PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

The golf course in Salem where I have been a member for more than 30 years – Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club — just completed a major renovation of its bunkers…all 44 of them.

The result? A far better golf course, both from playability and aesthetic standpoints.

Some months ago, Illahe management leaders set out to re-design and re-build bunkers, which can be a reality for many courses in the Northwest. With all the rain we get, bunkers just don’t last long – perhaps in the range of 10 years.

It was time for this project at Illahe, so the Board undertook it, without I add, imposing a special financial assessment on members. It was done within the operating and capital improvement budgets.

To accomplish this, the Board made the good-sense decision to engage a golf course architect, Dan Hixson, who has a lot of experience in the region, having worked at one point as the head pro at Columbia Edgewater, one of the best courses in the state. With his help, Illahe also hired a construction firm to do the work of taking out the old bunkers and building the new ones, with specific help from a “shaper” who used power equipment at the direction of Hixson to develop ground for the new bunkers.

It was a pleasure for me to watch the shaper at work…an obvious professional.

When the ground was ready – first, of course, workers had to move the old sand – we had new sand (white sand, which helped with aesthetics) delivered from Idaho. Then, the immediate areas around bunkers were planted either with grass seed or turf to make sure the bunkers were appropriately protected.

Finally, golfers at Illahe, me included, were told – again appropriately – that we could not play out of the bunkers for at least six months or so to let them weather in. Our very capable head golf pro, Steve Bowen, bought about 24 ball retrievers and laid them out on the course so we could retrieve balls from the bunkers without stepping in them. He also said that, if we could not get a ball out, he would give us a replacement at the end of the round.

Credit for the project also should go to Illahe’s long-time golf superintendent, Bill Swancutt. He and his maintenance crew displayed their normal great work ethic to supervise the project to successful completion. This major project at Illahe may be his last as I think Swancutt is contemplating retirement after about 35 years on the job serving as one of the premier golf course superintendents in the Northwest.

When a non-profit, member-driven operation enters into a project such as this, including with regard to cost, one never knows what the outcome will be. My sense is that the Board and Club management took an appropriate risk and the result proves the worth of their decision.

Illahe is a much better club for the investment of time, energy and money in this project.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

A headline in the Wall Street Journal captured the issue very well.

Seattle to Business: Drop Dead

The city taxes companies for hiring more workers.

Does the phrase “cutting off your nose despite your face come to mind?  It always is hard for me to realize what some governments will do to harm their own economies. If there were a “jobs issue” in politics, Seattle would be on the wrong side of the issue.

Just think of what new jobs would do for the economy, if only because those who hold those jobs would pay taxes to fund the government liberals want.

Or, for another example beyond Seattle, consider the Port of Portland. There, unions fought for certain job rights on the waterfront terminals only to see those terminals close and the jobs go away.

Terminal losses at the Port of Portland mean at least two things:  First, the loss of high-paying jobs on the waterfront and, second, that hundreds of big rigs ply their way north and south to bring goods to market in other ports, including Long Beach and Seattle (though the City Council action to impose a job tax there could hamstring Port development).

Here’s more detail on the Seattle story from the Wall Street Journal.

“Twenty cities are competing for Amazon’s second headquarters. Then there’s Seattle, Amazon’s current headquarters, which the city apparently wouldn’t mind driving away.

“Seattle’s city council on Monday unanimously approved a $250 ‘tax’ per full-time employee on businesses with more than $20 million in annual revenue. Progressive council members had originally proposed a $500 jobs tax that would have turned into a 0.7 per cent payroll tax in 2021, but then Seattle’s businesses revolted.

“Amazon suspended two building expansion projects. More than 100 large businesses including Expedia, Alaska Airlines and Redbox wrote a letter warning that the tax sends the message ‘to every business: if you are investing in growth, if you create too many jobs in Seattle, you will be punished,’ which ‘will cause far greater damage to Seattle’s growth prospects than the direct impact on the businesses being taxed.’

“Three hundred or so small businesses also warned that ‘continuing tax increases and regulations will only hurt the small business community and will vastly change our city.’ Even trade unions in Seattle begged the council ‘not to tax our jobs away.’

“After the council scaled back the head tax, Amazon said it plans to resume work on one of its expansion projects, but a spokesperson noted that ‘we remain very apprehensive about the future created by the council’s hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here.’

