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A road to transportation funding

The debate over paying for transportation needs in Oregon may have paused with the end of the legislative session, but it is far from over.

Don’t be surprised if a special session emerges in the next few months, because the need for an upgraded transportation funding structure is real and obvious. But it would be an exercise in futility if agreements on how to make it work aren’t reached first. And months of research and drafting and statewide outreach were poured into proposals during the regular session.

House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, for example, said: “I believe that people will die because we are not going to fund the broader transportation safety measures that our system needs. My ‘yes’ vote tonight (for a much scaled-down proposal) is because a ‘no’ vote is a vote not to pay for paving, not to pay for fault line striping, not to pay for filling potholes, not to pay for snow plowing. We have to protect these services.” A no vote prevailed anyway.

He wasn’t wrong, but what can be done?

A few thoughts, not really new, but needing re-emphasis.

First, look at how other states do it. Yes, Oregon more than most states likes to plow its own furrows, but useful lessons can be learned from elsewhere. And every state has its own way of raising road money.

The most common funding principle is a “users pay/users benefit” system, where drivers pay in relation to how much of the transportation system they use. Gas taxes and tolls would be examples, as would a fee-per-mile system.

The Tax Foundation said in one report, “When we think of road funding, we tend to think of the taxes we pay at the pump. Gas taxes are largely used to fund infrastructure maintenance and new projects, but the amount of state and local road spending covered by gas taxes, tolls, user fees, and user taxes varies widely among states.”

One 2022 study puts Oregon toward the middle, 29th of the 50s states, adhering to that idea.

But user-based approaches are not the only answer, and by themselves may not be best. When the first transportation framework proposal was published this spring, Senate Republican Leader Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, remarked it, “represents multi-billion-dollar tax increases that will burden hardworking families, many of whom are already struggling with the rising costs of living. If this package had been introduced during last year’s transportation road show, we would have heard loud and clear from Oregonians across the state that they cannot afford these types of hikes.”

We need a serious and broad discussion about what revenue system would be best and fairest for Oregonians overall.

Second, consider if the rise in costs can be contained. Road construction has never been cheap, and costs have risen. Still, spending on road and bridge construction has had an extraordinary explosion.

Last fall the Federal Highway Administration reported that highway costs were rising at an annual rate of 9.6% — and that since the end of 2020, costs had risen by an incredible 71.5%. Oregon cannot be exempt from the trend, and the reasons are more than worth exploring.

Third, we need a broader, open review of ODOT. Skepticism on the part of Republicans about how the massive influx of money would have been spent was a key element in their opposition to the funding proposals from Democrats.

ODOT does not, to put it gently, have a large happy cheerleading section around the state, which Republican legislators have noted sharply. Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo, for example, warned in legislative testimony that, “we can’t just keep asking Oregonians — especially those who are already economically vulnerable — to pay more into a system that hasn’t proven it can manage the resources it has.”

The complaints about ODOT do not come exclusively from outsiders. In an agency report published last September, mid-level managers were surveyed about conditions and practices at the department described poor morale, a lack of communication and other problems.

A massive influx of money to the agency will prove a hard sell in some quarters. A serious and very public look at how the agency runs, and efforts to get it to run better, might generate some support.

Finally, bringing Republicans more centrally into the process would help. For much of this session, Republicans were heavily involved and Republican leadership expressed optimism about the outcome. But as the session wore on, that sentiment seemed to fade. Given the historical record of transportation funding plans rarely if ever passing without bipartisan support, that ought to be a priority. Democrats could even start by asking Republicans to put their preferred options on the table as a first step.

There’s no easy or snap answer here. But broader thought processes and legislating could go a long way.

This column first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

(image/Washington Department of Transportation)

 

The Kohberger non-trial

Simply as a matter of statistics, the plea deal with accused killer Bryan Kohberger, as opposed to a murder trial, is what you would expect.

