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Virus giving local computers the sniffles
Accreditation
could lower insurance, add peace of mind
Flags flutter in
remembrance of the end of the Vietnam War
| Wu
woos crowd |
The three-term congressman holds a town hall
meeting in Newberg Thursday |
By Gunnar Olson, Newberg Graphic
reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
In the conference room at Newberg Public Library Thursday night
three rows of chairs were set up in the shape of lowercase j’s. Every seat was full
and more people crowded in in back, waiting to hear from their congressman.
David Wu, the three-term 1st District representative, was in Newberg to lead
a town hall meeting. Wu produced many laughs and as many rounds of applause. He quoted
Benjamin Franklin and fielded questions affecting people nationally and locally. By the
end of the night Wu seemed to have restored people’s hope in the democratic process.
Wu started by saying the evening was not for speeches, but for the people of
the county to share with him their concerns, that he might be held accountable for what he
has and hasn’t accomplished. He did, however, dominate the speaking time. To every
inquiry he returned an extensive answer.
Asked about the declining state of health care, Wu agreed the recent Medicare
bill isn’t perfect, but a step in the right direction. He said he wouldn’t count
on President George W. Bush putting up this type of benefits in his second term of office,
should he be re-elected.
“If we don’t take the bill now, how many years will it be until we
get another run at the hill?” Wu asked.
He said the health care benefit would have been better had the Bush
administration not given so many tax cuts to his wealthy friends.
A man from an education committee in McMinnville, who afterward identified
himself as Francis Charbonnier, said in the one year the No Child Left Behind education
bill has been in effect, “It has been disruptive and demoralizing. ... And it’s
going to get worse.”
For example, Charbonnier said, a school can “soar” over several
testing hurdles, and yet miss one by not very much and the whole school is dubbed a
failure. More, it decreases funding.
Wu said this story is one that’s being told across the country. Wu
confessed he voted for the No Child Left Behind legislation, but said the main problem
with the bill is that it sets standards and then doesn’t fund the measures required
to achieve them, again noting Bush’s $2 trillion tax cuts.
The Patriot Act was brought up by a man concerned with his civil liberties,
saying the administration has been infiltrating all walks of American life, including into
the bedroom.
Wu said his vote on the act was a simple no, one of 65 nay votes cast in the
house. “I have no regrets about that vote,” he said to a round of applause.
The Patriot Act will continue on as long as John Ashcroft is attorney
general, he said, to laughter. Again he quoted Franklin: “They who would give up an
essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”
A pair of women at the meeting alerted Wu to more local issues. Beth Walton
called to Wu’s attention what she called a pending crisis, that of limited
telecommunications service in pockets of the county, where companies refuse to install
better cable. The other woman gave Wu a heads up on a bill regarding the safe practice of
radiology.
A man in the back, who later identified himself as Gil Reynolds, when called
on, said: “Iraq. We’re at war. How do we get out of this?”
Wu pointed out that he voted against the war, saying that the evidence
presented to him and the rest of congress wasn’t convincing.
He did say that Saddam Hussein was a horrible person, but that “I
don’t think it should be the American policy to invade every country with an evil
dictator,” he said. This was met with perhaps the biggest applause of the night.
Wu said he knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. They’re in
North Korea, he said, but the United States doesn’t have the means to address that
now because of the focus being placed on Iraq.
At the end of the meeting, Yamhill County Commissioner Leslie Lewis, a
Republican, stepped forward to thank Wu for the $100,000 he had helped secure for
transportation, which will be used for bus shelters along Highway 99W, as well as for the
hundreds of thousands of dollars he has garnered for the Newberg-Dundee bypass.
Wu ended the evening by encouraging people to set aside their cynicism and
continue participating in the democratic process. His last words to the audience were:
“To do what I do every day, you have to be an incurable romantic and a hopeless
optimist.” |
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From Jan. 31,
2004, Newberg Graphic
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