Opinion The Obser verLa Grande, OregonFriday, August 12, 2011

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G U E S T E D I T O R I A L

The death taxshould die

A love letter to La GrandeImpatience to leave mixes with fierce pride for ‘the Paris of Oregon’

There’s something about a summerstorm in the valley that tells me I’mhome.

It smells like grass and canceled soccergames and counting lightning flashes withmy best friend when we were little, sittingcross-legged on my windowseat.

Storms like this don’t happen inPortland, where the rain is so ubiquitousit doesn’t have a distinct smell.

I never thought I’d join the 85 percentof college grads that move back in withtheir parents and I especially neverthought I’d do so by choice.

But here I am.I applied for a Snowden internship,

which places college students at publica-tions throughout Oregon, last winter.There was only one copy-editing intern-ship and it was in a little place called LaGrande. If I was going to spend my sum-mer in a small town, I reasoned, it madesense to work in a town with which I wasalready familiar and where I could live forfree.

While the latter has certainly been truethanks to the generosity of my parents(whom I sometimes refer to as my room-mates), my assumption that I had a home-court advantage in reporting on the area where I was born and raised was constantly challenged.

I’m usually able to adapt — or at leastsurvive — in new environments, so I neverthought coming home could feel so unfamiliar.

That’s one of the great things aboutjournalism, though. There really is nosuch thing as a stupid question, a senti-ment I took to heart when interviewingbowhunters and cowboy-mounted shooters. I was out of my element writing

about bison ordinances and school boardmeetings. Journalism forces you to askquestions that might seem obvious to theinterviewee, but that’s the only way tolearn.

After four years away, I realize LaGrande’s perks, quirks and qualms.

I love that I can run all of my errandson my lunch break — there may be feweroptions here, but it takes about one-thirdof the time it did in the city — unless, ofcourse, you hit traffic.

OUT-OF-TOWNERS MIGHT not considerthe roads here congested, but the co-work-ers with whom I carpooled to my summerjob at the plywood mill a few years agobegged to differ, as does my dad, whoinsists I take a different route to avoidwhat he calls “the lunchtime rush.” And ifthere’s a train? That’s going to add at leasta few irksome minutes to your grueling commute.

At the railroad crossing, my impatienceis replaced with appreciation for this littletown. I remember my grandma told meonce she thought of my grandpa, a formeryardmaster, whenever she saw a train.

I appreciate, too, the connections. Idon’t mind anymore when people associ-ate me with my siblings or my parents,and I look forward to discovering how Imight know someone — meeting mymom’s former students, interviewing aman who worked on the railroad with mygrandpa or playing bunco with someone

who traded comic books with my unclewhen they were kids at Greenwood.

In high school, I was pulled over onthe way to soccer conditioning camp forgoing the wrong way down a one-waystreet (in my defense, it was early). Seeingmy embarrassed expression, the officerdidn’t ask for my information. Later thatday, as I recounted the snafu to my dad,he realized he’d already heard the storyfrom the officer himself, who didn’t knowhe was talking to the groggy girl’s father.

That kind of thing doesn’t happen inPortland.

In a writing class at school I oncereferred to La Grande as “the Paris ofOregon” in a half-joking way. I think itreflects the way I often felt about myhometown: leftover feelings of an impa-tience to leave mixed with a sense offierce pride. It must have made an impres-sion — I recently received an email fromthat same instructor asking, “How’s Paris?”

It’s where I can wear my wannabe cow-girl boots to a rodeo, where I know thenames of flowers thanks to my sixth-gradewildflower unit and where I can measurethe distance of an evening run on FoothillRoad in barns, not miles.

It occurred to me while writing thatthis column has turned into more of alove letter to La Grande.

That’s perfectly fine with me.And although there have been times

this summer — and especially during mytime at The Observer — that I’ve felt outof my element, all it takes is the smell of asummer thunderstorm to rememberwhere I come from.

Lisa McMahan is finishing up a Snowden internshipwith The Observer.

L E T T E R S

President Barack Obama:The White House, 1600Pennsylvania Ave., Washington,D.C. 20500; 202-456-1414; fax:202-456-2461; To send com-ments, go towww.whitehouse.gov/contact.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: SDB-40B Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.,U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.20510, phone 202-224-3753, fax202-228-3997; One World TradeCenter, 121 S.W. Salmon St.Suite 1250, Portland, OR 97204,phone 503-326-3386, fax 503-326-2900; 310 S.E. Second St.Suite 105, Pendleton 97801,phone 541-278-1129; email: eliz-abeth_scheeler@merkley.senate.gov.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: 105 FirSt., No. 210, La Grande, OR97850; phone 541-962-7691,email:Kathleen_Cathey@wyden.sen-ate.gov, or fax, 963-0885(Kathleen Cathey, field represen-tative); 516 Hart Bldg.,Washington, D.C. 20510, phone202-224-5244; fax 202-228-2717.