“The head tax is merely the city council’s latest depredation against business. In 2015 the council allowed Uber drivers, who are independent contractors, to collectively bargain. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Friday declared that the ordinance violates antitrust laws. The council last year imposed a 2.25 per cent income tax on high earners, which a state court has blocked.

“Many businesses have located and expanded in Seattle because Washington state doesn’t impose an income tax. Last year Washington’s GDP growth led the country at 4.4 per cent. But Seattle’s city council seems to think this growth will continue no matter what it does. Ask Connecticut how that turns out.”

As I have written before in this space, I am amazed that the “jobs issue” does not gain more standing in politics at the city, state or federal levels. It would seem to me that running on jobs would be s smart political move, regardless of position on the political spectrum.

Saving and creating jobs should be a major push for governments. Having a job is an answer to many of the social problems we face. Plus having a job provides a sense of self-worth and independence.

So, I say, make the “jobs issue” a part of every political platform. Just don’t talk to the Seattle City Council about it.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Telling the truth used to be an important commitment in politics and government administration.

Tell a lie and you could get caught in a web, damaging your candidacy for public office or your record as a government official.

No longer – at least most of the time.

In an era of Trump, truth is a casualty.

Consider these recent quotes on the subject:

• From a column by Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal:  “Mr. Trump unquestionably is a failure when it comes to conforming to current manners or selecting lies that prominent media organizations will endorse, e.g., you can keep your health care.  Then again all presidential speech is instrumental—a means to an end, with truth merely a tactical consideration.”
• From a commencement speech by ousted U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to the Virginia Military Academy: “If our leaders seek to conceal the truth or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.

“This is the life of nondemocratic societies, comprised of people who are not free to seek the truth. … A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what the truth is and is not, what a fact is and is not, and begin by holding ourselves accountable to truthfulness, and demand our pursuit of America’s future be fact-based, not based on wishful thinking; not hopeful outcomes made in shallow promises; but with a clear-eyed view of the facts as they are and guided by the truth that will set us free to seek solutions to our most daunting challenges.

“As I reflect upon the state of American democracy, I observe a growing crisis of ethics and integrity. When we as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth, even on what may seem the most trivial of matters, we go wobbly on America. If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society, and among our leaders in both the public and private sector, and regrettably at times even the nonprofit sector, then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years.”

I reflected this week on this sad state of affairs in American political life. I went back to my own years in government in the mid-1970s through 1990, plus my 25 years as a state government lobbyist.

In those days, without trying to come across as holier-than-thou, truth was a clear goal.

If you sacrificed it, you sacrificed your credibility.

In just one example, back in the late 1980s, when I served as deputy director of the Oregon Economic Development Department, we produced a quarterly report on job growth in the state, including jobs we had helped the private sector create.

I remember toiling over the report in an effort to make sure it was accurate – it bore truth – and would stand up utter inevitable scrutiny.

As a lobbyist, it also was true – and is true today – that it is at least unethical if not illegal to provide inaccurate information to legislators. For one thing, doing so violates the code of conduct of the professional association of lobbyists. For another, if avoiding truth can be proven, it is illegal.

I wish political and government leaders today would hold truth as an important commodity and not, as Mr. Jenkins writes above, “with truth merely a tactical consideration.”

Or, with Mr. Tillerson, I hope we don’t continue relinquishing our freedom without regard to facts and truth.

It’s time for TRUTH IN GOVERNMENT.

To buttress that argument, I even surprise myself by citing something Hillary Clinton said over the weekend – and, for me, Clinton is no normal purveyor of truth. But here is what she said.

In a speech at Yale University, she referenced two books by Yale history professor Timothy Snyder: “On Tyranny” and “The Road to Unfreedom when she said: “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.

“Professor Snyder … is sounding the alarm as loudly as he can. Because attempting to erase the line between fact and fiction, truth and reality is a core feature of authoritarianism! The goal is to make us question logic and reason and to sow mistrust toward the people we need to rely on: Our leaders, the press, experts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, even ourselves.”

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

A friend asked me the question in the headline after reading my recent blog about the upcoming governor’s race between Democrat Kate Brown and Republican Knute Buehler.

My sense, very early in a several-months-long election process, is that Brown will win the state’s top political job again or at least be favored to do so.

