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November 15, 2007 Opinions |
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Editorial
Near-Term Prospects For Economic Development LimitedThe economic development of Baker City faces challenges. The first challenge the city faces is the limited capability of the city’s infrastructure systems. The wastewater system is currently at maximum capacity and the water system, said to be approaching maximum capacity. Members of city staff have mentioned that the water system is able to serve up to 17,000 residents. This limits any industry coming in that demands a great deal of water.
One potential and prospectively valuable economic development asset for the city is the airport. The list of possible economic opportunities for a rural municipal airport is a surprisingly long and diverse list.
Just as the list of opportunities for the airport is long, so is the list of challenges and current limitations. The biggest limitation at the airport is the lack of city infrastructure system extension to the airport. This limits the type of development and the list of amenities the city can offer to developer s; without the extension of water and wastewater lines, t-hangars cannot be constructed with restroom/shower facilities.
These infrastructure limitations effectively eliminate any possibility of industrial and residential growth in the short term. Baker City lacks any viable funding solution for the needed expansion of the infrastructure systems. It’s a “Catch-22,” of sorts whereby the city needs economic development to come in and help pay for infrastructure expansion, but that needed economic development can’t come in without the needed infrastructure systems already in place.
The average annual income of Baker City residents has been cited recently at about $17,500 and Baker City’s population is about 22-percent over age 65, most of whom are on fixed-incomes. So, rate-payer’s ability to pay for a large-scale expansion to the systems is limited.
The city is currently exploring System Development Charges as a funding mechanism. It has been pointed out to the city by consultants that System Development Charges are a means of funding ‘a portion’ of systems expansion. SDCs do not pay the whole bill for systems expansion and the uncovered portion will come from somewhere, and one likely source would be rate-increases.
Besides systems infrastructure limitations, Baker City faces a limitation in human resources. Industry in this town has a difficult time keeping employees and running fully staffed shifts. Evidence of this shortage in human resources is Behlen’s reliance upon the high school welders and US Timber’s inability to staff a much needed third shift.
Besides an expansion to infrastructure and human resources, in order to be successful bringing in economic development, the Baker citizens might need to undergo an expansion of attitude of sorts. The decisions that would need to be made in order to fund an expansion to the infrastructure systems, and the people who would need to be brought in to solve the human resource shortage, would change the basic operational and funding principles of the city and would change the face of Baker City. One of the most resilient characteristics of a real Bakerite is, and has always been a stubborn resistance to change, especially costly change. (BA)Guest Opinion
The Colonization Of Rural OregonBy Steve CulleyIn The Oregonian and left-leaning Web sites like Blue Oregon, they are saying that the vote on Measure 49 shows there is no urban/rural divide. I wonder why we don’t teach map reading in school anymore. Most of rural Oregon voted opposite the Valley and I-5 corridor. The map by counties do show some anomalies like Deschutes County, but that is easily explained by the continued colonization of rural Oregon by urban escapees. Bend is Deschutes County and there has been an explosion of newcomers from urban areas there who still vote their Portland ways.
Wallowa County is 62 percent federal land and over 60 percent of the private land is owned by absentee land owners. After having not been in Enterprise for two or three years I was amazed at the changes. The local cafes are gone, replaced by Chinese and Mexican restaurants and they can’t get help in the remaining ones. Locals can’t afford to live there anymore. The colonization by outsiders has driven land prices through the roof. Land use zoning laws have an effect.
As I said in a previous article the fix was in. The Oregonian is the best friend Thousand Friends of Oregon ever had and the dailies usually follow the Oregonian propaganda lead. I wrote an article, “The New Nez Perce,” and Chuck Butcher posted it on Chuck For blog spot, but getting exposure to an opposing view is almost impossible. The left thinks that we vote the same when actually there is an alliance that passes laws, which kill private property rights. The urban left elite who don’t own land and have always been urban use the law to get their way and some old time land owners, with their illegal alien population expanders, who don’t want urban folk as neighbors, use land use laws to make sure that none of them move in next door. Caught in the middle are the native born who would like to escape the city, but are forced to live on the reservation.
