Oregon
Drug addiction, housing and homelessness to dominate session – Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon lawmakers are starting the legislative session, promising to aim squarely at the state’s homelessness and drug addiction crisis.
From Gov. Tina Kotek to Democratic and Republican legislators, elected officials agree on the priorities, especially with fentanyl overdoses skyrocketing in Oregon and across the country.
They agree police need more tools to investigate and charge fentanyl drug dealers. They also agree that addiction treatment and services need to expand. And they want to cities to add affordable and middle-income housing to address the state’s homelessness crisis and high home prices.
They have their differences, however. Republican and Democratic lawmakers, for example, disagree on criminal charges for possession of small amounts of drugs, which was decriminalized after voters passed Measure 110 in 2020.
And the Oregon Supreme Court ruling last week against Republican senators who participated in the 2023 walkout gives them no incentive to show up if they object to proposals, they said. Lawmakers need a quorum with two-thirds of members present to conduct business.
That could put more pressure on the agenda, which is ambitious for a short session. They come every even-numbered year and are intended for emergencies, budget adjustments and technical fixes.
Here’s a look at what’s ahead:
Housing and homelessness
Gov. Tina Kotek has just one bill for the session, and it’s aimed at the housing and homelessness crisis in Oregon.
“We have a critical shortage of housing supply across the state,” Kotek told reporters last Wednesday at a legislative preview event.
Kotek’s proposal, Senate Bill 1537, would allow cities to expand their urban growth boundaries, but with a caveat: at least 30% of the land within the expansion area would have to be designated for affordable housing.
Kotek stressed the proposal would give cities a one-time chance to add land, something she failed to get passed last year. Her current bill includes $500 million for housing programs, including grants and loans to cities to purchase land and build infrastructure for affordable housing, loans for developers and grants for environmentally friendly homes that use electricity instead of natural gas.
That allocation includes $5 million for a new Housing Accountability and Production Office within the Department of Land Conservation and Development to help local government agencies add new homes.
Kotek has separate requests for $65 million to support existing homeless shelters and $35 million to help homeless prevention efforts like rental assistance. Kotek said the ice storms that clobbered Oregon in January demonstrate the need for communities across the state to have adequate shelters.
Drug addiction and overdoses
Democratic lawmakers have released a wide-ranging proposal to address the state’s drug addiction crisis.
The proposal would allow police to charge people with a low-level misdemeanor for possession of a small amount of drugs. Measure 110, which voters passed in 2020, decriminalized possession for users and put a share of cannabis revenues toward addiction services and programs. The measure allowed police to issue $100 citations to people found with a small amount of hard drugs, but those citations largely failed to motivate people to enter treatment.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers differ on the severity of the punishment: The Democratic proposal would carry a sentence up to 30 days in jail, and the person could avoid a charge if they entered a treatment program. Republicans want a more stringent misdemeanor penalty that carries up to a year in jail.
“Fentanyl has been a significant game changer as it relates to the world of street drugs and it is deadly and disastrous for Oregonians,” Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, said during a news conference last week.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers largely agree on other proposed changes, including expanded treatment opportunities, more residential services and tools to help police rein in drug dealers, such as higher penalties for selling drugs.
“I think we agree on more than we disagree,” Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton, said at the same event.
Lawmakers on a joint committee have worked since last year on gathering information and crafting proposed changes, work that Kotek said is “moving in the right direction.”
She said the state needs more than punishment to address the crisis.
“I would hope everybody looks at this as a comprehensive package,” Kotek said at a news conference.
Lawmakers also want to hear from members of the public on the issue.
“The public input is really important to this process,” House Majority Leader Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, said.
Wildfire funding
Democrats have at least three proposals addressing wildfire funding in the state.
Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, is proposing both a new state body dedicated to public safety and wildfires and a ballot measure to be presented to Oregon voters that would fund it. The ballot measure would include a tax of up to 25 cents on every $1,000 of assessed property taxes. According to the Legislative Revenue Office, this could bring in at least an additional $125 million per year to wildfire prevention and response.
Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, wants the timber industry to step up its funding. He’s proposing a ballot measure to reinstate a tax on the value of timber logged on industrial forestland. This would send tens of millions of dollars to the forestry department and ease pressure on the state’s general fund, according to Golden.
“Asking all Oregonians to pay even more for wildfire protection does not address the very large tax advantages that have been developed for companies whose lands (the state) protects,” he said.
Sen. Elizabeth Steiner, D-Portland, will propose reducing the millions in per-acre fees that timber and grazing landowners pay to the state for wildfire protection after ranchers expressed anger about fees going up as much as 40% in a year. She walked back part of her earlier proposal that would have charged every property owner in the state a $10 fee. The proposal no longer includes details about where the forestry department would make up that lost revenue, but she is co-sponsoring Evans’ tax proposal.
Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, is backing Golden’s proposal and introducing a bill that would require the state’s investor owned utilities such as PacifiCorp and Portland General Electric to report to the State Fire Marshal and the forestry department every time a fire is started because of the company’s infrastructure. Such reports could be used in court if a large wildfire starts from the companies’ electrical equipment and leads to property losses. It would also mandate that utilities cannot recoup the costs of fires that their equipment starts by raising rates on customers.
Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, said there was not an effort among House or Senate leaders to encourage collaboration on an omnibus wildfire bill rather than considering all three independently.
“Wildfire funding is a real challenge,” Wagner said. “I think I’m open to hearing from everyone on solutions.”
Reporter Alex Baumhardt contributed to this report.
Oregon
Oregon Secretary of State Griffin-Valade certifies May primary election results; 35% of voters returned ballots – KTVZ
SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) — Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade certified the results of the 2024 primary election on Thursday. Official election results are available on their website.
“Oregonians are voters, as proven with the success of this election,” Griffin-Valade said. “This primary election was one of the most secure in Oregon’s history, and the November general election will be the same.”
According to the statistics released Thursday by the Elections Division, final voter turnout for the primary election was about 35% of registered voters.
“My deepest gratitude goes out to all of the county clerks and elections officials across Oregon who worked tirelessly to ensure this election went smoothly,” said Secretary Griffin-Valade. “They are on the front lines making sure our democracy works, and I couldn’t be prouder of their efforts.”
For more information, visit our website: OregonVotes.gov
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Oregon
Huge clouds of smoke as wildfire in central Oregon grows rapidly
Oregon
Despite mild fire season forecast, agencies tell Oregon leaders they need to invest in workforce – Ashland News – Community-Supported, NonProfit News
Agency officials said firefighters are hard to hire and retain, and are often left to sleep in their trucks or camp on the job due to a lack of housing
By Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon is likely to face fewer big wildfires this summer than in previous years, but a lack of rural housing, coupled with unstable and often low pay, continues to create firefighter workforce challenges across the state and region.
That was a big part of the message from state and federal fire and emergency response officials, who discussed this year’s fire outlook and what they need at a meeting Monday at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. The Portland-based center is part of a larger wildfire prevention and response network that includes nine state and federal agencies.
In particular, they said they need more investment in technology — including on satellite detection — along with consistent pay increases for wildland firefighters and stable housing options. Jeff Fedrizzi, the state fire management officer for the federal Bureau of Land Management, said many wildland firefighters live out of their cars while they’re on the job.
“We have folks living in the back of their rigs. They go to work and fight fires and camp out for two weeks and then come back and camp out,” he told Oregon U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who hosted the meeting. All three are Democrats.
The wildfire season in the Northwest can last from May through October, but typically the season is most intense from July to September. During that time, firefighters may end up fighting several big blazes at once, and that strains resources as officials share and coordinate equipment and manpower.
This year, the U.S. Forest Service has about 80% of the firefighters it needs in Oregon and Washington with 20% of jobs unfilled, according to Ed Hiatt, assistant director of operations for the regional office of the Service. He said it’s been like that for about the last six years even with a recent bonus in pay.
Federizzi and officials from the Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon State Fire Marshal and U.S. Forest Service praised the $20,000 supplemental pay bumps many wildland firefighters have received since 2021 under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but they said the pay supplement needs to be made permanent and pay scales need to be updated. The supplemental money is only authorized through September of this year while agencies wait for a new pay scale to be finalized.
Wyden, Merkley and Bonamici committed to ensuring firefighter pay will continue to go up and to vote for bills investing in rural and wildland firefighter housing.
Summer conditions
Due to a wet El Niño winter, much of the state has had lower than normal average temperatures over the last three months compared to the 30-year average according to Jon Bonk, a meteorologist at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. In central Oregon and east of the Cascades, forecasters expect that temperatures will be above average and precipitation will be below average by September. Between mid-July and September, they also said that a La Niña weather system will move over the state creating warmer, drier conditions, mostly impacting eastern Oregon and Washington.
Investing in detection
The number of cameras able to detect wildfires in the state have grown, and Oregon is likely to surpass Nevada as the state with the second most cameras in the U.S., officials said.
Electric utilities are also setting up their own cameras, according to Chris Cline, fire protection division chief at the Oregon Department of Forestry. The department is deploying a new night vision helicopter around the Medford area, according to Cline, something done in California before but new to Oregon.
Still, more money is needed for federal agencies to connect with state and local agencies and share data, said Mariana Ruiz-Temple, state fire marshal, who advocated investment in a wildfire fusion center that can bring all stakeholders together.
Hiatt told the lawmakers that inflation is driving up the cost of a lot of the equipment they need.
“We can’t keep up with the increasing costs,” he said. Some parts needed for firetrucks can’t be delivered for several years, according to Hiatt. “By the time you’re paying that bill, it costs 50% more than when you originally we’re putting in the order. We’re spending a large percentage of our preparedness budget just on equipment.”
Alex Baumhardt has been a national radio producer focusing on education for American Public Media since 2017. She has reported from the Arctic to the Antarctic for national and international media, and from Minnesota and Oregon for The Washington Post.
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