Health Options Digest
December 18, 2005
Coalition for Health Options In Central Eugene-Springfield (CHOICES)
In This Issue
From the Editor
Week In Review
It was a relatively slow news week in the Emerald Valley.
In a Eugene Weekly cover story, Alan Pittman reported on whether or not the state "Certificate of Need" program actually saves money by eliminating unnecessary duplication of hospital services. As far as we can tell, the state rules are merely serving to help PeaceHealth maintain and expand its market dominance in Lane County. If the rules were eliminated all together, then PeaceHealth and McKenzie-Willamette would be not be restricted to locating in only certain zip codes. On the other hand, would some outside big hospital chain come in and try to push our local hospitals out of business? (Oh, wait. Triad Hospitals, Inc. is just such a big chain. But it is actually trying to keep a local community hospital in business.)
Architect Grant Seder opined that our community -- and its hospitals -- should grow west towards a well planned Veneta-Elmira.
Former governor John Kitzhaber is thinking big, whether or not he decides to challenge Governor Ted Kulongoski. He understands, correctly, that health care in America has reached a crises. It is not only a matter of good health, fairness and compassion for those less fortunate in society. The health care crisis is now exerting a significant drag on our economy, making it harder for American companies to compete in the global marketplace. Seeing no solutions coming from Washington, D.C. any time soon, Kitzhaber is advocating to reconstruct the entire health care system in Oregon and to provide a model for the rest of the nation to follow. We applaud Kitzhaber's vision and commitment, and look forward to hearing more.
Meanwhile, economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote about the growing "medical-industrial complex," a system of conflicts of interest between those developing drugs and medical technologies, those providing health care, and those charged with making sure the health care is safe and effective.
Of course, the phrase "medical-industrial complex" echoes the phrase "military-industrial complex" first used by President Dwight Eisenhower in the '50s. As best as we can tell, the phrase "medical-industrial complex" was coined by A.S. Relman in a 1980 paper in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Speaking of the economic effects of rising health care costs, the United Auto Workers recently reached an agreement with the Ford Motor Company for its active and retired workers to pay a portion of their health care costs.
We don't have rampant sprawl in Oregon, i.e., places where people are willing to commute several hours a day to find housing that is affordable. But elsewhere in the country, "exurbs" that are farther away than suburbs are a growing phenomena.
Mayor Kitty Piercy is pushing for interested parties to come together with a facilitator to try to hammer out a mutually agreeable solution to traffic problems in west Eugene. How could any sensible person argue with such a sensible approach? Indeed, The Register-Guard editorialized that only stubbornness stands in the way of moving forward.
Meanwhile, in a routine move, the Oregon Department of Transportation is suing the parent company of The Register-Guard to acquire land needed for upgrades to the I-5/Beltline interchange.
The Lane Transit District is providing service to thousands of students in grades 6 through 12 in its Student Transit Pass Program, which provides free passes to 22,000 students.
Lawrence Frank, a professor of sustainable transportation at the University of British Columbia, recently argued that, "Adding highway capacity only begets more auto-dependent development and more commuters stuck in traffic." He argues for "tolling primary arteries during peak periods and using the revenues to fund increased transit service and to stimulate transportation-efficient land-use decisions in developing areas."
Measure 37 claims have been slowing in advance of a ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court. Watch for oral arguments in the case on January 10.
Lastly, (Portland area) Metro President David Bragdon recently urged that the "Big Look" at Oregon's land use planning program embrace several big principles: 1) look forward; 2) focus on what we're for, not what we're against; 3) make connections; 4) link to investment; 5) don't mistake land development for economic development; 6) value cities; 7) deliver more than "vision"; and 8) address fairness head on.
Rob Zako, Editor
343-5201
rzako@efn.org
Opportunities
Applicants sought for health advisory panel
| The Register-Guard | December 18, 2005 |
The Lane County Board of Commissioners seeks applications to serve on the Health Advisory Committee.
The committee makes recommendations on matters of public health, planning, policy development, control measures, funding, public education and advocacy. The term is four years.
