Grover: IP28 does not help public, businesses

To the Editor:

It is likely Initiative Petition 28 will be on the November ballot in Oregon. Initiative Petition 28 is a tax on you and me as Oregon residents. The measure would raise the corporate minimum tax by charging certain corporations a 2.5 percent tax on their sales in Oregon above $25 million or more. These corporations, such as Walmart, Century 21 or Pacific Power, have said they will increase their costs to their consumers, you and me, to make up the difference. They are not going to take the loss.

If voters approve the measure it will bring an estimated $3 billion a year to the state. The state has made no indication as to how they would use this money. It will be up for grabs. Voters should realize these corporations do make millions and they will pass on the cost to us.

Carefully read this Initiative Petition 28 for it does not favor the public nor corporations.

Dorys Grover

Pendleton

Heriza: ODFW should encourage future hunters in action, not just words

To the Editor:

The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife has five references encouraging youth hunting in its 2016 Big Game Hunting Regulations, including mentored youth hunting. The consensus seems to be we need more hunters and that hunting should be a family activity.

As a soon-to-be-85-year-old Oregon native, Korean War vet, the father of seven, grandfather of 12 and the holder of a lifetime Pioneer Hunting License, the above claims don’t seem to reflect ODFW’s real mission, which appears to me to be lottery draws, big-game auctions and other fundraisers to encourage head hunters, not family outings.

Case in point: 1) If I draw a deer tag for 2017, I will be three months shy of my 86th birthday, and it will be my second tag in eight years; 2) Three years ago, a son from Montana wished to hunt the Keating Unit with his brothers and me. He got his tag; we drew blanks. As an aside, his 12-year-old twin daughters each killed an antelope after taking Montana’s hunter safety course; 3) My 10-year-old grandson has spent time with his granddad in a duck blind since he was 4, but has never been able to follow granddad on a buck hunt; 4) Yes, I might have found the Minam and the Imnaha better draws than the Keating Unit, but I’m approaching 85, not 35.

As a family, we just burned the mortgage on a cabin and five acres in the Keating Unit after 24 years of monthly payments. It would be great if it could be used as a base camp for a deer hunt as well as for fishing and picking huckleberries.

I would like to propose the following as a father and granddad to encourage youth and family hunting. For all Oregon-born residents with a Pioneer Hunting License and 75 years of age and older, ODFW should issue big game hunting tags in the unit of the hunter’s choice. I have no statistics, but my guess is it would affect less than 100 resident hunters throughout he state. OK, for that 100 the success rate for us “old codgers” would probably be less than 10 percent, a small price for encouraging our future hunters.

Please give this proposal serious consideration.

John G. Heriza

Baker City

Miller: Crackdown needed to bring end to madness

To the Editor:

I am so sick of the candlelight vigils, mounds of flowers and the total lack of will to change a system that allows someone investigated as a terrorist by the FBI to purchase a rifle. Is that all we are capable of: a burnt candle and flowers that will die and be swept away? As a nation we need to be deeply ashamed that we allow such madness to continue.

Judy Miller

Bend