Editorials from around Oregon

Selected editorials from Oregon newspapers:

The (Eugene) Register-Guard, Nov. 4, on the investigation of a UO law professor:

Defenders of University of Oregon law professor Nancy Shurtz will point to the context of her Halloween costume: She attended a private party dressed as Dr. Damon Tweedy, author of “Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine.” Plainly, Schurtz did not intend to make any kind of racist statement by donning blackface as part of her costume.

But just as plainly, there’s another context to consider: the context of a mainly white university that is struggling to make black students and faculty feel welcome, and the context of a long history of racist stereotypes communicated by blackface. At some point in the planning of her Halloween costume, Shurtz should have stopped to say, “Wait a minute - this is not a good idea.” The fact that she didn’t reveals a thickheaded cultural illiteracy, not just in Shurtz but in her social and academic milieu.

UO President Michael Schill responded quickly and forcefully. Law school colleagues and others have signed letters and petitions calling for the professor’s resignation. Schurtz has been placed on administrative leave, and the UO Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity is investigating.

Lesser reactions would condone offensive actions and imagery, and invite worse ones. But what the UO needs is not one fewer law professor, but more understanding. Shurtz’s experience offers an opportunity to explore the lines between self-expression and hurtful messaging, between cluelessness and consideration, between privilege and vulnerability. A university exists to teach students how to think, not what to think - and here’s a chance to do just that.

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The Bend Bulletin, Nov. 5, on clean fuels:

Oregon’s clean fuels law could be a dirty deal.

Here’s one thing Oregon’s so-called clean fuels law likely will do as it gets up and running in the days ahead: help assure Tri-Met, the agency that runs Portland-area mass transit, has more money for light rail.

It’s less clear what the law will do for Oregonians outside that rarified area. Fuel costs will rise, but that may be the only “benefit.” The state Department of Environmental Quality is only now beginning write the rules for the program.

The clean fuels program, you might recall, was established by the 2009 Legislature. It included a sunset clause that the 2015 Legislature lifted in a contentious session that saw the fight over the program derail any attempt to raise more money for the state’s transportation needs.

Among the issues DEQ will address is what the actual cost of the measure will mean at the gas pump. Some experts have said it will raise gasoline prices as much as 19 cents per gallon; the state agency is committed to keeping any cost pass-through “not unreasonably high.” That’s a nice goal, but a tricky one: Being too consumer-friendly could force some suppliers out of business if they’re barred from passing rising costs on to customers.

It should also concern Oregonians that electrically powered mass transit - found only in the Portland area - could well be the big winner in all this. If TriMet is allowed to sell carbon credits to fuel distributors, the money thus generated will add another subsidy to the ever-needy regional agency at the expense of the state’s shabby highway system.

The state’s success with similar programs should give even legislators pause. Recall the Department of Energy and its Business Energy Tax Credit program. It made such a mess of tax credit sales that at least 79 of them have been sent to the Oregon Department of Justice for investigation into possible criminal behavior.

All in all, the clean fuels program is worrisome at best, possibly good for Portland, but surely bad for Oregon as a whole.

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The Daily Astorian, Nov. 1, on fishing trends:

For fishing communities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual publication about commercial landings makes great reading. As we’ve observed in the past, “Fisheries of the United States” is interesting here in much the same way crop reports are a topic of fascination for farmers.

Make no bones about it: Irrespective of decades of impressive economic diversification, the Lower Columbia and nearby places like Garibaldi, Newport, Willapa Bay and Westport, Washington, are fishing communities in essential cultural and monetary ways. Fishing dollars bounce around coastal towns and bolster the business climate in much the way fish fertilizer makes plants prosper.

Analysis of multiyear trends points out some disturbing news about the strength of commercial fisheries on the Lower Columbia. The 2015 edition of the annual fisheries compendium from the National Marine Fisheries Service (tinyurl.com/2015FishReport) finds Astoria-area landings at something of a low ebb.

With about 92 million pounds of landings, we were in 13th place nationwide in terms of volume in 2015. Reflecting the relatively low price of some local harvests - such as hake and sardines - we were in 27th place nationwide in the value of landings - about $38 million. In our vicinity, we were far behind Westport, Washington, in terms of value of the 2015 catch - Westport was 12th in the U.S. with a 2015 total of $65 million.