The deadline to apply is 5 p.m. Dec. 30. Applications are available in the Board of Commissioners' office, Public Service Building, 125 E. Eighth Ave., Eugene. For an application by mail, call 682-4207.
Take the wheel
By Matt Cooper
The Register-Guard | December 9, 2005 |
Speaking of LTD, do you want to help steer the bus?
Three board positions expire at the end of the year, and next year Gov. Ted Kulongoski will appoint people to them.
Susan Ban and Gerry Gaydos seek reappointment to their subdistricts -- hers is 4, covering north Eugene and Coburg, his is 5, covering central and west Eugene -- and Dave Kleger will leave subdistrict no. 6, covering Highway 99 and River Road, after 12 years.
You must live in the subdistrict you want to serve. Apply by Feb. 3; the form is online at http:// governor.oregon.gov/ Gov/boards.shtml; look under "how to apply" and click "interest form."
For more information, call LTD at 682-6100.
Deadline extended for LTD board openings
| The Springfield News | December 9, 2005 |
The terms of three members of the Lane Transit District Board of Directors will expire at the end of this calendar year, and the deadline for applying has been extended.
The LTD Board of Directors is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Oregon Senate.
The Governor's Office of Executive Appointments has asked that people interested in appointment to these positions submit a completed "Executive Appointments Interest Form" by Friday, Feb. 3, 2006.
For more information, see www.ltd.org or call 682-6100.
Transportation plan awaits public feedback
| The Register-Guard | November 22, 2005 |
SALEM -- Members of the state Transportation Commission are seeking public feedback on a draft plan for updates to the state's transportation system over the next quarter-century.
The plan addresses airports, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, highways, streets and roads, pipelines, ports and waterways, public transportation and railroads.
It also outlines investment priorities for the transportation system, although an analysis of projected income showed a need for greater investment in the current system, in order to keep up with population and economic growth.
The plan may be viewed online at http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/TD/TP/ortransplanupdate.shtml
The Oregon Transportation Commission is expected to adopt a final plan next summer.
PeaceHealth
CON Job
Hospital certificate of need process leaves out consumers.
By Alan Pittman
Eugene Weekly | December 15, 2005 |
While PeaceHealth and Triad/McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center snap and hiss at each other over state certificate of need regulations for their competing new hospitals, consumers may be bit by high hospital bills.
The state Certificate of Need (CON) program is supposed to be about controlling health care costs for consumers by requiring that new hospitals demonstrate that they are needed. "It's for the public, we're here to serve the interests of the public," said Jana Fussell, director of the state CON program.
But Maribeth Healey, director of Oregonians for Health Security (OHS), a union-backed consumer group, laughs when asked how reducing health consumer costs is included in the CON program. "I don't think that's in the law at all." (more...)
McKenzie-Willamette/Triad
Grant Seder -- Westward Ho
An architect's view on where to grow
By Grant Seder
Eugene Weekly | December 15, 2005 |
Building projects in Eugene seldom become realities without a certain allotment of controversy and pain, some of which might be avoided if the planning process were more complete. Two current examples are the siting for the new McKenzie-Willamette hospital -- the dart-board-planning method; and the West Eugene Parkway -- the draw-a-line-on-the-map-and-call-the-bulldozers method.
Concerning the hospital location, more thought should be devoted to Eugene's future growth. More sprawl north onto the prime agricultural land of the Willamette Valley is certainly undesirable (and the RiverBend siting of PeaceHealth doesn't help on this score). Expansion to the south is, and should be, limited. So growth to the west is the remaining possibility.
Rather than the usual sprawl, a long-term plan could envisage a compact city in the Veneta-Elmira area, a city with definite growth boundaries and with commercial and business areas; in other words, a city and not just a bedroom suburb. Such a population center would naturally be linked by mass transit with Eugene and somewhere along that linkage would be a logical site for the McKenzie-Willamette hospital. The linkage would include and justify some version of the West Eugene Parkway. (more...)
Letter -- Hospital site has only one outlet
By Karen Hartman, Eugene
The Register-Guard | December 18, 2005 |
From what I hear, there's been talk for 30 years about another bridge over the river to eliminate the congestion on River Road but, as a local resident stated, the environmentalists claimed that it would disturb the tse-tse flies or whatever.
