A8 The BulleTin • Thursday, June 24, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Revive the water
bank to help the
Deschutes Basin
B
ring back the Central Oregon Water Bank. In July 2006,
two local irrigation districts and the Deschutes River
Conservancy formed the water bank.
It helped with one of the major
water issues in the Deschutes Basin,
moving water from where it isn’t
needed to where it is.
The water bank made its first deal
in December 2006. The city of Bend
made a deal to take water that was
no longer needed for farming. That
water was put back instream — back
into the river. In return, the city got
mitigation credits so it could pump
more groundwater. The city paid
$161,796. It was better use of the
water in the basin. Dozens of deals
followed.
The problem with the Central
Oregon Water Bank is it effectively
died.
Anything new and different in
water in Oregon can worry water
rights holders and irrigation dis-
tricts. A water bank can be perceived
as a threat, a subtle step toward un-
raveling water rights and disman-
tling the control of irrigation dis-
tricts. Permanently shifting water
away from an irrigation district, if
taken to an extreme, could threaten
its existence.
But a Central Oregon water bank
does not have to be that. Water
banks can mean different things to
different people. This is what we are
talking about:
1. Irrigation districts would have
control.
2. Deals could be only temporary.
3. Deals would be voluntary.
The exchanges would be between
willing local buyers and willing local
sellers. Out-of-state corporations or
other entities would not be allowed
to scoop up Deschutes Basin water.
Local people would be working to
create better arrangements to meet
local water needs.
Nobody would be forced to do
anything. It wouldn’t change any
state law. It could be structured to do
only temporary transactions. Noth-
ing permanent. Water rights would
be retained. The Deschutes River
Conservancy could manage it, as it
did before.
As the basin urbanizes, it’s a fact
that less water is needed for farm-
ing. There have got to be ways to
properly reallocate water in a ba-
sin system that is for the most part
inflexible.
A water bank isn’t the only solu-
tion. A water bank doesn’t solve a
drought. But unless changes are
made the Deschutes Basin is going
to face continued gaps between the
supply of water and demand. The
most comprehensive basin study put
that number at 135,000 acre feet to
350,000 acre feet in dry years. (An
acre-foot equals about 326,000 gal-
lons, or enough water to cover an
acre of land one foot deep.)
Yes, we need to make changes to
increase the efficiency of how wa-
ter is used, such as canal piping and
improvements in irrigation. But it’s
cheaper to make changes, such as
the water bank, that make it easier to
shift water where it is needed. Bring
back the water bank.
Think about making
commissioners nonpartisan
C
onsider signing the petitions
circulating to put an initia-
tive on the ballot to allow De-
schutes County voters to decide if
they want county commissioners to
be nonpartisan.
There’s no need for the politics of
the County Commission to be ex-
plicitly partisan. Parties could still
back candidates if the positions were
nonpartisan. Of course, there would
still be partisan debates. But perhaps
partisanship would be less of a focus.
Nonaffiliated voters — voters who
are not a member of any party —
outnumber Democrats and Repub-
licans in Deschutes County. As of
May 2021, the numbers are 47,486
nonaffiliated, 47,140 Democrats and
44,517 Republicans. Other parties
are represented too, with the 9,003
members of the Independent Party
being the largest.
Those nonaffiliated voters can be
shut out of the party primaries that
determine which candidates end
up on the final ballot. It’s not fair to
carve out the plurality of voters from
that process. Let’s try to tone down
the partisanship.
The effort to make the positions
nonpartisan is a grassroots effort
led by Mimi Alkire of Sisters. It
doesn’t even have a website. But she
and others are gathering signatures.
They need more than 9,000 to get on
the ballot. There have been signature
gatherers outside the Downtown
Bend Public Library on every other
Wednesday and in Sisters on some
Sundays.
If you want more information,
you can email Alkire at mimi.
alkire@gmail.com. The goal had
been to get the initiative on the No-
vember 2021 ballot, though Alkire
said they may need to shoot for May
2022.
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
Please get vaccinated
On May 27, a close family friend
had a non-COVID-19 medical emer-
gency and was taken to St. Charles.
