A8 The BulleTin • Wednesday, July 13, 2022
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
A bit about Bend’s
home energy score
program and critics
C
ritics of Bend’s proposed home energy score have raised
a number of issues. We thought we’d take a look at two
— the importance of having enough inspectors and the
use of utility bills, instead of a score requirement.
A home energy score is like a
miles per gallon rating, but for a
home. The city’s draft plan is to re-
quire an inspection before a home
is listed for sale. A licensed assessor
would be required to do it. It might
cost between $150 to $300. That
cost would be the responsibility of
the seller.
The idea is it gives a buyer more
information about the actual cost of
operating a home. And it might en-
courage some people to make more
investments in energy efficient
heating and cooling, solar panels or
more insulation. In turn, that might
make Bend greener.
The city has developed a website
with lots of information and to try
to anticipate some of the inevitable
questions. An ordinance has been
drafted and council members are
scheduled to take a look at it on July
25.
Critics and supporters have asked
about having enough certified as-
sessors to do the inspections. No-
body wants a bottleneck created so
people would be unable to move
swiftly to sell their homes or that
the cost of an inspection would
rocket up.
City staff has said “staff will re-
view the availability of assessors be-
fore the launch of the program and
recommend delaying the program
launch if an insufficient number
of assessors are ready to offer the
service.”
OK, how many assessors does the
city say are enough and how is it de-
termining that number? It should
establish that methodology now,
not adjust it on the fly. Some city
documents say the estimated num-
ber of assessors for Bend would be
10. Is that the number the city is us-
ing? If that’s not it, what is it?
Another argument we have
heard recently is that the program
is downright unnecessary. The
city could save homeowners cost
and hassle by asking or requiring
a seller to provide recent utility
bills. That would give a seller an
idea of utility costs without requir-
ing inspections or additional cost.
The city’s counter argument is that
a home energy score is superior
to handing over utility bills, be-
cause energy use will vary. A home
energy score is a more objective
measure.
Councilors will be making a de-
cision about this program soon.
There is more information available
here, tinyurl.com/BendHES. You
can give councilors input on the
program at council@bendoregon.
gov.
Should the east Bend
library stay or go?
T
he future of the East Bend
Public Library is only guar-
anteed until 2025. Then the
lease expires.
Should it stay or go?
The Deschutes Public Library
Board is going to be discussing that
on Wednesday.
The branch offers comprehensive
services, books, movies, music. It
has lectures and story times for chil-
dren. The whole library shebang.
Some programs are offered in En-
glish and Spanish.
It’s small at about 8,000 square
feet. It’s across U.S. Highway 20
from The Forum shopping center.
The key thing: It is in rented space.
Todd Dunkelberg, the library’s
executive director, told us Mon-
day the board will talk about op-
tions. It could renew the lease. But
if the new central library is on the
east side of Bend as planned, off
of 27th Street, does there need to
█
be two library locations on Bend’s
east side?
Some improvements were
planned for the east Bend library
as part of the district’s $195 million
bond. All the other branch libraries
are going to get improvements as
well. The new central library is the
big ticket item.
It may be premature to make a
decision about the east Bend library
until the future of the central library
is more certain. The library board
is still doing research about its pro-
posed site at 27th Street and Wil-
derness Way.
Still, the discussion Wednes-
day may shape the east Bend
branch’s future. What do you
think should happen? You can
tell the library board what you
think at board@deschuteslibrary.
org. More information about the
board meeting is here, tinyurl.
com/071322Library.
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
Scenic, but not wild
On June 1 Crooked River stake-
holders met to plan water usage for
the remainder of the year. Ochoco
Irrigation District will end irrigation
on Aug. 15. The Bureau of Reclama-
tion will limit flow to 10 cfs until Oct.
1, the official end of the irrigation
season. After Oct. 1 flows will be 50
cfs as required by the Habitat Con-
servation Plan.
