A4
Opinion
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Road tax must
be fair for rural
drivers, too
S
tarting July 1, Oregon will
begin testing a new twist on
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they travel rather than the fuel
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more realistic way to pay for our
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a backdrop of change, with gas
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hybrid and electric cars that use
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Those trends increasingly limit
the revenue source for needed
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The basic scheme is to replace
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Up to 5,000 volunteers will start
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using small digital devices to
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Washington and Indiana all are at
earlier stages of considering the
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where there are more toll
highways, are pretty spoiled when
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far lower rates than is the case in
the rest of the developed world,
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infrastructure like highways
and bridges is one of the best
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providing something private
citizens need but are unable to
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Considering the systemic
changes underway in oil markets
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recent years has technology come
along that will allow accurate
monitoring of actual miles
driven, giving a new option for
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Civil liberties activists see the
monitoring devices as a potential
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has responded by designing
one option that uses global
positioning satellite tracking
and another option that relies on
a simple odometer that counts
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are collected are supposed to
be carefully controlled and then
destroyed after they have served
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In any event, such privacy
worries may be pointless in a
nation where smart phones can
already be tracked anywhere and
cameras watch over many streets
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Owners and dealers of hybrid
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from buying less gasoline or
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they use the roads, they should be
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Of more concern locally is the
impact this could have on rural
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of business city-dwellers take for
granted: grocery shopping, doctor
appointments, going to and from
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The new program will provide
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bear watching to make certain the
system plays out fairly, without
burdening rural drivers more than
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Blue Mountain
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195 N. Canyon Blvd. • John Day, OR 97845
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Grant County’s Weekly Newspaper
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John Day, Oregon
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Scotta Callister, editor@bmeagle.com
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Angel Carpenter, angel@bmeagle.com
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L ETTERS TO THE E DITOR
Climate Kool-Aid?
To the Editor:
This letter is in response to glob-
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warming proponents to a point; we
have come a long way in controlling
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years ago was leading the charge on
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Clean Water Act and the Clean Air
Act, which stopped this insane prac-
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hung over the cities and industrial
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But it seems now it is fossil fuel,
oil and natural gas that contribute to
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contribute by the air we inhale, re-
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ERQGLR[LGH7KHWUHHVDQGWKHYHJH-
tation love us because they need it to
survive and thrive, and they give out
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global warming could be self-serving
because Al owns businesses building
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us to quit using carbon-polluting oil
and natural gas to cut down on the
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dred times a year, spewing out tons
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we started cutting back on carbon
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Not only that, when a forest or
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to the atmosphere all of the carbon
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Back when Oregon was just an
inland sea, volcanic eruptions, lava
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they super-saturated the inland sea
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uration settled to the sea bottom and
contributed to the limestone deposits
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I deal with fact, and quit drinking
Kool-Aid and believing in fairy sto-
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Chuck Chase
Baker City
trail, hiking trail combo has been pro-
posed in the Nipple Butte Wildlife
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introduced by a group of mountain bi-
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This proposal in the Nipple Butte
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ple Butte wildlife area is one of the
few sanctuaries north of the John Day
River where animals can go to get
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There are plenty of places for the
bicycle rider, horse rider, or hikers to
enjoy without opening up intrusion
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posed that instead of closing some of
the minimally used roads, make bike
trails, horse trails, and hiking trails
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win-win situation? Some of the bicy-
cle folks have backed out of their ini-
tial support of this request after they
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The Forest Service says that one
of the reasons to take roads out of
service is to protect wildlife habitat
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sides of your mouth to say that and
then entail some proposal to build
trails that are going to be an intrusion
into one of those very areas?
No, no, a thousand times no!
Dean Elliott
Canyon City
OCA event a hit
To the Editor:
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Fairgrounds was the summer quarter-
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Association and the Oregon Beef
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tioned the quality of the facility and
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was a barbecue by the Prairie FFA
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Attending from the County Court
was Commissioner Boyd Britton, a
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County Stockgrowers; his attendance
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Blue Mountain Eagle was present for
the session on wolves in Oregon and
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Over 100 participants from the mem-
bership as well as representatives
from several state agencies were in
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An issue of concern to all of us is
water, and a representative from the
A thousand times no! Board of Agriculture gave a good
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To the Editor:
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Recently the Forest Service came
The local Les Schwab Tire Center
IRUWKZLWKWKH0DJRQH/DNHSURMHFW was generous in sponsorship of the
In reading over the projected work, OXQFKHRQ RQ 7KXUVGD\ 2WKHU VSRQ-
\RXZLOO¿QGWKDWDELF\FOHWUDLOKRUVH sors were listed in the agenda for the
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boon to the county economy as sever-
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Sharon Livingston
Long Creek
Secede or succumb
To the Editor:
Rural Oregonians in general and
east Oregonians in particular are
growing increasingly dismayed by
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lature and urban dwellers have mar-
ginalized their valued, demonized
their lifestyle, villainized their re-
source-based livelihoods and classi-
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tile and well watered farm ground has
urban sprawl, gangs, illegal aliens,
homeless camps, and touchy feely
politics that add little or no value to
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a resource-based living on marginal
farm ground and the leftovers of Or-
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The Portland metro area is home
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It would appear to a rural resident
or outside observer that most of Or-
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as nothing more than third-world in-
habitants occupying their weekend
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ers have elected a group of individ-
uals that represent an aristocracy of
political power; switching their role in
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people have disenfranchised and sub-
jugated the people outside Portland or
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they are enacted; this is backward leg-
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and silence opposition, often with mon-
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counties need to put an initiative on their
ballots: “Should (my) county secede from
the state of Oregon and seek a more per-
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of Oregon shrinking to less than 4,000
square miles of landlocked riverview
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etters policy: Letters to the Editor is a forum for Blue Mountain Eagle readers to express themselves on local, state, national or world issues. Brevity
is good, but longer letters will be asked to be contained to 350 words. No personal attacks; challenge the opinion, not the person. No thank-you letters.
Submissions to this page become property of the Eagle. The Eagle reserves the right to edit letters for length and for content. Letters must be original and
signed by the writer. Anonymous letters will not be printed. Writers should include a telephone number so they can be reached for questions. Deadline is 5
p.m. Friday. Send letters to editor@bmeagle.com, or Blue Mountain Eagle, 195 N. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845; or fax to 541-575-1244.