More important than annual “horse race” statistics between ports is how well fishing fleets succeed over time. In Astoria’s case, current trends are worrisome. Despite the superficial pleasure of remaining the mainland West Coast’s No. 1 fishing port by volume, other 2015 indicators exhibit a troubling descent from recent heights.

As recently as 2012, our percentage of the nationwide catch was 1.764 percent. From there, it slid to 1.6 percent in 2013, 1.3 in 2014 and 0.947 last year. Total poundage landed last year was the lowest since at least 2010. Landings were down 46 percent in 2015 since a recent peak in 2012. Last year’s catch also had the lowest value since 2010 and is 24 percent less than in 2013.

None of this means anyone locally is at fault, apart from the all-too typical situation in fishing in which booms are invariably followed by busts. An example of this is the sardine catch. Pacific sardines collapsed in 2015. The catch was 8.4 million pounds, down from 51.1 million in 2014 and a recent annual average of 131.65 million pounds. In may behoove us to harvest at a more moderate rate whenever they next rebound - though we are aware of the countervailing argument that sardines might just naturally be prone to big swings and fishermen should therefor go after them with gusto whenever they get a chance. It also is possible that our area’s fishing results were impacted by the mid-2013 Pacific Seafoods fire in Warrenton - overall local landings fell from 159 million in 2013 to 122 million in 2014. But this explanation isn’t likely to account for very much of the difference. Although Pacific Seafoods is an undeniably huge player in the industry, its personnel took quick and professional steps to move to temporary facilities immediately after the fire.

The largest worry in terms of fishing trends are the ways in which the northeast Pacific Ocean’s productivity was hammered from 2013 to 2015 by the ocean heatwave called the Blob, along with an associated surge in toxic algae. The Blob showed some initial signs of coming back to life this fall, but thankfully has now faded again. Scientists have little doubt it will return in coming years, adding to problems in a generally warmer and more acidic ocean by midcentury. These changes will become a permanent damper on a long-vital economic sector.

Our ailing ocean demands that we continue seeking economic diversification, while doing all we can to make sure fishing remains as viable as possible. For one thing, improving the rationality of regulations can enhance returns for fishing boats and improve the odds of meeting conservation goals. Faced with environmental threats to fishing like the Blob, we should do everything possible to eliminate man-made obstacles to the fishing economy, including the asinine ban on mainstem Columbia gillnet fishing.

Fishermen have more than enough problems without politicians adding to them.

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The Oregonian, Nov. 2, on a plan to house Portland’s homeless:

The recent collapse of a plan to house the homeless in a shelter at Terminal 1, on the Willamette River just north of downtown, means winter arrives wetter and colder for the estimated 1,800 souls sleeping outside every night in Portland and its immediate suburbs.

The plan for Terminal 1 was never to absorb everyone, however. Homer Williams, the developer, had modeled his Oregon Harbor of Hope on a massive one-of-a-kind public shelter in San Antonio. By the time he patched together a handshake deal with the Portland Housing Bureau and scaled numerous challenges, among them paying market-rate rent to the city for limited use of the terminal, Harbor of Hope was reduced to a temporary facility that would house perhaps 100. With lease details hanging open, not to mention a last-minute plea for alternatives from the Portland Business Alliance, Housing Commissioner Dan Saltzman had little choice than to pull the plug.

But Williams’ setback is not his alone. It belongs to the City of Portland, Multnomah County and suburbs such as Beaverton and Gresham.

Metropolitan Portland cannot operate well, or safely, with 1,800 people sleeping in walkways, on roadway medians, in parks, in tattered encampments - all while the economy and employment rev to new heights and push housing prices upward, in some measure exacerbating the problem.

The city and county have made strides. In the last year they committed $30 million to combat homelessness. The county is on target to create 650 more shelter beds in the current fiscal year, with the opening this month of a 120-bed shelter - just in time for winter. Significantly, however, the county has applied a hefty amount of effort and money to homelessness prevention. County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury, in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, estimated that more than 9,000 residents were assisted sufficiently “to keep them from hitting the streets” - an unseen phenomenon helping, despite appearances to the contrary, to contain homelessness.