U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (2ndDistrict): 1211 Washington Ave.,La Grande, OR 97850; phone541-624-2400, email:Wade.Foster@mail.house.gov;2352 Rayburn Office Building,Washington, D.C. 20515, phone202-225-6730; fax 202-225-5774.

WHERE TO WRITE

4 A

Warn drivers about elk To the Editor:Elk have been coming off the hills sur-

rounding the Grande Ronde Valley for eons.In winter they come to escape the deep snow.In late summer, they come for the greenerforage on the valley after mountain grassesdry.

For the last several years, elk have beenpouring off the mountain, near Hot Lake,moving through the Ladd Marsh WildlifeManagement Area and crossing Highway 203.They come to seek succulent alfalfa on private

lands north of the highway. Alfalfa is like adrug to elk. They start this movement in earlyfall and cross mostly at night.

Unfortunately, the animals are being hit byvehicles along this stretch of road. Last year,like the few preceding years, severalvehicle/elk collisions have occurred at thissite. The resulting loss of many animals andthe associated vehicle damage is terrible. Iactually know folks who’ve totaled their vehi-cles on this stretch. Hitting something as largeas an elk at 55 mph is horrendous. It’s trulyamazing no human lives have been lost.

It escapes me why no warning signs have

been put up along this stretch of road duringthe elk movements. Sure, many travelersignore signs, but if some slow down it mightwarrant this simple task. How hard would it beto set up a flashing, solar-powered sign?There’s likely some collecting dust in a local,highway supply yard. To short stop the hungryanimals, would it slow this elk movement if alittle alfalfa was planted on the managementarea near this site? Call me a busy body, but ifmy concerns are addressed and a life is saved,so be it.

Jim WardLa Grande

LETTERS FROM READERSThe Observer welcomes letters to the editor. Letters can

be no more than 300 words. All letters must be signed bythe author and carry the address of the sender.

The Observer edits letters for brevity, grammar, taste andlegal reasons. We will not publish consumer complaintsagainst businesses or personal attacks against privateindividuals. Thank-you letters are discouraged.

Include a telephone number and address for verificationpurposes only. Letter writers are limited to one letter everytwo weeks. Writers of longer Community Comment columnsare limited to one every three months.

Send your letters to: The Observer, 1406 Fifth St., LaGrande, OR 97850, or they can be emailed tonews@lagrandeobserver.com, or faxed to 541-963-7804.

GUEST COLUMNLISA MCMAHAN

The (Bend) BulletinOregon’s death tax is in a fight to the death. There’s an

effort to stick a measure on next year’s November ballot to pro-hibit the state from having any sort of death or inheritance tax.The death tax should die.

Oregon’s death tax works like this: When a person dies andleaves an estate worth $1 million or more, the tax kicks in.

The Legislature changed the death tax formula this past ses-sion. The tax rate used to start at 6 percent and increase gradually to the maximum rate of 16 percent, depending onthe size of the estate. And the state used to tax the full amount.

Under the change of House Bill 2541, signed into law byGov. John Kitzhaber, the state taxes only the amount thatexceeds $1 million at a starting rate of 10 percent and that topsout at 16 percent.

Why make that change?The argument was it’s a more gradual impact and brings in

about the same amount of money — about $100 million a year.That whole discussion was more distraction than anything

else. What needed to happen was for the Legislature to get ridof the death tax altogether. Now, there is that ballot initiative todo just that.

It’s true that the death tax only hits a small percentage ofOregonians, about 1 percent. But an unfair tax is not any lessunfair because it hits fewer people.

A DEATH TAX TAXES people twice.Income gets taxed. Income builds estates. And so then the

government wants to come in and tax the estate after it alreadytaxed the income?

What’s worse is that the state is coming after that double taxjust as a family has lost someone. And their farm or business orproperty may have to be broken up to pay the tax.

The death tax is revenue for the state. And that’s perhapsone of the reasons that legislators have been reluctant to kill it.And that’s perhaps why two members of the leadership of theOregon Education Association, the state teacher’s union, havescrutinized the proposed ballot measure. They filed objectionsto the ballot title for this new initiative, asserting it is mislead-ing. The Oregon Supreme Court recently decided they wereright, in part. The court said the language for the ballot meas-ure needs to be changed to make it more clear that only peo-ple with estates valued at more than $1 million are subject tothe tax.

While the death tax brings in revenue, we don’t know whatthe possible benefits might be if Oregon didn’t have a deathtax. That might make a money difference, too. It may influencewhere people choose to live. It might make a difference inOregon’s reputation for its attitude toward business and taxes.

It would give people another reason to live in Oregon,instead of a reason to operate a business somewhere else.