Flows of 10 cfs during the hot-
test months of the year will be cata-
strophic to wildlife in the river. Fish,
aquatic insects, herons, osprey, mink,
otters and others will all suffer. This
problem is exacerbated by over sub-
scription of water in the system.
The recent federal Crooked River
Security Act added new commit-
ments to the river. Why the federal
government is managing water that
belongs to the state of Oregon is an
unanswered question. However, the
upcoming disaster could be avoided
with a little adaptive management.
According to my calculations, if flows
were lowered to 43 cfs in August and
maintained until irrigation season
2023, the disaster could be avoided or
at least postponed for another year.
— John Butler, Redmond
Don’t kill kangaroos for shoes
Yes, let’s stop the slaughter of kan-
garoos for shoes. This is so unfair
and unnecessary.
Kangaroos are beautiful, wild ani-
mals. Shoes can be made with many
other materials, not necessitating the
killing of defenseless animals. The
people who do this should be ban-
ished from earth.
I strongly feel this is completely
wrong and should stop immediately.
— Erica Hartman, Sisters
Where is the fentanyl coming
from?
It seems obvious to all of us that
the fentanyl problem is becoming
a national crisis. Anything that can
be done to save the lives of those ex-
posed should be addressed.
What I find interesting about the
recent editorial is that it doesn’t ad-
dress the root of the problem. Where
is the stuff manufactured? How does
it get here? What is being done to
prevent it’s continued trafficking into
the U.S.A.?
From all I read it is being brought
in through our open southern bor-
der. I just wish the media would take
some responsibility to address the
trafficking problem, and not just
what happens once it gets here.
— Dick Bryant, Redmond
Location for a central library
I write to support Gentry Wade’s
comments in The Bulletin about a
central location for a primary De-
schutes Public Library building. To
do this would it not be possible to: 1)
revise the existing renovation plans
for the existing downtown Bend li-
brary building to add two or three
floors, and 2) add an elevated pedes-
trian walkway over Kansas Street to
connect the main building to a new
high rise building and a high rise
parking structure on the property
adjacent to Kansas Street. Lastly, to
Wade’s point about a “big audito-
rium”, is it really appropriate for li-
brary district-approved funds to be
used to include what, on the Bend
library website, sounds and looks like
a performing arts center for the city
of Bend? I don’t believe this structure
was mentioned in the voters pam-
phlet, and it seems more appropriate
as a stand-alone project for the city.
— John Anderson, Bend
Dear Deschutes County
commissioners:
The voters of Oregon and of De-
schutes County voted to pass the ini-
tiative to make the supervised use of
psilocybin legal in the state. I know
that you are considering opting out
of the program here in Deschutes
County. I don’t think that blocking
our residents from using this pro-
gram is the correct, or democratic,
thing to do. The voters spoke. Your
job is to listen to what they say.
Although I will not likely be par-
taking myself, I have a friend in
Multnomah County who has suf-
fered from PTSD and who has found
great relief by using one of the service
centers available there. There may be
residents of Deschutes County who
can find help for anxiety, depres-
sion, addiction, migraines, PTSD,
and many other conditions. Please
do the right thing and allow access
to those who hope for relief. Those
who are not interested, can leave it
alone. There is no logical reason to
block a lawful treatment from every-
one just because of the objections of
a minority.
— Mimi Alkire, Bend
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Is there a method behind Musk’s Twitter-deal weirdness?
BY MEGAN MCARDLE
The Washington Post
W
ASHINGTON — Elon
Musk is not just your gar-
den-variety weird billion-
aire; he extends a weapons-grade
weirdness field around him that
makes everything he touches turn
weird, too. Case in point, the Twit-
ter acquisition — which Musk an-
nounced this weekend he’s walking
away from.
Musk’s main explanation is he be-
lieves there are too many bots using
the service. As reasons go, this is kind
of weird, because there’s not much
evidence that Twitter is sufficiently
bot-infested to materially complicate
the deal. Musk is surely aware that
there are plenty of real people on Twit-
ter, since as Bloomberg’s Matt Levine
pointed out, that’s where he met the
mother of some of his children.
