>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Gentry, LeGore, Rynearson, O’Connor, Stauffer, Scott, Morgan, Kerns

Economic development wears many hats. The term has become a catch-all phrase for bringing more jobs and economic growth to an area. Rural communities throughout the country are all competing for the same thing, though their playing fields can be very different.

Union and Wallowa counties are no exception. Most folks realize that for our region to ensure its future success, we must stimulate more economic growth. But being able to do so while competing against all other rural communities requires some essential ingredients — good infrastructure, quality schools and accessible health care.

We have all three, though in recent years our schools have been  challenged by declining enrollments and crumbling infrastructure and doctors have been hard to find — and to keep once they get here.

A truck backing into the dog kennel. The IRS sending vaguely threatening letters. A hearing aid company calling at the dinner hour, wanting to sell something to a person who has been dead for six months.

I lately have been obsessed with stress numbers — and breaking points.

What little incident, I wonder, might push a person over the edge?

Election season is upon us. The May 20 primary is just a few weeks away. In the coming days local campaigns will be ramping up and with it will come letters to the editor touting candidates and issues.

The Observer is imposing a letters limit on campaigns and candidates this election. With five candidates for county commissioner positions in Union County, contested races in Wallowa County, a contested race for judge and a controversial advisory vote on the Mount Emily Recreation Area, a limit on the number of letters is necessary.

A sense of community is often sadly lacking in much of the modern world. The Underground Network, envisioned by Marilyn Jones a year ago as an additional resource for local families in need, helps defy that trend.

Then community development coordinator for Union, Wallowa and Baker counties for the Oregon Department of Human Services, Jones developed a mass e-mail list of people willing to answer calls for help. The idea has been a tremendous success. She has reached her one-year goal of getting 250 people involved in the tri-county area so people to act altruistically in the finest traditions of anonymous giving.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski is an advocate for kids. He believes, and rightly so, that all of our children deserve access to adequate health care and that to do that the state must step up and make sure that all children have health insurance.

No one can dispute Kulongoski’s passion for the cause. He’s right. Absolutely right. Our society should be able to ensure that children have access to health care services, regardless of whether their parents have insurance or not.

But the governor in pushing the cause for universal health care for kids misses the mark in how it should be funded. At his recent State of the State speech at the City Club of Portland, Kulongoski stressed that he would resurrect an increase in the cigarette tax to pay for expanding health care coverage for children in Oregon.

I come from a family of laborers. Their books are buildings, Pearl Harbor and ton-loads of gravel. Their education is gardens and therefore, dirt, modified stems and petioles.

Octopus lures made out of tiger cowrie shells are in my blood. The blueprint for them are somewhere in my fingers, I know.

All of them knew or knows about pau hana. A pidgin-English stitching together of two Hawaiian words, pau means finished and hana means work. It is a time that occurs every work day after the work part is complete and it is a time for elation. Friday is the double holiday.

Think ahead, if you will, to hot August days and balmy August nights and all the fun that goes with them, the very fun you’re not having this mean blustery, early spring. Think, for a moment, about the Union County Fair and what a warm, feel-good time you have every time you go.

It’s not just the food or the carnival or the live entertainment that comes to mind, nor is it just the livestock exhibits, the 4-H competitions, the quilt show, the art show or the talent contest.

The Imbler School District has jumped head-first into converting its public school system into a charter system. While there are no guarantees that in the long run the conversion to a charter system will prove to be the best thing for Imbler, it’s easy to understand the predicament the district, the board and many families found themselves in.

A recent letter to the editor questioned why the district moved so   quickly to approve the conversion to a charter system. Duane Berry’s   letter made some excellent points in questioning how the school board could make such a move without getting more input from district residents. Such significant moves demand thorough investigation, as Mr. Berry suggested.

Schiller, Fast, Mecham, Hills, Pereira, Fiorito, Candler, Hodge, Marcum, Petersen