Bad policy leads to bad results: Someone should tell Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek that equity is not served by bad judgment. Likewise, Kotek's vision of rent control will not add one more apartment, townhouse, or house to the housing stock in Portland, or any other Oregon city ("Portland's Tina Kotek explains her rent control plans - and landlord pains," Feb. 4). In reality, the lower return on investment as ensured by her proposed cap on rents will reduce the speed with which new housing is developed in Oregon. This does not even consider the existing regulations and taxes already affecting housing stock development.
Should her proposal become law, Kotek will once again be leading the Legislature into a bad decision for which they will need a cure by some other future corrective intervention by government in order to solve the problem that the Democrats themselves have created.
Patrick Castles, Southwest Portland
Brown's missing leadership: Retired wildlife biologist James B. Stengle made a very valid comment on Kate Brown's lack of leadership ("Gov. Brown fails to lead on natural resource issues," Feb. 8). Countless hours went into the two-state gillnet reform agreement. Commercial fish would be available in plenty in the 2012 agreement, in fact it clearly specifies "no net Loss" to commercial quotas! So now we go backwards the very minute a new governor steps into office? Brown set this up as a favor in appointing a gillnet lobbyist to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife commission. As a lifelong resident I would like to see the reform completed. Let's stop killing everything swimming into a suffocating net.
John Oliverio, West Linn
The new motto: In 1928, the Republicans claimed that if Hoover won the election, there would be, "a chicken in every pot" and "a car in every backyard."
In light of the current president's cabinet picks, the new motto might be, "a fox in every henhouse."
E.M. Malin, Southeast Portland
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