Redmond school bond, ethics and poverty

There are two points in John Costa’s Perspective column (Bond vote about more than schools - October 13) with which I agree: One is the title; the other is that Redmond schools could use expansion and upgrades.

One element beyond school infrastructure is that this bond will say something about how voters respond to the ethical question of whether it is right to improve school conditions for students at the expense of many people already living in poverty. There is a high degree of poverty in Redmond, and if this bond issue is approved property taxes for impoverished homeowners will be raised to a more punishing level. Children in schools may be eating in crowded cafeterias, but they are, at least, eating. Many people in Redmond, on the other hand, are having a problem getting enough food for their basic sustenance. Those that are homeowners will find paying for food and, in some cases, health care a greater burden if this school bond is passed.

The school bond is also about what parents are teaching their children: Take care of your own family and don’t care about the consequences other families may suffer.

The evidence exposed on the opinion pages of the Bulletin and the Redmond Spokesman and in other venues suggests that many people don’t care about others that have found themselves in straitened circumstances; although, the odds are that they know enough about this subject to protest that they care despite their contradictory behavior.

As a member of the "growth-must-pay-for-itself camp" let me address aspects of the systems development charges (SDCs) issue that Costa essentially evades.

If SDCs for schools had been collected over the past several years, Redmond wouldn’t have this school bond problem. I obtained figures from Redmond’s city offices that gave me an approximation of the number of new homes that were built during the last five fiscal years. I created a spreadsheet using these numbers and an estimated median sales figure for those homes to which I applied a four percent SDC for schools. I then deposited those SDCs to a hypothetical interest-bearing account that paid five percent annual interest. This gave a result of around $25 million that the Redmond School District could have had on hand this year. If any of my estimates were out of line, the same result could be achieved by adjusting the SDC rate.

We can’t collect for the past five years, but if we collect SDCs for schools from new home construction in the future, we can go a long way towards paying off any bond that may eventually be approved.

This is the point at which proponents of the school bond tend to adopt an absurd posture and say something about state law prohibiting collection of SDCs as if this were a subset of commandments Moses brought down from the mountain.

Democrat legislators in the last session tried to change the law so that communities could collect SDCs for schools, but this effort was thwarted by Republican legislators on behalf of the building industry, local chambers of commerce and some city councils. Clearly, the fact that the current law is unethical in favoring developers and working to the disadvantage of some impoverished homeowners was of secondary, if any, concern to the Republican majority.

I questioned Ben Westlund and Tim Knopp on this topic at an alleged town hall meeting at the community college earlier this year and found their reactions contemptible. Westlund completely dodged the issue and passed the buck to Knopp to respond. He mumbled something about "some people" killing the issue of SDCs for schools in committee. Neither had the candor or, as far as I am concerned, the integrity to say what their personal positions were on this issue. I pursued this issue with a letter to Westlund that he also ignored. Add that to his despicable preservation of funds for his Oregon Cultural Trust parachute while funds were being cut from truly vital services and you will understand why I would sooner have a root canal than vote for him to represent me in Salem.

As for Knopp of no-new-taxes idiocy, he doesn’t seem to have a problem with property taxes being increased on homeowners that can’t afford such increases. But then, they don’t contribute to his campaign funds so he can buy elections.

I notice that when I bring this topic to the attention of Jerry Colonna I always seem to catch him in his member-of-the-chamber-of-commerce mode and not in his role of school superintendent. For some reason it seems more appropriate to me that a school superintendent would support SDCs for schools instead of opposing them.

If the school bond is approved, nothing will be done about SDCs for schools. If the school bond is rejected, then perhaps more legislators will realize that something has to be done.

Of course, the Bulletin’s priorities differ from mine so I understand why its editorial board would endorse Westlund and Knopp. They have been reliable errand boys for the developer-Bulletin-chamber-of-commerce cabal. But it would be refreshing if The Bulletin would refrain from publishing hypocritical claptrap about the people of Central Oregon being a community. People cannot live in harmony in a community where one group stacks the deck to gain advantage at the expense of another.

In essence, the school bond issue is also about the business community and their collaborators in local and state political offices focusing on enhancing profits through subsidies from the community at large, including some homeowners that can’t afford to pay these subsidies. The scale may be different but the indifference to the ethical aspects of this issue strikes me as having more in common with Enron’s executive suite than Mother Theresa’s refuges.

Towards the end of his column, Costa says that it is admirable that Redmond is trying to build its own economic base and this will be good for all of Central Oregon. It is commendable that Redmond is trying to improve its economic position, but it won’t be good for all if part of its future is created on the backs of the poor and the vulnerable.

Costa recognizes that this future "comes with a price — the price of infrastructure." He does, however, discretely avoid getting himself in an untenable position by evading the ethical question as to who should pay for the cost of this infrastructure. Surely, when it comes to schools, buyers of new homes that are the major factor in contributing to the need for new schools should pay a larger share of this cost than they do now. Surely, homeowners that have lived here for years and paid for existing schools and now find themselves on limited (and, sometimes, inadequate) incomes should be spared from paying for a problem they had nothing to do with creating.

Perhaps Mr. Costa would consider another column addressing the issue of poverty in Central Oregon and how the poor are affected by political and commercial decisions.

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