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October 4, 2007 Opinions |
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Guest Opinion
Killing A Sacred Cow
By Steve Culley
The fix is in regarding Measure 49. We are about to be hit with a propaganda blitz funded by the planners and zoners who would like everyone to enjoy the urban experience. The grape yuppie, Eric Lemelson, a New Jersey transplant, has opened up his wallet again and written a $750,000 check to help pass Measure 49. He wrote another $100,000 check from his mother’s trust fund. Lemelson contributed $500,000 to defeat Measure 37 too. The Nature Conservancy has contributed $ 769,000 to yes on 49, Portland business man Ned Hayes has spent $100,000 and of course many small donors will kick in too. Supporters, mainly non-land owning urbanites, will make it darn hard to avoid the media blitz that is sure to come. When all of eastern Oregon resembles Wallowa County, 67 percent absentee land owners, they might be happy. The governor, who spent a good deal of his urban life sticking it to eastern Oregon will move to Baker County and build a castle and probably volunteer for a place on the planning commission and all will be well.
The Portland ‘Oregonian’ will contribute hundreds of column inches about how Oregon will be overrun by people just like them if we don’t continue the forced urbanization of Tom McCall. Local newspapers will parrot the ‘Oregonian’ line and a few farmers who fear having an urban environmentalist move in next door will form a marriage of convenience with them.
Some talking points you will hear over and over are “if I would have known what Measure 37 would do to Oregon I wouldn’t have voted for it.” The flip side, the eastern Oregon legislators who voted for this turkey back in 1973 who said that if they knew what Senate Bills 10 and 100 would do to Oregon they wouldn’t have voted for them, won’t get any mention. They won’t mention that Oregon was to take a “Big Look” at what our land use laws did to Oregon and report to the 2009 legislature. The Democrats in the Senate killed funding for that. We sure wouldn’t want to look at the dark side of the sacred cow while we are trying to get rid of the second voter approved attempt to limit the power of the state.
Vote no on 49. Most likely it will pass because rural Oregon can’t compete with the money and the far left media. But after that groups like Oregonians in Action and others will have to set down and really consider the fix. It is simple. Land use laws should be a county prerogative. Kill the whole statewide land use bureaucracy. That way the Willamette Valley could zone everything into 1,000-acre blocks so only the Lemelson’s could own it and we could make local decisions. Killing a sacred cow is hard, but it is time. After that we can concentrate on the real problem with sprawl, a never ending importation of people under the guise of cheap labor pool that drives down wages, furnishes soldiers for the empire, and future votes for politicians. Then after that the environmental planners and zoners and people herders will have to admit that all their schemes were doomed to failure because the population doubled while they were building utopia.
Editorial
City’s Revenue Surplus Should Be Used For Streets And Sidewalks
When the city came into a $500,000 revenue surplus in 2006 under the previous city council and administration, there should have been more discussion on repairing the city’s streets and sidewalks and less discussion about handing out bonuses.
First, that money should have been spent on the one block section of “B” Street that has become the new entrance to a shopping center. Citizen Tom Hiatt addressed the last city council in August of 2006 about the deteriorating condition of the street and informed the city council that the constant flow of traffic, including freight trucks, was causing the street to sink in areas and water was not draining properly.
City Works Supervisor Gary Van Patten joined the discussion at that city council meeting and he said that the street did not have an adequate base and required extensive work in order to support the increased usage. Estimates for the repair of the one block section of “B” Street were mentioned at those meetings at about $115,000. This would have left about $385,000 from the $500,000 revenue surplus and the city would have had a nice new street that drains properly and is capable of handling customer traffic and commercial traffic. Spending the revenue surplus on “B” St. would have been a positive step in creating a vibrant residential block in a high-traffic area, instead of a neighborhood in decline with property values dropping and sale signs posted. It also would have been a cooperative gesture by the city toward the business community.
Now then, we have $385k left and we’ve only just begun.
Next, the one block of Hughes Lane east of Cedar St. remains a dirt-road with potholes and washboard to boot. This was not an issue when this one block section of Hughes Lane served only the traffic using the Grange Hall. Now however, the one block section serves as connector between Cedar St. and the new housing development in the Lund Lane area. A paving project on the one block of Hughes Lane probably would have cost about $200,000.
After the “B” Street and Cedar St. projects there might have been about $185,000 left for other city infrastructure repair and improvement emergencies, say some of the city’s crumbling high-traffic sidewalks. Using the city surplus money to pay for some of the most important repairs on high traffic sidewalks would have been a gesture of cooperation to the business community and residents.
I’ve heard nothing of funding strategies to address the “B” St., Lund Lane and sidewalk problems. It’ll probably be solved through some long term financing arrangement that will end up costing tax-payers almost double what the repair projects cost, and part of the explanation will involve inflation and economics factored in with time, and we’re supposed to be convinced that $1 million spent over 15 years is actually less money than $500,000 spent today. I guess the real point boils down to the question: What is a more preferable and appropriate source of funding for “B” St, the Lund Lane connector and high-traffic sidewalks? The City’s revenue surplus funds or some as yet undetermined source of funding that will more than likely end up costing ratepayers or property owners more money?
Using the past as an indicator, there will probably be some long-term funding solution for the needed street and sidewalk repairs paid for by rate and/or taxpayers, and once put in place, those revenue surplus funds will go to fund a special interest project related somehow to ‘economic development’.
I think that money is still around. I don’t remember any discussion on spending it other than the suggestion made in August 2006 that some of it be spent on bonuses for some of the city employees who worked to create the revenue surplus. If some of that money is still around maybe its not too late to get some of these needed infrastructure projects going. (BA)
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