The sudden obsession with bots
strikes most knowledgeable observ-
ers as an obviously pretextual excuse
to cancel the merger, or at least to re-
negotiate its price now that the stock
market has tanked. But this is really
not that much less weird. Chancery
judges are not very fond of BS ex-
cuses, nor of people who whimsically
offer to buy a company, then try to
get out of it with the legal equivalent
of a text reading LOL JK hahahahah.
They can, and probably will, at least
make him pay the deal’s $1 billion
breakup fee. They might force him to
pony up $44 billion to buy the com-
pany as promised.
But then we get to the truly weird
thing: If Musk can get out of this for
$1 billion (plus hefty lawyer’s fees),
he’ll probably end up making money
on the debacle.
Musk may be the richest guy in the
world, but most of his net worth con-
sists of Tesla stock and stock options.
If you’re a Tesla shareholder, that’s ex-
actly how you want it, because your
interests and his are tightly aligned.
But if you’re Musk’s financial adviser
— or, you know, Musk himself —
you would probably like a little in-
surance, in the form of other invest-
ments, in case this whole electric car
thing doesn’t work out.
Unfortunately, it’s somewhat dif-
ficult for a CEO in that situation to
do the obvious thing: selling some
of his company’s stock to buy other
stocks. When you’re the richest guy
Richard drew/aP
Billionaire Elon Musk is backing out of a
$44 billion bid for Twitter. The social me-
dia company is preparing to challenge
Musk in court.
in the world, you need to sell quite
a lot of stock just to diversify a frac-
tion of your net worth. Selling that
big a chunk of one stock will saturate
the market and make the price fall,
so all your other shares will be worth
less — particularly after people start
asking themselves why Tesla’s CEO
doesn’t want his shares.
It has recently become urgent that
Musk solve this problem, because in
2012, he was awarded nearly 23 mil-
lion Tesla stock options that will ex-
pire this August. He has presumably
been sitting on them to put off pay-
ing taxes on them, but he has reached
the “use it or lose it” point. Might
that explain why Musk has started
manufacturing what seem like ex-
cuses to sell stock?
In November, Musk offered his
followers a Twitter poll. “Much is
made lately of unrealized gains being
a means of tax avoidance,” read the
question, “so I propose selling 10%
of my Tesla stock. Do you support
this?” The ayes had it, 58% to 42%,
and Musk sold $5 billion worth of
shares a few days later.
On the one hand this was a very
Muskian troll of Democratic legislators
who have lately taken to proposing im-
practical and destructive plans to tax
unrealized capital gains. On the other,
it was a great excuse to sell shares. Now
when people asked why Musk was di-
vesting, instead of saying “because I
want to have something to fall back
on if Tesla underperforms,” he could
say “because I am a wild and crazy guy
who likes to troll libs on Twitter.”
Now, in a rational world, “I love
trolling more than my company”
should probably make you less bull-
ish on the future of Tesla, but here
on Earth Prime, the lib-trolling is
one reason his most avid fans love
him, and the company he runs. This
barely caused a hiccup in the stock.
In April, Musk sold another $8.4
billion as he raised funds for the Ul-
timate Troll: buying Twitter itself.
Between then and now, the stock
market has swooned, and the value
of Tesla has declined by more than
a quarter. In other words, if Musk
had held onto those shares, he’d have
about $6 billion worth of stock. In-
stead, he got $8.4 billion worth of
cash. Even if he gives $1 billion of
that to Twitter, he’s still more than a
billion dollars to the good.
Musk couldn’t have known he was
selling close to the peak, of course;
the timing was fortuitous. But it’s
nonetheless excellent reason for a
judge to force Musk to go through
with it. Otherwise, his good fortune
will become legend and encourage
more frivolous deals.
Things are weird enough already
in the market. We don’t need to give
anyone encouragement to make
them worse.
█
Megan McArdle is a columnist for The
Washington Post.