Editorials from around Oregon

Selected editorials from Oregon newspapers.

The Daily Astorian, Nov. 2, on West Coast fisheries

For fishing communities, NOAA Fisheries’ annual publication about commercial landings makes for great reading - in much the way farmers enjoy the crop report.

Make no bones about it: Irrespective of decades of impressive economic diversification, the Lower Columbia and nearby places like Garibaldi, Willapa Bay and Westport, Wash., are fishing communities in essential cultural and monetary senses.

Our story last week focused on the horse race between Astoria and Newport for top West Coast fishing port - Newport edged us out in poundage in this latest tally - but there is much else to be gleaned from “Fisheries of the United States 2014.” (www.tinyurl.com/2014FishReport)

Here are a few eye-catching items and our reaction to them:

. Estimated U.S. per capita consumption of fish and shellfish was 14.6 pounds of edible meat in 2014, up from 14.5 pounds in 2013. It is safe to guess that some in our area eat several times this amount.

. Nationwide, U.S. fishermen landed 9.5 billion pounds valued at $5.4 billion in 2014. This was a decrease of 394 million pounds and $43 million from 2013, but the average ex-vessel price paid increased 57 cents a pound, compared to 55 cents a year earlier. Normal economic theory suggests that higher prices go hand in hand with a diminishing supply.

. Oysters - which play an enormous role in Washington’s Pacific County’s economy - are on a sharp upward trend in terms of price. The average price was $7.04 in 2014, up from $4.85 the year before. Overall, the U.S. produced 34.1 million pounds valued at $240.3 million. Gulf states produced 16.4 million pounds, the West Coast 10.6 million and Middle Atlantic states 5.3 million. Washington state alone produced 9.1 million pounds, 86 percent of the West’s total.

. Shrimp are surprisingly large factor in West Coast fisheries. Oregon landed 51.7 million pounds (up 9 percent) and Washington 31.4 million pound (up over 120 percent).

. Dungeness crab are amazingly lucrative but 2014 was an off year. Landings were 54.5 million pounds valued at $209.5 million, a 38 percent decrease in poundage and 17 percent decrease in dollars from 2013. Washington leads, with 19.3 million pounds and 35 percent of landings, followed by California (18 million pounds, 33 percent) and Oregon (11.9 million pounds, 21.8 percent). The average ex-vessel price was $3.84 in 2014, way up from $2.88 in 2013.

. Salmon, once the foundation of the Lower Columbia economy, are now pretty tiny here in a commercial sense. Alaska accounted for 95 percent of 2014 landings, Washington nearly 4 percent. Oregon, California and the Great Lakes combined for the remaining 1 percent. Even so, 2014 was a comparatively good year for Oregon salmon, up 82 percent in poundage and 62 percent in value.

This all is much to discuss and wonder over for old fishermen gathering for strong black coffee.

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The (Bend) Bulletin, Oct. 29, on changing Oregon’s public records law

When government has good news, it’s beating down the doors to tell the public about it. When government has bad news, it’s building a fortress of delay and costs to block the public from finding out what happened.

Today, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum convenes the first meeting of a task force set up to make recommendations for improving Oregon’s public records laws.

“Since 1973, when our public records law was enacted, hundreds of exemptions have been added,” she said in a news release. “Now is the time to examine whether we have gone too far.”

Some of the exemptions can be justified. Protecting trade secrets of businesses and home addresses of public safety officers can make a lot of sense.

But other exemptions are highly questionable. One hurts the public’s ability to find out what happened when public employees are disciplined for misusing taxpayer money or violating the public trust. Another exemption enables government officials to claim they are only engaged in preliminary discussions about changes in public policy and don’t have to release what they discussed. There is also a specific exemption of records for candidates for president of Oregon Health & Science University.

The problems with Oregon’s laws are not just the exemptions. It’s how officials react when they get records requests.

Remember what former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s strategy was with requests before he resigned. Delay, delay, delay. Oregon needed to get a new governor before many of the records were released. State law essentially has no deadlines to actually comply with a records request.

Cost is another issue. A few years ago, The Bulletin requested copies of emails between Bend-La Pine Schools and the Chalkboard Project, a nonprofit education group. There were almost 2,000 pages of emails. The district claimed it needed to charge The Bulletin nearly $2,000 in legal fees to review them. Costs like that can be just another way of declining a request.

Of course, there can be legitimate reasons to vet records before they are released to the public. But also consider this: The district had already paid the lawyer his set fee for the year. And the district still claimed The Bulletin needed to pay for that same staff time.

The guiding principle of Oregon’s public records is supposed to be that openness prevails. Censorship of public information needs to justify itself, not the public’s right to know.

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(Medford) Mail Tribune, Oct. 30, on video monitoring of schools

It’s hard to imagine, given recent events, a sheriff dropping what’s purported to be a safeguard for schoolchildren. But Jackson County Sheriff Corey Falls has done just that - and he was right to do so.