And contrary to what happens in many cases, something along the lines of justice probably is being served.

To the first point, you should realize that the many TV programs centering on a dramatic trial do not much reflect today’s criminal justice reality. I’ve spoken to a number of veteran attorneys and judges in recent years who agree there are (and they have been participating in) far fewer trials than used to be the case. And they seem, generally, a little uneasy about it.

But this is a national trend. In 2017 an article in the law journal Judicature concluded. “trials, particularly jury trials, once played a central role in the American legal system. No longer. While trial remains a theoretical possibility in every case, the reality is quite different. Trials occur rarely, typically only in the most intractable disputes. The pronounced disappearance of trials seems to have largely escaped the attention of Hollywood, the literary community, and the mainstream media, but this development is well known to judges, other court personnel, litigators, and academics. However, even those “in the know” often do not appreciate just how rare trials have become.”

The high cost of a trial, and the often time-consuming nature of it along with appeals which can stretch out for many years, make them ever-less likely to happen unless a case is both a very close call and highly intractable.

Generally speaking, this is not a positive development. Important elements of public justice are washing away with the disappearance of trials. Decisions about guilt and innocence, or outcomes in major civil disputes, are much less often in the hands of ordinary citizens and more directly in those of a few public officials. The adage that justice delayed is justice denied often seems forgotten in our justice system. The trend line should make you uncomfortable.

In the Kohberger case, where a plea agreement between the accused and the prosecution was announced on July1, Kohberger has pleaded guilty to four counts of first degree murder, in the deaths of four University of Idaho students at Moscow, in November 2022. Note the time line: About two years have passed already since Kohberger’s initial arrest, with trial repeatedly delayed and not expected (before the plea deal) until later this year at the soonest. Concluding the case with a trial and appeals would be a very, very long process.

The death penalty will not be sought - that was the concession to the defendant - but otherwise Kohberger will receive an outcome not much different from what probably would have happened if he had been found guilty at trial - which seems likely but never is guaranteed. He gave up any shot at an appeal, and agreed to life in prison, period.

Families of the victims said they were outraged at the plea deal; some may have very much wanted the facts fully laid out at a trial, and some may have wanted the death penalty imposed.

Still. High stakes trials often are an emotionally shattering experience (imagine the reaction if, unlikely but possible, Kohberger had walked), and don’t often bring the closure survivors hope for. Other people in Idaho may not have been looking forward to all the grim details the state would be forever associated with.

And the death penalty, however you assess the ethics of imposing it, is increasingly a frustrating way of exacting justice. Look at the case of Thomas Creech, convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to death in 1976, who has spent decades on death row and remains among the living. How much did the death sentence matter there?

The Kohberger case is now essentially over, and the survivors and the state can start to move on. In this case, that’s probably a good thing.

 

The perilous supermajority

More than a few Democrats might be regretting their success last year in winning Oregon legislative supermajorities.

Such dominant control can be hard to manage well, much harder than working in the minority and more than working with a modest majority. Why? The lack of a brake often results in an almost irresistible attraction to doing too much and going too far.

As this year’s regular legislative session reaches its end, consider two of the key bills for which this session will be most identified. They concern the unlikely topics of unemployment insurance and transportation funding, neither of which likely would have been front of mind in a more closely-divided legislature.

They may become a problem for Oregon Democrats in the coming election cycle, which because of the Senate seats up for grabs already, is likely to help Republicans. Democrats this session have been handing them juicy campaign material.

The measure on unemployment and worker strikes, Senate Bill 916, did not need a supermajority to pass, but the large Democratic edge probably gave additional impetus to it. The bill, which Gov. Tina Kotek signed Tuesday, is expected to make Oregon the first state in the nation to allow striking workers to apply for unemployment insurance while on strike.

Of the more than 1,000 pieces of testimony that poured in, many came from labor unions or supporters, but the wide-ranging opposition pointed out serious issues.

