous cliff face
to reach the fire. Their quick response
and the lack of wind avoided a disas-
ter for the neighborhoods.
The Bulletin’s Wednesday and
Thursday editions did not have any re-
portage on the cause of the explosion,
any people cited, any hazardous mate-
rial remaining, or the response of Bend
authorities to this threat. This site had
been reported to the authorities.
In contrast, the front-page story
on the structure removal contained
photos and multiple interviews with
the camper and representatives from
ODOT, code enforcement, and home-
less services. The reporter quoted the
representatives as expressing concern
about the fire risk posed by a struc-
ture next to a highway. No one ex-
pressed concern about the fire risk
posed by transient camps in hard-to-
reach areas of the city.
The Bulletin should focus its lim-
ited reporting resources on the fire
threat to neighborhoods posed by
camps, and Wednesday’s edition is an
ironic example of misplaced attention.
— Dave Norton, Bend
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Manic housing market needs a calming dose of deregulation
BY MICHAEL R. STRAIN
Bloomberg
T
he U.S. housing market is on
fire, with the supply of available
homes falling drastically short
of pandemic-stoked demand. Worry-
warts are calling it a “crisis” and circu-
lating weird tales of buyer desperation
— including one about a supplicant in
Bethesda, Maryland who apparently
offered to name her firstborn child af-
ter a seller — and warnings of stunted
recoveries. Or maybe the thing to fear
is another speculative bubble, like the
one that set off the 2008 global finan-
cial crisis.
The better way to think about the
hot market is more prosaic: Demand
for houses is booming as the pan-
demic recedes, and supply can’t keep
up because of both temporary and
longer-term factors.
Short-term causes notwithstand-
ing, the imbalance is likely to persist.
So states and localities should use it as
an opportunity to rethink regulations
that make it harder to expand the sup-
ply of housing.
Data released last Tuesday show
that housing prices are soaring, grow-
ing by 13.2% for the year ending in
March, according to the S&P Core-
Logic Case-Shiller Home Price Index.
That represents the biggest increase
since December 2005.
My colleagues at the American En-
terprise Institute Housing Center re-
port similar growth, 12.6%, and find
that prices grew rapidly for low-cost
and high-cost housing.
Each of the 40 largest metro areas
experienced price growth of at least
7% in March relative to one year ago,
with prices in Phoenix and Austin ris-
ing by over 16%.
Demand for housing is booming.
According to a National Association
of Realtors survey, there were an aver-
age of five offers made for every home
sold in April. Houses stayed on the
market that month by a median 17
days, down from 27 the previous year.
New-home sales are at their highest
levels since 2007, and sales of existing
homes are up, too.
Surging demand is meeting limited
supply. The share of houses that are
unoccupied and on the market is at its
lowest level since the 1970s.
To address it, policymakers should
focus on the root of the problem: sup-
ply. Soaring home prices can be an
opportunity to take on the entrenched
interests that make it so difficult to
roll back land-use, zoning and per-
mit-related regulations, freeing up
land and making it easier and less
costly to build houses. More houses
mean lower prices.
The path to affordable housing lies
with deregulation.
e e
Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg columnist. He
is director of economic policy studies and Arthur
F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the
American Enterprise Institute.