The Oregonian newspaper wrote this in a lead editorial on Sunday:

“Tuesday’s primary was a test not just of candidates, but of voters: Could Oregon Republicans detach themselves from social-issue litmus tests and support the one Republican candidate for governor who stands a chance of winning in November?

“The answer is yes. In a decisive victory, Republican voters chose Bend legislator Knute Buehler, a pro-choice doctor who favors reasonable gun control measures and has openly criticized President Donald Trump as their nominee to challenge Democratic Gov. Kate Brown. Voters wisely set aside any differences they may have with his moderate social stances and selected him over opponents toeing hyper-partisan positions that are out-of-touch with most Oregonians and sunk their chances of statewide office in recent years.

“While hardcore Democrats might disagree, Buehler’s win benefits Oregonians as a whole. His legislative background and understanding of Oregon’s most pressing problems gives him the credibility and fluency to force Brown into a higher-level discussion of issues than other candidates could have. And Oregonians deserve substantive, informed debate between our gubernatorial candidates on how to prop up Oregon’s K-12 educational system, pay down its daunting public pension debt, reform its foster-care system, identify long-term health-care funding and any number of such issues that need attention now.”

So, at least the Oregonian says there will be a race leading up to November. Part of the reason is that Buehler has sought to carve out a moderate reputation as a legislator in Salem, a reputation he hopes will give him a chance to appeal to metropolitan Portland voters.

The fact that he hails from Bend, not exactly rural Oregon, though also not urban Oregon, ends up to be a strike against him.

For me, two recent Republican predecessors – Ron Saxton and Chris Dudley came from the Portland metro area and tried to portray a moderate set of values. They succeeded, but at the polls, they failed.

The reason?

The political power in the metropolitan area rests with public employee unions, which do everything to promote the candidacy of any Democrat. That includes huge financial donations, as well as “political feet” – which means public employee union members walk around the metropolitan area to promote Democrats, then collect ballots in the last hours of the mail ballot cycle, getting them to ballot collection points just before the 8 p.m. deadline.

It has become almost impossible for a Republican – and I think that includes Buehler – to surmount that heavy D advantage.

My friend also asked me another thought-provoking question.

Why, he asked, can’t Republicans make connections with metropolitan area voters? Well, in some cases they can, but, in the past, not enough to offset the heavy D advantage.

Plus, any Republican this time around is likely to call for no increase in taxes, for adequate levels of school funding (who knows what “adequate” is?), and for actions to control the huge rise in public pension costs.

None of those propositions, as important as they are for any governor, will appeal to liberal voters in the metropolitan area, so the Democrat candidate will not campaign on them.

The last Republican governor in Oregon, the late Victor Atiyeh, for whom I worked in the 1980s, managed to connect with metropolitan voters, not just once, but twice, including a huge winning 62-35 margin in his re-election campaign, admittedly against a Democrat candidate, Ted Kulongoski, who should have fared better in the metropolitan area.

The trouble is that political discourse has become far more coarse since the Atiyeh terms. Those who vote often do so on the basis of single issues – abortion access is a main one — not the breadth of what any governor will have to face once in office.

That dynamic, too, argues for the Democrat incumbent this time around.

But, I hope I am selling Buehler short and that the governor’s race turns into one that will produce the best winner for all of Oregon.

As Oregonian editorial writers said:

“Oregonians should feel hopeful that Buehler and Brown will use these next few months to engage in real debate that reveals vision, ideas, priorities and character. They should listen for how each would address the precariousness of our fiscal, education, revenue, health care and housing systems. And they, like Republican voters in their primary, should recognize all a candidate has to offer rather than base support on only one issue or another. 

“True competition forces everyone to be better. Oregonians need Brown and Buehler to show them their best.”

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

If you look at recent history, the best answer to the question in the headline? Probably not.

Moderate Republicans Ron Saxton and Chris Dudley came close to unseating Democrat incumbents in recent elections, but both lost in metropolitan Portland as Democrats – and their allies in the public employee union movement – turned out votes, even collecting late ballots in the last hours of the election and turning them in to County Clerk mailboxes at the last minute before polls closed.

Before I write about the upcoming race between Democrat incumbent Kate Brown and Republican challenger, Knute Buehler, let me provide just one point of context. I worked for the last Republican governor in Oregon 35 years ago, the late Victor Atiyeh, so, given my past and current support for this last Republican in the Governor’s Office, I am not the most dispassionate observer.