The Oregon State Chamber of Commerce, for example, pointed out that, “the Unemployment Trust Fund has always been intended to support workers who lose their job through no fault of their own,” and that the bill “does not meet this simple litmus test.”

Stress on the fund is one issue, but one not immediately obvious to most of the public. More visible is what may happen when a strike by, for example, teachers takes place and strikers are in effect paid for an extended period. Public employees, including teachers, may find themselves rapidly losing public support.

The Oregon School Boards Association argued that if this bill had been in place during a recent month-long teacher strike at Portland Public Schools, the district (which this year is dealing with a large budget deficit) would have been on the hook for $8.7 million.

Now that it’s been signed, you can expect a referendum effort which could easily damage a number of Democratic legislative candidates next year.

The second supermajority-fueled bill is even higher profile: House Bill 2025, the transportation funding bill to raise billions in taxes and fees. It does need a supermajority to pass, and as this is written its future is unclear.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, introduced a 155-page amendment that reduces the amount expected to be raised from $14.6 billion to $11.7 billion over the next 10 years.

The problem of funding for transportation systems, especially roads and bridges, is serious and getting more so as traditional sources of revenue (notably the gas tax) have softened because of electric vehicle use and other factors, and as construction costs have risen. That much isn’t in serious dispute.

Finding new money for the work is difficult, however, and its path through the legislature all year, leading up to the current bill, has been public but rocky and unpredictable.

Legislative Republicans have locked in against it and some Democrats have been critical. The difficulty has been so rough that on June 20 Senate President Rob Wagner bounced a Democrat (Sen. Mark Meek of Gladstone) from his seat on the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment. Meek had expressed issues with the bill, so Wagner personally took his place to ensure the bill would be advanced.

That’s the kind of highly unusual move that should send up a red flag: If a measure has little enough support that it cannot advance under usual conditions, second thoughts are in order. Certainly, this bill has generated massive opposition, both in formal testimony and elsewhere. A website called notaxor.com outlines the contours of it on its home page: “Stop the Largest Tax Increase in Oregon History. HB2025 — the so-called Transportation Reinvestment Package — will cost taxpayers $2 BILLION in NEW TAXES. Working families will be hit the hardest.”

Polling has shown limited public concern for increasing transportation funding and strong opposition to a number of its funding elements. Organization of a ballot issue to reverse it already is underway, and it could succeed. (Will Oregon get a special legislative session this year on the subject? Maybe.)

Beyond that, the Republican legislative campaign ads for next year, alongside those for striker unemployment pay, almost write themselves.

Because you can doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes the large legislative majority either party might win — the kind of majorities each party has in most states these days — can be more a curse than a blessing.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

 

The gray line

Idaho’s two Republican senators, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, are positioned on the ragged edge of one of the top issues in Washington right now: The potential sale of millions of acres of federal lands, nationally and in Idaho specifically.

This proposal, which seems to be at least congruent with decisions and ideas emerging from the Trump White House, is a serious effort. And it has special import in Idaho.

Back in April, John Robison of the Idaho Conservation League put it this way: “Public lands are not just lines on a map—they are the heart and soul of Idaho. They provide world-class recreation, vital wildlife habitat, and a way of life that defines who we are.” A lot of Idaho is federal land, well over half of it, and much of it is heavily used for logging, mining and much more as well as for recreation and for wilderness preservation.

Few people who have spent time traveling Idaho or experiencing its great outdoors could fail to get the point. But some people do.

In April a budget amendment intended to bar sale of federal lands as a means of budget balancing, reached the Senate floor. It failed on a 48-51 vote. Montana’s two Republican senators voted in favor. Idaho’s two senators, Crapo and Risch, voted against. The ICL said in response, “Our Senators’ failure to support this amendment essentially puts our public lands on the chopping block. By not standing up to protect our Public Lands, Risch and Crapo are opening the door for these lands to be sold to the highest bidder and for ‘No Trespassing’ signs to go up across Idaho.”

