Editorials from around Oregon

Selected editorials from Oregon newspapers:

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(Corvallis) Gazette-Times, April 18, on state pension woes:

Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a long story about how states across the nation (not just Oregon) are struggling with the mounting financial obligations of their public pension systems.

The story caught our attention because it’s a topic of considerable interest to Oregonians - and also because the story focused, naturally, on Oregon.

The story didn’t break any new ground or offer any new revelations, but it’s a good primer for someone new to this issue.

The story hit some familiar notes for anyone who’s been tracking Oregon’s woes with its Public Employees Retirement System: It started by noting the $76,111 monthly pension that Joseph Robertson, the eye surgeon who retired last fall as president of the Oregon Health & Science University, receives. (That’s the state’s largest government pension, by the way.)

The story also talks about how the costs of Oregon’s pension system have grown in part because of how it calculates pension benefits as a percentage of salary: Some pension recipients, such as former University of Oregon football coach Mike Bellotti, are benefiting from a decision by lawmakers to redefine “salary” as including remuneration from any source. So Bellotti, and the assistants who worked under him, can collect on money made from licensing deals and endorsements.

The Times reporter, Mary Williams Walsh, journeyed to Southern Oregon, where governments are feeling a particularly fierce bite from rising PERS premiums and have no recourse but to deeply slice into the services they offer their constituents. The same story is playing out, to different degrees, all through the state.

If it’s any consolation, Oregon is not alone in this misery. Colorado, for example, trimmed its pensions in 2010, but faces a new $32 billion shortfall. Similar problems face New Jersey, Connecticut and Kentucky, the Times reported. The economy is growing in all those states, but not at a rate sufficient to cover rising pension costs.

And here’s part of the reason why the Times elected to focus on Oregon, a sentence that you may need to reread a couple of times, just like we did: Oregon, the paper reported, “is not the most profligate pension payer in America, but its spiraling costs are notable in part because Oregon enjoys a reputation for fiscal discipline.”

This made us think that perhaps the Times reporter had visited a different Oregon, but never mind. The very next sentence in the story is worth highlighting: Walsh wrote that Oregon’s experience “shows how faulty financial decisions by states can eventually swamp local communities.”

That’s worth keeping in mind.

As is this point: This is not the fault of the people collecting these pensions. They played by the rules that others determined. In some cases, lawmakers and state officials bolstered PERS benefits because of a sense that state employees were working for less than they could earn if they were in the private sector.

Eventually, the state began dialing back pension benefits for new hires. “The cost of this pension system is not caused by the people we are hiring today,” Steven Rodeman, the retiring director of PERS, told the Times.

The other striking thing about the Times story is that it reflects a deep gloom about the prospects for the near future: “Across Oregon, local officials have been told to brace for 15 to 20 more years of rising pension bills,” Walsh reported. “That’s when the current generation of retirees will start dying out.”

“All we can do is wait,” Jay Meredith, the finance director in Grants Pass, told Walsh.

Well, there is something else: Remember that sentence from Walsh we highlighted, the one about how faulty financial decisions from the state can haunt communities for generations? Every elected Oregon official should cut that sentence out and tape it to their desk.

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The (Eugene) Register-Guard, April 18, on keeping e-bikes off Oregon beaches and trails:

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is considering allowing electric bicycles on Oregon beaches - including about 30 miles in Lane County - as well as some trails.

We have one word for state parks officials: No.

Current rules allow bicycles, but not e-bikes, on about 130 miles of trails and roads in state parks and on many of Oregon’s beaches.

The proposed new rules, which could go into effect as soon as this summer, would include some limits on the e-bikes, The Register-Guard’s Dylan Darling reported. They would have to still have pedals, have a top speed of 20 miles per hour, and electric motors of less than 1,000 watts.

So, what could possibly go wrong? For starters, park rangers don’t have the ability to police these vehicles to make sure they are within the specified limits, a former seasonal parks ranger noted on a cycling website. Even if they comply with the limits, he added, an electric-powered bicycle zipping along at 20 mph is not compatible with the other users of the beaches and trails in question, including small children and the average, noncompetitive cyclist.

Other potential pitfalls include less-than-fit riders who depend on motor power being stranded when their e-bike battery goes dead or their motor has a problem far from help and the speed with which inexperienced e-bikers can get into, or cause, trouble.

This doesn’t even take into account the impact on beaches and forests, and on Oregonians who seek peace and rejuvenation in the natural environment.

Even more worrisome is the possibility that e-bikes represent just the first step down a slippery slope of expanding mechanized transport in forest, wilderness and coastal areas.

