A4
OPINION
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Brown
deal
leaves bad
aftertaste
I
t is not a political scan-
dal by any means, but
the recent news Gov.
Kate Brown spent a large
chunk of public money
to pay one of her former
advisers to serve as a po-
litical consultant leaves a
bitter aftertaste.
The news last week
barely broke above the col-
lective consciousness of
the state and it certainly
gained little traction in
portions of the Willamette
Valley, a traditional base
for the governor.
At its heart the news
revolves around a deal bro-
kered in 2020 where the
governor hired her former
communications director
Chris Pair through a no-bid
state contract. The deal
provides Pair with a salary
of $6,500 a month to attend
weekly meetings of the
Western Governors’ Asso-
ciation regarding enlarging
the effort to create infra-
structure for electric vehi-
cles. So far, the state has
paid Pair $91,000.
Brown also has paid Pair
money through one of her
political action committees.
When Pair — a long-
time member of Brown’s
staff — departed in Janu-
ary 2020, Brown made no
mention he might be hired
back. A month later, the
governor’s office asked
state officials to prepare
the no-bid contract for
Pair’s consulting company.
Now, on the face of it,
none of this is illegal. In
fact, former government
officials turning around to
work as independent con-
tractors for their former
bosses or agencies is com-
monplace. It just looks bad.
Transparency in gov-
ernment is essential for
a democracy to func-
tion properly. That means
the public has the right to
know what its elected lead-
ers are doing and why.
The money paid to Pair
so far is, obviously, just a
drop in the bucket of the
multibillion-dollar bud-
get of the state. But it is
the principle that counts in
this situation. If the gover-
nor was going to hire one
of her former staffers and
let him or her be paid with
public dollars, she should
have disclosed it. State
government — and espe-
cially the governor’s office
— isn’t a private company.
It’s funded by the pub-
lic, and the public has a
right to know — no matter
how low the sum — how
the government is using its
money.
The governor didn’t
break the law, but bankroll-
ing one of her former staff-
ers on the public’s dime
doesn’t sit well with us.
GUEST COMMENT
Oregonians can help stop new gun lockup bill
E
very year, in homes across
America, countless law-abid-
ing citizens use fi rearms to
protect themselves and their families
from dangerous intruders.
But in Oregon, how much longer
will they be able to do so?
Last spring, the state legislature
— with the support of only Demo-
crats and no Republicans — passed
Senate Bill 554; Gov. Kate Brown
signed the bill in June. Its main pro-
vision: “An owner or possessor of
a fi rearm shall, at all times that the
fi rearm is not carried by or under
the control of the owner, posses-
sor or authorized person, secure the
fi rearm with an engaged trigger or
cable lock; in a locked container; or
in a gun room” — in other words,
in a way that renders it inoperable
or inaccessible for immediate use.
Unless postponed by rank-and-fi le
Oregonians (more on which below),
SB 554 is scheduled to become law
in late September.
Now, consider two recent Ore-
gon incidents (among many other
of their kind here in the past several
years).
On March 11, 2019, in Jose-
phine County, one Michael Lee
Fouch “forced his way into his
ex-girlfriend’s house and threatened
her,” reported KDRV-TV News;
“he forced his way into a bedroom
where the woman was hiding with
her young son, causing her to fear
for her safety.” The woman shot
Fouch in the groin, reported the sta-
tion, “causing him to fl ee.”
On March 25 of this year, in
Lane County, one Brandon Coats
came to the home of a married cou-
ple and their child and, KMTR-TV
News reported, began “trying to
force his way inside.” The husband,
said the station, “armed himself
with a handgun in order to protect
his family and a few moments later,
Coats forcibly broke open their front
door armed with a shotgun.” At
that point, the husband shot Coats
and held him at gunpoint until law
enforcement offi cers arrived.
In these instances, what would
have transpired had the residents’
fi rearms been incapacitated by a
trigger lock or secured inside a
safe? Beset, suddenly, by a swiftly
advancing attacker, would they have
been able — inside of a few pre-
cious seconds — to have retrieved a
key from a drawer,
inserted it swiftly
and precisely into
a trigger lock and
disengaged a gun?
Or to have dialed a
combination lock
Richard F.
speedily and accu-
LaMountain
rately enough to
have opened a safe?
If not, would the attackers have
been sporting enough to have let
them do so?
Gov. Brown, says her spokes-
woman Liz Merah, “believes that
public safety is one of the most
important responsibilities of govern-
ment.” If so, let the governor answer
this: How does government promote
public safety by hindering citizens’
ability to protect themselves from
attack in their own homes?
Crime researcher John Lott is
blunt: “More lives will be lost than
saved if everyone locks up their
guns.” Indeed, he notes, in states
with gun-lockup laws, “there were
300 more total murders and 4,000
more rapes occurring each year.”
Part of the reason? Aware of such
laws in their jurisdictions, says Lott,
“criminals become more embold-
ened to attack people in their
homes.”
If SB 554 is enacted, is there any
doubt criminals will become equally
emboldened here?
In the bill’s preamble, its spon-
sors seek to justify mandatory gun
lockups by citing cases of Oregon
children who have killed or injured
themselves with unsecured fi rearms.