Since then, Utah Senator Mike Lee took the Senate up on its implicit message to propose requiring sales of at least two million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in western states - and that would be a floor, not a ceiling. Reports have been circulating about prospective big money buyers from around the world interested in scooping up vast public acreage on the cheap, and shutting them off from Americans long accustomed to using them.

That proposal didn’t formally reach the budgeting process because it didn’t comply with Senate procedural rules. Lee has said he plans to offer an alternative proposal that would involve far less land sales, mainly limited to some BLM lands. But the issue remains: If a proposal comes down to sell off vast numbers of public acres to private buyers, who could shut off access to them or transform them, what will the Senate do? (Or the House either, though clear tests on the question have been fewer in that chamber.)

Crapo and Risch are key figures in this, since the Montana Republican seem to have staked out clear ground on mass lands sales, and the Idahoans’ votes then would be enough to stop it. On June 20, the Idaho senators did speak out on the subject, tersely.

Risch offered a statement saying, “After reviewing the Senate Energy and Natural Resources reconciliation language, I do not support the proposed provision to sell public lands.”

Crapo’s office said, “After a careful and thorough review of the legislative text in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee reconciliation title, Senator Crapo does not support the proposed language to sell public lands.”

That appears to suggest that the senators have driven a stake through the heart of the land sale proposal.

Or does it? The statements were specific to one particular proposal before a committee at a particular time. Without contradicting themselves, Crapo and Risch could vote in favor of another land sale proposal. They have not to this point ruled in or out doing so. The pressure in both directions is doubtless considerable.

Idahoans right now really don’t know what they might do: What they would or would not accept. And their votes are pivotal on this subject that could transform the west.

(image)

 

Half bet at the Keno Dam

Last August, Northwest salmon caught a break when four dams on the Klamath River, which flows from mountain country in southwest Oregon through northern California to the Pacific Ocean, were demolished. But it was a limited break.

The goal of that $500 million project, possibly the largest of its kind in American history, remains unreached, and serious effort still is needed to fulfill it. A fully free-flowing Klamath River may be beyond us for a while, but certain half-measures could help.

Hanging over it is the shadow of the decision this month by the Trump administration to abandon a regional agreement involving breach of the four lower Snake River dams in Washington state, also partly for fish run purposes.

In centuries past, salmon spawned in the upper reaches of the Klamath headwaters, then swam to the Pacific and back to reproduce. Starting at the dawn of the 20th century, people built dams along the river, blocking them.

A massive 2002 fish die-off on the Klamath helped spur an “Un-dam the Klamath” movement of environmental groups, tribes and others, and it succeeded in this decade. Most of the dams had been used for hydropower by Pacificorp and its predecessors but were deemed no longer economical. The two remaining Klamath dams have been signed over to the Bureau of Reclamation.

The removal of the lower four dams — Copco 1 and Copco 2, Iron Gate and John C. Boyle — gave the fish many more miles to easily swim upstream toward their old spawning grounds. While some researchers had been unsure how quickly the fish would return to those waters, in fact many did, quickly.

But some news stories at the time proclaiming the return of a free run of the Klamath River spoke too optimistically. In Oregon, much of the upper river is blocked by the last two dams, the Keno, west of Klamath Falls and near the same-named unincorporated community, and the Link River, which impounds and partly creates Upper Klamath Lake.

There’s serious interest in blasting through a direct river route for the salmon back through these structures into the Klamath’s headwaters. But breaching of the upper two may be a long time coming.

The four Lower Snake dams were built to provide hydropower, as were the lower Klamath dams, but unlike the Klamath dams they have remained steadily in use for that purpose.

While PacifiCorp (or its corporate forebears) also built and long owned the Keno and Link River dams, neither has been a major hydropower producer (though Link River retains some low-level capacity).

