A4 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2022
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Don’t hit the
brakes on the
camping code
W
hen Bend City Councilors were talking about
the camping code last week, some councilors
wondered if they should hit the brakes.
Please don’t.
We understand the frustrations
and the concerns. We are not saying
they are not valid. They don’t mean
stop.
When Bend has a camping code
for where, when and how people
can camp on city property and city
rights of way, some things will mir-
ror Bend without a camping code.
The city will have to prioritize.
The city does not have enough po-
lice or other staff to enforce a camp-
ing code.
That’s no reason to stop working
on the camping code.
Setting priorities is not anything
different from what police and city
code enforcement do now with any
crimes or violations.
Another concern raised: When
Bend has a camping code, it will be
aimed squarely at many people who
are struggling. Why isn’t the city
talking about ways to help people
instead of hatching code that may
penalize them?
We know some people believe
the city takes a hands-off approach
to enforcement when it comes to
people going through homeless-
ness. And there are others who be-
lieve the city does too much.
All we can say is from what we
have seen the city is trying to bal-
ance and juggle as best it can. Not
perfect. Certainly not without
trying.
City Attorney Mary Winters also
made an excellent point. She urged
councilors questioning the focus
now on the camping code to re-
member what the city did before it
began the discussion.
It led an effort to look for places
to site homeless shelters. It has
bought buildings for shelters. It
has helped establish a navigation
center and support the efforts of
providers to provide services. The
city spearheaded the work to join
with the county and other towns
in the county to collaborate on
homeless issues. It helped get leg-
islation passed to provide money
to help coordinate county efforts.
And although the Bend City Coun-
cil faced some withering criticism,
councilors revised zoning rules to
allow homeless shelters in more
neighborhoods.
Did the city do enough? Too
much? You decide. But it is not
like the city is only creating a code
to regulate people going through
homelessnes. It has also worked to
create more housing, better condi-
tions and avenues for people to exit
homelessness. There’s no reason to
think that would stop.
If you would like to tell council-
ors about what you think about the
camping code, you can email them
at council@bendoregon.gov.
What politicians should
release tax returns?
W
hat political candidates
should make their tax
returns public? People
running for president? Congress?
Governor? County commission-
ers? City Councilors? School board
members? The library board?
We do know that it’s gener-
ally been the practice that people
running for president do. One re-
cent, notable exception: President
Trump.
And we do know candidates for
Oregon governor have generally
done so in recent years. This year
Christine Drazan, the Republican
nominee, released her federal re-
turns for the last three years. Tina
Kotek, the Democratic nominee re-
leased her state and federal returns
for the last three years. Betsy John-
son, a likely independent candidate
for governor, declined.
“Betsy has always filled out the
█
required financial disclosure forms
to the Legislature and will continue
to do so as governor,” Johnson cam-
paign spokeswoman Jennifer Sitton
told Willamette Week. “That is the
sum total of the public’s interest.
Betsy believes that whether you
are voting for governor or running
for governor, you continue to have
a constitutional right to privacy,
which most people value.”
Is it a reason not to vote for John-
son? Is it a reason to vote for her?
We’ll let you make up your own
mind.
We are more interested in what
they say they will do on policy mat-
ters. But it does make us wonder if
Johnson is elected, how she would
fall on other questions about trans-
parency. There may be reasons to
wonder about Kotek and Drazan,
too. Johnson just handed Orego-
nians one.
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
Part of the machine
Many years ago, my brother-in-
law Jim worked as a page for Oregon
Congressman Wendell Wyatt. After
Jim graduated from the American
University in Washington, Wyatt, a
moderate Republican, held a party
for him. Among the guests was a
Congressman from Pennsylvania,
a certain Johnson as I recall, with
whom Wyatt shared an office. In the
course of the party, Wyatt said to me,
“Johnson is an old fool machine pol-
itician. He just does what the party
tells him to do.”
By voting against the Inflation Re-
duction Act, which actually helps
people, Rep. Cliff Bentz shows us that
he, too, is “an old fool machine pol-
itician.”
— Gary Leiser, Sisters
River Democracy =
clean water sources
I appreciate the Bulletin’s contin-
ued coverage of Sen .s Wyden and
Merkley’s River Democracy Act. This
bill is the first of its kind legislation,
truly written by and for Oregonians
given the extensive public input pro-
cess.
As noted in your recent editorial,
who doesn’t love maps? But maps
will only further prove what many
of us have known for a while — that
this bill will be good news for Ore-
gon. It contains protections for some
of our state’s most important salmon
and steelhead nurseries, drinking wa-
ter sources, and places families have
floated, swam, and fished for gener-
ations.
While it’s important to note the
position of Rep. Cliff Bentz, it’s also
worth pointing out his arguments
don’t carry much water. Bentz came
out swinging against the River De-
mocracy Act as soon as he started
his term, right around the same time
that he was questioning the validity
of the last presidential election. De-
spite his comments to the contrary,
the best thing we can do for clean
water is to protect healthy natural
forests around them.