Let’s take a different view of the whole thing and maybe tie some obscure things like post traumatic stress disorder, homeless vets and young people together with land use laws. Some of you might have watched the series “A Band of Brothers.” Something struck me when, I think it was Sergeant Lipton, got off Omaha Beach. He said, “I told God if I made it through D Day and the war I would find a quiet place to live and never leave.” He did that. My own father who spent three years in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II escaped the worst effects of his PTSD because Grandpa sold him some land where he could work hard and have some space around him. Many returning World War II vets found some kind of peace on the land. Others didn’t fare so well. I once read a quote from a 1950’s Veterans Affairs Director who said that “ninety percent of the bums on skid row are World War II combat veterans.” Thousands of them were left to fend for themselves. It took till the 1980’s, after Viet Nam, to finally get a label on what can happen to those who go to war. The Romans had a name for it, Civil War Vets talked of “soldier’s heart” and many moved west to find some open space and some land. “Shell shock” and “battle fatigue” and now “post traumatic stress disorder” all describe the same thing, the changes that come from being asked to do what most can’t even imagine.
I still don’t like the time around the 4th of July with all the firecrackers going off around the town and dumpster lids slamming cause me to jump and I was in a rural war in the rice paddies. I can see big time trouble for some of the Iraqi vets returning home to an urban environment. Cars and car bombs will be hard to separate, and the normal urban environment with all the triggers that are inherent to urban warfare is bound to drive some of them nuts. Part of Oregon’s Big Look, if the Democrats in the legislature allow it to go forward, should be to allow vets diagnosed with PTSD to buy a quiet place, like Sergeant Lipton and just get the hell out. Fat chance that will happen. The veteran’s home loan program should be expanded and include the right to buy land because restricting the supply drives prices up and forces returning vets to live in a city, like it or not. The young just starting off have to factor in high land costs because so little is available.
So while we are saving the land by screwing the people we are still neglecting do some basic things. Take for instance the terrorists who bought the land near Bly, Ore., to set up a training camp. You can be an enemy from a foreign country and buy a large block of land to train to bring the nation down. If you are a foreign government, like China, with a trillion of our dollars to spend, you could buy a sizeable chunk of prime Oregon farm land, but if you are a vet who fought for this country and lost your job and can’t afford to live in one of our new well-planned cities, you are prohibited by land use laws from teaming up with some friends to buy a country place because it’s single family dwelling on large blocks only.
Nah, there really isn’t such a thing as an urban/rural divide. If we just sat down over a good latte we could hash out our differences over land use laws, shooting Bambi, and owning guns. Voting statistics by county on a host of issues from predator management of cougars and bears to where and how you live to an Oregonian editorial on teachers and guns show there are differences between city and country. What else could explain why Oregon still issues drivers licenses to illegal aliens?
Pure old power politics is the name of the game. Having a Democratic, Republican or Libertarian legislature does make a difference. The Democratic legislature gave us 49 with support from the governor. It’s a lawyers dream. The clause about “ground water restricted areas” is going to make the planners and zoners real happy. Does anybody know of an area that isn’t ground water restricted? Will farmers three miles from a proposed home site be able to say “that new house will take my tater water so you can’t build?”
Who is in office does matter. Now after a career of sticking it to eastern Oregon the Governor wants to come out here and buy a spread and we will all be a big happy family. The colonization will be complete. The well-to-do can continue to buy what we are prohibited from owning and the urban areas can continue to send us a lot of school money because they have the tax base on homes and development. Let’s hold off on building new schools until they are willing to buy them for us. Or we could have another round of initiatives that return zoning authority to the counties and we could fight it out locally.
The war in Iraq and Afghanistan has given us a lot of new veterans who might want to enjoy the rights their fathers and grandfathers had, some might just want to find a quiet place and never leave, of course they will have to change some statewide zoning laws for that to happen. I’m hoping that they will be a little less tolerant of political BS than the general public.
Letters
What Part Of No, Don’t You Understand?To The Record-Courier:The patrons of 5-J School District have spoken-twice. They will not spend over $20 million to cover up prime farm land on the outskirts of town with a new middle school. They will fund a reasonable upgrade or remodel to existing facilities. I suggest the pros and the cons bury the hatchet, get together and work out a new alternative that we all can support.
The folks hired to plan the alternatives for the school board to consider, stated they were confined to a very narrow description of anticipated needs. The Central building has lots of space, a great auditorium and is an architectural icon. Additional real estate may be available and has any one checked on the possibility of closing Washing Street? The Helen Stack building, except for the gym, may or may not be viable, but it could be used while construction is progressing.
