Many years ago, my brother-in-law Jim worked as a page for Oregon Congressman Wendell Wyatt. After Jim graduated from the American University in Washington, Wyatt, a moderate Republican, held a party for him. Among the guests was a Congressman from Pennsylvania, a certain Johnson as I recall, with whom Wyatt shared an office. In the course of the party, Wyatt said to me, “Johnson is an old fool machine politician. He just does what the party tells him to do.”

By voting against the Inflation Reduction Act, which actually helps people, Rep. Cliff Bentz shows us that he, too, is “an old fool machine politician.”

— Gary Leiser, Sisters

I appreciate the Bulletin’s continued coverage of Sen.s Wyden and Merkley’s River Democracy Act. This bill is the first of its kind legislation, truly written by and for Oregonians given the extensive public input process.

As noted in your recent editorial, who doesn’t love maps? But maps will only further prove what many of us have known for a while — that this bill will be good news for Oregon. It contains protections for some of our state’s most important salmon and steelhead nurseries, drinking water sources, and places families have floated, swam, and fished for generations.

While it’s important to note the position of Rep. Cliff Bentz, it’s also worth pointing out his arguments don’t carry much water. Bentz came out swinging against the River Democracy Act as soon as he started his term, right around the same time that he was questioning the validity of the last presidential election. Despite his comments to the contrary, the best thing we can do for clean water is to protect healthy natural forests around them.

I’ve heard Sen. Wyden remark that if everyone gets some things they need, but not everything they wanted, he probably got it right. I believe that this is the case with the River Democracy Act. It will protect key drinking watersheds like Tumalo Creek here in Central Oregon while also accounting for things like wildfire, private property rights and other uses of our public lands. I encourage Sen. Wyden to pass the bill as soon as possible!

— Erik Fernandez is the wilderness program manager for Oregon Wild.

A letter from Kathy Sanchez in the Aug. 17 Bulletin perpetuates the myth that only property owners pay property taxes so only property owners should be able to vote in elections affecting property taxes. She writes, “This [a potential levy to increase school funding] always means voters will eventually be asked to approve another tax hike on property owners, while many of these voters are not property owners and have nothing to lose by affirming such a hike.”

As a former owner of rental properties in Seattle, Olympia and Portland, I can confidently say that it is simply wrong to claim that renters don’t pay property taxes. Every time we faced an increase in property taxes during the more than thirty years that we owned rental properties, we raised the rents to cover the additional cost to us as owners. When the costs of operating a rental rise rents also rise and renters end up paying any increases in property taxes.

So renters do indeed have something to lose when property taxes go up and most know it. Because renters also end up paying for increases in property taxes, they are every bit as entitled as property owners to vote on property tax increases.

— John Cushing, Bend

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