The way projects stay on the drafting board here for 20 years at a time, I figure that by about 2025 they will finally get around to widening Belt Line Road and come up with a dynamic plan to eliminate congestion at Belt Line-River Road-Delta Highway (the worst!) and all the resulting accidents.
The north Eugene community is trapped with only two outlets: River Road and the Northwest Expressway. Now there's a possibility that a new hospital will be trapped out here as well, but with only one outlet -- not two. I live in north Eugene at the edge of the urban development. I would hate to think of being in an ambulance racing south on River Road approaching bumper-to-bumper east Belt Line traffic and trying to make it to the new hospital -- across the river from my house -- before I die. They might think about running a ferry from north Eugene to the future hospital. It would probably be faster.
How many accidents are we going to have before someone finally says "Enough"? We need to get the ball rolling and plans on the drafting board soon, because I'm no spring chicken and I would like to enjoy what time I have left!
Hospital closes door on local water births
Women who want to give birth that way must go to Portland
By Stacy D. Stumbo
The Springfield News | December 16, 2005 |
It's not the fatigue, nausea or swollen ankles that have expectant mother Annie Macovis, 29, feeling down.
It's the fact that plans to deliver her second baby at McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center have been stymied by the hospital's decision to discontinue McKenzie Midwifery & Women's Services, 1632 J St., beginning Jan. 1, 2006. (more...)
Letter -- Midwifery services important
By Cosette Rees, Springfield
The Register-Guard | December 17, 2005 |
I am disappointed by McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center's decision (Register-Guard, Dec. 9) to no longer offer midwife-assisted births at the community hospital.
Michele Bouche, a certified nurse-midwife, and her associates successfully attended the birth of my children in 1994 and 2005 at McKenzie-Willamette and in 1997 at Cottage Grove Hospital -- when their ability to deliver at McKenzie-Willamette was similarly denied due to the lack of OB-GYN backup.
Midwifery offers a personal, natural process for bringing new life into the world. For my family, our pregnancies and births were very relaxed, natural and pleasant because of the midwives.
During my pregnancies, Bouche twice referred me to specialists who provided excellent care; however, I was very happy to get back to the midwives for the medical, emotional and supportive care they uniquely provide. Unlike some doctors who treated my pregnancy as an illness or injury, the midwives treated our pregnancy as a natural process. I applaud Dr. Jan Stafl for his progressive attitude and practice over the years.
The challenges I see lie with the health care industry in general, throwing up roadblocks to what it considers alternative health care. I challenge McKenzie-Willamette to explore options to keep midwife services supported at their hospital.
Outside-the-box thinking could result in creative ways to better serve the hospital's clients. Isn't this what progressive health care is all about?
Health Care
Kitzhaber's Rx for state
In eyeing a new run for governor, he thinks on a revolutionary scale
By David Steves
The Register-Guard | December 17, 2005 |
The last time John Kitzhaber put Oregon on the map as a health care pioneer, it was by working within the decades-old system that delivers medical care.
This time, the former doctor and governor wants to bulldoze what he sees as an antiquated system and replace it with a 21st-century model that would deliver universal health care to every Oregonian.
It's a big enough idea to have Kitzhaber publicly contemplating a return to the governor's office, where he says he could see it to fruition. That effort probably would involve ballot-measure or legislative campaigns. It also would be likely to involve the enlistment of Oregon's congressional delegation and the White House to let Oregon out of the 20th-century rules of federal Medicare and Medicaid spending and to end tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance. (more...)
Paul Krugman -- Drugs, Devices and Doctors
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times | December 16, 2005 |
Merck, the pharmaceutical giant, is under siege. And one side effect
of that siege is a public relations crisis for the Cleveland Clinic,
a celebrated hospital and health care organization.
But the real story is bigger than either the company or the clinic.
It's the story of how growing conflicts of interest may be distorting
both medical research and health care in general.
...
O.K., it's sounding complicated. But the essence is simple: crucial
scientific research and crucial medical decisions have to be
considered suspect because of financial ties among medical companies,
medical researchers and health care providers.