With COVID-19 at a recent peak in
Central Oregon, the hospital’s ICU
was full! As a result, our friend and
another patient had to be flown to St.
Luke Hospital in Boise, Idaho, for care.
We were told that there were no ICU
beds available in Oregon! Everyone
is thankful to the dedicated staff at St.
Charles and St. Lukes for their care
and compassion to help every patient.
The disappointing and frustrating
aspect about this situation was the
number of unvaccinated COVID-19
patients. An article published in The
Oregonian on May 30 noted that
since March 98% of the hospitalized
COVID-19 patients were unvacci-
nated! Vaccinations keep people out
of the hospital or lessens the sever-
ity of the illness. In turn, freeing up
hospital space for others in need of
immediate critical care. Getting vac-
cinated is not political; it’s about pub-
lic safety; get vaccinated and free up a
hospital bed for someone who needs
it. It may be your parents, child or, like
us, a close friend who can’t get care
when needed.
— Jim Hendryx, Redmond
Reconsider library location
It is time for the Deschutes Public
Library Board to reconsider it’s deci-
sion to construct a new “central” li-
brary off of U.S. Highway 20 on the
north side of Bend. This plan is wrong
on a number of counts:
1. Libraries need to be located
where they are readily accessible by
public transit, pedestrians, bike riders,
and the elderly.
2. The central library needs to be
located near higher population den-
sity areas in order to function as the
community center that the board en-
visions.
3. Sprawling onto undeveloped
land on the periphery of the city is a
very irresponsible land use policy. The
city of Bend has done an admirable
job of containing urban sprawl. This
plan “flies in the face” of other com-
munity land use planning efforts.
4. Placing the “central” library in a
location that promotes driving does
not reflect a commitment to environ-
mental sustainability. This is the last
thing we need.
5. Building a new “central” library
uses resources that could be better
spent upgrading and improving ex-
isting facilities and expanding online
and digital resources
I probably could go on with more
objections — but, I assume you un-
derstand the concerns. I have always
voted for library bonds, based on faith
that the library board and staff would
make responsible decisions and spend
our resources wisely. Apparently my
faith has been misplaced.
I hope the board will take the opin-
ions of the many community leaders
who have opposed the library’s cur-
rent plan and will reconsider its deci-
sion in an open and timely manner.
— John Stockham, Bend
Leave library plan in place
I just finished reading the article
in The Bulletin regarding the contro-
versy surrounding the location for the
new regional library.
I am surprised that the objections
are mainly east location vs. north. I
feel that the downtown core and east
locations are served by the satellite
branch in existence on Greenwood
and the original library downtown.
If this library is to serve all of De-
schutes County, then the north loca-
tion should be the only one consid-
ered! Redmond and Sisters would
have much easier access to the loca-
tion proposed. The board had it right
all along. Leave the plan in place and
let the new library build begin!
— Joan Alltucker, Bend
Library location will help
Regarding the recent article about
opposition to the proposed new li-
brary location at Robal Lane and U.S.
Highway 20: I live in Tumalo, and I
am underserved by the current library
locations. A library in this new loca-
tion would be practical and conve-
nient for the thousands who live out
that way and also alleviate some of
the bottleneck at the downtown and
east side locations. I am in my late
60s, one of those who guest columnist
Louis Capozzi allegedly represents,
but those in opposition do not speak
for me. I would like to remind new li-
brary board member Anne Ness that
there is no need to “relook” at any-
thing regarding the bond measure
and funding.
I believe it is the board’s obligation to
give the voters what they asked for in
the approved bond measure, and I ap-
plaud Todd Dunkelberg for staying the
course. In fairness to the library’s un-
derserved constituents, please build the
new library in its proposed location.
— Susan Rolá, Tumalo
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What Biden and a lot of other people get wrong about journalists
BY MARGARET SULLIVAN
The Washington Post
J
ournalism has never been the
most admired of professions,
and in recent years, the rap on
its practitioners has only gotten
worse.
