Oregon Strategist

Reinventing the Oregon Dream

ODA’s Beetles Take a Bite Out of Portland

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Galerucella BeetleThe Oregon Department of Agriculture’s (ODA) latest efforts to quell an invasive species has led to a massive beetle infestation in the Sellwood and Westmoreland neighborhood of Portland. The ODA first introduced the Galerucella beetle to Oregon in 1992 and released them into the Oaks Bottom wetland ten years ago to control the growth of Purple Loosestrife.

Residents of Sellwood and Westmoreland are now experiencing a drastic infestation of the beetle in their yards. The beetle has reportedly expanded its eating habits to residents’ crepe myrtle, roses, and tomatoes.

Instead of offering an apology to residents, the ODA decided to issue a press release blaming the infestation on a “perfect storm” of factors including hotter and drier weather conditions and favorable water conditions that have led to surge in the beetle’s population. Furthermore, the ODA, in the release, redirects the public attention to the dire need for this method of “biocontrol”, claiming the Purple Loosestrife, a wetland plant with a purple flower enjoyed by bees and butterflies alike and utilized against diarrhea and dysentery for its medicinal properties, is overly abundant and that the plant would cause $28 million in economic damage if it were to spread throughout Oregon.

Tinkering with the environment has long been a pastime of state and federal regulators. They have attempted to get the proper levels of all the ingredients so that it can cement in permanency its function as an environmental arbiter. And citizens are beginning to pay attention. Environmental organizations such as Friends of the Animals are speaking out against the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (USDFW) killing of the barred owl to help promote the Spotted Owl’s habitat. The Center for Biological Diversity recently issued a press release against similar actions the USDFW was taking in the slaughter of Cormorants in the Columbia River Basin in an effort to encourage salmon and steelhead.

Few could argue that government has, at times, played an important role in reducing the human footprint. But like Mr. McGoo, state and federal regulators can also be, at times, the source of enormous disaster as we saw with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) toxic spill into the Animus River this past week that release lead, arsenic and cadmium into the flowing waters. The United States Department of Energy (USDOE) is in charge of the cleanup at the government-created Hanford Nuclear Reservation, wastes of which still gravely threatens Oregon and Washington.

A footprint is still a footprint. Environmental tinkering has an impact on all our lives. Our efforts to reduce this footprint might be a difficult pill to swallow for government and many organizations that base their efforts on reduction of invasive species for biodiversity. But reducing our footprint is simply a way of saying, we are not greater than nature but are a part of it and we accept its principles in the balance of our ecosystems, recognizing that our own tinkering can often be disruptive.

We should be focusing on how to reduce our footprint as a method for promoting environmental diversity rather than to reduce by method of death squad, the population of any over abundant plant or animal. Indeed, we would certainly not employ such methods in handling those immigrating to our state and towns, despite how many would view them as “invasive.”

For now, the ODA is literally in Portland residents’ backyards. There is no sure determination that the infestation is going to dissipate and not return next year when weather conditions could possibly be just as favorable to the little bugs.

Youth and the Republican Party: An American Recovery

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Republican Elephant and Democratic DonkeyParty warfare and polarization of ideologies may be significantly to blame for the finger-pointing and squabbling in Washington D.C. Open primaries, term limits, and policies that suspend Congressional pay if shutdowns occur are just some of the answers to questions of how we must reform the internal mechanisms of our government in order to get back on track for being a proud and confident nation.

Yet, these policies may be some time away from now until young leaders are put in power that are willing to limit their own power for long-term objectives. Until that time, we must ask serious questions about how all of us – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – can come together to help shape the new Republican Party and bring back a balance of power to the system to check the unprecedented spending and waste in our federal government.

Every dollar our government spends today is a dollar that young people will have to pay back in their future. This is inherently unfair and unjust. Entrenched leaders in Washington D.C. continue to waste the money of future generations for their own political short-term gain. Our interests, the interests of those in their thirties, twenties and younger – are not being represented.