Falls decided earlier this year that his department would no longer maintain an elaborate video monitoring and security system installed at Shady Cove School and the sheriff’s office by his predecessor at a cost of nearly $280,000. His reasoning was that having trained officers in the immediate vicinity made more sense than having a system that’s monitored from the sheriff’s office some 18 miles away.

The funds used to purchase the system came from drug forfeiture money, which couldn’t have been used to hire officers. But there were ongoing costs associated with keeping the system and the bigger question of whether it made sense to have such a system in one relatively small school out of the more than 50 schools that exist in the county.

School shootings are so random that you might as well try to predict where the first raindrop will fall from a passing cloud. That is one of the infuriating aspects of these shootings - they come without warning and with no apparent rhyme or reason as to the location. The pattern is distressingly familiar in only one regard - the murderers are typically young men with some mental health issues and access to guns.

It would be wonderful to have guaranteed safeguards in all our schools against the violence we’ve seen perpetrated too many times, most recently at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg. But there’s no guarantee that even an expensive system like the Nexar platform installed at Shady Cove would prevent a tragedy. In the minutes it would take an officer to respond to a call, even if they are close by, unspeakable tragedy can occur.

Efforts to expand the Nexar program to Crater and Eagle Point high schools stalled when a federal grant was not received. In denying the request, the grant reviewer noted the “significant cost” - $3 million for the equipment and a program to work with at-risk youth - and said it would not be feasible for other school districts to adopt it. If schools and sheriffs’ departments had unlimited funding … but they don’t.

The loss of the video monitoring doesn’t mean Shady Cove School has given up all security. In fact the school probably has better than many, with emergency call buttons and remote-controlled door locks. Medford schools and others have similar security systems.

Those sorts of common-sense security systems, combined with police officers close at hand, provide the best security available, short of fortifying our schools at a financial and cultural cost that few would want to take on.

Want to help ensure school kids are kept safe? Support your school district and support your local police so they can do just that.

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The (La Grande) Observer, Oct. 30, on lawmakers’ tour of Eastern Oregon

Oregon is a big, diversified state on a number of levels. In a sense, two distinct cultures exist side-by-side. The size of the state, along with the sharp political divisions that endure, can create a gulf between perception and understanding.

Sometimes it can appear that the needs and values of the eastern side of the state are lost in the bustling white noise of the Willamette Valley. It is true, at least at first glance, the eastern portion of our state has little in common with portions of Western Oregon.

So while the natural resources tour that cruised through Eastern Oregon earlier this week may not secure blaring headlines across the state, the effort should be lauded.

Five state legislators joined area lawmakers, Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove, and Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, in an excursion in the Columbia Basin and Wallowa County. At first glance, the political outing may seem unimportant, but a closer review illustrates that such efforts are not only good for lawmakers from the western side of the state but also a good thing for Eastern Oregon.

That is why such endeavors as the one this week are so important. Lawmakers with little knowledge of our great piece of this state and what makes our economies run should be allowed every opportunity to get to know the area. That way, when decisions are reached in Salem, lawmakers from the western side of the state can make better informed judgments about future impacts in areas like Wallowa County.

In this day and age - where instant communication is the norm - it would seem easy to find out all one needs to know about an area with the simple click of the mouse on a computer. The truth is, though, that the best way to learn about an area is to be on the ground - actually visit it and talk to residents and stakeholders and gain an understanding of the challenges they face.

No doubt a gulf of understanding does exist between many on the western side of the state and Eastern Oregon. Yet efforts such as the one this week are one very good way to educate Western Oregon lawmakers on the unique attributes of our side of the state.

A gap in understanding between regions in the same state is not a recipe for success. Instead, it can only lead to further misunderstanding and political angst when a lot of hard political work needs to be completed.

Events such as the natural resources tour, along with ag and manufacturing tours, should be - if they are not already - annual exercises and should also include other counties. Whether we want to accept it or not, Eastern Oregon depends on Western Oregon. Yet the only way to create a seamless future mechanism of prosperity is through mutual understanding and knowledge.

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(Pendleton) East Oregonian, Oct. 31, on dementia’s toll on rural Oregon

While our nation faces a tsunami of rising care costs for people suffering from dementia, these challenges threaten to be even more overwhelming in rural areas here in Eastern Oregon.

A study released in recent days found dementia care to be economically devastating for Medicare patients in the last five years of life - far more costly than treatment for cancer or heart disease. End-of-life costs for Americans facing these three top killers totaled $287,038 for dementia, $175,136 for heart ailments and $173,383 for cancer.

Medicare currently ends up paying about the same amount for all three diseases, nearly $100,000. When it comes to cancer and heart disease, supplemental policies often pick up much of the balance of drug, surgery and hospitalization bills. But with dementia, private coverage for long-term care is expensive and rarely purchased. As a result, dementia expenses are especially punishing to patients, their spouses and families.

“On average, the out-of-pocket cost for a patient with dementia was $61,522 - more than 80 percent higher than the cost for someone with heart disease or cancer,” according to a story in The New York Times. “The reason is that dementia patients need caregivers to watch them, help with basic activities like eating, dressing and bathing, and provide constant supervision to make sure they do not wander off or harm themselves. None of those costs were covered by Medicare.”

