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Best Of Portland: 2000
Restaurant Guide 2000-2001
Cheap Eats 2000

masthead
 

 

 




Salem's Lot
THE WACKY ANTICS OF THE BEST LEGISLATURE MONEY CAN BUY

CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY

Is Oregon's new pesticide right-to-know law headed for the waste pile? It looked that way last week, when Rep. Jim Hill (R-Hillsboro) took away its funding.

The program, passed with much fanfare last session, was billed as a bipartisan effort to give citizens more information about the pesticides being used in the environment. In reality the chemical industry--in the form of Oregonians for Food and Shelter--buckled in the face of a potential voters' initiative, and the bill that passed was a compromise.

Between sessions, the Oregon Department of Agriculture proposed a computer tracking system to monitor all pesticide applications in the state. That includes everyone from apartment building owners to strawberry farmers. The only exclusion is for private homeowners.

The ODA estimates that the program would cost about $3 million, but it requested only $1.47 million as a starting point. Even that proved too much for Hill, who has been charged by the Speaker of the House with cutting the state's technology budget in the Ways and Means subcommittee he chairs. Given previous computer-cost scandals (remember ODOT?), the pesticide tracking system was an easy target. Hill sent the ODA away with the onus of coming up with a better plan.

Enviros are outraged by the move, seeing it as a way to delete pesticide tracking from the budget. "Remember, the Legislature passed this 88-2 last session," says Laura Wise, a lobbyist for Oregon Environmental Council. "If they meant it, they need to stand by the support of this program."

Hill says Weiss and other greens have nothing to worry about. He says he's just looking for a better plan from the ODA.

"The agency designed everything on paper and didn't prototype the program at all," he says. "But the bottom line is we've all agreed this is going to be funded. The question is how much and what's the plan?"

--Patty Wentz


gossip

* State Sen. Jason Atkinson says he's been asked to seek the Republican nomination for governor and he's seriously considering it. He won't say who invited him, but odds are that it is someone who wants to provide a conservative spoiler for the current candidates: moderates Jack Roberts, Craig Berkman and Ron Saxton. Not only is Atkinson more conservative, the Jacksonville resident points out that he's decidedly less weathered than the other candidates. If he decided to go for it, the 32-year-old says, "my race would be a youthful, romantic run."

* The phone lines in the governor's office have been buzzing with some 200 angry callers a day about his plan to pay off some of the state bills early, which will reduce the sacrosanct kicker checks. Thanks to pot-stirring from state Sen. Gary George (R-Newberg) and Bill Sizemore, calls against the plan are leading 3-1 over calls praising the governor's financial wizardry.


what are you working on?

For the past several years, a group of community leaders has been grappling with how to house the metro area's poorest citizens. Their meetings led to the Regional Affordable Housing Fund Act, a bill that would allow local governments to impose a 0.75 percent transfer tax on all real-estate sales (that translates to $750 on a $100,000 home). Most of the fund would go to help renters who earn less than 50 percent of the region's median income. Another big chunk would help give low-income home buyers a leg up. House Bill 3400, which is awaiting its first hearing, is championed by Portland City Commissioner Erik Sten, Beaverton Mayor Rod Drake, and David Bell, executive vice president of GSL Properties Inc., one of the area's largest developers of apartment buildings. WW spoke with Bell last week.

Willamette Week: Who would this fund help?

David Bell: Those who are elderly, who are disabled, who are living on a fixed income. You're not talking about people who are lying around watching Oprah in the afternoon.

Why should Joe Schmoe, who's buying his dream house, be taxed to help these people?

There is a nexus between increasing property values and affordability. I'd like to say my house is worth more today than what I paid for it because of my real-estate acumen, but I'm riding a cresting wave. It's that same cresting wave making me richer that's making fewer people in the region able to afford adequate housing.

Who's against this bill?

Among others, the group I call "the other NRA," The National Realtors Association. They're every bit as dogmatic as the first NRA, and this is their hot-button issue.

You're the only developer type who is pushing this bill. Are you taking flack from your peers?

Well, Jon Chandler [of the Oregon Building Industry Association] did call me a dirty commie.

 


quotable

"Home ownership is a privilege that comes with the determination to improve individual earning ability. It is not a right to be granted to everyone."

--Senate President Gene Derfler, explaining his opposition to House Bill 3400, which would tax the sale of homes to create a low-income affordable housing fund.

give a damn

* Trailer Park Rights: Every session, Salem becomes a battleground between the residents of trailer parks and the folks who own the land on which their not-so-mobile homes sit. This year the residents' top priority is HB2803, which limits rent hikes at mobile-home parks and sets up a commission to review challenged increases. A hearing on the bill is scheduled for Monday afternoon, April 2, in the House rules committee. You can preview the fight on the Manufactured Homeowners of Oregon's website: www.mhoo-osta.com.

* Email Secrets: Why not carve 30 new loopholes in the Oregon Public Records Law? HB2039, if passed, would give state and local officials 30 new reasons to deny public access to information, specifically info transmitted across the Internet, like email. This insidious plot is headed for an April 3 session in the ominously named House Advancing E-Government Committee.

* Minority Representation: In a colorblind society, why does the federal government spend billions of dollars every 10 years to define us by our race? State Rep. Steve March and Sen. Avel Gordly will attempt to answer that question in a Portland town hall meeting on how new census data affects legislative redistricting. Saturday, March 31, Center Commons Apartments, 5800 NE Center Commons Way (at Northeast 60th Avenue and Glisan Street).