Letter: Finish this sentence

“I think local communities are best situated to bring together the appropriate stakeholders to figure out the right policies for their local communities, that is why I think it is time for . . . .”

(a) . . . the state to send to jail, and levy a fine of up to $1,000, waiters who serve unsolicited straws to dining customers in sit-down restaurants.

That’s a bill introduced by Democratic state-assembly majority leader Ian Calderon in California.

Think further north.

(b) . . . the state to ignore threatened Federal repercussions and allow marijuana to be sold locally because, after all, public safety laws will strictly safeguard against consumption by children.

That’s what Oregonians were told whereupon they passed Measure 91 in 2014, legalizing recreational marijuana.

So, some three-plus years later, how is the kid-safety thing working?

Nearly 25 percent of retail marijuana joints state-wide were selling marijuana joints (products, etc.) to (insert drum roll) youth, according to the results posted just this January 10, following an extensive sting operation.

Said Steve Marks, Executive Director of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, concerning the promise by the cannabis industry to abide by public safety laws, “Cleary they’re not.”

Think still further north.

(c) . . . the state “to repeal the preemption on locally-imposed rent regulations.”

All three examples above are fact, not fiction.

All three hypocritically – emphasis is alleged to be local when in fact state mandates are in mind – complete the sentence with which this article began.

And all three reflect the putting of a thumb on the scale, and a foot on the neck, and all while whistling a hauntingly familiar refrain:

‘We’re the government. We’re here to help.’

Some people have a rather troubled relationship with the truth, one of them being Rep. Nicole Macri (D-Seattle) who is author of the quote with which this article began and who finishes by lending her support to allowing – read imposing – rent control by cities state-wide.

How ironic – if not hyper-hypocritical – is it to say she thinks local communities should have the final say and then superimposes what the state says?

Did you as a landlord know that you may have a business partner in the state? You will if this bill passes as the state will no longer allow you – given typical trickle-down policies available to local municipalities – to determine what you can charge for rent, even as the state has sanctioned warrantless searches of your rental property to inspect, among 69 other things, where the exhaust duct exits the rental.

And how will the state deal with the homeless crisis – that Macri says this rent control bill will address – when in fact the state itself has helped create the crisis by such so-called rental housing safety programs that require current code updates which improvements landlords pass along to the tenants who, in the case of many low-income residents, cannot pay which makes them potentially homeless?

Raise property taxes, while freezing rental rates, that’s what the state will do.

And if that makes sense to you, there may be some waterfront property for sale in the Gobi Desert.

Sick-lycal.

It’s time to throw the tea in the harbor.