To the editor:
Where is Dick Anderson?
As residents and public officials in Lincoln Country respond to the pending construction of an immigration detention facility in Newport, where is Sen. Dick Anderson?
In a recent edition of their podcast, “Crosstabs,” Republican political operatives Reagan Knapp and Bryan Iverson laughingly speculate that the recent announcement of Newport’s Rogue Brewery bankruptcy offers an alternative opportunity for the ICE facility.
“I think it’s a bummer that Rogue shut down,” said Iverson. “But it would be a nice ICE facility. I mean, it would be great … because we don’t have an ICE detention facility in Oregon, and most states do.”
The two go on to joke about Newport’s “boomer hippies yelling at Donald Trump.”
All this could be dismissed as mere boorishness, but Iverson’s day job makes these comments a cause for concern. Bryan Iverson serves as chief of staff to Senator Anderson.
When hundreds of Lincoln County citizens gathered recently at Newport’s City Hall to express their opposition to an ICE facility in our county, officials from every level of government were there to hear their concerns and answer questions as best they could. But where was Senator Dick Anderson?
In the days that followed, public officials have done their best to keep the public informed and to plan for the impact an ICE facility would have upon our collective safety, our businesses and our sense of community. But where is Senator Anderson?
Do the frivolous comments of his chief adviser represent Anderson’s own point on view? It’s time for Senator Anderson to come forward and let his constituents know his position on the presence of an ICE detention center in our community.
— Phil Miller/Depoe Bay