That should come as no surprise. The past quarter-century has seen
the emergence of a vast medical-industrial complex, in which doctors,
hospitals and research institutions have deep financial links with
drug companies and equipment makers. Conflicts of interest aren't the
exception -- they're the norm. (more...)
The new medical-industrial complex
By A.S. Relman
The New England Journal of Medicine | October 23, 1980 |
Abstract: The most important health-care development of the day is the recent, relatively unheralded rise of a huge new industry that supplies health-care services for profit. Proprietary hospitals and nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, home-care and emergency-room services, hemodialysis, and a wide variety of other services produced a gross income to this industry last year of about $35 billion to +40 billion. This new "medical-industrial complex" may be more efficient than its nonprofit competition, but it creates the problems of overuse and fragmentation of services, overemphasis on technology, and "cream-skimming," and it may also exercise undue influence on national health policy. In this medical market, physicians must act as discerning purchasing agents for their patients and therefore should have no conflicting financial interests. Closer attention from the public and the profession, and careful study, are necessary to ensure that the "medical-industrial complex" puts the interest of the public before those of its stockholders. (more...)
Union asks Ford workers to bear some benefit costs
| The Associated Press | December 15, 2005 |
DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co.'s active and retired autoworkers, who have long enjoyed some of the most generous benefits in the country, will have to pay more for their health care under a tentative agreement between the automaker and the United Auto Workers, the union said Wednesday. (more...)
Nearby Developments
Home prices slip but remain high
By Scott Maben
The Register-Guard | December 16, 2005 |
A slight correction. A return to balance. Real estate agents use such terms to describe the Lane County market, which keeps humming along amid concerns of a downshift in home sales and prices.
Listings and sale prices declined slightly last month compared with October but remain well above November 2004 levels. New listings in the county were up 11 percent over November 2004, according to RMLS Inc., the Portland firm that provides the area's multiple listing service. Sales were up 6.7 percent from the same month a year ago. (more...)
Housing development planned near Oakway
By Joe Harwood
The Register-Guard | December 13, 2005 |
A development group headed by Eugene businessman Rob Bennett is hoping to move forward in 2006 with a 30-unit apartment development on a little more than 6 acres north of Interstate 105 on the east side of Fairway Loop.
Bennett said Monday he would like to begin work in the spring on two residential buildings that would range in size from two to four stories and contain a mix of townhouses and large flats. (more...)
Living Large, by Design, in the Middle of Nowhere
By Rick Lyman
The New York Times | August 15, 2005 |
WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. -- New River Township is, for the moment, the edge of beyond.
Its square mile of tightly packed homes is the outer crest of Tampa's residential swell, four miles from the nearest grocery store and 30 minutes from the nearest major mall. Just down the road, beyond some orange groves, cattle graze languorously amid the insect hum of a sun-baked field, and only a few mobile home parks and a roadside stand selling tiki huts interrupt the vast sea of pine, palmetto and dense thatch.
But it will be a short-lived isolation. More than three dozen other communities in Pasco County, some bigger than New River, are in the works, promising 100,000 new homes in the next five years. A megamall is coming. And the first of the big-box stores, a Home Depot and a Sam's Club, had their gala openings not long ago. (more...)
In Exurbs, Life Framed by Hours Spent in the Car
By Rick Lyman
The New York Times | December 18, 2005 |
FRISCO, Tex. -- When Max Bledsoe was growing up on a farm here a quarter-century ago, this was a tiny railroad town of 2,000 souls, far removed from the bustle of cosmopolitan Dallas, 30 miles to the south across the flat North Texas plains.
Now, as a health teacher and softball coach at Frisco High School, Mr. Bledsoe works for a school district with more employees than the town once had residents. It serves an exploding exurb of 82,000, where the rush of new roads and shops has almost, but not quite, caught up to the booming population. (more...)
Public Facilities and Services
Council OKs City Hall study plan
By Edward Russo
The Register-Guard | December 15, 2005 |
Eugene city councilors on Wednesday agreed in a 5-1 vote to spend $1.135 million so they can get more information about replacing City Hall -- including what residents have to say on the topic.
