So what do a sales tax and Measure 49 have in common? Well, for years Oregonians have rejected a sales tax. Why? Because we don’t trust the legislature of our state to keep its word. With a sales tax it was promised the funds would go toward our educational system and to lower our property taxes, a just cause that we all believe in. So why didn’t we vote for it? Because we know full well they will tweak it some way, somehow, into something we never dreamed it would be.

The same goes for Measure 49. If you are concerned about your property rights you should immediately read Measure 49, all 24 pages of ambiguous words that were meticulously chosen to complicate, exhaust you, and deprive you of your property rights.

Please don’t take my word for it! Read it yourself. Do not, I repeat, do not let the legislature destroy your property rights. Vote NO on 49.

Do your civic duty and just read the darn thing! You won’t believe what it really says.

Go to www.stop49.com.

Anti-49 misleads

Can someone please explain to me why a political campaign is allowed to advertise on television in the United States of America without substantiating their claims? I saw an anti-Measure 49 advertisement last night and I’m gravely disturbed.

I was a victim of false pro-Measure 37 advertising and subsequently voted for Measure 37. I am rectifying that mistake by voting for Measure 49. For the anti-Measure 49 campaign to state that the government will be “stealing 95 percent of Oregon homeowners’” money is blatant misrepresentation of the facts.

I just don’t understand how they can be permitted to continue to intentionally mislead the public. As a well-educated professional complete with a Ph.D., I was taken in by the information that was available during the Measure 37 campaign. I cannot quietly sit by as a big business does it again by attempting to mislead the public. This is a flagrant abuse and should have criminal consequences. They claim Measure 49 is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Now if that isn’t the kettle calling the pot black, I don’t know what it is. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Please don’t let yourself be fooled a second time. Help prevent big business from disturbing our pristine orchard and forest lands while helping to preserve the ecological balance we so value here in the Hood River Valley. We must find a way to prohibit this type of misleading advertising.

No on 49

If you own property or your own home, or you ever hope to own one, it is time to think seriously about Measure 49. It simply adds more restrictions to Oregon’s land use laws.

Do not be fooled into feeling safe because you live in town. The city might need a bike trail or a hiking trail and if they do, you will not be reimbursed for your contribution. Your quiet home could become a very public place. Measure 49 gives more power to government and less to the residents.

Who is your favorite state agency? Do you want them to make all of the decisions about your property? Oregon is second only to Washington, D.C., in the entire U.S. for increased home values. We do not have a shortage of property to build on. We do have obsessive regulations that stack families high and tight in the cities, causing congestion and less privacy for the residents.

Our land use system has zoned huge amounts of land as exclusive farm use that cannot be farmed.

It would be great for homes and would relieve the congestion in our cities and towns. For those who wish to live in the country, it would provide a dream lot. Be aware that the “Big Look Committee” that was anointed by the Legislature to study our land use laws, has been defunded.

The findings of the committee apparently were not in tune with the powers that be. Please study Measure 49’s added restrictions carefully and then vote “no” on that divisive bill. My mission is to protect freedom for future generations. The Constitution is the document that keeps us free. Measure 49 is just one more nail in the coffin of that beautiful document.

Yes to Measure 49

As a cherry and pear grower in the Hood River Valley, I would like to respond to the people who don’t see any harm in placing subdivisions on high valued farmland.

Tiny Hood River County has received over 10,483 acres of Measure 37 development claims, and a shocking 23.5 percent of the farmland has Measure 37 claims on it. Our own family orchards are completely surrounded by claims.

Anyone who thinks that we can stay in business without the farmland protection of Measure 49 is sadly misinformed

I think I’ll cry

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of communities and schools having to sponsor special days to encourage kids to walk or ride their bikes to school. I think I’ll cry.

Thank the fates that I grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s in Iowa when the only time I got a ride to or from school was when the snow was up to my waist or when I had a dreaded dentist appointment after classes. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the days of self propulsion far outnumbered the days of passive car riding.