They are used instead mainly for water control and irrigation. The Link River controls inflow to the massive Upper Klamath Lake, and the Keno, which replaced an old wooden dam in 1967, is required by contract to manage gravity diversions — mainly for irrigation — and flood control. If either dam simply disappeared, flooding would be a live possibility in many areas, and irrigation in the region might become chaotic at best. The current Keno Dam was built in response to large flooding in 1964 and 1965 which the earlier wooden dam didn’t correct.

Both dams now are under control of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; the Keno was transferred in 2022. The agency since then has been faced with deciding how to handle fish runs and water control.

Dam breaches would both be costly and make water control difficult. Approval by the Trump Administration, which just rejected breaching the Lower Snake dams, seems unlikely.

Another option may still be available for the nearer term: Fish ladders.

The ladders can work. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, says, “The most common way for adult fish to get past a dam is to use a fish ladder, a water-filled structure that allows fish to pass up and over in a series of steps. Migrating salmon are attracted to the current at the base of an extended concrete stairway. The fish swim or jump from step to step.”

The Keno Dam has fish ladders now, but they have been widely found to be inadequate because of design and location, and the fish aren’t using them.

Building a better fish ladder could be far less costly than breaching the dam. The Seaside Institute estimated “a pool and weir fish ladder would cost about $6.3 million to construct and about $26,000 a year ($. 6 million over 60 years) to operate and maintain.”

Another option used in some federal dams is called “trap and haul,” described as “Migrating salmon are attracted to flow at the base of a fish ladder. They climb the ladder to a loading system where they wait in pools or tanks before transfer into specialized tankers or barges. These vehicles release the salmon into the river on the other side of the dam.”

One of these might pass muster with the Trump Administration. It has rejected breaching the four lower Snake River dams in Washington state, but building a relatively inexpensive fish ladder, if presented as an alternative, might be saleable.

The goal of a free-run Klamath remains hard, but the home search of the salmon could be in reach.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

Image courtesy U.S. Geological Service.

No Kings by the numbers

Two days after the June 14 No King protests in a couple of thousand communities around the county, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tweeted that his department “will NOT fund rogue state actors who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. And to cities that stand by while rioters destroy transportation infrastructure — don’t expect a red cent from DOT, either.”

Considering that any anti-Trump protest is ordinarily conflated by Trump acolytes with violent or “rogue” activity, you can see where the target is pointed: Widely. It’s not just at New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, because a lot of other communities were protesting last weekend, too. You might be surprised where.

Here were estimates of Idaho turnout for the No Kings event on June 14, which added together seem to approach 25,000 - a lot of anti-Trump protesters for this state. The numbers are only estimates - there are no “official” stats - but what we have says a lot.

Boise - 13,000. That sounds high - the real-time estimates were smaller - but look at photos of the Statehouse event and you’re seeing a heck of a lot of people, one of the largest Idaho crowds I’ve ever seen outside a major sporting event, uncommonly large by Boise standards. It seems to make sense only in the context of Boise city’s blue political coloration. However …

Coeur d’Alene - 2,000. Kootenai County has a lot of people, approaching 200,000, but this is still an enormous turnout for a county so blood red in its leanings: These days it does not elect Democrats to anything, period.

Hailey - 1,500. Okay, this is the Wood River Valley protest, conducted in an actual Democratic stronghold. But considering the population of the area, the number still is enormous, somewhere around one protester for every 10 residents, a stunning ratio likely outdoing Boise’s.

Idaho Falls - 1,400. Consider this a close match to the Coeur d’Alene story: Idaho Falls is a solidly Republican city. But evidently not everyone is on board.

Pocatello - 1,000. The university community provides something of a base in Pocatello, but this is one of the largest political crowds the Gate City has seen.

Sandpoint - 1,000. Bonner County is hard-core Trump territory. Who are these 1,000 people?

Twin Falls - 800. Another massive turnout considering the political leaning of the area.

