Oregon Live
Jeremiah McKay knocks on the first door in a quiet neighborhood off Southeast Powell Boulevard, near the eastern edge of Portland, during the 10 a.m. lull. Families had rushed to work and school, but plenty of retirees and stay-home parents remained. He’s wearing a sports shirt and khaki pants, trying to avoid the formal sales look he’d donned for seven years.
Common Sense for Oregon is boosting its signature gathering efforts for initiatives that would put legislative redistricting into the hands of a non-partisan commission and that would allow property owners more leeway to defend their property. Initiative campaigns are now required to turn in signatures gathered by paid canvassers every month. The deadline was 5 p.m. Monday, and I have some of the totals.
A bill that tightens the regulation of paid petition drives passed the Oregon Senate on an 18-12 vote Monday and was sent to the governor for his signature. The measure, House Bill 2005 would prohibit campaigns from hiring paid petitioners with a history of fraud and other similar crimes. And chief petitioners could face large fines if they failed to halt signature fraud they should have known about.
A development tax that Washington County voters overwhelmingly approved in November might fall victim — temporarily — to the economic downturn.
The tax would pay for road and transit improvements around the county, aiming to relieve congestion caused by new development. Currently developers pay a traffic-impact fee that covers 14percent of those costs, while the public covers the rest. Under the new transportation-development tax, developers would pay roughly 28percent of future costs.