The money is to be spent on studies, public outreach and meetings, all with the goal of helping councilors figure out whether to renovate City Hall, build a new structure or do a combination of both. (more...)
Editorial -- Scoping a new City Hall
| The Register-Guard | December 16, 2005 |
Eugene needs a new or refurbished City Hall -- that much has been known for more than a decade. The existing building is inefficient, too small and vulnerable to earthquakes. Figuring out how to replace or remodel City Hall is a complicated problem -- so complicated it will cost $1.135 million just to study it.
The Eugene City Council, having voted to pay for the study, now must ensure that the public gets its money's worth. (more...)
Park plan needs to have project list, residents say
By Edward Russo
The Register-Guard | December 13, 2005 |
Long on goals. Short on specifics.
That was the skeptical, even critical public reaction to Eugene's proposed master plan to guide park and recreation development in the city during the next 20 years.
Most of the 13 residents who spoke to the City Council faulted the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Comprehensive Plan because it did not have a list of proposed projects. (more...)
SUB considers water rate increase
By Joe Harwood
The Register-Guard | December 14, 2005 |
SPRINGFIELD -- The Springfield Utility Board will consider a water rate increase averaging about 9.6 percent to help pay for street improvement projects in which water transmission pipes have to be replaced and to recover growth-related costs. (more...)
Transportation
Editorial -- Break parkway impasse
| The Register-Guard | December 18, 2005 |
At its meeting earlier this month, the Metropolitan Policy Committee appeared to have reached a deadlock: Eugene's representatives wouldn't support a list of transportation improvements that includes the West Eugene Parkway, while their counterparts from Springfield, Coburg and Lane County wouldn't support the list without it. The standoff jeopardizes transportation projects supported by all jurisdictions represented on the intergovernmental committee. But there's less to the dispute than meets the eye. (more...)
Letter -- Piercy wrong on parkway issue
By Michael Caprai, Eugene
The Register-Guard | December 13, 2005 |
Apparently, Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy never learned that two wrongs don't make a right. Never has that been clearer than by her actions and comments regarding the West Eugene Parkway.
First, she was wrong in her action to completely disregard the will of Eugene voters by casting a tie-breaking vote to withdraw City Council support for this important project.
Second, she's equally wrong to now be asserting that Eugene should go about the process to find some alternative to the parkway. If Mayor Piercy took those actions while simultaneously putting on the table an alternative solution that was planned, designed and budgeted for, I'd feel a little better. At least then I'd know she was serious about dealing with our transportation needs. But she's done nothing of the sort.
To add insult to injury, taxpayers like me who voted for the parkway will now get stuck with the bill to pay for some new process to find alternatives, which is precisely what we said we didn't want to do when we rejected Measure 20-53. Mayor Piercy must put her personal opinion and those of her no-growth friends aside and honor the will of the majority of voters.
For those of you who may disagree with me, I don't want to hear about the margin of victory on the parkway measures. If this is the case, we can recall any elected official who won only by small margin. Additionally, what part of mitigating wetland acres 2-to-1 don't people get?
Letter -- Just improve West 11th Avenue
By Carleen Reilly, Eugene
The Register-Guard | December 14, 2005 |
Maybe it is because I was raised on a dairy farm that I see life in simple terms.
Those cows figured out the best way to get from the barn, across the creek and over to the north pasture. But I, as an obstinate child, thought I could find a shorter way. Of course, as I cut through the thicket, all I got were chiggers, ticks and blackberry scratches; and I just had to walk back to where the cows crossed because the creek was too wide and deep where I was.
Perhaps the same principle applies to Eugene's West 11th Avenue. Decades ago, people found the easiest way to head west out of Eugene. Businesses built up along West 11th. People continue to vote with their vehicles. Why would a West Eugene Parkway across the thicket cause people to vacate West 11th Avenue?
It is hard for me to imagine that businesses along West 11th would support a parkway if it siphons off customers. If there is a need to provide trucks better access to these businesses, let's improve the back streets. Center lanes and turn lanes can provide customers easier entrances to businesses and through traffic can continue with less delay. These improvements can be made in the near future, and they will be much less expensive.