Young people have an opportunity to take over the Republican Party here in Oregon – be you Democrat, Republican or Independent. We have the opportunity to shape the party for ourselves and take back what is our future to spend – not theirs.

And conservative and progressive values, the real kind that is (as opposed to the kind promoted by the media), may be the kind we younger generations can embrace. We know what it is like to be under the weight of massive educational debt, not to have the employment opportunities we were told would be waiting for us on the other side, and to find ourselves unable to fulfill our American Dreams.

Our current leaders have failed us. We must now take up the torch and lead with real principles. That is, with self-sacrifice, courage, and pride in a future America we can own and love.

Entitlements are wasting our money. Military ventures are wasting our money. Centralized corporate-sponsored federal programs are wasting our money. Congress is wasting our money. This is our future. We want this future to be green, healthy, productive, and local.

To get back in the game we must go to work. We must find work in any sector. If it means working in an area we perceive to be below our educational level, we must work. We must reject anything handed to us. Only then can we hold our heads high. And we must hold our heads high in order to lead.

We will bring jobs back from overseas. We will go to the ports, find out what China is shipping to us, and make those products here. We will make them better and less expensive. We will encourage entrepreneurs. We will educate. We will stockpile. Our future will be one of great influence.

We will put our money into credit unions and keep our organizations nimble, flexible and local – like Privateers. We will execute a trade surplus and pay down our deficit. And we will not be reckless with the future of our next wave of youth.

We will reform Congress. We will take only one term in any given political office and will condemn political entrenchment and the establishment. We will limit our salaries because what we do is a service to our Great Nation, not a pillage of our Great Nation. We will give back, we will pay the way forward, we will unite, we will overcome and we will live mightily on our principles, work and love.

Timothy Crawley, a native son of Oregon, is a candidate for the 2014 United States Senate seat for Oregon.

The Morrow Pacific Project: Killing the Columbia

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BargeJobs that promote the destruction of our environment are not jobs for the future. Jobs that fit us into a more rhythmic balance with nature are integral for our future. The Morrow Pacific Project will further entrench the barging industry and create further dependence upon the dams that block our most precious river. The proposal is a proposal that runs counter to the interests of our local communities and the Native Americans.

The Morrow Pacific Project, a proposal to transport coal from Wyoming and Montana to Oregon for shipment to China, Korea and Japan, must be altered. The coal would be shipped via rail to Boardman, Oregon where it would then be loaded onto barges for transport down river to the Port of St. Helens. The project would result in an additional 12 barge tows on the Columbia. Such a proposal would further entrench the barging industry and make them all the more powerful in a bid to keep dams operating on our rivers.

About two hundred dams (http://www.psmfc.org/habitat/salmondam.html) were built along the Columbia between 1930 and the late 1970s. This helped foster the barging industry that used the slowed river to advance goods up and downstream and created an artificial reliance upon this form of shipment. Since then, the industry has trucking and training beat for offering the best prices on shipment of goods and has boasted that its power blocked proposals to lower the river to expose the beauty of Celilo Falls.

Oregonians face an uphill battle to alleviate the strain upon our river systems. Bonneville alone is a behemoth that no one really believes can be broken. However, Congress authorized to build the Bonneville dam in 1930, emphasizing the “taming of the Columbia.” This dam will soon run its lifecycle. In order to replace a dam of this size and magnitude with low-impact technology that leaves the river partially open for fish passage, effort must begin now to build awareness regarding Oregonians and Washingtonians’ options.

For those seeing such an effort as a lost cause, it may be helpful to think about how large corporate interests can also be on the side of freeing the Columbia. Oregon company and outdoor recreation outfitters Columbia Sportswear, among others, would benefit tremendously from a river that teemed with fish and rapids.

Oregon must put in place leaders in Washington willing to promote the proper industries to make this dream a reality. Additional rail lines are needed to support a shift away from barging to carry wheat and other agricultural products across the state to Portland.