Spouses who themselves may be in poor health often are the front-line caregivers for dementia sufferers. Children also assume care roles, which take them away from jobs or time with their own children. Professional dementia care costs thousands of dollars a month, swiftly denuding savings. Driven to destitution, people with dementia finally may qualify for Medicaid-funded institutional care.

All these issues are magnified in rural areas like ours. Incomes and savings tend to be lower in the first place. Nursing and assisted-living facilities are less available. Options like adult family homes are scarce and often fully booked. Children and grandchildren may be living far away in pursuit of jobs. Rural counties have among the highest percentages of older residents in the Pacific Northwest.

What to do? This is not an issue that can be fixed by minor adjustments in Medicare and Medicaid. We must re-envision all our concepts for caring for dementia patients and the elderly in general. Federal tax policy needs to do a far better job of helping families cope with care costs, while federal spending priorities must be redirected to aiding vulnerable citizens. What business does Congress have funding new bombers when millions of senior citizens and their families are engaged in silent struggles for life, dignity and financial solvency?

The issue of elder care deserves top billing on our national agenda.

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The Oregonian, Oct. 31, on measuring income inequality in Oregon

Who knows who will be on the ballot for 2016 elections? Will Gov. Kate Brown have a serious opponent? Will anyone step up to run against Ted Wheeler for Portland mayor now that incumbent Charlie Hales has said he won’t seek re-election? And will Republicans choose an outsider or establishment candidate for president? It’s much easier to predict the issues that will dominate the campaigns, and income inequality sits near the top of the list.

In Oregon, the gap between haves and have-nots also is likely to drive initiative campaigns, including a ballot measure seeking to increase business taxes and a possible vote on increasing the minimum wage - if the Legislature doesn’t tackle the issue next year. So, just how much do the top 1 percent earn in Oregon, and how much do they pay in taxes? How unequal is Oregon compared with other states? The answers to those questions aren’t easy, in part because there’s more than one way to measure inequality. But this much is clear: The conversation is different here than in many states.

The simplest way to look at inequality is to compare the money earned by the highest-income households with the earnings of the lowest-income households. According to 2013 data from the Oregon Department of Revenue, the top 1 percent of tax filers (including joint returns) in Oregon earned $350,000 or more. The cutoff for the top 5 percent was 160,000, and it took $84,000 to make the top 20 percent. In contrast, the bottom 20 percent of tax filers earned $20,000 or less. The top 20 percent paid 67.6 percent of the personal income taxes collected, with top 1 percent paying 19.2 percent.

Another way to measure inequality is to compare the top 1 percent to everyone else. Using this gap, Oregon has one of the smallest gaps in the nation, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The top 1 percent in Oregon averaged $810,196 in income, or 20 times more than the average of $40,314 for everyone else.

The smallest gap in the continental U.S. was in West Virginia, where the top 1 percent earned 16 times more than the rest of the populace. Both Hawaii and Alaska had multiples of 15 - perhaps being in a really remote location reduces inequality. All total, 12 states had lower inequality multiples than Oregon.

A more complex inequality measure, frequently used by economists, is the Gini coefficient. The Gini is a statistical computation that ranges from 0 to 1, with a higher number indicating greater inequality. By this measure, Oregon sits in the middle of the pack. Its Gini of .4624 is higher than that of 23 states, according to 2014 U.S. Census Bureau data. Alaska had the lowest, followed by Wyoming.

So depending on the measure you prefer, Oregon ranks anywhere from slightly below average to well below average in income equality. The next, and more difficult, question is whether Oregon could do even better with policy changes.

The two methods for reducing inequality that currently are at the forefront of political discourse are raising taxes on high earners and raising the minimum wage for low-income workers. Oregon has less to gain from those approaches than many states because we already tax high income more aggressively and pay entry-level workers more than most states. Most economists agree that at some point raising taxes and the minimum wage would be counterproductive - though there is little agreement on exactly where that level is. Since Oregon starts at a higher floor, it has less headroom to work with before reaching the ceiling.

Oregon’s top tax bracket of 9.9 percent is the second-highest among states. Also, Oregon taxes capital gains at the same rate as income and, therefore, also has the second-highest capital gains rate - a distinction that is magnified because neighboring Washington taxes neither capital gains nor income.

Would raising taxes even more discourage top earners from living in Oregon? There’s not a clear answer, but workers in the top 30 percent of income spectrum in the Portland area already earn about 14 percent less than the national average, according to research by ECONorthwest. You have to really want to be here to accept less pay and higher taxes.

At the other end of the spectrum, the bottom 20 percent of Portland workers earn 10 to 30 percent more than low earners nationwide. That’s at least in part because of the state’s $9.25 minimum hourly wage, which is second-highest in the nation. Those numbers could begin to shift as cities such as Seattle and Los Angeles raise their minimums to $15.

None of this changes the reality that low-income households are struggling in Oregon, but it does suggest that changing tax rates and the minimum wage likely won’t be enough to reduce the suffering.