The New Era
Politics in America is really no different than it’s ever been.
Surrounding the few principled, salt-of-the-earth legislators who actually have a vision for the United States that includes freedom and justice for all, we have scores of others whose primary motivation often seems to be to lie their way into office and then manipulate the process to (a) enrich themselves or (b) subjugate the masses (us).
It’s been that way since the beginning of history, but in our democratic republic, the fact that this is happening is really our own fault. We’re the ones who elect them.
It’s difficult to do due diligence when preparing to vote. We work long hours. We have favorite activities, favorite TV shows. The kids need to get to sports practice. The dog just chewed a hole in the fence again. And, incidentally, that grass needs to be mowed.
So most of us rely on TV commercials and mailers, which are not intended to truly educate us in any sense other than the most perfunctory. They certainly are not reflective of any type of critical analysis, unless they come from an interest group.
One exception is what is reported in community newspapers, such as this one, which attempt to report at least the basics on each candidate.
In that spirit, here are our observations regarding the primary election, for which ballots should be mailed or submitted by May 20.
The biggest local issues are the Sweet Home Pool Levy and the Linn County Law Enforcement Levy.
The pool is a vital resource in our community, not just because Sweet Home has had a long run of quality young competitive swimmers, who certainly give us some positive exposure throughout the state, but because it provides recreation and an opportunity for swimming instruction for hundreds of local youngsters.
The question is whether we want to pay for it. The cost is unchanged from what we’ve been paying for the past two years – 32 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. For many property owners within the city limits, due to property tax limitations on education taxes, the cost will actually be zero, for reasons we’ll explain when we get to the law enforcement levy.
When the Livability Initiative representatives visited Sweet Home last winter, they had a frank conversation with local students who told them that one of the biggest drawbacks of life in Sweet Home for teens is lack of things to do – no bowling alley any more, no place to hang out other than outdoors rendezvous spots and fast food restaurants, etc.
We’re not saying we expect teens to flock to the swimming pool in great numbers, but they do visit the lake en masse during warm weather and it’s nice to know that they’ve all had swimming lessons – thanks to the pool. That was the reason it was built in the first place, because of perennial drownings during the summers.
Yes, the pool is not cheap. School district officials and board members are in a better position than we to judge whether there are superfluous costs involved, but we do know that if it is saving lives, it seems less excessive.
The law enforcement levy is a 25-cent increase over the existing rate we are paying, with most of that money going to the Sheriff’s Office.
The issue here is whether the law enforcement levy should be increased from $2.58 to $2.83 of assessed value, which would increase jail capacity from 182 to 230 inmates, re-opening a wing that was closed two years ago. Locking up “bad guys” is certainly better than having them roaming the streets and skipping bail.
It comes with a price. As local option levies increase, they squeeze other local option levies in a property tax limitation effect called “compression.” Locally, that means it will compress our library and local law enforcement levies. Our law enforcement levy is already insufficient to fund the Police Department, and our city is transferring cash from the General Fund to cover those costs, something it hasn’t had to do for a few years, since the last time property values in Sweet Home fell.
It will not affect the pool levy, which is itself compressed by education agencies’ permanent rates, which is why the pool won’t cost some residents anything.
Moving on, since Democrats occupy most of the congressional and the senatorial and gubernatorial seats in Oregon, the competition right now is largely between Republicans vying for the opportunity to run against the incumbents in the fall.
The other local race particularly worthy of pre-vote contemplation is the primary election for Linn County Commissioner Position 1, between incumbent John Lindsey and challenger Chanz Keeney.
We like a lot of what Lindsey does. He provides a boisterous, conservative balance to more moderate commission members Roger Nyquist and Will Tucker that we think is important in government. Someone needs to ask the sometimes uncomfortable questions of why things cost what they do, where money’s going to come from, and so on.
We don’t see Lindsey too often out here, at least not officially, unlike Tucker and Nyquist, who have been very interested and active in the community forest movement and the plans to develop the foreclosed Western States Land Reliance Trust property into a county park and industrial land.
We’d like him to be more involved in Sweet Home’s efforts to move to the next economic level as a community.
The rub in this election is that Keeney is so much like Lindsey. As a Sweet Home School Board member, he has also asked those uncomfortable questions, sometimes ones that really need to be asked, and taken unpopular stands that have kept the board from, at times, simply rubber-stamping staff recommendations and provoked discussion that sometimes is healthy. Keeney, like Lindsey a fairly solid conservative, doesn’t always go with the flow.
As Keeney himself has pointed out, this election will really come down to what voters think of Lindsey’s performance in his years on the commission.
Keeney does give a voice to east Linn County that isn’t really present right now, with two commissioners from Lebanon and one from Albany. However, we’ve been seeing what appears to be increased interest from the commissioners in what is happening here on the east end of civilization, and we appreciate that. It will be up to voters to decide if it’s enough.
We don’t have space to go into the pros and cons we see in each GOP senatorial and gubernatorial candidate here, but we recommend going beyond the TV commercials because they don’t tell us any more than the candidates and their political strategists, who know what our hot buttons are, want us to know. Independent voters guides are available on line from organizations such as the Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project, the League of Women Voters or the Oregon Family Council, as well as both the Democratic and Republican parties.