The Bonneville dam and many others on the Columbia River including the John Day dam are referred to as “run-of-the-river” dams, meaning that they do not back water up to create a reservoir. If electricity can be generated in such quantity from these operations, how could “run-of-the-river” technology be utilized to construct dams that do not impeded the full width of the river?

Portlanders have the option on their energy statement from Portland General Electric to source their energy from Green Source and Clean Wind resources. See www.greenpoweroregon.com. Choosing these local options is the first step. Putting the right folks in Washington D.C. is the second step.

On Independence

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FlagAs Oregonians, divided by the I-5 corridor, by the Cascades and the Willamette, by the interests of Nike and the interests of a democracy, by Beavers and Ducks, by two fiercely opposed political parties and their ideologies, and the varied idiosyncrasies of our farms, cities, markets, culture and climate, we understand one principle in common: the right and dignity to hold one’s differences in equal legitimacy to another’s. 

The forces of opposition to this principle are stealthy in the corrosion of its foundation in the Constitution. A vote is no longer a vote but competes now with the dollars of special interests packing the hallways outside of our legislative sessions, and colleges of election that spit on a Declaration. It begs the question how must we oppose such a daunting force? We answer by changing the game.

John Locke coined “the pursuit of happiness” to describe each human being’s path to fulfillment and self-determination. But when dependency is forced upon us by an organism larger than ourselves we lose the ability to determine our path – instead we are guided by the shackles of a creature empowered not by a citizenry united but a conquered one. And now our actions must be tempered in accordance with what we owe.

How does our burden break? Are we to believe that the current bifurcation of power in government and the precedence of the two-party platform will yield a solution that will allow the torch of entrepreneurialism and the fire of free-spirited endeavors which have sustained our nation, to carry on? Or are we merely selling out now, foregoing an inspirited future? There is no golden parachute waiting for us on the other side.

The monuments we have built in the name of progress were once named for the achievements of our history and personhood. They now bear the mark of collusion and oligarchy. Our landscape is burned with billboards – a conditioning by the top to us, telling us to vote the party line. And so we register, as Democrat and as Republican progressing our way ever closer to a future obsolete. Where is the voice of a single human being in that?

“The right to hold one’s differences in equal legitimacy to another’s” is an expression not of compromise but of reason of mind. Each point of view is a legitimate whole. We should not be asked to sacrifice a core belief in adoption of a compromised ethic, in a compromised American Dream. That will merely degrade our sense of humanness and that has been happening for too long. No. Liberation begins in the mind.

Politics is the marriage of each of us to our unity. Practiced properly it is the cornerstone of revolution. Abused and it is the pedestal of tyranny. We must resolve ourselves to seek peace instead of pork, dignity instead of derision. And when we do we will know we have buried the forces of opposition for a path clear to revival and suffrage.

Timothy Crawley

Victory for Democracy: The Death of the Fluoride Measure in Portland

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water-or-fluoridePortland voters voted against adding fuorosilicic acid to their water supply, despite overwhelming odds, and continue to maintain their status as the largest city without fluoridated water. Pro-fluoride advocates marked the day as a defeat for public health. Anti-fluoride advocates rejoiced (for the fourth time since 1956) in the freedom of choice.

The 61 percent of citizens voting down the measure included the Pacific Green Party, the Oregon Progressive Party, the Organic Consumers Association, the Oregon Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and the Cascade Policy Institute – strange bedfellows indeed [link].

Assuming fluoride is not harmful to the human body there is no excuse – not even the fact that fluoride is proven to prevent tooth decay – for mandatorily medicating a population. Vaccines used to prevent communicable diseases are not even mandatory by law but, rather, are required by state law only if one chooses to take advantage of state resources such as public education. Public health prevention should be tempered through policies that are not invasive to the individual body. Mass medication of this type straddles an Orwellian line the Portland citizenry has firmly rejected.

Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland and the pro-fluoride campaign, outraised their opponents 3-1 and still came up short at the end of the day, demonstrating democracy, at a local level, is alive and well in Portland. The government shared the support of fluoridating the city’s water supply, a move that would align Portland with the majority of large communities in the United States and would have a centralizing effect in consolidating power under agencies such as the Center for Disease Control. Keeping itself relevant is a primary reason for the government’s support of the measure. However, relevancy at the expense of additives to the water supply, a public resource, is a high price to pay.

Currently, Portland schools, through ViDA (Vision, Dental, and Audiometric screening program), offer a daily fluoride tablet program that provides fluoride upon request to students and their families at no cost. This program respects the choice that families should have in providing their children a substance that is harmful if ingested in certain amounts. Actions such as these are within the government’s prerogative of response to so-called dental epidemics as is education about proper health and dental care and providing students healthy, non-sugary vending and meal options at schools.

Truth be told, there are a multitude of options at the government’s disposal to address tooth decay that would preserve choice and could be much more cost effective than building a five million dollar facility with an annual operating budget in the hundreds of thousands. Switzerland uses fluoridated salt, thus preserving citizens’ choice by having non-fluoridated salt available. In Japan, a country that does not fluoridate its water, public health advertisements have normalized tooth-brushing after every meal such that students, teachers, and those in the workplace may be seen brushing their teeth in public and school restrooms around mealtimes.

The voting results marked the defeat of a measure that threatened Portlanders’ choice, unique cultural status, and clean water supply. Despite five commissioners and nearly every major city newspaper advocating for the Measure and despite being out-funded, Portlanders spoke with the loudest voice. No matter which way one falls in the fluoride debate, the defeat of Measure 26-151 is a victory for the city’s democratic process.

Taking the Lead on Water

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Image by www.oregonlive.com

Image by www.oregonlive.com

When it comes to water, Portland should be the leader, not the follower. Oregon is renowned for its mountain waters that melt from clean winter snows off of the peaks of the Cascades. Now, the largest city in the state is set to vote in a special election on May 21 whether it will add fluorosilicic acid to its public waters. Portland is the largest city in the United States that does not fluoridate its public drinking water.

Nick Fish, Commissioner for Public Works, who played a significant role in advocating for fluoridation in Portland, has made clear his stance on the issue. His August 16, 2012 statement declared that cities save an estimated $38 in dental costs for every $1 toward the public fluoridation process. This seems to cry far from the truth where public schools already provide fluoridation treatments for their students and countless topical fluoride products may be found at any local store.

During a time when water and sewer rates are increasing drastically, despite across-the-board city budget cuts outlined just days ago, it is an exercise in wonder to find Portland’s commissioners touting the construction of a $5 million facility [Portland Water Bureau] with a $575,000 per annul operating and chemical cost. Especially considering there are so many less expensive and more targeted approaches to preventive periodontal care.

Furthermore, the city has paid scant attention to fluorosilicic acid’s effects on the environment. The Sierra Club has urged voters against the passage of adding fluoride to Portland’s public waters because of negative effects on salmon and aquatic life [Sierra Club Opposes Portland Water Fluoridation Measure 26-151]. Would adding more of this acid contribute to the already rapid acidification occurring on our oceans’ surfaces (a 30% increase since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution [Arctic Ocean ‘acidifying rapidly’].

Consumer choice and the ethical considerations of mass medication are strong arguments in favor of rejecting the Commissioner Fish’s proposal to fluoridate Portland’s public waters. There are currently no federal laws requiring vaccination [CDC State Vaccination Requirements] of children (however, many states require such vaccination before enrolling at public schools). Why should a citizen be forced to choose between buying bottled water and subjecting their children to ingestion of a chemical intended for topical use only? The proposal restricts our choice and is unethical to the extent that it is an attempt to mass medicate a population. We don’t even make such requirements of our vaccines.

Portland may be the largest city in the United States not to fluoridate its water. However, entire countries have banned the practice of fluoridating their public water altogether. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, ceased fluoridating its water in the early 70s, as did Sweden. Finland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia stopped the practice in the 90s. Their ministers have cited all of the above arguments for imposing fluoridated water on their populations.