There are plenty of places where riders can now travel on their e-bikes without causing distress to others and potentially themselves. Leave the e-bike at home and enjoy Oregon’s beaches, forests, and mountains without the intrusion of a motor.

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The (Bend) Bulletin, April 17, on Gov. Brown picking the right priority for a special session:

Gov. Kate Brown has called for a one-day special legislative session in June to give some of the smallest businesses in the state - sole proprietorships - a tax break. We don’t know what to think about the tax break. We haven’t seen the proposal.

A special session for smaller businesses does have advantages. It’s focused and something both Democrats and Republicans could support. For Democrats, it has the added perk of delivering Brown a campaign narrative for the November election: “I called a special session and helped small businesses across the state!”

But calling a special session also makes a statement about the state’s urgent priorities. Is a tax break for small businesses the state’s most urgent priority?

Take your pick. Oregon faces many urgent challenges. Improving schools. Improving jobs. Improving health care. Passing PERS reform. Those are all big topics. Anyone could fill a weekslong special session to work toward solutions. As worthy a topic as a small-business tax break might be, though, doesn’t it seem something else might be a critically urgent problem Oregon faces?

What about the state’s foster care system?

More than 7,000 children are in the state’s care on any given day. These are children that have likely been abused or neglected. Keeping those kids safe can be an extraordinarily difficult task for the Department of Human Services. DHS is not going to be perfect. But Oregon is failing far too often.

A DHS contractor called Give Us This Day faced allegations of improper use of force against children, substandard facilities and misspent money. DHS got into trouble for the practice of housing children in hotels. And DHS recently agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of a girl abused by her foster father. He identified himself as a sex addict during the state’s screening process.

DHS has been working on these problems. A state audit identified 24 areas that need improvement - everything from lack of staff, to oversight, to caseload management, to poor use of data. We hope to hear from DHS later this week on where it is on meeting all 24. After Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend, called for $50 million to fix the DHS staffing issue, Brown pushed for and got about $14.5 million from the Legislature.

But it’s not like the problem is over. It’s not like it’s a good idea to sit around and wait. And if there’s one thing a special session can do, it’s focus attention and explore remedies. Brown began her career as a legal advocate for vulnerable children and families. Nobody has to tell her what a serious issue it is. Her call for a urgent meeting of the Legislature was for a tax break for small business.

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The Oregonian/OregonLive, April 13, on police shooting showing Portland still fails those in crisis:

It bears repeating that a bystander’s cellphone video of last Sunday’s police shooting of an apparently suicidal man tells only part of the story. Other video, taken from inside the Southeast Portland homeless shelter where John Elifritz was killed in a barrage of bullets, may provide additional context about any danger he posed. Statements from Portland Police officers at the scene may explain what ultimately prompted them to open fire on Elifritz, who held a knife and previously threatened himself and others.

But it is also important not to discount what that minute-long video shows: a massive police presence; the confusing clamor of shouting officers and a barking police dog; and the quick progression from police entering the shelter to firing on Elifritz, who appeared to have nowhere to run. At the very least, it raises questions about how police actions in this case square with the promises Portland made as part of a 2014 settlement with the federal justice department that police would seek to de-escalate and curb the use of force against those believed to be mentally ill. But it also should prompt Mayor Ted Wheeler, the City Council and Police Chief Danielle Outlaw to recognize an increasingly unavoidable truth: While there have been improvements, the federal settlement has not been enough, and this city continues to fail those in crisis.

Certainly, Wheeler and Outlaw should release the results of the shooting investigation, along with any video, as soon as possible with an emphasis on explaining what happened, whether mistakes were made and what Portland Police can learn from this tragic event. The accounting should include assessments of police interactions with Elifritz earlier in the day as they responded to various 911 calls that documented his unraveling, as The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Maxine Bernstein reported.

But city officials need to do more. As they prepare to update a federal judge on Portland’s compliance with the police reforms settlement this week, they should ditch a proposed change that scales back community oversight of the settlement. Instead, city officials should look to go beyond the promises they have made and commit additional resources for mental health - not just police - personnel.

Wheeler and federal justice officials are expected to ask U.S. District Judge Michael Simon to authorize revising the 2014 settlement to swap out the Community Oversight Advisory Board with another community panel. The advisory board, which was tasked with independently assessing the city’s implementation of police reforms, suffered from numerous conflicts and significant turnover in its short history. But the decision to vest it with such responsibility was a necessary show of faith to the community, acknowledging the value of its oversight.

Unfortunately, Wheeler’s proposed replacement, the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing, is a poor substitute. Citizens who serve on the panel would solicit community feedback on police performance, offer recommendations to the police bureau for improvements and help develop a plan for engaging with the community - a far cry from the robust role originally envisioned in the settlement. The city should honor the commitment it made to the community and find a new way to revive the community oversight board.

