Editorial

It's not often that we see Rep. Gene Whisnant (R-Sunriver) poke up his head in Salem other than to stump for the most provincial and honorary pieces of legislation. This is not a legislator who's ever been accused of having too much vision. But like a rock chuck sensing spring, Whisnant popped up a few weeks ago in the whirlwind February session to block a pair of bills that would have helped Oregon homeowners who are facing the prospect of foreclosure.
While we're usually looking for Whisnant to do more with his time in Salem, in this case we wish that he would have just kept on hibernating. After refusing to allow the bills to come up for a hearing in the House General Government and Consumer Protection Committee, Whisnant offered an amendment that proved to be a deal breaker for the bills' backers and on Tuesday Democrats announced that the home foreclosure bills were essentially dead in the waning hours of the session.

Cliff Bentz apparently thinks we can educate wolves not to prey on livestock by killing them.
“If we want wolves to serve their ecological purpose, they will eat elk, not cows and sheep,” Bentz, a Republican state representative from Ontario, said on Friday. The occasion was the passage of HB 4158, a bill sponsored by Bentz and eight other representatives – including our old friend Gene Whisnant from Sunriver.

In the foreclosure game, they call it the “spin cycle.” The name is apt: Just like the spin cycle of a washing machine wrings water out of laundry, the foreclosure spin cycle wrings the last drops of cash out of the hapless borrower who gets caught in it.
A homeowner gets trapped in the spin cycle when he's facing foreclosure and tries to renegotiate his mortgage to avoid it. Even while he's dealing in good faith and making payments regularly, the bank continues to move ahead with foreclosure – and worst of all, the homeowner doesn't even know it. By the time the bank gets through spinning him he's lost thousands of dollars – and the house.

Almost 40 years ago, Gov. Tom McCall called for legislation to protect Oregon from the “sagebrush subdivisions, coastal condomania, and … ravenous rampages of suburbia” that were threatening to blight the state. The legislature responded with Senate Bill 100, which created a land use regulation system that became the envy of the nation.
McCall's signature on the bill wasn't even dry before the development-at-any-cost bloc began plotting to dismantle it, and it hasn't stopped trying since. The opponents know they have virtually no chance of demolishing the whole structure, but that doesn't discourage them from stealthily chipping away at it whenever and in any way they can.

The Hon. Greg Walden
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Greg,
We, the citizens and voters of Bend, have decided to try to reach you by letter because you're an awfully hard guy to see in person.
The problem isn't that you don't visit your home district often enough. We notice there's a neat little Google Map linked to your congressional website that's titled “Where's Walden?” (very cute, Greg) and shows all the places in the district (and many outside the district) that you've visited in the past couple of years.
Judging by all the flags and push-pins stuck in this map, you sure do get around. You've been to town halls in Mitchell, Long Creek, Rufus, Arlington, Ontario and Eagle Valley, among other places. You've found time to attend the Miner's Jubilee Parade and the Americans for Prosperity Hot Air Balloon Rally in Baker City and the Union County Business Leaders Breakfast in LaGrande. You've toured the Boise Cascade mill in Elgin, Interpath Laboratory in Pendleton and the Wallowa Lake Dam in Joseph.

Waldo Lake, in the high Cascades west of the Deschutes County border, is one of the most ultraoligotrophic lakes in the world. That fancy nine-dollar word means the water is clear – amazingly clear. Experiments have shown that objects in Waldo Lake can be seen at a depth of nearly 160 feet.
But whether Waldo Lake will continue to provide a near-pristine wilderness experience for Oregonians and visitors is far from clear. The state Marine Board appears to be on the verge of doing a flip-flop that will threaten the clarity and tranquility of the lake and its surroundings.