Gallup puts trust in the news media
at about 40% nationally, a steep drop
from its high point of more than 70%
in the 1970s — the days of The Wash-
ington Post’s Watergate reporting, the
publication of the Pentagon Papers re-
vealing the secret history of the Viet-
nam War, and the nation’s nightly rit-
ual of watching CBS’ Walter Cronkite,
known as the most trusted man in
America.
Even President Joe Biden, in Ge-
neva for a summit meeting with Rus-
sian President Vladimir Putin last
week, took a swipe at journalists’ ap-
proach to their jobs.
“To be a good reporter, you got to
be negative. ... You got to have a neg-
ative view of life, it seems to me,” he
charged, addressing his angry reac-
tion to CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins,
who earlier had challenged him about
whether there was any reason to char-
acterize the meetings positively, con-
sidering Putin’s relentlessly authori-
tarian record. (Biden apologized for
being a “wise guy.”)
Biden’s predecessor, of course, spent
his entire presidency trashing what he
called “fake news,” calling reporters
scum or enemies of the people and
gleefully insulting specific journalists
and news organizations. As president,
Donald Trump had particular scorn
for CNN, the New York Times and
The Washington Post.
Do journalists really deserve these
low grades and smackdowns? The cele-
brated long-form journalist Janet Mal-
colm certainly thought so.
When she died last week, obituaries
reprised the famously devastating cri-
tique that opened her 1989 New Yorker
magazine piece, later to become a book,
“The Journalist and the Murderer.”
“Every journalist who is not too stu-
pid or too full of himself to notice what
is going on knows that what he does is
morally indefensible,” she wrote. “He is
a kind of confidence man, preying on
people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness,
gaining their trust and betraying them
without remorse.”
Ron Ostrow, the longtime Washing-
ton reporter for the Los Angeles Times
who broke one of the most important
Watergate stories, was respected on
both sides of the aisle. “He was tough
as a journalist, kind as a person,” Attor-
ney General Merrick Garland recalled
for an obituary of Ostrow in the Times.
It also quoted former attorney general
William Barr’s praise and this from
William Webster, a former FBI and
CIA director: “You could trust him. ...
If somebody got hit by Ron, it was be-
cause they deserved it.”
This doesn’t sound like a con artist or
a relentlessly negative nabob. It sounds
like a lot of reporters I know who are still
working today or just making their way
into the craft.
Then there was Dick Stolley, whose
several claims to fame included getting
his hands on a copy of the Zapruder film
footage of President John F. Kennedy’s
1963 assassination for Life magazine. It
was a scoop for the ages, made possible
only through Stolley’s sheer persistence,
mixed with his sixth sense of when to
stop pushing.
A stringer for Life told him about the
existence of amateur film footage show-
ing the moment when the president
was shot, according to Stolley’s Wash-
ington Post obituary: “She could not
spell the photographer’s surname but
told Mr. Stolley that it was pronounced
Za-proo-der. Thumbing through the
Z pages of the phone book, Mr. Stolley
came upon the entry ‘Zapruder, Abra-
ham.’ He called, again and again, every
15 minutes, until sometime around
11 p.m., Zapruder answered.”
Zapruder said he was exhausted, and
Stolley was wise enough not to press.
They agreed to meet at 9 a.m. the next
day. Stolley showed up early, before other
reporters, and viewed the astonishing 26
seconds of film.
Stolley later recalled Zapruder’s assis-
tant asking him whether he knew why he
got to see it ahead of all the other clamor-
ing journalists.
“I have no idea,” Stolley said he re-
plied.
“Because you were a gentleman,” the
assistant explained.
Twenty-first century American me-
dia has some terrible flaws, no doubt. It
too often chases clicks and gossip over
substance, turns minutiae into moun-
tains and shamefully gives a platform to
proven liars.
But are journalists too negative?
That’s not the problem. Our role is not
to cheerlead for the people we cover.
Does mainstream journalism de-
serve only a 10% approval rating
among Republicans? Absolutely not.
There are valid complaints about bias,
but many of these respondents, I’d wa-
ger, are simply averse to the intrusion
of reality.
But could we — must we — be much
better? I can’t argue with that.
e
Margaret Sullivan is The Washington Post’s media
columnist.