Clarkston, Washington (with Lewiston) - 700. This is half-accounted for by Clarkston, where the event was held, but don’t be fooled: This valley is solidly Republican territory. Once Democratic, this area hasn’t evinced open support for the blue side in many years.

McCall - 500. The McCall area still has a small population with a very long-standing Republican voting pattern, albeit shifting a little in recent years; the appearance of so many anti-Trump protesters in this Republican place far from a larger city is remarkable.

Driggs - 500. Teton County is politically marginal, but its small and remote population makes the idea of getting this many people out for any political event is a shocker.

Moscow - 400. No great surprise here, given the University of Idaho community, but still a lot of people.

Nampa - 300. The politics of Canyon County would make you think everyone falls in line. The event there suggests that isn’t so.

Then there are the five smaller events: Salmon - 115 people; Silver Valley - 65; Bonners Ferry - 60; Rexburg - 50; Challis - 30. It’s not the numbers in these places, it’s the fact that protests were held in them at all. An anti-Republican protest in Challis? Really? That’s a true jaw dropper; a single person out there waving a sign would have been a surprise, much less 30.

To put this in perspective: These protesters are still a tiny fraction of the population of Idaho (which has about two million people), but the central point is that only a sliver of the people who think in a given way will be active enough to visibly stand on a sidewalk for several hours and protest. Each of these protesters is indicative of many others who didn’t show up. Not to mention that in many parts of Idaho, there’s an intimidation factor: Many people would feel unsafe putting their faces out there.

About 25,000 did it anyway. There’s serious dissatisfaction out there. Even in the scattered small towns of Idaho.

 

Data centers and their neighbors

Oregon has a big and (relatively) new kind of business it doesn’t really know how to deal with. It should start soon to figure that out.

This new sector consists of its mass of data centers, more of which are likely to pop up in coming years. But the state has no overall strategy for dealing with them.

It should, because data centers, economically significant and technically important as they are, are a business unlike any other. Governments need a separate and specific set of policies to deal with them.

One reason the state (like many others) has been behind the curve may be inadequate information about the sector, but more is becoming available.

Organizations that track data centers aren’t in agreement about exactly how many the state has: 131 according to Data Center Map, 84 according to datacenters.com. The timing of their surveys could have affected the difference in numbers, but so could questions about how you count them.

Data Center Map, for example, says that the largest grouping of centers in the state is at Boardman, with 30 centers listed. All, however, are Amazon AWX PDX, bunched in five different campuses. How many distinct units of these should be counted comes down to a matter of definition.

Regardless of the exact numbers, Oregon clearly is among the state leaders for data centers. It has fewer than California and about the same as Arizona, but more than any other state west of Texas. About 2,500 data centers are estimated to exist in the United States, so Oregon’s share is above average per capita.

One attraction for the state is cheap hydropower: Most of the centers are located not far from the Columbia River. Oregon’s moderate climate and relative safety from natural and human-caused disasters are pluses as well.

For some purposes, data centers are classified as large industrial operations, which they are — but they’re also distinctive from most businesses in that category. They not only use unusually large amounts of electricity but water as well, and they employ far fewer people than most industrial businesses usually do.

The tracking site datacenters.com said “Oregon, with its strategic geographical location, offers several advantages that make it an ideal choice for businesses looking to store their data. The state boasts a robust technology infrastructure, including reliable power supply and high-speed internet connectivity. Additionally, Oregon’s temperate climate ensures optimal cooling conditions for data centers, reducing energy consumption and associated costs. These factors contribute to the overall efficiency and reliability of the colocation services available in the region.”

Several private data companies dominate the service provision in Oregon: Lumen Colocation appears to be the largest. But Google has a large center in The Dalles, Amazon in Boardman, Hermiston and Umatilla, and both Meta (Facebook) and Apple have substantial operations in Prineville.