But 1,800 is 1,800. The number of the dispossessed is assumed by experts to replenish even as small-scale shelters open. That’s why it will take a large-scale shelter to visibly dent the number of Portland’s homeless and make a sharp difference.

The setback of Williams’ plan is a signal moment for Portland and its mayor-elect, Ted Wheeler, who takes the reins at City Hall next year. Homelessness, with its cousin affordable housing, is the city’s most pressing challenge - ahead of lead in the water, decrepit roads and seismic threat.

Williams’ Harbor of Hope had as much going against it as it did for it. Terminal 1 is prime industrial property owned by the city and eyed for the kind of development that could create jobs - this while rewarding the city’s utility ratepayers who own it. Terminal 1 also was seen by some as uncomfortably proximate to the nearby Pearl District, originally developed, ironically, by Williams.

But Harbor of Hope was a new idea inasmuch as it might have found backing from Portland’s business community, which suffers as homelessness persists and could have a financial stake undoing homelessness. For this reason, Williams’ ill-fated project gave new hope: that homelessness is a burden not only of government and the faith community but of the region’s businesses. Sandra McDonough, president of the business alliance, credits Williams with having performed “a phenomenal service to the city, as he moved the conversation forward.”

Wheeler reportedly visited San Antonio recently to tour the prototypical Haven for Hope, and he previously had said a version or parts of it, downsized and tuned to meet Portland’s specific needs, might be part of a broad-based remedy to homelessness. But when he takes office, he must bring everyone, including Williams and business leaders, to the table and ask: Are there other sites in the region that could support a large-scale shelter? What is the right scale of a shelter for Portland and the right mix of services for those living in a primary shelter? Critically: Who pays?

Wheeler’s roundtable also should frame the relationship between a large shelter operation and A Home for Everyone, which comprises nonprofits and oversees the county’s outreach to the homeless. Nothing should be left unasked, including whether Wapato, the county’s never-used-but-for-sale jail, could be part of the solution - this despite its 11-mile distance from downtown and repeated declarations by Kafoury it is unsuitable. Wapato’s capacity exceeds 500.

Saltzman last week announced a six-month-only, stop-gap shelter would soon open downtown and house about 100 - this courtesy of a developer who generously figures the empty building at 333 SW Park Avenue could help folks through the winter as his renovation plans take shape. But such arrangements are mere walkup to strategic homelessness decisions ahead.

Leadership keyed to the long term, and the business community’s engagement, will be required.

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The (Medford) Mail-Tribune, Nov. 4, on wolf activity in the Klamath Basin:

Four cattle confirmed killed by wolves last month in the Klamath Basin have ranchers on edge, but it does not appear any drastic changes in policy or wolf protection levels are warranted.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists who examined the four carcasses said wolves were responsible, most likely the Rogue Pack, established by celebrity wandering wolf OR-7 and his mate.

Wolves are gradually increasing their presence in Oregon since the first animals wandered into the state from Idaho. They are numerous enough in roughly the eastern third of the state that they are no longer protected under the Endangered Species Act, which means they fall under the state’s management plan and can be killed legally in some circumstances. West of Highway 395, wolves are still on the endangered species list and are therefore protected from being hunted or killed, even if a rancher sees them attacking livestock.

Ranching interests want to see the wolf delisted, which requires congressional action. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supports that move as well, and the Klamath Falls office has proposed legislation to delist the animals.

The move is controversial, because there are still relatively few wolves in the western two-thirds of the state. And as dramatic as the wolf kills are, they total just four animals. Ranchers lose cattle to a variety of hazards, including disease, digestive problems, birthing problems and predators other than wolves. Wildlife officials say wolves do not pose a significant threat to humans.

The ranchers who lost cattle are being compensated by the Oregon Department of Agriculture after the Klamath County Wolf Depredation Committee approved the payments. ODFW staff also are working with ranchers to employ non-lethal methods to discourage wolves from attacking livestock.

The immediate threat will diminish soon in any case, because the herds involved will be moved to winter pasture in California. Before the cattle return in the spring, the Depredation Committee hopes to have additional prevention measures in place, and will apply for state and federal grant funds to pay for them.

Meanwhile, ranchers need to adjust to the new reality of wolves becoming part of the ecosystem again as they were in the past.