A4 • The World • Saturday, August 23,2014
Editorial Board Jeff Precourt, Publisher Larry Campbell, Executive Editor
Les Bowen, Digital Editor Ron Jackimowicz, News Editor
Opinion theworldlink.com/news/opinion
What other communities can teach us Valparaiso, Ind., is a former steel mill town near the bottom tip of Lake Michigan, about 55 miles southeast of Chicago. Like a lot of American towns in the Rust Belt, it had fallen on hard times when the U.S. Steel industry declined in the 1980s. The town bumped along that way for years, barely surviving. Folks there knew it was election season when the roads and sewage systems that had been neglected suddenly started getting fixed. Pretty much a status quo situation that everyone just shrugged their shoulders at. About 10 years ago, a young lawyer who’d sat on the city council took a run at
Our view We can learn a lot from other communities that have turned their fortunes around. unseating the incumbent mayor. He won, and since Jon Costas has been running Valparaiso, the city has slowly turned itself around. First, he attended to the basics, not waiting for the next election season. He spent the first two years of his administration fixing roads and getting the buses to run on time. In a bold move, he convinced the city council to start a bus service to Chicago. Why bus residents out of town? To make it easier for folks who worked
there to bring their paychecks back home to Valpo. Then, Mayor Costas turned his attention to the downtown. With a combination of various funding sources the city bought a downtown eyesore — a parking lot and abandoned building. The city tore the building down and turned the acreage into a city center, with shops and restaurants and an amphitheater. Another idea — the city was able to get the state legislature to create and issue a new kind of limited liquor license, restricted to the historic downtown, to encourage more restaurants to move in. As we said, this all started 10 years ago. And no one
would say everything’s now perfect in the former steel mill town. But the city’s development director, Patrick Lyp, says that other towns call him all the time to ask what the secret was. For one thing, Lyp tells them, get the basics right. Build the city’s infrastructure and follow through on what you promise the residents. That starts building trust. Get a great grant writer. Federal and state grants abound, but you have to know where and how to look for them. A great grant writer is worth his or her weight in gold. Practice the art of politics. Land condemnation and
eminent domain are available, but they should be tools of last resort. Most important — have a vision. Not just a plan, but a vision. Vision is one of the qualities of leadership. Vision is what separates leaders from able administrators. By now you get where we’re going with this. If your reaction is: “We’re not Valparaiso; Things are different here; We can’t do the same thing;” well, you’d be right. But you’d be missing the point. We can take care of infrastructure. We can find other funding sources. We can find vision. We can do all that — if we have the right leadership.
Cheers Jeers
& Uplifting art
Dusty Harrington-Collins isn’t letting anything get in the way of creating handsome artwork, not even Parkinson’s disease. The retired Army veteran has been painting lovely landscapes for 20 years. Since being diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease eight years ago, the creativity helps ease his symptoms, including the muscle tremors and rigidity. Now he sells his works, with the money going to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Talk about fighting back.
Letters to the Editor
Shake,rattle and roll Word last week was that the head of the Oregon Senate will propose big increases in state grants to improve schools that might collapse when the big quake hits. A 2007 study cited more than 1,000 schools that could fall in, and said fixing all the schools could cost almost $10 billion. This, after lawmakers were considering spending $250 million for seismic upgrades to the state Capitol. Glad they finally remembered the kids, too.
Test scores, schmest scores The latest attempt by education wonks to make us feel dumb is the recent report that Oregon high school seniors score just OK, but still aren’t ready for college. The ACT of annual Condition and Career College Readiness came out this week. Oregon’s ACT average was barely above the national average. This comes on top of Common Core State Standards, which state officials say will result in even lower assessment results. Hey, kids; take this with a grain of salt.
Twice the fun Something for everyone this weekend. Either head to Winchester Bay and see cool classic autos at the 22nd annual Kool Coastal Nights car show, or wander downtown Coos Bay for the 31st annual Blackberry Arts Festival with food, crafts and music. As we’ve said before, South Coast folks know how to make the party last a loooong time. Long enough to take us into ...
Gridiron time again Our own George Artsitas declared it this week with his trip down the highway to visit prep practices in Curry County. Sports editor John Gunther is also in the field, watching teams come back together throughout the region. Just a few more weeks, sports fans, until Friday night lights!