As the proposal is set for a vote, citizens should consider not whether they believe there are health benefits or not to adding fluoride to our water but whether these benefits can be achieved through measured and responsible administration that respects the realm of parents and respects citizens’ consent. Citizens should consider Portland leading the way.

Old Growth, New Voice

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Why do we pay the highest taxes to a government that is furthest away from our homes and communities yet our local governments are struggling to keep our neighborhood pools afloat, our parks enriched, and our kids learning? Is it possible to temper our lust for creating institutions based primarily on a growth model akin to a pyramid scheme?

Both Republicans and Democrats cannot deny their involvement in making servants, if not slaves, out of the future generations of our country either because of nearly bankrupt social programs or because of international ventures gone awry. The parties have succumbed to the pressures inherent in gaining popular favor and retention of power. Representatives and senators are compelled by each imminent election to bring home as much pork as they can carve out from the carcass of our appropriations bills, in essence, stabilizing their influence and legitimizing their role to the voters back home.

Private enterprise, in an economy of scale, can operate in a parallel fashion. Companies such as Monsanto lobby Washington to secure last minute riders in Congressional bills that serve to make lawful their pillage of the average American while barricading their fiefdoms. Wall Street banks have largely been able to navigate around the financial regulations following the 2008 crash and have grown to such girth as to make any indictments of their executives too risky for the economy to endure. We even have seen our educational institutions focused on gaining as much market share as possible rather than perfecting the market share they own.

Grow. Grow. Grow. When the size of an institution begins to compromise the accountability they owe to those closest to home, that is when it is time to stop growing and time to start fine-tuning. Nike, Incorporated has provided tremendous services to Oregon. However, the capacity the company wields in forcing emergency sessions by the executive and legislative branches certainly conjures criticism on subversion of the democracy we are trying to achieve for our state. Accountability builds trust and is at the heart of any community. Crony capitalism and the desire to grow at all costs undermine the integrity of the bonds between us citizens.

When we buy from the behemoths, we are buying an empty homogenate. Changing the way we think about success in our institutions and ourselves is at the heart of reform. Buying local at every opportunity and making personal, individualized investments in the small businesses and non-profits of our state create a unique and vibrant community with healthy competition.

We, as voters and conscientious citizens, must reward politicians who act as conduits of power: not bankers of power. They must be rewarded for coordinating with community leaders in the locale. They must focus on perfecting the basics of government rather than seeking new program upon new program for their list of accomplishments. Local governments have an opportunity to take the reigns and lead their communities towards shaping their desired futures by holding the People’s voice upon the highest of pedestals.

A Bold Earth Day

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Portland celebrated Earth Day with high volunteer turnout as the Johnson Creek Watershed Council (“JCWC”) tilled the soil, putting down Ash tree, native grasses and shrub roots at the mouth of the creek where it meets the Willamette River. The JCWC has been a forerunner for salmon restoration efforts in the Portland region and has served as a premier example in Oregon for the transformative effect of volunteerism and local compassion for habitat renewal, sustainability, and species co-existence particularly in an urban environment.

This Earth Day weekend provides Oregonians a special opportunity to reflect on our vision for the state’s rivers and tributaries – perhaps our most precious resource here in the Northwest. Oregon’s waters have irrigated our farms, brought energy to our homes and businesses, and have made possible the transportation of goods across the state. The times, however, are largely different from those when the first federal levees rose out of the waters of the Columbia River by the Public Works Administration and President Roosevelt’s New Deal during the 1930s.

Over the previous five to ten years, much effort has been made to remove four obsolete dams on the lower Snake River: Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite. Their removal could bring such potential benefits as new nature tourism and fishing, outweighing the costs of dredging backed-up silt and dam maintenance. However, these dams remain standing today. And our fish populations continue to bear the impact.