And in Oregon and elsewhere, there
are too many such incidents. But
tragic as they are, says Lott, “so too
is the much larger number of cases
where people aren’t able to protect
themselves and their families from
criminals.”
Here’s some perspective. In
2017, reported the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 62
children between the ages of 1 and
14 suff ered a fatal fi rearm accident.
But the CDC also has noted this:
“Almost all national survey esti-
mates indicate that defensive gun
uses by victims are at least as com-
mon as off ensive uses by criminals,
with estimates of annual uses rang-
ing from about 500,000 to more than
3 million.”
And — as is the case in the two
Oregon incidents cited above —
among those protected by such
defensive uses are the very children
whose welfare, ostensibly, is so vital
to the sponsors of SB 554.
The way to prevent children’s
gun accidents is through education
— not by forcing parents to lock
away the guns they someday might
need to protect those children. One
of the nation’s premier gun-acci-
dent prevention programs — the
National Rifl e Association’s “Eddie
Eagle” — has, in recent decades,
taught fi rearms safety to millions of
children. Gun owners should assure
their children receive this program’s
vital training.
As mentioned above, SB 554
is scheduled to become law early
this fall. However, with the help of
sensible Oregonians, it may yet be
derailed.
A group of Second Amend-
ment advocates has launched the
“Responsible Response” campaign
to refer SB 554 to the November
2022 statewide ballot for a yes-or-no
vote of Oregon voters. To qualify its
measure, the campaign needs to col-
lect the signatures of 74,680 regis-
tered voters on Referendum Petition
301 by Sept. 25. If it does, the bill’s
enactment will be delayed pend-
ing the vote’s outcome. If voters
approve the bill, it will become law;
if they reject it, it won’t.
To sign the petition, go to respon-
sibleresponse.com and print, sign
and mail a single-signature petition
to the listed address. Or come to the
Grant County Fair between Aug. 11
and Aug. 14 and sign a petition at
the Responsible Response booth in
the Trowbridge Pavilion.
Together, we can defeat SB 554’s
attack on our gun rights — and on
our families’ safety.
Richard F. LaMountain, a res-
ident of Mt. Vernon, is a former
assistant editor of Conservative
Digest magazine. His freelance
work has appeared in The Orego-
nian, Investor’s Business Daily,
USA Today and many other publi-
cations. LaMountain was an offi -
cial chief sponsor of Oregon’s lat-
est successful referendum: 2014’s
Ballot Measure 88, via which vot-
ers rejected the Oregon legisla-
ture’s attempt to grant state-sanc-
tioned driving privileges to illegal
immigrants.
GUEST COMMENT
False information harmful
By John Day City Council
Blue Mountain
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T
here has been a lot of discus-
sion lately about John Day’s
budget and priorities. As city
councilors, we want to affi rm that
our eff orts have been in the best
interests of our residents and com-
munity. We work for you.
It was a diffi cult decision to refer
a local option levy to our voters to
help fund the police department. We
did it after careful consideration of
the economic impacts to our resi-
dents and following months of dis-
cussions with our staff and offi cers
about the fi nancial challenges fac-
ing the police department, which has
run increasing budget defi cits for the
past 20 years.
The members of the Budget
Committee, who are all John Day
residents, unanimously agreed to
refer the police levy because they
value the police department’s ser-
vices. They also recognize that the
cost for this service has grown so
large (1.5 times our property tax
receipts) it can no longer be fully
funded through our General Fund
revenues. The information pre-
sented to the committee is on our
website under “Latest News.”
Individuals outside of John
Day have questioned our motives,
claiming we are deliberately mis-
leading the public and citing fi g-
ures from our budget they clearly
don’t understand. They have also
claimed our urban renewal pro-
grams are depriving other pub-
lic agencies of their tax revenue,
which is simply not true. John
Day’s urban renewal agency has
led to the creation of new hous-
ing that will ultimately help our tax
base and the other public agencies
in Grant County, but no agency has
lost revenue as a result of this pro-
gram. That would be illegal, and
we don’t have the authority to do it.
We plan to address these comments
and false claims at our next town
hall meeting.
Lastly, some Grant County res-
idents have expressed concern
about the city’s land and property
purchases to create public spaces
that improve access and recre-
ation within our city and rehabil-
itate buildings in our downtown.
These investments are intended to
put land back on the tax rolls at
a higher value than it had before,
either as buildable property or
as public spaces for the com-
munity to use and enjoy. These
eff orts will ultimately widen our
tax base, allowing us to reduce the
cost of our services per household
and sustainably fund government
functions.
There is so much our city has
done to be excited about, including
recent grant wins that reduced the
cost of our wastewater treatment
plant by 75%; funding for a new
pool and Kam Wah Chung interpre-
tive center; and our roads and riv-
erfront parks now under construc-
tion. We understand when residents
have concerns. We encourage them
to ask questions or voice oppos-
ing opinions. These help us gov-
ern well. However, spreading false
or incomplete information is ulti-
mately harmful to our discourse
and our community members.
We need time for our programs
and policies to take root, but they
are working! Thank you for your
support, and if you have any ques-
tions, please reach out to a member
of the city council.
Ron Lundbom
Paul Smith
Dave Holland
Shannon Adair
Gregg Haberly
Elliot Sky
Heather Rookstool
John Day City Council