Oregon
The Eugene City Council on Tuesday tried to see whether two developers are still interested in downtown Eugene and it got two answers: A tentative yes and an unenthusiastic maybe.
Because the majority has spoken, nobody seems overly worried that Ballot Measure 49 is doing a big injustice to at least several hundred people. But our constitutional system is supposed to protect minorities from such sledgehammer tactics.
There were enough conditional clauses in Measure 49 that some of us thought the whole thing was a con. Now a memo from the state Department of Land Conservation and development seems to prove it.
Teachers across Oregon are gearing up for a big fight over a potential 2008 ballot measure that would tie their salaries to their “classroom performance.”
At latest count, but not final, 13,189 registered voters in Clatsop County had expressed their wishes on ballot Measure 4-123 (“County retrieves 330 stray votes,” The Daily Astorian, Nov. 8).
If lessons can be learned from failure, Eugene by now should be well-schooled on downtown redevelopment.
In the past two years, four major downtown redevelopment proposals collapsed under financial difficulties or political controversy.
No matter what you thought about Ballot Measure 49, the land-use measure approved in last week’s election, it got people talking.
Now this state needs to keep the conversation going. The best way to do that is for Oregon to revive the comatose Big Look task force.
The task force is a long-overdue rewrite of Oregon’s land-use policies. It covers transportation, the economy and housing, among other topics. It’s much broader than Measure 49.
Oregonians for Immigration Reform will start gathering signatures for a ballot petition that would require people to pony up a valid social security number before registering to vote or getting a driver’s license.
Jackson County’s historic preservation advocates will ask voters in November 2008 to create a countywide heritage district that would raise about $1 million per year to maintain collections of artifacts and historic properties such as the old county courthouse in Jacksonville.
It’s often hard to pick one event or issue to write about when there are so many from which to choose. So here are some observations on a few events of last week that mark the official start of the 2008 election year.
RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris delivered such a thumping to Oregon’s proposed cigarette-tax increase Tuesday that the sound could be heard all the way in Washington, D.C.
An Oregon ballot measure entered the national debate over taxes and spending Tuesday as President Bush said the defeat of Measure 50 showed voters are sick of overspending by Democrats.
When it comes to gaining voter approval of ballot measures, the City Council is on a roll.
The city is 7-for-7 since 2002 on issues referred to the ballot by the council.
Democratic legislators and Gov. Ted Kulongoski are quietly working on a plan to toughen sentencing for property crimes — a move aimed at blunting a more stringent measure by Republican activist Kevin Mannix.
Voters in Oregon defeated a ballot measure to fund a children’s health-care program by boosting tobacco taxes, the third time an industry campaign has helped defeat new taxes to fund such programs — and perhaps a signal to lawmakers in Washington regarding a similar plan to raise the federal tobacco tax.