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Nurse board gets a push

by: L.E. BASKOW, Joan Bouchard, former executive director of the Oregon State Board of Nursing, resigned last month after a scathing report by state investigators. One reader commends the Tribune’s Peter Korn for his Nursing Chaos series, which sparked the investigation.

I appreciate the tenacity of this investigation (Act now to fix nursing board, Sept. 4). As a registered nurse, I am embarrassed by the Oregon Board of Nursing's abuse of power and lack of accountability to the public it serves.

Claire Ochs


Cowpie energy plan has fatal flaws

What a bunch of feel-good nonsense (NW Natural harnesses the power of manure, Sept. 7)!

I was imagining a bucolic scene of pasture-raised cattle, but then realized it would be insane (and unsustainable) to drive around thousands of acres of land picking up cowpies.

This idea is only feasible at factory farms for cattle, where they are crowded in close quarters. Their manure then piles up and washes into underground tanks to be trucked or pumped away.

So I'm supposed to pay extra on my gas bill to subsidize unsustainable farming practices so that megafarms can extract one more product out of an animal? No, thank you.

Instead of greenwashing, I have a better idea. I just won't eat as much beef, and certainly not from a conventional 'farm.'

Bryan Allan

North Portland

Grow up, Portland, and think big league

Portland is like a grown-up who wants to keep acting like a teenager. Triple-A baseball is not a good fit for a metropolitan area of its size - it is derisively laughable (Portland Beavers will remain Portland Beavers, Sept. 5).

Developmental baseball … developmental hockey … why not developmental basketball then? With this developmental league mentality, Portland should sell the Blazers and become a developmental team like Boise, yes?

No! We should sell the Beavers to Boise.

We need to get a Major League Baseball team and have rivalries with grown-up city teams like the Seattle Mariners, the Oakland A's and the Los Angeles Angels. We need to stop all this pussyfooting around.

Portland - stop pretending you are still a city of only minor consequence.

Kenneth Leese


Let's build something for the locals first

Portland prides itself on human experience. That may be one reason the Rose Garden never has been in the hearts of folks the way Memorial Coliseum has.

There are people walking those convention streets (Build and they will come, Aug. 31). They need storefronts with display windows and stores every 50 feet. That's one reason the convention center area is so dead.

Let's build something that is more of a 24/7 attraction - where people want to walk and mingle and have a little bit of shelter out of the weather.

Pat Russell


Return kicker check, reap the rewards

Oregonians, unite! When your kicker check arrives in December, simply refuse to cash it, helping the state achieve greatness.

Here are some possible initiatives if everyone tore up their kicker check.

1. Reduce class size to 14 to 16 students in all grades.

2. Increase teacher salaries by $5,000 per year, so teachers don't have to work odd jobs just to survive and buy classroom supplies.

3. Expand light rail from Portland to Eugene, with plenty of bike racks in the transit vehicles.

4. Increase funding for health care so that all children in families making $180,000 per year or less will have medical, dental, vision and prescription coverage.

5. Allow more illegal aliens to attend colleges in Oregon through a unique scholarship plan - if you are here illegally, half your tuition will be waived.

6. Purchase Smart cars for the Oregon State Highway Patrol to save fuel costs.

7. Reduce the raw sewage still flowing into the Willamette.

8. Increase spending on arts and culture so that previously unemployed people could obtain jobs as well as benefit the state and its people through the creation of wonderful art projects.

9. Expand the successful Portland Wi-Fi to blanket the state, from Seaside to Burns and beyond. This would help connect all of us into one big, happy statewide community.

10. Follow the governor's lead and pre-purchase carbon offset credits for every man, woman and child in the state. This way, we would all be doing our part.

Jerry Dawson

Former 30-year Oregon resident who recently moved to Arkansas to be near family