Letters to the editor for October 29, 2008

My picks for city, county races

To the editor:

While election issues fade, candidates’ governing skills and attitudes endure. This is why I will be voting for Joseph for Commissioner and Bonebrake, Button, Gilpin, and Duman for City Council. These candidates demonstrate the values of a living democracy: inclusion, fairness, openness, and accountability.

Some of our officials appear to make decisions that suit them and to view citizens as nuisances to be tolerated. People have been labeled, insulted, and arbitrarily cut off. This process has been spun as “bickering,” implying all are at fault. Perhaps those that like the “bickering” label would consider the American Revolution merely inconsequential bickering between the colonies and the king. Dissent is as American as apple pie and makes for better government when all are respected. Duman has demonstrated dissent, not bickering.

I found responses at the voters forum instructive in weighing candidates’ leadership potential and wish more voters had attended. While presenting himself as the folksy country lawyer, Milo Pope showed thinly veiled contempt toward others he considers “uninformed” (but perhaps just disagree). More of the same we do not need. If Pope had the inclination and skills to “mediate”and “shut up and listen” (Record Courier), he might have demonstrated them better in the community, such as in his roles as a Mountain Valley Mental Health board member and president.

In response to a forum question about whether Candidate Kerns would favor quarterly written financial reports from a big budget tax-supported agency the commissioners oversee, Kerns admitted not even knowing what financial reports were being received and ducked the question of increased disclosure entirely. Joseph, on the other hand, took a stand for requiring more accountability to taxpayers at contract renegotiation time. Kerns also credited Joseph with being the leader for the development of renewable energy in Baker County.

Please join me in voting for candidates who will listen, inform, and hold themselves and others accountable. The skills and attitudes of Bonebrake, Button, Gilpin, and Duman are the real “bulwark” against “petty bickering,” while Joseph’s fresh ideas, energetic style and business-like standards will invigorate the Commission.

Smith’s brazen attacks mislead

To the editor:

Multitudes of Republican Party commercials contain false or misleading attacks on Jeff Merkley. One that is especially outrageous is the one castigating Merkley for borrow-and-spend policies in the Oregon state legislature, where Jeff Merkley’s party was in the minority for most of his years as a state representative. 

This ad is startling in its brazen contrast with Gordon Smith’s borrow-and-spend policies over the last 12 years in the U.S. Senate. I think nearly everyone knows the Oregon state legislature has to balance the budget and, unlike the federal government, cannot maintain a deficit and borrow to keep paying the bills. The reference in the Smith commercial to Oregon state borrowing was to a non-controversial bipartisan decision to refinance the state’s pension fund obligations at a lower interest rate to save money. Any legislator who attempts to balance the state budget, which is required by law, or to responsibly set the state’s finances on a less volatile, more stable footing, can face unscrupulous attacks in the future for “wanting to raise taxes.”

Gordon Smith, however, was in the majority party during most of his 12 years in the Senate and got most of his economic policies enacted into law. His allegiance to rigid Republican rule over the last eight years caused a doubling of the national debt and annual deficits that will now be approaching half a trillion dollars. This was a direct result of intentional Bush policies to cut taxes (mostly for upper income levels), reducing revenue, while at the same time prosecuting an expensive war, and running an unprecedented wartime deficit instead of levying taxes or issuing war bonds to pay for the war.

I ask the undecided voter to stop and think: Is the national economic meltdown the result of Jeff Merkley’s policies during his two years as Oregon House Speaker, as the lying ads seem to suggest, or could Smith’s 12 years in Washington possibly have had something to do with it?

Alliances and backrooms

To the editor:

I am hearing a lot about “old boy networks,” “crony capitalism,” and “backroom BS” in regards to Baker City politics. It is interesting that the same people making these sorts of allegations are creating their own sort of network of cronyism and backroom BS. Beverly Calder, who currently sits on the city council, worked with Clair Button, a man who is running for city council, to circulate signature petitions for another person running for city council, Aletha Bonebrake.

Gail Duman is a current city councilwoman who is running for re-election.  She owns a store on Main Street and employs Kata Bulinski, the wife of Clair Button. Ms. Bulinski recently sent in a letter of support for Aletha Bonebrake without disclosing that her husband was running for city council or that she worked for Gail Duman.

I understand the desire to create alliances in political life. Like the TV show “Survivor,” politicians make alliances with people to insure their place in the game.  But we live in a quiet town of 10,000 people.  This is not a big city with big problems. This is not Survivor. This is not a game. When people running for city council are creating alliances based on personal vendettas against the city manager and a dots-gone-wild marketing scheme, it makes me wonder if people like that should be directing how the city functions. 

Being elected to public office is a civic honor. Being critical of elected leadership is a civic duty.  As a public official, you are beholden to the public's interests, not your own personal or business plans. What I do not understand is what this new alliance has in mind for Baker City. If the recent past is any indication, we might see a lot more attacks on those who disagree with their ideas. Avoid voting for Clair Button, Gail Duman, or Aletha Bonebrake. If they are all elected, we get a city council made primarily of Main Street business interests who seem to put personal interests before the public's interest.