Besides those well-known locations, Oregon has data centers in Portland, Eugene, Medford, Bend, Hillsboro, Corvallis, Baker City and Bandon. It’s truly an industry with statewide reach.

They are significant economic players, but they have been walled off from much of the rest of the state’s economic and social picture in ways most businesses are not. Their impact on the state and on their neighbors in the areas of electric power, water use, and much more may become large, and it’s not entirely predictable. How should we interact with them? What should we fairly expect of them? That’s a broad debate begging for a legislative airing.

The Oregon Citizens Utility Board, a consumer-oriented nonprofit, said that “utility investments to serve data centers have been pushing up billing rates to residential, small business, and even other industrial customers. We’ve seen the dire impact of data centers’ rapidly rising energy costs — in 2024, Oregon’s for-profit utilities disconnected a record number of households because they could not afford their electricity bills.”

The Oregon Legislature has taken note of this specific issue..

This year’s House Bill 3546, sponsored by Reps. Pam Marsh, Mark Owens, and Dacia Grayber and Sens. Janeen Sollman and Jeff Golden, covers a narrow though significant segment of data center impact: Electric power rates. It passed the Senate on June 3 and the House cleared amendments from the other chamber on June 5, in both cases with generally Democratic support and Republican opposition. The bill goes to the governor next for final action.

That bill raises sensible questions, but it should be the foot in the door to a broader discussion of how these centers should relate to the rest of us.

Data centers should be put in a new category by themselves, for utility, regulatory and service purposes. Working through that effort should be a long-term project starting now.

This column first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

 

South of the border

The community of Point Roberts, Washington, is facing social catastrophe and economic collapse. It may be 400 miles or so west of the Idaho line, but it has some lessons worth absorbing a state away.

It is a highly unusual place, a small spit of land on the Puget Sound, northwest of Bellingham, and on the Canadian border. It is part of the United States - the border runs on its north side - but the only land connection is with British Columbia. It is bounded on the other three sides by water, and there is no significant port or airport. People there who need to get in or out, or get what they need (including education for most school students), have to pass through the border with Canada, drive a half hour or so, and then cross the border back into the United States at Blaine.

This makes Point Roberts highly sensitive to relations between the United States and Canada. Through generations, those have tended to be good, and the unusual conditions at Point Roberts have not been especially onerous.

Until this year.

Business at Point Roberts long has centered heavily on traffic and tourists from Canada, and those have nearly disappeared. An article in the New Republic pointed out, “Point Roberts can’t survive without Canadian visitors—and the Canadians aren’t coming. The thousands that would normally pop in over the weekend for some cheap gas and a burger by the ocean have answered the call for ‘Elbows Up’ - the Canadian equivalent of ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ - and are keeping their dollars at home.”

Point Roberts is an unusual and extreme case. But that allows you to see the border dynamics more clearly. And those dynamics are kicking in to the east in Idaho, right now.

To see it, travel (as I recently did) to Boundary County, which as its name suggests borders on Canada. Idaho has two international border crossings, at Porthill and Eastport, and both long have seen steady traffic. A significant number of Canadians for generations have driven south to Bonners Ferry, the nearest city center, and Sandpoint, and sometimes beyond, to take advantage of shopping and tourism and more.

Bonners Ferry has grown considerably in the last couple of decades. Its downtown seems less busy than back then (though it’s not a depressed area), but the bench area to the south has attracted a lot of new businesses. Bonners Ferry long struck me as a place almost without national chains, but a bunch of them have sprouted there in the last few years. Immigrants from other states, boosting the area population, probably contributed to that. And the Kootenai tribal casino still seems to be doing good business.

What I didn’t see at Bonners Ferry was Canadian license plates - as in, any, not a single one. In my past visits there over the decades, plates from Canada always accounted for a sizable portion of parking use and street traffic. Not this time.

The story was similar to the south in Sandpoint. The artsy downtown was busy and the area is still growing - lots of transplants from California, evidently - but here too Canadians, based on license plate visibility, seemed to be absent.