Buehler starts with a significant disadvantage. He lives in Bend, which is not exactly rural Oregon, but isn’t metro Portland either. That means he has to find a way to connect with metro voters.

He has tried to create a moderate position in the Oregon Legislature, including supporting left-of-center social positions on such issues as contraceptive insurance coverage and abortion. His views on state government finance tend to be to the right-of-center.

And he has lofted strong criticism of Governor Brown for her management of state government, including a number of problems in state agencies.

His campaign website says this:

“I love Oregon – its natural beauty, quirky culture and generous, independent-minded people. Oregon has a proud legacy—but under Kate Brown, Oregon is falling behind and too many Oregonians have an uncertain future. I’m running for Governor to help those uncertain Oregonians – those who have been left behind, left out or lost hope in the future.”

Brown, for her part, touts her credibility in Oregon by saying her platform will be “to offer opportunities for everyone to reach their full potential.”

Here is the broader website quote:

“Oregonians succeed in vibrant communities that offer opportunities for everyone to reach their full potential. A thriving Oregon is resilient and sustains the well-being of current and future generations.​”

Campaign websites can say anything. The question is which candidate will make good on general language to convince Oregonians to vote for them.

Early betting would say that Brown will win a four-year term in the Governor’s Office.

The recent past has not been positive for Republicans.

In the election of 2010, Democrat John Kitzhaber beat political newcomer Chris Dudley of whom it could be said, “he stood out in a crowd.” That’s because the former Portland Trailblazer center stood almost seven-feet tall. It didn’t matter.

Returns showed Dudley in the lead on election night, but that didn’t last when metropolitan votes came in late. Though Dudley won 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties – that alone clearly illustrates that there are “two Oregons” — he couldn’t get over the top in the Portland area, so Kitzhaber won another term.

Before Dudley, Portland lawyer Ron Saxton won the Republican nomination in 2006, again running on a moderate platform. But he lost in the general election to Democrat Ted Kulongoski.

Saxton appeared to be ahead in the closing days of the election, but his campaign suffered when opposition rose to Republican President George Bush in the fall and that translated to reduced support for Saxton.

In my view, either Saxton or Dudley would have done well as governor, especially because both favored a middle-of-the-road approach to state budgeting, including the idea that results ought to matter when it came to spending taxpayer dollars.

But, that, obviously, is all in the past. So, what matters now is how the current candidates, Brown and Buehler, connect with voters. There is little doubt but that Brown will do well in this area.

I lobbied her frequently when she served as Senate Majority Leader before she took the governor’s chair and she always came across as a friendly person who would listen and make her own decisions.

I don’t know Buehler as well, so only time will tell whether he has the personality and verve to bridge the gap between rural and urban Oregon.

Whatever happens, may the best candidate win!

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I am now running, with a free hand, one more department beyond the Department of Pet Peeves and the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering I now direct.

This one is called the Department of Bits and Pieces. It will allow me to comment on smaller items than those worthy of an entire blog.

So, here goes, for the first opening of this department.  And, if you read this, you may wonder how in the world I would come up with such an eclectic list of subjects.  Well, remember, beyond golf, I have nothing much else to do.

THE CADDY’S ETHIC: I have written before about common words or phrases used in golf, one of my favorite pastimes, as indicated by the introduction to this blog.

An old phrase worth repeating is this one, which describes the role of a caddy in golf. It is this: Show up, shut up and keep up.

As a sometimes caddy for my good-golf-playing son, it is an ethic I accepted.

OREGON TOURISM PROMOTION: Oregon is seeing more international tourists than ever before, and recent projections don’t show any signs of the trend stopping.

In 2017, the state had more than 1.1 million foreign visitors, up 11 per cent from 2012. And that’s just the beginning.

All of this reminds me of my stint as deputy director of the Oregon Economic Development Department. It was at the time one of Oregon’s best governors, the late Victor Atiyeh, built bridges to Japan.

He was known as “Trader Vic” back in those days and his entreaties paid off with decisions by major companies with headquarters in Japan to locate expansions in Oregon. He also was instrumental in promoting a film called “From Oregon with Love,” which opened in Japan and which boosted tourism from that country.

