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Letters
Pine Eagle Friends Should Give Eagle Valley A Break On Health Clinic Taxes
To The Record-Courier:
I am a descendant of the oldest family in Eagle Valley. We have always been close to older Pine Valley Ranch owners. I surely don’t want an alteration now. As you all know, some years ago, Eagle Valley lost their school district through apportionment including Oxbow, Pine and Eagle Valley into one school district. Now the same stunt is being used on Eagle Valley property owners over a Pine Valley Health Clinic (a.k.a. Aid Station) even using the same school district boundaries. Only this time is different. All district property owner’s taxes will go up at the rate of .65 cents per thousand or approximately $350 average.
Property owners do not go to a clinic nurse, but to an M.D. in Baker City. Like Dr. Sanders, Dr. Wilson and Dr. Pollock, we used to have in the valley. This proposed arrangement means the poverty majority going to the clinic will be paid for by our taxes. If we go we will pay the maximum, plus our taxes, otherwise twice. All I am asking for is our Pine Valley friends to give us a break and vote this proposal down in May.
Dale D. Holcomb E.V. 1878
Richland, Ore.
DEQ Proposed Permit Fee Increases Must Go To Vote Of The People
To The Record-Courier:
In reading the article in The Record-Courier about Dept. of Environmental Quality and water quality permit fee increases and looking at Measure 5 of 1994 (debate?).
My impression about the water pollution discharges and new increased fees is that it needs voter approval, after voters passed Measure 5 of the 1994 general election. This approval was/is part of Oregon’s state constitution, amended by creating a new Section 32(a) in Article I that stated: “People’s right to approve all taxes. Notwithstanding any other provision of this constitution, any new taxes or tax increases shall require approval by the people.”
Permits, application fees, water fees, sewer fees, waste disposal, pollution discharges to name a few required voter approval as to state’s constitutional law (Rule).
The state D.E.Q. is contemplating a little empire building with the mandates of S.B. (Senate Bill) 737. The 3/4-vote may be made in emergency by the state’s legislature. The legislature should include the State Representatives of the House also as the Senate is only part of the State Legislature as stated in that act of 1994 that voters approved. Maybe Mr. Cliff Bentz “appointed” by county commissioners should be one of his “non” elected duties. Should we hold our commissioners accountable, or do we need a Ron Paul kind of guy for a Governor (rule of law)?
If Measure 5 of the 1994 act passed by the people, as an amendment to state constitutional law, how can the Senate, in collusion with the Governor’s (cabinets) abrogate (annul) the state’s constitution by the liberals to increase their Empires?
This would appear to be an end run around to avoid direct taxing to the people and Measure 5, as to “assess” the municipal governments as to tax indirectly (proxy). This sounds sleazy as to the D.E.Q. to revenue enhancement and grabs of power to Empire building by the left? Where’s the state’s prosecutor on this issue. Hmmm? (liberals).
We should hold our elected officials feet to the fire to accountability. That’s putting nature first, people last.
Bruce Parke
Sumpter
Is Initiative 40 A Good Idea?
To The Record-Courier:
The Herald should do its homework before blindly supporting expensive feel-good legislation.
In their Feb. 12 editorial “No more freebies,” they support Kevin Mannix’s Initiative 40, which mandates minimum sentences of 14 to 36 months for a host of drug and property crimes. They want to “discourage” crime and, apparently, are willing to do so no matter the cost to taxpayers. They conveniently leave out the shocking $400,000,000 price tag.
Neither they nor Mannix on his Web site offer any evidence that Initiative 40 will result in reducing crime rates. If they had done a few minutes Googling, they would have found that study after study shows reduction in crime is not attributable to mandatory minimum sentences.
Take, for example, Oregon’s Measure 11, the mandatory minimum sentencing law for violent crimes approved in 1994. After Measure 11 took effect, prison population grew from 7,539 to 13,401 inmates by 2007.
A study of Oregon’s crime and incarceration rates commissioned by Western Prison Project found during the decade following passage of Measure 11, violent crime rates in Oregon did fall. But…so did violent crimes rates across the nation, even in those states that did not embark, as did Oregon, on hugely expensive prison construction projects. The study concluded, “There appears to be no direct relationship between incarceration rates and crime rates.”
The best example is comparison of Oregon and New York, a state which built no new prisons. Between 1995 and 2002, Oregon’s incarceration rate jumped by 66.2%, while New York’s incarceration rate fell by 8.4%. Yet both experienced nearly equal reductions in violent crime.
With a little more research, the Herald would have found that studies show much, much more bang for the buck in crime reduction is achieved with money spent on rehabilitation programs. Unfortunately while Oregon was spending millions and millions building new prisons, alcohol and drug addiction treatment programs had their funding drastically reduced.
It feels good to lock up criminals. But it is penny wise and pound foolish to spend the money on ineffective mandatory minimum sentences rather than on proven rehabilitation programs.
Gary Dielman
Baker City
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