Oregon

Oregon

This is the second month that paid petition gatherers have been required to turn in their signatures to the Oregon secretary of state’s office - and at this point there are just three initiatives that you can say are clearly on a trajectory to make the November ballot. The ones that appear headed to the ballot would raise penalties for sex crimes and drunk driving, liberalize medical marijuana laws and extend Oregon Lottery funding for parks and habitat protection.

Oregon: Tire stud issue may end up on ballot

Mon, Apr 12 2010 — Source: KOHD

You now have until April 17th to take off these studded tires, meanwhile an Oregon man is heading an initiative to make sure they never come back on. Jeff Bernards is in Bend this week, he wants to put a studded tire ban on the 2012 ballot. “Our State is in trouble financially and I think it’s a small sacrifice to ask that handful of people to forgo studded tire use,” said Bernards.

Read the story from KOHD

The right of residents of La Center, WA to propose initiatives and referendums is expected to be recognized this month by the city council. The recognition comes after citizens submitted a petition to the council asking for the recognition of a formal petitioning process.

Damascus voters, two years after approving initiatives severely limiting their city’s financial authority, reversed course Tuesday night by rejecting four measures that would have substantially limited the city’s powers to operate. The measures’ backers said they were disappointed with the outcome, saying it will thwart greater citizen oversight of local government spending. Damascus Mayor Jim Wright, however, called it “a great result.” “It appears as if we finally got through to most of the voters in the city to get involved,” Wright said.

Ok, so they’re only really “robots” in the same way that an ATM is technically a robot. There are no cool lasers or arms. It can’t crush cars or fly (yet), but it might talk to you. I’m not entirely sure about the last point as I haven’t seen one of these things in person yet, but I imagine some sort of audio prompt is possible.

Some day, we may see a robot chase a voter down the sidewalk, clutching a clipboard in its metal talons, as it chirps, “Sign this if you want to cut your taxes.” For now, however, we have “Petey,” an ATM-style kiosk that may be the country’s first electronic canvasser. Ross Day, a conservative political activist who also runs the petition firm Vote Oregon, developed Petey — short for “petitioner” — and proudly showed off the prototype outside his Beaverton office Tuesday.

The latest effort to ban gill net fishing on the Columbia River is dead, at least for now. The group backing the proposed ballot initiative said it will abandon the Protect Our Salmon Act following an Oregon Attorney General decision altering its title.

Read the story from The Oregonian

As they opened their one-month session Monday, majority Democrats and minority Republicans in the Oregon Legislature still disagree about a lot of things. But they agree that tending to the state’s economy ”” and the families affected by one of the deepest downturns since the Great Depression 80 years ago ”” is Job One.

Read the story from the Statesman Journal

Ballot Season Underway

Wed, Jan 27 2010 by Staff

The 2010 statewide ballot season got underway yesterday with two tax measures in Oregon. Measure 66 and Measure 67 were on the ballot and both were approved by voters by a 53% to 46% margin. Measure 66 will impose a tax increase on couples earning $250,000 and individuals earning $125,000. Measure 67 will impose a tax increase on businesses.

oregon

Oregon voters approved Tuesday two tax-increase measures that legislators hoped would keep the state budget in balance. According to the secretary of state’s office, Ballot Measure 66 was approved by voters 53 percent to 46 percent. The measure would increase income taxes for high-income people earning $125,000 as individuals and $250,000 as a couple. Ballot Measure 67 also was approved by voters 53 percent to 46 percent. The measure increases taxes for corporations and some businesses from the minimum of $10 a year.

Measure 24-292’s chief petitioners Rick Stucky, a former Salem City Council president, and Rick Kimball, a member of Salem-Keizer School Board, will speak at the Wednesday Marion County Democrats’ DemoForum. The event is at noon at Kwan’s Cuisine, 835 Commercial St. SE, Salem. Measure 24-292 will be on the May primary ballot. It asks voters to adopt a home-rule charter for Marion County. Kimball and Stucky will explain the provisions of the measure and present arguments for voting “Yes” on the measure.

Oregon’s leading anti-tax activists are quietly rolling out a new strategy to limit government by partnering with frustrated small-town residents across the state. “We’re going full bore at the local level all over the state,” said Jeff Kropf, a former state legislator and director of Americans for Prosperity Oregon, the state chapter of a Washington D.C.-based group promoting limited government. “If we can’t stop big government in Salem, we’re going to do it at the grass-roots level.”

Peter Kenagy is worried about Ballot Measure 67. The North Albany farmer fears the agricultural co-op to which he belongs may be hit by the measure’s minimum tax even though it has no earnings as such. Would it be affected? Chris Allanach, an economist for the Legislative Revenue Office, doesn’t know the circumstances of this co-op, but he has an answer for people wondering whether their corporations would be subject to the alternative minimum tax in Measure 67.

Jackson County commissioners headed into potentially controversial territory Tuesday to pursue land-use regulations that could curb large-scale medical marijuana operations. Responding to complaints from neighbors of medical marijuana gardens, the commissioners directed planning and legal staff to craft an ordinance that would regulate traffic, noise, smell, visibility of the gardens and lights used for growing and prohibit cultivation within 1,000 feet of a school.

For Warren resident Thelma Bonar, the state decision denying a certificate of need for a community hospital planned for construction on Millard Road was sufficient cause to dance. “I was overjoyed,” said the 80-year-old Bonar. “It lifted a weight off my shoulder.” Bonar has railed against the Columbia Health District’s concept for a community hospital almost since she first learned about it, and has been an outspoken critic of it and its planners.