Why does all of this matter? Well, there are at least two reasons. It makes good sense for Oregon to reach out beyond its own borders to expand understanding of other countries and, closer to the ground, tourists from Japan and elsewhere contribute to Oregon’s economy.

REPUBLICAN MODERATE WINS GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY: Bend doctor Knute Buehler won the Republican primary this week and is preparing to face off against incumbent Democrat Kate Brown next fall. Buehler has tried to craft a moderate profile in advance of the race and some thought he might get beat in the Republican primary. He didn’t.

We’ve been down this road in Oregon before. Moderate Republicans like Ron Saxton and Chris Dudley were not able to oust Democrats from the Governor’s Office chiefly because liberals in metropolitan Portland banded together behind “their” candidates.

It’s been more than 35 years since a Republican held the governorship in Oregon. With all due respect to Buehler, I suspect there will be more years of a Democrat governor here.

TRUTH IS A VICTIM: This quote from a column by Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention. “Mr. Trump unquestionably is a failure when it comes to conforming to current manners or selecting lies that prominent media organizations will endorse, e.g., you can keep your health care.

“Then again all presidential speech is instrumental—a means to an end, with truth merely a tactical consideration.”

The bold face quote is especially troubling in today’s politics. Truth is “merely a tactical consideration,” not the basis for generating support for government. Trump illustrates this failure perfectly and that’s not good for the country.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

There is a great story in Salem and it is not well known.

So be it. Because the effort to provide free health services to low- income residents is based on doing the work and not setting out to get credit for it.

The story: More than 70 churches have banded together to provide free medical, dental and counseling services in a way that verifies it is possible “to put feet to faith.”

Salem Free Clinics (SFC) was started in January 2005 as an outreach by West Salem Foursquare Church. With the need for medical help in mind, Dr. Marion Reynolds and Todd Gould, the Outreach Pastor, made their first house call. Walker Middle School, located in West Salem, offered the use of its gym for the first five years of SFC’s existence, meeting every 1st and 3rd Saturday afternoon.

At about the same time, Salem Alliance Church (SAC) – where my wife have attended for some 30 years — began thinking about plans for a new building located on Broadway just west of the church in Northeast Salem.

In a survey of the Grant/Highland neighborhoods, SAC found that health care needs rose to the top.

So, all of interest merged in a decision by the church to house the free clinic in the new building, which came to be called Broadway Commons.

In 2011, SFC also established a partnership with Corban University to provide counseling services in addition to the basic the medical and dental services that marked the clinics’ start. In the same year, services expanded into Polk County with a free clinic located in Dallas.

The clinic – both the major site and the satellites — is operated by volunteers who greet those who show up for help, plus provide all of the medical, dental and counseling services.

At one point in the last years, it would have been possible to think that there would be no need for a free clinic, given passage of the national Affordable Care Act, which came to be called ObamaCare after the then-president.

But, people still fell through the cracks, plus ObamaCare was not run with precision, so it was often difficult to determine who qualified for government health care and who did not.

That’s where the clinic came in.

Beyond the health care services, staff members at the clinic also are available to provide spiritual guidance to those who come in to the clinic and ask for such help.

That’s a critical part of clinic services because, overall health is not just a physical issue; it also has spiritual dimensions. If an individual receives health care, then commits his or her life to Christ, what better result can there be!

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

If you are a golfer like I am – and even if you don’t set out to play every day as I do – there is good news coming.

As of January 1, 2019, major golf rule changes will go into effect and the changes are designed to simplify the rules, which can come across as a set of regulatory statutes many pages long – too many pages long.

The changes are being proposed jointly by the United States Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal & Ancient Golf Association (R & A), which have won plaudits for a review that covered a number of years, involved both sides of the Atlantic and featured ample opportunity for input from all kinds of golfers, from pros to amateurs.

Oregon’s own Barbara Trammell, the excellent executive director of the Oregon Golf Association, served on the overall committee that drafted the rules – and deserves plaudits for, first, being selected for the role, and, second, contributing to a solid proposal.

The overall effort was sparked by a major concern. The rules of golf were too complicated, sometimes hard to find in the rule book, and not always clear to most golfers. You almost had to act like a budding lawyer trying to pass the bar exam when you looked at the rule book, along with its 500-page summary of “golf decisions.”

In the new code, words such as “hazard” and “through the green” are gone. They have either been taken out or replaced by simpler to understand rules or phrases.

