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| 4/23 Editorials |
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| *New disclosure rule
hurting rural Oregon
*A dropout wakeup call
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New disclosure rule
hurting rural Oregon
Cities and counties throughout rural Oregon are feeling the affects of a requirement that public officials and volunteers serving on government boards complete a Statement of Economic Interest form.
The Oregon State Ethics Commission requirement has unexpectedly wreaked havoc with small-town government in our state - and Polk County hasn't been immune to the problem.
Polk County recently saw all but one of its planning commission members resign due to the new law. The city of Dallas has two openings on its planning commission after resignations were submitted over the requirement. And the city of Monmouth had two if its planning commission members resign recently over the matter (See related story, Page 13A).
Many state and local officials have filed Statement of Economic Interest forms since the mid-1970s. But the vote that created the Oregon Ethics Commission and established financial disclosure rules allowed rural jurisdictions to opt out of the requirement - and many of them did.
But the 2007 Oregon Legislature, in response to several questionable ethics practices by elected and appointed officials, eliminated the opt-out rule. Effective April 15, nearly every office holder in the state was required to complete a Statement of Economic Interest form. Many people, including those in rural Oregon, filled out the form over the years. But many others have not.
Among the changes to the law are annual limits of $50 in gifts from a single source, limits on the value of food and beverages provided by a giver, and the requirement of quarterly reporting of various expenses, honoraria and income.
But the law also requires listing of all family members in a household and their incomes, family property holdings in the jurisdiction in which they serve, business entities and investments of a certain value, and several other disclosures.
The response to the requirement? Many in rural Oregon have chosen to resign their positions rather than submit the forms, which they say is an unnecessary invasion of privacy.
In addition to the local impact here in Polk County, officials have quit in several other communities in the Willamette Valley, including McMinnville, Willamina, Tangent, Monroe, Harrisburg and Carlton. In the northeastern Oregon town of Elgin, the entire city council and planning commission resigned over the issue.
This unexpected mass exodus - it is estimated that more than 100 officials from throughout the state have stepped down from their public office - has grabbed the attention of Gov. Ted Kulongoski, and rightfully so. He has asked his staff to review whether the new rules strike the proper balance between the public interest in open government and privacy interests of appointed and elected officials.
The problem here is that it will be 2009 before the Legislature reconvenes and can address issues that the new requirements have created.
These additional reporting requirements will likely keep at least some qualified citizens from volunteering their time as public servants in the communities in which they live. And many of these communities have a difficult enough time finding people to fill these positions in government.
The public is entitled to know when an official, be it elected or appointed, may have a conflict of interest in a particular matter. But the extent of the new requirement, particularly for rural Oregon, may be overkill.
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A dropout wakeup call
We're raising an illiterate and uneducated generation, and there's more to come. America's Promise Alliance released a detailed study revealing that half of the teenagers in 17 of the largest U.S. cities drop out of high school before they graduate - more than 1.2 million of them. The cost of this is enormous: billions of dollars in lost productivity, expensive social services, and, because ignorance begets crime, the need to build more prisons.
"When more than a million students a year drop out of high school, it's more than a problem, it's a catastrophe," says Colin Powell, former secretary of state and a founder of America's Promise Alliance. His wife Alma chairs the Alliance now. Speaking as the old soldier he is, he describes these statistics as "a call to arms." The Powells are calling for summits in every
state to figure out how to halt the decline in graduation rates.
But do we really need more meetings to talk endlessly (and tediously) about shopworn educational ideas and stale theories? Alma Powell answers the question before someone asks it: The summits can't be jabber-jabber sessions. "They must be about action," and demand that local, state and federal policymakers, communities, parents and students confront the reality now.
The statistics show what seems obvious to everybody: City kids are far more likely to live on the precipice than kids from the suburbs. It's the kids in the largest cities who can't see the value of an education.
Life on the street holds only two avenues: grunt jobs, and crime.
-Suzanne Fields in cagle.com |
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