SOS Forests

Two on Rural Politics in Oregon

Here are two recent news articles on rural politics in Oregon. Just to let you know how we high rate out here.

Number One:

Rural areas will lose a voice in Salem [here]

MATTHEW PREUSCH, The Oregonian Staff, March 23, 2008

BEND — Among the victims of Oregon’s darkening fiscal picture this year is the state’s only rural policy director.

Not that rural Oregonians are surprised. As they’ll tell you, getting the short end of the stick sort of comes with the territory.

In April 2004 at the Elks Lodge in John Day, Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed an executive order creating the Office of Rural Policy.

“The new Office of Rural Policy will assist the state in better understanding the unique needs and issues of rural Oregon,” Kulongoski said as eastern Oregon leaders looked on. Many hoped it would help bridge the state’s much-maligned urban-rural divide.

But the hope of some of those people who stood beside the governor has turned to bitter disappointment. At the end of this month, the office will disappear and its director and only full-time employee, Jim Azumano, will be out of work.

“From start to finish, it has been one of the most sorry situations I have ever been a party to,” Laura Pryor, a former Gilliam County executive and one of the office’s early supporters, said in a recent e-mail to colleagues.

The office never received regular allocations from the state’s general fund, relying instead on short-term federal grants and other miscellaneous funds.

Last year, the governor’s office asked for $400,000 to support the office, but the 2007 Legislature authorized only enough to keep it running for nine months. Lawmakers also asked Azumano and office supporters to come back with a report justifying its existence.

“I don’t know what they’ve done, other than have on the governor’s masthead a recognition that this administration cares about rural issues,” Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, a Ways and Means committee member, said during a hearing on the office last June.

Johnson and others were also concerned the office was duplicating some work of other agencies, such as the economic development department.

The office’s champions say it was never given a chance to succeed.

“The office of rural policy in my opinion was set up for failure,” said Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day.

Ferrioli lays the blame on Kulongoski, who he said treated the office like a “redheaded stepchild” by not fighting hard enough to keep it open.

Kulongoski did ask the Legislature for $250,000 to keep the office running through 2007. The more likely scapegoat is the more recent $178 million drop in the forecast for the state’s budget.

“I don’t think you can put the lack of success on the governor,” Azumano said. “He put it in his budget, he asked for the money.”

In his brief tenure, Azumano, a former Clatsop and Hood River county administrator, served as a one-man information conduit and policy creation shop for rural Oregon. His was the only part of state government that focused exclusively on the long-term prospects and plans for rural Oregon in areas such as water, education, health care and jobs.

This month Azumano released his office’s first — and final — report on rural Oregon, where the immediate prospects in many communities are not good. Timber-based economies are nose-diving because of the downturn in new home construction and subsequent drop in demand for lumber for window and door parts. And renewal of the federal payments program that delivered millions of dollars to 33 Oregon counties is mired in Congress, meaning cuts to roads, schools, libraries and other programs could become permanent.

But beyond specific policy proposals, Azumano’s main role was to act as an emissary from the lands of long vistas to the state’s bureaucracy and lawmakers.

Rural leaders often bemoan how new state laws or rules might work in Beaverton or Eugene but don’t translate well in areas that are still considered frontier by population density standards. One example he cites: training requirements for firefighters are the same in Portland, which has a paid, professional department, as they are in areas with all-volunteer forces.

“The biggest loss is to lose that voice in the governor’s office at the policy level to say, ‘Wait a minute, what does this mean for rural Oregon?’ ” said Mike McArthur, a former Sherman County executive who now heads the Association of Oregon Counties.

Still, the office was not universally lauded in rural Oregon. It was of more service to leaders in the far eastern counties, where day trips to Salem just aren’t possible, Crook County Judge Scott Cooper said.

“It was never that important to the central and western part of the state,” Cooper said. “I don’t have any clue how it added any value. I don’t think it was a very good idea to begin with, and I don’t think its loss will be felt.”

But it wasn’t the only rural aid program to fall before the budget ax. So did the Regional and Rural Investment Program, which funneled state lottery money to economic and community development projects across the state through 13 multicounty regional investment boards.