“Through the green” is a perfect example. I have played a lot of golf for more than 30 years and I found it difficult to understand the term, which was critical to many of “old” rules. The phrase has been replaced by the term “general area” to cover all of a golf course except four defined areas – the teeing ground on a hole, all bunkers, all penalty areas, and the putting green of the hole the golfer is playing.

Here are a few of the major rule changes:

• Ball Accidentally Moved in Trying to Find or Identify It: There is no longer a penalty for this accidental act. Good, I say.
• Ball lost or Out of Bounds: The change is that a ball would be considered lost if not found within three minutes, not the current five minutes. Plus, a golfer can take relief for a lost ball at the spot of the loss without heading back to the tee. Again, good.
• Dropping a Ball in a Relief Area: It used to be that the golfer was supposed to drop a ball from shoulder height. That has been now been reduced to knee height, far easier to assess than shoulder height. At one point, the draft rule changes suggested dropping from one or two inches above the ground, but that properly was determined to be close to placing the ball – and, in fact, placing the ball was considered, so I imagine that placing could be another change considered down the road. Good.
• The Flagstick: Players will have the option next year of playing a stroke from anywhere on the course – including on the green – with the flagstick left in the hole.   This change was a nod, at least in part, to speed up play. Good.
• Playing a Ball in a Bunker: Under the new rules, it will be possible, (a) to remove obstructions and loose impediments, and (b) to take a two-stroke penalty, remove the ball from the bunker and play out of the grass, an obvious nod to amateur golfers, not pros. Good.

In all of this, famous pro golfer Gary Player put it well: “Change is the price of survival, so I applaud the governing bodies’ effort and initiative to continuously implement rule changes to help golf in the long term and simplify the game. We have witnessed several instances over many years that unnecessarily changed the outcome of a tournament. So, recognizing the need for continuous improvement is paramount for our future.”

To Player’s quote, I would add only that the rule changes will help amateur golfers who love the game AND want to play by the rules. They also may help me pass the USGA rules test in order to become a certified rules official. We’ll see about that in 2019.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

On a number of occasions since I left state government in 1990, I have reflected on lessons I learned from my boss at the then-called State Executive Department.

He was Fred Miller, a veteran state government administrator who came to the job after previous experience in a number of state agency director positions. In his role as director of the Executive Department, he functioned as the “chief operating officer” in state government, asking agency directors, with the support of the governor, to report to him on a routine basis.

That approach left major statewide issues to the governor who, of course, relied on Miller for advice and counsel as he, the governor, provided overall leadership in Oregon.

At the Executive Department, I worked with a small group of administrators who essentially functioned as deputy directors of the department. They were the budget director, the personnel and labor relations director, the accounting director, and information management director, the executive recruitment director – and me, the internal and external communications director.

One of the purposeful tasks I pursued during those years was to serve as “secretary of the cabinet” where I developed the agenda for meetings every week of agency directors. There were three – two for large agencies and one for small agencies because (and this is not well known) there are more than 100 state agencies, each with a statutory foundation for existence.

Miller presided over cabinet meetings to free the governor to remain involved in major political tasks.

From Miller, I learned several key management lessons, as follows:

• Send at least one thank-you note every day: Miller practiced this seemingly easy but important task. Every day, he would write a thank-you note to someone who had helped him in his job. I have tried to mimic that action over the years to reflect the reality that no one ever accomplishes something alone without help from others.
• His approach to employee evaluations: Miller’s skill in this area was noteworthy. For all of his direct reports, including me, he would prepare a carefully written summary of performance, then share it with his reports, as well as meet with each of us individually to review performance.

His evaluation helped me to improve as a manager. It was a very effective commitment to solid management, one I tried to mimic in my own career.

• His advice about the Oregon Legislature: Miller was fond of saying that “the easiest thing to do is to be cynical about the legislature.” His advice: Don’t be cynical.

Skepticism might be warranted, he agreed, but not cynicism. Besides, Miller said, with all of its shortcomings, legislative representative government is better than whatever is in second place.

This was great advice, something I tried to keep in mind as I transitioned for the next 25 years after state government service to be a state lobbyist.

• The virtue of transparency and “availability” to talk with the media: One of the most overused words in talk about government today is transparency. I don’t know what it means most of the time.