Yes, Baker is growing and I am certainly not qualified to comment on any detail of the above. But, one can’t help wondering about the magnitude of educational need when there presently are nearly 800 fewer students attending 5-J schools than when I served on the board many years ago.Dan WarnockBaker CityAnything New With the Travel Management Plan?To The Record-Courier:The message seems to be the same, record your favorite places on the national forest and comment on your specific uses. It needs to be noted that this holds no guarantee that your stated road or area will remain open to public access. It’s a craps shoot. I intend to submit a comment that will state NO MORE ROAD CLOSURES!
Worth noting is that a portion of the currently proposed management package includes jargon dealing with a proposed amendment to the forest plan. As we now stand, Wallowa Whitman roads are “open unless signed closed.” The proposed amendment would state “closed unless signed open.” Seems innocent, but it is, without question, the most concerning detail found in the entire package. Your forest experience would be regulated by a novel sized book of rules, restrictions, green dots, red dots and seasonal closures. Add to this our current hunting seasons, fire season, spring thaw, big game birthing and current restrictions and I’m left wondering what will be left for the recreationist.
Big game habitat is garnering its share of rhetoric. In a paper created for the Baker County Travel Management Team, titled, “Status of Elk and Elk Habitat,” the word “damage” was used countless times. Are elk a nuisance? Depends on whether you are hunting them or you own some lush alfalfa fields. One thing is certain, under current travel management guidelines and current big game management practices, Eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains harbor one of the largest free roaming elk populations in the world. This being the case, it’s clear to me that the elk population is doing just fine and that additional restrictions to public access are grossly unnecessary.
Roads... Those damn roads, along with the recreationists and their damned motorized vehicles. The initial impact of constructing the roads has mended. Impacts to the forest were already in existence when the Forest Service decided to direct a management focus to the recreationists. This is NOT merely an ATV issue. This is a closure issue, with full sized vehicles in line to feel the greatest restrictive impact.
To the minority of East Oregonians who feel we need to compromise on this issue my reply is this: We have compromised enough! Simply take a drive through any PUBLIC forested area in Northeastern Oregon and you will note the increasing number of ripped roads, tank traps and locked gates restricting PUBLIC access to areas once enjoyed by the PUBLIC. I’m not asking for it all. I just want what little is left.
No More Closures!Wanda BallardBaker CityCovered Bridge Is NeededTo The Record-Courier:As the city's Public Works Advisory Committee continues to discuss the D Street extension and bridge over the Powder River, it should consider building a covered bridge.
Covered bridges have a mystique and are tourist attraction across the country and around the world. It would be one more thing to put Baker City and Baker County on the map.
Most of Oregon's historic covered bridges are in Western Oregon and are regular stopping points for tours, many of which are organized by the Covered Bridge Society of Oregon, a volunteer group that works to maintain covered bridges and promote them. There is one covered bridge in central Oregon's Deschutes County, north of Bend, and there used to be a private covered bridge in south-central Oregon beside Highway 140 between Lakeview and the Warner Canyon Ski Area. The Covered Bridge Society of Oregon doesn't list it on its Web page, so maybe it's been removed. In any case, there are no covered bridges in Northeast Oregon.
The area of Baker City where this bridge is to be situated would be ideal for a covered bridge because it's near the heavily wooded Boy's Jungle between the residential area north of D Street west of the Powder River and the residential and multi-family zones east of the river. A covered bridge would be more expensive to build and maintain, but consider it an investment in Baker City's and Baker County's future.Dean BrickeyHermiston, Ore.
Secure Our Borders By Opposing The North American UnionTo The Record-Courier:I’m glad to see the John Birch Society is continuing their nationwide campaign to secure our borders by opposing any NAU (North American Union) legislation (which will combine America, Mexico, and Canada into one regional government with NO borders) and opposing ANY open borders legislation in Congress or the Senate such as amnesty or "guest worker" bills, etc., being perpetually promoted by the anti-American leaders we have been cursed with in the White House and Congress.
The Birch Society, I also notice, is leaving no stone unturned warning Americans about legislation threatening our borders, and through educational efforts is providing back-up public pressure on Congress to stop this scandalous open borders sell-out of our republic by our own leaders.
Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado has warned that scores of Mideast terrorist suspects have been arrested crossing our borders, which obviously indicates the clear and present danger. I wish to absolutely urge ALL concerned citizens to go to JBS.org and click on ŒTake Action!‚(or call: 1-800-JBS-USA-1 for free petition and new immigration report) and also call Congress and Senate toll free: 1-877-851-6437 to stop the NAU, and secure our borders NOW in this on-going struggle to force our own leaders to simply secure our borders! Ed Nemechek Landers, Calif. |
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