With the rural policy office no more, there is some talk in Salem of having Azumano stay on as a sort of rural ombudsman who can advocate for the same demographic but not be beholden to any branch of government, said Sen. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, who co-chairs the Ways and Means committee.

“It would require more funding,” he said, “but not on the scale of having a separate agency.”

Number Two:

Entire Elgin planning commission resigns [here]

Written by Ethan Schowalter-Hay, The Observer, March 21, 2008

The entire planning commission of the City of Elgin resigned Thursday night rather than consent to new ethics requirements taking effect this year.

“As volunteers in a small community, they all resigned rather than have the state post their personal and financial information on the Internet, and further having the state threaten them with fines and a Class C felony for protecting their privacy,” said Elgin City Administrator Joe Garlitz.

A 2007 amendment to Chapter 244 of the Oregon Revised Statutes means that all public officials in Union and Wallowa counties, for the first time, will need to submit a Statement of Economic Interest to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.

As the decision of the Elgin planners demonstrates, the change is not without controversy. An informational meeting has been called for Tuesday at 9 a.m. at the Misener Conference Room at 1001 Fourth Street. At that time, Tammy Hedrick, a trainer with OGEC, will discuss the issue and answer questions.

ORS 244.050 mandates that, among other positions, all elected officials, planners and administrators/managers at the city and county levels comply with the filing rule — or suffer civil penalty.

Most such officials in Oregon have had to submit the statements since 1974 — including in La Grande, Baker City and Union, and Union and Wallowa counties — but 97 communities and six counties have been exempt, until now.

In Northeast Oregon, Cove, Elgin, Enterprise, Imbler, Island City, Joseph, Lostine, North Powder, Summerville, Ukiah and Wallowa are newly affected.

The disclosures relate to the economic interests of the public officials and their relatives or members of their household. They need to be filed by April 15, every year by those holding office on that date. The same people must submit a Quarterly Public Official Disclosure on the 15th of each month following the quarter.

In the economic interest statements, respondents must identify the source of any of their, their relatives’ or a member of their household’s income above $1,000 — but not the amount itself.

The statements also address property holdings, shared business with lobbyists, honoraria, certain types of debt and investments, etc.

According to Hedrick, the information submitted in the economic statements is not yet posted online, but the commission is mandated to do so by 2010.

This morning, Garlitz predicted more fallout from the legislation in other sectors of Elgin city government.

In an interview prior to last night’s planning commission resignations, Garlitz and Elgin Mayor Carmen Gentry expressed concern about the requirements’ effect on volunteer positions.

“What’s going to happen is that everyone is going to resign because they are all volunteers and don’t want to file this paperwork,” said Gentry.

“What’s really scary about the April 15 deadline are the penalties, and who’s going to risk getting a Class C felony for a volunteer public office?”

Garlitz said the information should not be made available online.

“If it was kept confidential with the ethics commission, that’s one thing,” he said, “but we don’t want it on the Internet.”

Gentry said, “This bill was pushed through under the radar.”

She and Garlitz also argued that state law and city charter already structure against corruption and that the financial statements burden municipal bookkeeping.

In a guest column in this week’s Observer, Marc Stauffer, a planning commissioner in Enterprise, argued against the “Nazi Germany-style ‘Ministry of Information’ gathering tactic’ of ORS 244.050.

“I understand and even applaud the efforts of the Legislature to curb governmental corruption,” Stauffer wrote. “But is it right to drive from office those uncompensated volunteers that give freely of themselves in an effort to better the communities they live in?”

Cove City Councilor Jim Lundy said the new legislation functions as a formal reminder of public office’s code of conduct.

“There’s something we need to remember,” he said. “Rules are made for people who break them … These things, to me, are common-sense type things.”

Most public officials, he explained, use sound ethical judgment when it comes to voting on issues they may have some personal or financial stake in — if so, often choosing to abstain from the vote.

“It’s up to us (as councilors) to be ethical and above reproach,” Lundy said. “But because some aren’t, they had to make these rules.”

He added, “It’s to remind people — but (ideally) you shouldn’t have to remind people to be ethical.”