Let's improve the tried and true road we have rather than break a new trail through the thicket with unknown problems of cost overruns, environmental degradation and unending conflicts.
WEP Wrestling
County, Springfield balk at Eugene offer to discuss freeway.
By Alan Pittman
Eugene Weekly | December 15, 2005 |
The city of Eugene last week invited West Eugene Parkway (WEP) supporters to talk to opponents of the freeway through wetlands to break a decades old impasse over the bypass, but WEP supporters refused.
WEP supporters jilted Eugene's invitation to take part in a "collaborative process" on the WEP dispute at a Dec. 8 meeting of the Metropolitan Policy Committee (MPC). (more...)
State sues to gain land for I-5 projects
By Matt Cooper
The Register-Guard | December 16, 2005 |
The state is suing a string of landowners because it wants to buy land needed for upcoming Interstate 5 highway projects. And the owner of The Register-Guard -- which has the most land involved -- could be paid the most once fair prices have been established.
The Oregon Department of Transportation wants to expand the Interstate 5/Belt Line Road interchange starting in March, and also the overpass at I-5 in Creswell.
But the department disagrees with many property owners over what it should pay for the private land that would be affected by the work.
In a routine move during such negotiations, the state recently sued the landowners in Lane County Circuit Court. The state's power of eminent domain gives state officials the right to take the parcels once a court determines a fair price for them. (more...)
LTD program serves thousands of students
| The Register-Guard | December 16, 2005 |
The Lane Transit District is pleased with the success of the Student Transit Pass Program, which provides free LTD bus passes to more than 22,000 students in grades 6 through 12 in Eugene-Springfield.
In seven days in November and three in December, students boarded LTD more than 40,000 times, LTD officials said. (more...)
Lawrence Frank -- We all pay for congestion
| By Lawrence Frank | November 17, 2005 |
Few of us, it seems, are ever completely satisfied with how our towns and cities are growing and changing, and horrendous traffic is nearly always a popular topic. Car-dependent motorists grow more fed up each day with the ever-increasing level of traffic congestion on local streets and freeways. Congestion is frustrating and represents loss of time and money; however, it's actually the symptom of a successful, active region. The ancient streets of Rome were packed, as were those of Athens and other European centres. Active, vital cities have always been congested, but there is much we can do to reduce the need to be stuck in congestion.
As a transportation planner, I am frequently asked, "Why don't you do something to solve traffic congestion?" Unfortunately, solving transportation problems requires solutions beyond just transportation. Congestion results from basic lifestyle choices about where we choose to live and the way we design our communities and our transportation systems.
We underestimate the transportation costs, in terms of time and money, in more auto-dependent sprawling areas of the region. These unexpected costs make us angry. After all, how we spend our time translates into our quality of life. We choose housing and community designs that best match our preferences and give the most "bang for the buck". In addition to underestimating travel time, fuel prices and the need to purchase and insure a second or even a third vehicle are not often figured into the home-buying decision. A more "transportation-efficient" community with good transit and where shops and services are within a walkable distance has higher home prices but lower transportation, environmental, and likely even health costs. These costs are often overlooked when choosing where to live. (more...)
Measure 37; Land Use Planning
Kimberley A. Strassel -- This Land Is Not Your Land
Judges go wild.
| By Kimberley A. Strassel | December 15, 2005 |
PORTLAND --Reformers, take note. There's a big lesson to be learned from this state's ongoing, bare-knuckle fight over property rights. Ballot initiatives are all well and good, but they are only half the equation. First, voters must boot judges who legislate from the bench.
Oregonians, like many others, have been fighting to force their state government to honor property rights. Like reformers in other states, residents here had seized upon the one tool more powerful than entrenched state politicians: the ballot initiative. In 2000 and again in 2004, voters passed measures to protect landowners from state regulations that reduced their property value.
Yet nothing has changed. This is because initiatives are only as powerful as the court system lets them be. Two separate judges struck down the property measures on embarrassing legal grounds. And voters can't count on a state Supreme Court that revels in meritless decisions to right things on appeal.