Neither place, to reiterate, is crashing economically as Point Roberts is, at least not now. Boundary and Bonner counties are not that dependent on Canadian traffic.

But that traffic long has been a significant part of the local economy, and if it continues to stay away, that likely will have some long-term effects.

Not least, it could cement a growing reputation of the Idaho Panhandle as a place closed to people from elsewhere unless you belong to, ahem, certain groups of people who would be welcomed in the Redoubt.

 

In review: There is no place for us

Any of us could be a few missteps or misfortunes away from the kind of stories told in There Is No Place for Us, the most remarkable book I've read in the first half of this year. And that ought to be enough to keep us all awake, because those stories are a series of revolving nightmares - close enough to our own realities that they ought to kick home hard.

The subtitle for the book, by journalist Brian Goldstone, is Working and Homeless in America, which is accurate enough but, like the title, needs some definition and clarification. That in fact is part of what the book does.

In the epilogue, Goldstone talks about joining in a Point in Time study, a periodic effort to count the numbers of homeless people in America, accomplished by enumerating people living on the street or other public or uninhabited places, plus designated homeless shelters. The real definition of homeless, he (persuasively) argues, ought to be expanded far beyond that, to include the many people living in extended stay motels, or in their cars, or couch surfing, or otherwise living in a place without stability, and often without decent conditions. The numbers of those people nationally is many times the number found in tents on the street.

The book follows the lives, over about a five year time period (up to about 2022)  of five families in Atlanta, Georgia, describing in detail what they're going through as they try to find an affordable place to live. Here's one of the twists: All of them (or at least the head of household in each case, and sometimes others in the family as well) work full time. With one exception, they are not substance abusers (the significant exception is an alcoholic, driven to it in part because of the housing nightmare). Nor are they (again, with one debatable exception) contending with mental issues. These are people struggling with a web of bad options and no clear way out.

The more recurring theme is the lack of affordable housing - or put another way, the astounding high cost of rent and real estate in recent years. These people are working for minimum wage or not much more, but they are consistently working, and they cannot find a place to live that fits anywhere close to their budget. That is a situation many of us should be able to identify with.

A case from my personal observation: A house near mine, which was occupied for years by a family of four with stable income - until the father fell ill and missed two months of pay. He endeavored to make good on the back house payments, was able to do so, but his lender rejected his entreaties and kicked the family out. The house later fell into the hands a new owner who bought it cheap and over a few years trashed it and made it a hazard. After that it was flipped and rehabbed, and finally sold to a non-resident who fashioned it into a vacation rental, which it still is. Better than its immediate prior use, but not nearly as good as having a family of neighbors. In my town and elsewhere, the neighbors are going away.

On the rental side, Goldstone writes the nation now has a deficit of 7.3 million low-income apartments - a vastly higher deficit than in decades earlier. "Giant private equity firms, institutional investors and corporate landlords have been buying up properties en masse and then jacking up rents beyond the rate of inflation, 're-tenanting' buildings (replacing poorer tenants with wealthier ones), and neglecting basic maintenance because they know that if one household moves out, another will quickly take its place."

In Atlanta, he writes, a few mega-firms have swept up tens of thousands of residences, raising rates and making them all but unaffordable to most people - in fact, nationally, only about 15% of people can afford the standard basic apartment rates. This sounds like a broken business model, but it yields massive income at least in the short time, as Goldstone explains.

He also points out that in a one-year period in 2021-22, "investors bought one out of every three homes for sale in Atlanta." How is an average-level wage earner going to compete with that?

The book is not an economic or political or legal study, though. It is a careful, granular look at how these sickly trends are playing out in the real lives of our fellow citizens.

That alone should be enough to give us pause. And if not, remember: However secure you may think you are, you're not all that far away from joining their ranks. May you have better luck than these people have had.