Back at the Executive Department, we practiced full and open transparency, meaning that our management actions were open to public review, including by the media.

Here is only one example. In the late 1980s, state employees decided to strike, which was a foolhardy act on the part of those employees because, when on strike, they would not get paid and it would take many years for them to recover the lost payments when the strike ended. And surely it would end!

The major public employee union practiced what was called a “rolling strike.” In other words, it would not follow state law by alerting management where a strike would occur, but would endeavor to surprise us every day with a new strike location, as well as with a “rolling agenda” of those who would be on strike.

For the reporters and editors covering the strike, that meant every day they wanted to know how many employees were on strike and where the strike would occur.

To provide this information, Miller and I decided to walk the two blocks over to the State Capitol every day with exact strike reports in hand. There, we visited the Capitol Press Room, which, then, was occupied by key reporters covering state government.

We went around the room sharing the information and answering questions, thus winning credibility as we reported progress – or lack thereof – on the strike. With Miller’s approval, I also agreed during the day to be interviewed on camera by TV stations reporting strike news as I “spoke for the management side of state government.”

The approach was a tribute to real transparency, not some sham attempt to say we were open to review.

For me, these were important lessons learned. Each has stuck with me during the rest of my career. And I still keep in touch with Miller and other members of the Executive Department management team. We fed off each other during those years to make state government better and we still talk today.

[A footnote:  When Miller left the top job at the Executive Department, his successor decided to make a change in the department’s name.  It became the Department of Administrative Services.  I didn’t like what the name change portrayed.  An “executive agency” with high-level management because “administrative services,” which, to me, sounds like pushing pencils.]

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

If you think about it for a moment, the headline in this blog captures a noteworthy fact.

In my 25 years as a private sector contract lobbyist in Oregon, I only remember two cases where I developed major questions – negative questions – about a client.

That’s saying something!

And that means that the vast majority of my firm’s clients were top-drawer folks. It was a pleasure to represent them at the Capitol in Salem. Two of the best were the Port of Portland and Providence Health & Services. My association with these and many others added positively to our firm’s reputation, as well as, I hope, to my own.

Now, just quick summary about the two bad applies.

One was a company that came to Oregon hoping to establish a bail bonds system here. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was a client we never should have accepted. But it was early in the throes of starting our business, so, I guess, that was a reason for taking the client.

I knew it was a bad deal when I met with representatives of the client in a Portland hotel and I felt like I was meeting with members of the mob. I wanted to take a shower after the meeting. Clearly, a bad deal.

The second bad client was a company that wanted to start a major, NASCAR-like racetrack in the Boardman area east of Portland along the Columbia River.

At first blush, it sounded like an idea worth pursuing, though the effort would contain all the inherent risks of such a major economic development project in rural Oregon. Still, we felt the proposal was worth our involvement to be involved in what produce an economic boost for an area that needed help.

So, we accepted the client. However, I knew the client almost immediately it was not a good choice. In the first meeting in our firm’s downtown Portland office, the client representative reiterated his request for our help in a way that went against everything we stood for as a lobbying and public relations company.

He asked us “to open our Rolodex,” a reference to the old way of keeping a list of our firm’s contacts that we had cultivated over the years.

We were prepared to engage the client in a strategic way – analyzing the goal, deciding on the overarching aspirations, and then (and only then) coming up with a list of tactics designed to support the strategy.

Needless to say, we didn’t keep the client for long and the proposal in Boardman never materialized.

Upon reflection, I guess there was a third client, which gave me misgivings. It was health insurance coalition headquartered in Washington, D.C. It came to us to ask us to come up with a list of individuals in Oregon who would be willing to go to the polls to oppose over-the-top health insurance regulation if, in fact, as predicted, there would be such a proposal on the ballot.

That kind of work – forming a coalition to advocate for a point of view — was in our firm’s wheelhouse. But the trouble was this: There was no immediate threat of a ballot measure in Oregon. So it was hard to energize folks to oppose something that didn’t yet exist!

I was assigned to lead the work in Oregon, but, after I pushed back several times on the task, the coalition in D.C. decided to stop our work. Good – and the fact is that the threat to health insurance companies never materialized in Oregon, at least not at the polls.

Over 25 years, I worked with and for many top clients and appreciated the chance to do so. But, for me, it also pays once in awhile to remember the bad ones if only to focus on the contrast of all the good ones.