This is a bitter pill to swallow, especially given how hard Oregonians have fought to get this far. Oregon's property regime traces back to the 1970s, when elites worried that all the rednecks in the pretty parts of the state might get the uppity idea of developing their land and ruining urbanites' weekend playground. A new law gave the state control of land use, stripping power from counties that were far better positioned to respond to local needs. The law was also behind "urban growth boundaries," within which development was fair game. Anything outside was labeled "forest" or "farming" or "open" land and frozen in time. (more...)
Measure 37 sparks debate at Farm Bureau's meeting
By Elaine Shein, Capital Press Editor-Publisher
The Capital Press | December 16, 2005 |
NEWPORT- Despite the tension built up over debates on Measure 37, a few laughs still erupted at the Oregon Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting when voting numbers were announced on two resolutions connected to the controversial election initiative on land use.
Two resolutions -- one to adopt policy on Measure 37, and a second to have the House of Delegates reconsider the measure and open again debate near the end of the meeting -- were closely defeated.
Each time, the side with 37 votes was on the losing side, and many noted the irony. (more...)
County gives Measure 37 filers an option
By Joe Harwood
The Register-Guard | December 12, 2005 |
With the future of Oregon's embattled property rights law in question, Lane County will begin offering landowners with future or pending claims a compromise of sorts.
The move follows the October ruling by Marion County Circuit Court Judge Mary Mertens that found Measure 37 unconstitutional and therefore invalid.
Unlike most other jurisdictions in Oregon that believed the ruling applied to them, Lane County took the position that the judge's order does not apply here. So, Lane County has continued processing claims. Under the county's interpretation, Mertens' ruling only applied to Washington, Marion, Clackamas and Jackson counties, as well as state government. (more...)
Board votes to offer a Measure 37 hiatus
By David Bates
The (McMinnville) News-Register | December 13, 2005 |
The 50 or so property owners who have Measure 37 claims pending in Yamhill County will be offered a timeout, the board of commissioners decided Monday. The choice will be the property owner's, not the county's.
That ends several weeks of debate over how best to deal with them while awaiting an Oregon Supreme Court decision on the initiative's constitutionality. (more...)
County continues work on Measure 37 claims despite pending lawsuit
Despite being the target of a lawsuit seeking to invalidate Measure 37, Douglas County plans to continue to process land use claims filed under the measure until ordered by a judge to stop. (more...)
David Bragdon -- Focus the 'big look' on bigger principles
By David Bragdon
The Oregonian | December 14, 2005 |
Oregon always has been different. Its beauty alone makes it special.
But what makes Oregon truly unique is not its geography: It's the people who have chosen to live here. Inspired by the our rich landscapes, Oregonians have adopted a sensitive -- and sensible -- attitude toward the way we live in this place. At its heart, this attitude reflects a belief that we are not mere victims of fate, but that together we can shape the future in ways that reflect our aspirations for our families and our communities.
While our state's approach to land-use planning is often controversial, it has undeniably contributed to our enviable quality of life. However, while most Oregonians support sound planning, the details of Oregon's land-use laws infuriate some and confuse many. Measure 37's passage epitomized this tension. (more...)
Other News
GOP revises controversial mining plan
By Mary Clare Jalonick
The Associated Press | December 13, 2005 |
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans have revised controversial legislation that would allow the sale of some public lands for mining, hoping to appease Western senators who have objected to it.
The proposed change to mining law, tucked into a larger budget bill, would overturn an 11-year old ban that prevents mineral companies from "patenting," or buying, public land at cheap prices if the land contains mineral deposits. (more...)
People
Retired city manager stays on as $100-an-hour adviser
By Jack Moran
The Register-Guard | December 17, 2005 |
SPRINGFIELD -- It's been more than 37 years, but Mike Kelly still hasn't had his fill of Springfield city government work.
Kelly, Springfield's city manager since 1989, officially retired Dec. 6. But instead of immediately bolting the freezing, foggy Willamette Valley for a bit of relaxation on a sunny beach somewhere, Kelly decided to stick around and continue helping the city on an as-needed basis as a consultant. (more...)