Additionally, the city should look to lay the groundwork with the police union for allowing the city’s Independent Police Review division to conduct administrative investigations - with the ability to compel statements - into officer-involved shootings, a proposal long advocated by the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform. Currently, the Independent Police Review division, housed in the City Auditor’s office, is limited in its oversight of cases in which officers use deadly force. A move to ensure greater independence in such an inquiry would build more credibility with a distrustful community that questions whether officers are ever held accountable.

And finally, Wheeler should back off his budget request to hire dozens more police officers and instead think more strategically of what public safety should mean. Police officers, many of whom don’t have specialized mental health training, aren’t the best first responders to those in the midst of such crises. Unfortunately, they are usually the ones who are dispatched. If the city is looking to invest significantly more funds in public safety matters, it should make targeted investments, preferably in cooperation with Multnomah County, to expand the number of mental health professionals who can accompany police officers on such calls and help de-escalate situations that can - and have - turned deadly. As Disability Rights Oregon executive director Bob Joondeph noted to The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board, the city and county have already shown through its Joint Office of Homeless Services the benefit of cooperation on issues that cross the boundaries of traditional governmental responsibilities.

While the full circumstances of Saturday’s shooting are not yet known, Portland’s leaders can act on what is known: A persistent failing, an intense need - and a community’s unyielding demand for true progress.

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Baker City Herald, April 11, on wolves and cattle:

For most of the past decade Oregon’s debate over wolves and their killing of livestock was focused somewhere other than Baker County.

That ended last weekend.

The Pine Creek wolf pack, which consists of three adults and five pups born about a year ago, killed at least three calves belonging to Chad DelCurto of Baker County, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. DelCurto had turned out about 130 cow-calf pairs in the Fourmile Gulch area about eight miles east of Halfway and south of Highway 86.

It was the first confirmed case of wolves killing livestock in Baker County since 2012, and just the second episode since the spring and summer of 2009, when wolves killed two dozen sheep and a goat on Curt and Annie Jacobs’ ranch near Keating. The 2009 depredations were the first confirmed cases in Oregon since wolves moved into the state from Idaho in 1999.

In the ensuing years most of the confirmed attacks by wolves on livestock happened to our north, in Umatilla, Union and Wallowa counties.

But we’re not surprised by the attacks on DelCurto’s cattle.

In March 2017 Brian Ratliff, district wildlife biologist at ODFW’s Baker City office, told Baker County commissioners that there were three wolves fitted with tracking collars roaming the county.

That group of wolves is now the Pine Creek pack.

DelCurto wants ODFW to kill the entire pack. In similar cases in the past, most recently last year with the Harl Butte pack in Wallowa County, the agency has instead killed some wolves, but not all, from packs that had repeatedly attacked livestock.

We’re concerned that this approach won’t deter the Pine Creek pack from continuing to target cattle in Baker County.

Wolves from the Harl Butte pack attacked cattle at least 11 times between July 15, 2016, and Oct. 10, 2017, according to ODFW. During August 2017 ODFW agents killed four wolves from that pack, yet Harl Butte wolves attacked livestock at least twice more after the wolves were killed.

And it turns out that the alpha male wolf from the Harl Butte pack has, in effect, taken the same role with the Pine Creek pack now that its former alpha male has been ousted (that wolf migrated to Idaho last fall and was legally killed by a hunter not long after).

Ideally, nonlethal methods such as hazing, which ODFW tried last weekend and earlier this week to drive the Pine Creek pack away from DelCurto’s cattle, will solve the problem, at least temporarily. But based on the recent experience with the Harl Butte pack, when even the killing of four wolves didn’t stop attacks on cattle, we’re skeptical.

The area where DelCurto’s calves were killed is private land that’s separated from the Eagle Cap and Hells Canyon wilderness areas by Highway 86. If the Pine Creek pack shows a proclivity for staying in that area not only during winter, when they’re likely attracted by the elk herds that winter there, but also in spring and summer when cattle graze, then future attacks on livestock are likely.

We’re not advocating for the wanton, wholesale slaughter of wolves.

But the animals have been doing relatively well in Oregon, expanding in just the past several years from their original base in the northeast corner to establish a pack in Southern Oregon between Klamath Falls and Medford.

We acknowledge that state wildlife officials have a difficult task in balancing the concerns of ranchers and those who welcome the spread of wolves in Oregon. But we don’t believe the future of the species in the state will be decided by the fate of eight wolves in Baker County. ODFW should consider eliminating the pack if officials conclude that’s the only feasible way to prevent chronic depredation of cattle in a relatively small section of Baker County.