And in all those years, with hundreds of kids hoofing it or riding their bikes to school, I can not remember one incident of any student from my schools getting hit by a car or abducted by a stranger. What a loss of carefree innocence our children are experiencing that we have to fear so many things in our society today or that we book their days so solidly with after-school activities.

My walks and bike rides to school and back were filled with wonderful chats with friends, lovely periods of daydreaming, and exhilarating opportunities to experience the change of seasons. I hope the “Bike and Walk to School Day” is a big success and that kids everywhere have more opportunities to enjoy the fresh air and to experience a greater sense of autonomy and self-reliance.

Coax sports nerd

News tip, from one sports reporter to another: branch out.

If the local sports teams are having rough seasons, avoid filling pages with lengthy highlights, quotes and descriptions of blowout losses and explore some of Hood River’s less-structured and alternative sports.

There is so much more to the Hood River scene than school sports and regularly scheduled games, and than what seems to be making the headlines in the sports section.

Win or lose, Hood River’s youth teams, coaches and especially athletes deserve credit and attention for their efforts. Always. But, despite what parents of athletes occasionally think, giving this unconditional credit is not always the responsibility of the local sports reporter.

The Hood River community is very active, very diverse and very interesting. There is an untapped oasis of new, interesting and exciting stories and photo opportunities waiting for your pages, but you have to branch out and expand your resources to find them.

And one tip for the Hood River community, about the sports page: It should be a community effort. If you have a great story idea, give it up. If there is something you want to read about, ask for it. If you are involved in one of the many cool sports subcultures of Hood River that has not had recent exposure, invite Ben out for an afternoon on the trail, or the water, or the road, the air, the field, the hill, the rocks or wherever else you like to have fun.

From experience, there is no better way to get a good story in the paper than to coax the local notepad and camera nerd out of the office for a few hours.

PUD incompatible

Congratulations to the developers of the 411 Sherman Street Planned Unit Development.

You sure pulled the wool over the planning commissioners’ eyes and minds when you convinced the majority of them that your design was compatible (height, bulk and scale) with the surrounding neighborhood.

At the hearing at city hall that night, there were lots of concerns expressed by the community regarding compatibility, specifically height, bulk and scale. Looking at the building as it stands today, those concerns start to really hit home. With its big bulky retaining wall and the towering three-story construction sitting on top of an above-ground garage, it’s hard to imagine how anyone would think this building fits in with those surrounding it.

Equally disturbing is the fact that this building now becomes a benchmark to which future developers can point to for compatibility. Keep up the good work; we’re looking more like Portland every day!

Treaty rights remain

I am not sure what day that Columbus Day is “celebrated” in America and I have other important things to worry about.

As a tribal government official from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, as we are recognized today, we are descendants from people who at the closest point were thousands of miles from the major injustices of the whole Black Legend of Columbus’ era, the Trail of Tears, the Mystic Creek massacres and so on.

We all are residing on the lands near Wimulth or N’chi Wana (Columbia River). What matters to us river Indians in this place are the rights our river tribes reserved through negotiating treaties with the United States of America. Do not think we were given rights by the United States; we gave up title, rights to the lands we owned (10,000,000 acres given by Warm Springs/Wasco tribes) to the United States and kept all those rights we didn’t give up. The Middle Oregon Treaty of 1855 was the document and one of the oldest laws of these lands. One-hundred percent of Hood River County, Wasco counties and roughly 11 other counties are part of the contract between two great sovereigns, we in turn kept our rights to fish, hunt, gather berries, roots and pasture out stocks on unclaimed lands (like United States Forest Service lands).

These rights are not only on-reservation but off too –— usual and accustomed rights. These rights are also outside of the ceded lands we gave to the U.S.A.

One more thing is the reserved rights doctrine; all the other rights we possessed before this treaty was negotiated we still reserve for ourselves. I’ll take time to celebrate the recognition by the U.S.A. through the various laws that recognize our off-reservation treaty rights. If it wasn’t for this government to government status we’d quietly be outvoted as we are about one percent of the populations nationally.

It is said we are a Nation of Laws, the Supreme Court may have said it best: Great Nations, like great men, should keep their word.