I’ve heard Sen . Wyden remark
that if everyone gets some things
they need, but not everything they
wanted, he probably got it right. I
believe that this is the case with the
River Democracy Act. It will protect
key drinking watersheds like Tumalo
Creek here in Central Oregon while
also accounting for things like wild-
fire, private property rights and other
uses of our public lands. I encourage
Sen . Wyden to pass the bill as soon as
possible!
— Erik Fernandez is the wilderness
program manager for Oregon Wild.
Renters do pay property taxes
A letter from Kathy Sanchez in
the Aug . 17 Bulletin perpetuates the
myth that only property owners pay
property taxes so only property own-
ers should be able to vote in elections
affecting property taxes. She writes,
“This [a potential levy to increase
school funding] always means voters
will eventually be asked to approve
another tax hike on property owners,
while many of these voters are not
property owners and have nothing to
lose by affirming such a hike.”
As a former owner of rental prop-
erties in Seattle, Olympia and Port-
land, I can confidently say that it is
simply wrong to claim that renters
don’t pay property taxes. Every time
we faced an increase in property taxes
during the more than thirty years that
we owned rental properties, we raised
the rents to cover the additional cost
to us as owners. When the costs of
operating a rental rise rents also rise
and renters end up paying any in-
creases in property taxes.
So renters do indeed have some-
thing to lose when property taxes go
up and most know it. Because rent-
ers also end up paying for increases
in property taxes, they are every bit
as entitled as property owners to vote
on property tax increases.
— John Cushing, Bend
Letters policy
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Please address your submission to either
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submissions are preferred.
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Fax:
541-385-5804
Women will die because of the absence of care
BY RICH BELZER
R
ecent events have led me to
study the history of abortion in
Ireland, a country that is 78%
Catholic as of their 2016 census.
Abortion had been prohibited
since 1861 yet, as of January 1, 2019,
Ireland has one of the most liberal
abortion laws in Europe; abortion is
permitted in Ireland during the first
twelve weeks of pregnancy and later
in cases where the pregnant woman’s
life or health is at risk, or in cases of a
fatal fetal abnormality.
How did a majority Catholic coun-
try change its position so dramati-
cally? It goes back to the 2012 death
of Savita Halappanavar who was de-
nied an abortion while suffering a
septic miscarriage.
This case received worldwide at-
tention and caused a political reeval-
uation of abortion in this country of
roughly five-million people. In 2018,
there was a nationwide referendum
on the 36th Amendment to the Irish
constitution which
defined the abor-
tion rights that exist
today. The result
was a landslide —
66.4% for abortion
rights and 33.6%
Belzer
against.
Justice Alito, who
wrote the decision
in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Organization (along with the assent
of his associates Thomas, Gorsuch,
Kavanaugh and Barrett), would have
us believe that he came into his re-
view of Dobbs with an open mind
and studied the law before arriving
at his decision, not just on Dobbs but
on Roe v. Wade.
In no way did he make an ideolog-
ical decision and then find a way to
justify it, a justification that asserted
his brilliance and superiority to the
earlier justices who decided Roe
(1973) and Casey (1992). It should
be noted that the Casey opinion
GUEST COLUMN
was written by Justices Sandra Day
O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and
David Souter, all Republican appoin-
tees to the court.
The Dobbs decision was, in effect,
a collection of five religious zeal-
ots on the Supreme Court asserting
their power over an American public
which disapproved of the decision by
a 57% to 43% margin (according to
the Pew Research Center). How fit-
ting that conservative Kansas came
in even higher at 59% in favor of
abortion rights and 41% against in
their recent vote, affirming the Kan-
sas constitution under which abor-
tion is legal.
Justice Alito may tell us that his de-
cision in Dobbs did not in any way
ban abortions, it merely left the deci-
sion to the states.
Does he really believe that Amer-
icans are naïve enough to believe
that he had no idea that as many as
half of American states would move
ahead to ban abortions?
Many have already done so, much
to the disadvantage of millions of
young women. Pregnancies do not
always terminate in a normal birth
of a healthy baby; many end by other
means which often require treatment
by an OB/GYN.
I know a woman who had a mis-
carriage a year prior to the birth of
her first child.
When the bleeding would not stop,
she saw an OB/GYN who treated her
with a D&C. Today, in a state with
abortion laws like those in Texas, she
would be unlikely to receive treat-
ment as her OB/GYN would be con-
cerned that he might be investigated
for murder. Of course, there are
many other problems that women
can face in pregnancy (see Savita
Halappanavar in Ireland) and treat-
ment is likely to be problematic in
abortion-ban states.
The Republican Party must answer
for this. They fought against abortion
for 50 years and it is Republican-con-
trolled states that have passed radical
bills banning abortions.
Will OB/GYN’s remain in states
in which providing treatment for a
variety of problems could result in
a criminal investigation or will they
move?
Will young women wish to remain
in such states? Kansas handed a land-
slide 14.5% victory to Donald Trump
in 2020 and just supported abor-
tion by a whopping 18%. Inevitably,
women will die due to an absence of
care. Will abortion suddenly become
the major issue in the November
mid-terms?
█
Rich Belzer served as director of federal
marketing for an NYSE-listed computer
company and was subsequently a senior
executive with two NASDAQ-listed high-tech
companies. He moved to Bend to join Columbia
Aircraft, where he became VP of worldwide
sales.