A chasm stands between what we, as those who live and are sustained by the river, desire for our future and the removal, not merely of dams, but of outdated ideas. New ideas must take shape that meet our energy demands but that leave our rivers flowing more like rivers and less like a gauntlet for fish. As we learn to become less energy dependent and, likewise, as energy is created at a more local level and stored in a more efficient manner, perhaps our need to dam their flow will wane. In the meantime, politicians, elected and appointed officials, and administrators must take bold steps, perhaps even overturning unpopular international treaties regulating flood control, in order to realize our vision for a renewable and sustainable Oregon.

Today, Oregonians are uniting behind the salmon and wild fish populations that are crucial not only for the full expression of our rivers and streams but also for the future generations of our state. Our uniting begins and ends with the time we volunteer restoring these waters. Our uniting begins and ends in local efforts such as those of the Clackamas County Democrats, who, last Thursday, voted to endorse a different kind of levy (Measure 26-152) that would be used to enhance the renewal and restorative efforts of organizations like the JCWC.

To paraphrase from David James Duncan’s inspiring keynote address to the “Extinction Stops Here” rally in 2006, we’ll give up fighting for the salmon’s birth rivers and safe passage to the sea on the same day we see a wild salmon give up migrating. And we all know that they will never give up.

Local Plight, Federal Bite: Portland Community Budget Forum 4-11-2013

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Local Plight, Federal Bite: Portland Community Budget Forum 4-11-2013

The City of Portland held its Community Budget Forum yesterday evening with Mayor Charlie Hales, Commissioner Nick Fish, Commissioner Dan Saltzman, and Commissioner Amanda Fritz presiding.

Educational, homeless and environmental groups dominated the floor and commenting session in the packed conference center at Montgomery Park. Audience members chanted “No More Cuts” as students implored the City Council to preserve funding for SUN Community Schools and the Multnomah Youth Commission. Hacienda CDC and Portland’s Clark Center also made a splash alongside supporters of the Buckman community pool.

Portland is a beautiful city, due in large part to the efforts of organizations like Friends of Trees (which stands to have 50% of its public funding cut from its budget and, of which, Mayor Charlie Hayes is on the board). The tranquility of the upper Willamette and the pace and lifestyle in Multnomah is creating an influx of folks from out-of-state, seeking a better existence and community. Portland is a growing community, and despite high unemployment figures, it is shaping itself into a formidable small business and incubator environment. Now is not the time to sell the future short.

Difficult economic times has required city, county and state governments as well as the federal government to make difficult decisions as to the programs that will continue to receive funding and those that will experience cuts or obsolescence. In these times, citizens should be thinking about the structure and relationship of these entities to one another and to the citizenry.

Healthy skepticism of government is only possible where such skepticism is impactful. The power and dominance of Washington D.C. override any such expressions and mute the voices that were so abundant at yesterday’s gathering. The fiscal cliff and sequestration are perhaps among the first signs of a dismantling of this industrial political complex, however, our state’s leaders in Washington D.C. need to begin the process of giving power back to their localities and citizenry – or face their own obsolescence.

Yesterday, Mayor Hales and the Commissioners physically heard their citizens’ outcries. Direct democracy of this kind does not exist at the faceless level of federal governance. Democracy at this level is a derivative of popular support.

The conversation surrounding local budgets should be one of the highest priorities for an Oregon politician in Washington D.C. Their concern for local budgets should coincide with the removal of our troops from foreign soil, the cleanup of antiquated federal infrastructure that has compromised our waterways and forests, and the protection of the principals of our Constitution for all citizens, regardless of color, creed or orientation.

Under the above circumstances, the conversation at yesterday’s Community Budget Forum would have sounded radically different. Folks would have been discussing further ways to collaborate and integrate. Instead, the health and well being of youth, women, minorities, the homeless and vulnerable are being jeopardized by the City’s cuts. Changing this outcome requires Oregon politicians in Washington D.C. to make the short-term sacrifices of power necessary for long-term care of our cities and state.