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.

Our Veteran Homeless: A Caretaker’s Perspective

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Homeless VeteranJason Kersten is a former Army Ranger that served in the Gulf War during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. I spoke with him on a park bench in Lownsdale Square about his work with the veteran homeless population in Oregon and Portland in particular. 
There are currently 1400 houseless veterans in Oregon. Jason’s life mission is now to help these veterans deal with their drug, alcohol and health issues. He has a passion for this work and a deep connection to the community-at-large.Jason knows the difficult and unstable life of being without a roof over his head. He was one of four Porlanders who inspired me on the last Sunday in September, to sleep under the Hawthorne Bridge to experience, for just a moment, the restless night of one without shelter.

Imagine for a moment what it is like to have to merely choose where to sleep. Will you choose to sleep near other houseless, or by yourself in isolation? Will you sleep facing a wall with your back exposed or facing outwards where other people know you are sleeping because they can see that your eyes are closed? Either position imbeds an extraordinary lack of security. Now imagine, a train, or car, or passerby waking you up every two hours. You have to walk around the block. Go back to sleep. Imagine trying to hold a steady job under these conditions.

Ibrahim Mubarak, one of the primary founders of Right 2 Dream in downtown Portland, at one point told me that if we focused on eliminating homelessness amongst our veterans we would reduce overall homelessness by 30%. This is an astounding number on its own but given that this particular type of homelessness is a product of our society and the future we have created for many of these individuals who served their county with honor and valour, this is a type of homelessness we are obligated to eliminate.
I saw many others sleeping on the street that last Sunday in September. There were immigrants, the mentally sick, young runaways, and drug addicts. These are the most vulnerable in our society. The way we treat them is a reflection of who we are as a society and the kinds of values we promote.
We have the wealth and the capability in our nation to lift eachother up. Wealth stratification is stretching our society apart at an unhealthy and degrading level. The term “paying our way forward” has picked up new momentum as so many of us are realizing that consuming for ourselves is not the type of world we want to create. We see a better world. A world where we are not so reliant upon the energy the government sells to us to consume. A world where we are not so reliant upon the industrial food complex – where we now may find trees next to sidewalks bearing fruit. A world where we decide that modesty is relevant and alive and experience is shared.
Our soldiers have been exposed to the atrocities of this world. Whether one agrees with the military’s purpose or not, our human empathy begs us to stand by them on their return. We must pay the way forward to bring our soldiers home. We must re-integrate them properly into our civilian communities and think hard, as we have with Syria, about the real cost involved in sending them away to begin with.

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.

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.