Editorial

State police need a new mission

The Oregon State Police constitute a very costly agency that is in desperate need of reform. But it is politically powerful, so change is unlikely.

Recently, we learned that despite past promises to the Oregon Legislature, OSP has received higher budgets and not put one more trooper on the road. Even a line-item budget entry approving additional troopers was ignored by the agency, which failed to comply with a legislative directive signed into law by the governor.

Instead, top OSP brass use agency aircraft to fly off on Idaho fishing trips. Now the troopers union is taking out misleading advertisements saying that Governor Kitzhaber is making deep cuts that will jeopardize public safety. Most of the positions the union claims will be lost were never actually filled.

This is a bureaucracy out of control.

A key function of OSP in the past, assisting stranded and isolated motorists, has been virtually eliminated by the proliferation of cell phones.

As to highway law enforcement, OSP troopers cost much more than local deputies, from 1.3 to 1.5 times as much in some areas. We could have four county deputies for what we pay three OSP troopers. That would be a good trade. More deputies would be available for other law enforcement services.

There is a role for OSP, but one far different from today. The OSP crime lab provides services that cannot be duplicated by small local agencies. OSP should supervise all police training in the state, providing uniform and top-notch instruction for every officer who enforces our laws. And OSP should have the responsibility of investigating corrupt police departments or bad cops.

But having troopers on the highway is a waste of money and a waste of time. The legislature should give that money to local law enforcement, where it would be more effectively used.

E.D.

ODOT pushes Sisters couplet

The Highway Division of the Oregon Department of Transportation intends to push a couplet right through the heart of Sisters on Hood and Cascade streets.

ODOT hides this agenda behind supposedly "neutral" engineering consultants dependent on ODOT for income and planners who serve as camouflage for engineers that run the agency.

The recent City of Sisters Transportation Plan, produced by David Evans and Associates, states "A one-way highway couplet is needed today to meet ODOT's mobility standards during peak summer traffic conditions. Implementation of a couplet should be pursued as a high priority project."

Only the insistence of the Citizen Advisory Committee forced the engineers to reduce the couplet to "low priority," according to the Evans study, commissioned by ODOT.

But ODOT has ways of getting around local input such as that by the CAC. Time and again ODOT has ignored the public if it disagrees with the agency's master plan. ODOT's attitude was summed up by one its employees, "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on."

On Friday, March 2, we learned that ODOT was suspending work on safety improvements at the McKenzie Highway/Santiam Highway "Y" at the west end of Sisters. ODOT doesn't want to spend extra money on this improvement if it won't be compatible with ODOT's couplet.

An ODOT employee denied this until confronted with hard evidence.

For at least fifteen years we have watched ODOT agents threaten the city and mislead its citizens and elected representatives in the attempt to shove a couplet on Hood and Cascade through Sisters.

At the same time, other communities around Oregon, including Redmond next door, are doing everything they can to get rid of couplets built before it was known how they can destroy a community.

There are traffic problems that need to be solved, but Sisters deserves to be more than a wide spot in ODOT's transportation system. Local citizens must be allowed to have a real voice in any decision, despite ODOT's desire to spend as little money as possible to send traffic speeding through Sisters.

E.D.