Remembering the fallen U.S. military death tolls in Afghanistan as of Friday:
2,201
FOCCAS there for vets and pets While The World's Aug. 16 coverage of the recent Veterans Stand Down was appreciated, an important contributor to the event was not mentioned — Friends of Coos County Animals (FOCCAS). FOCCAS volunteers were at a booth outside the Armory offering dog sitting for veterans' pets while the vets went inside to obtain services (no pets allowed inside the Armory). In addition to providing doggy care for two dogs during the event, FOCCAS volunteers distributed the following pet care products and services to veterans: n Eight spay/neuter vouchers. n Sixty-six packs of flea treatment. n Two pallets of cat and dog food, generously donated by
Currydale Farms in Bandon and Coos Grange. (FOCCAS volunteers rented a U-Haul to pick up the donated food!) Participation in the Veterans Stand Down is just one of many valuable services FOCCAS provides to pets and their families in our community. Thank you, Friends of Coos County Animals. Diana Wall Coos Bay
Tests not end-all in education Thank you for the editorial: “Testing our patience with tests.” It is the responsibility of parents, teachers and administrators to make sure that students not see themselves as failures because they can’t get a certain number on a test! More important than a set of numbers for success is how
they feel about themselves! Is this part being forgotten by administrators as they push for better numbers for their schools? Students need tools to deal with bullying, self-esteem and home issues such as alcoholism, etc., in their homes! To these students, numbers on tests are not the most important thing. They are doing the best they can with what they have in their “toolboxes.” Make sure kids feel self-worth in the midst of being seen as failures on “tests.” Dianne Harrison Coos Bay
Need funding? Sell the tank With all this military equipment (tanks, MRAPs, rocket launchers, artillery, etc.) that police departments across the
nation are using to kill Americans; please remember that the next time they beg you to vote for more money for the police or the sheriff’s department, tell them to sell some of their weapons instead. Jim Puglia Myrtle Point
Write to us The World welcomes your letter. Write to letters@theworldlink.com, or P.O. Box 1840, Coos Bay, 97420. n Please use your real name. n 400 words maximum. n No defamation, vulgarity, business complaints, poetry or religious testimony. n Please list your address and daytime phone for verification.
Let Congress vote on Iraq war III Last week, we were told there were 40,000 Yazidis on Sinjar Mountain facing starvation if they remained there, and slaughter by ISIS if they came down. But a team of Marines and Special Forces that helicoptered in has reported back that, with a corridor off the mountain opened up by U.S. air strikes, the humanitarian crisis is over. The few thousand who remain can be airdropped food and water. The rest can be brought out. The emergency over, President Obama should think long and hard about launching a new air war in Iraq or Syria. For Iraq War III holds the promise of becoming another Middle East debacle, and perhaps the worst yet. America would be entering this war utterly divided. We are not even agreed on who the enemies are. Hillary Clinton thinks we should be tougher on Iran and that Obama blundered by not aiding the Syrian rebels when they first rose up to overthrow President Bashar Assad. Ryan diplomats Veteran Crocker, William Luers and Thomas Pickering argue that Assad is not the real enemy. The Islamic State is, and we should consider a ceasefire between the Free Syrian Army and Assad. “It makes no sense for the West to support a war against Assad as well as a war against the Islamic
State,” they write, “Assad is evil but ... he is certainly the lesser evil.” CrockerLuers-Pickering also argue that the crisis calls for the United PAT States to accept BUCHANAN the nuclear deal with Iran that Columnist was on the table in July and work with Tehran against ISIS. Iranians and Americans are already rushing weapons to the Kurds, who have sustained a string of defeats at the hands of the Islamic State. “A new strategic relationship between the United States and Iran may seem impossible and risky,” the diplomats write, “yet it is also necessary and in the interests of both.While an alliance is out of the question, mutually informed parallel action is necessary.” If we could work with the monster Stalin to defeat Hitler, is colluding with the Ayatollah beyond the pale? Other arguments shout out against a new American war. How could we win such a war without the U.S. ground troops Obama pledged never to send, and the American people do not want sent? Air power may keep ISIS from
overrunning Irbil and Baghdad, but carrier-based air cannot reconquer the vast territory the Islamic State has occupied in Iraq. Nor can it defeat ISIS in Syria. If Obama did launch an air war on ISIS in Syria, our de facto ally and principal beneficiary of those strikes would be the same Syrian regime that Obama and John Kerry wanted to bomb a year ago, until the American people told them no and Congress refused to vote them the authority. For such reasons,the demand of Sens. Tim Kaine and Rand Paul — that before Obama takes us back to war in Iraq, or into a new war in Syria, Congress must debate and authorize this war — is a constitutional and political imperative. The questions Congress needs to answer are obvious and numerous. Who exactly is our enemy? ISIS only, or Assad, Hezbollah and Iran as well? Will our involvement be restricted to air power — fighterbombers, gunships, cruise missiles, drones? Or should the president be authorized to send U.S. ground troops to fight? If we are to be restricted to air power, is it to be confined to Iraq, or can it be used in Syria — and against Assad as well as ISIS? If U.S. combat troops cannot be used, what are the prospects of expelling ISIS from Iraq? And if we should drive them out, what is the
probability they will come back as soon as we leave, especially if we have left them in control of northern Syria? Is annihilation of ISIS the only permanent solution? How long and bloody a war would that require? Will the president be authorized to coordinate war planning with Tehran? And if Assad is to become our de facto ally, should we end our support for the Free Syrian Army and negotiate an armistice and amnesty for the FSA? Congress must be forced to debate and vote on this war, first, so we can hold them accountable for what is to come. Second, so we can force them to come to consensus on just what kind of outcome in this region is acceptable, and attainable, and at what cost. What will victory look like? What will be the cost in blood and treasure? How long are we prepared to fight this war, an end to which does not today seem to be anywhere in sight? How reasonable is it to expect that the Kurdish peshmerga and an Iraqi Army that fled Kirkuk, Fallujah and Mosul, will be able to recapture the Sunni regions of Iraq? Finally, why is this our fight, 6,000 miles away, and not theirs?