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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 6, 1978)
Tax revolt - ■ i < I# ’ . ,X-T;; L KINKCS overnight copies no minimum Open: Mon.-Fri. 8am-6pm Sat. 9am-5pm Sun. Noon-5pm 1125 Alder 2nd Floor, the Atrium 344-7894 485-1063 j •• •• •• • a r j m J professional hair supply 1 r* THERE’S A NEW PLACE IN TOWN J where you can h.uy the same beauty f5 J r j supplies professionals use. Shampoos • Conditioners • Make-up • made by: Image Vidal Sassoon Ferraodyl Dermetics Regime r Redken Jhirmack Mahdeen K.M.S. Jerome Alexander J r r and many more Special lines of Men's products too. Plus special hair brushes, blow dryers, barettes and other hair supplies. m J r r Open 10-5 Monday thru Saturday 11223 alder * 344-2447j J. •• •• as Petitioners trucking lists for Friday’s deadline Stories by KEVIN HARDEN Of the Emerald Today is the last active day for the Oregon tax limitation initiative petitions and supporters of the California-style tax revolt are wasting no time filing their many grievances with the Secretary of State’s office in Salem. They’re bringing the petitions — literally — by the truckload. One load of petitions, bearing nearly 200,000 signatures of irate voters, was taken to Salem last Friday where the limitation supporters held a rally on the Capitol steps to further voice their anger at the tax situation in Oregon. The life of the Oregon property taxpayer has hardly been easy in the face of rising inflation and ex cessive government spending that has characterized the past few years. Now, those taxpayers are standing up and shouting “Enough!,” two leaders of the statewide petition drive say. Those taxpayers are finished with the government wantonly spend ing their tax dollars and have cho sen the state property tax limita tion petition to be their Bunker Hill hoping to send some state and federal politicians to their Water loo. According to Ray Phillips of Portland, the coordinator of the petition drive for the Northern half of the state, those heading the drive are having a hard time keep ing the angry petition signers in line. Some signers are unsatisfied with the limits set by the tax limita tion petition, he says. They want to go "all the way to the top." “People are very unhappy with the way thi ngs are right now; that’s stating it mildly,” Phillips says. “They want to change the whole structure of taxes, clear up to the top.” Phillips and his workers have tried to calm some of the angry taxpayers down, but to no avail. “I’ve tried to keep it within the whole realm of the property tax situation, but they’re saying why don’t we go federal,’’ he says. “I believe we could go federal very soon. But for right now we have to keep a lid on this thing.” Most of those who want to at tack the entire system of taxes would not be considered activist taxpayers, or even activist voters. They range in ages from 18 to 80, says Ed Sparks of Roseburg, who is coordinating the petition drive for the Southern half of the state. “All we know is that they’re re gistered voters,” Sparks says. “Most of our support is coming from every kind of person.” “The general feeling I get from the people who support this peti tion is ‘let’s go!’ They’re anywhere from young people who will vote for the first time to people in wheelchairs,” he says. The tax limitation proposition in Oregon is a carbon copy of a simi lar measure approved by Califor nia voters last month. That meas ure limits the state and local government’s power to levy prop erty taxes to one and one-half percent of the property’s value as sessed during the 1975-76 fiscal year. If passed, that measure could take as much as $400 million from state tax revenues, which could mean a reduction of civic services or other vital programs now funded through property tax money. Without that money, says Noel Klein of the League of Oregon Cities, the numerous small cities around the state could suffer more of a loss than the large cities. Because the average Oregon city draws about 30 percent of its operating budget from local prop erty taxes, small cities could be hit with either a substantial cut in ser vices or a loss of revenue, he says. The state school system could also suffer if such a tax limitation were approved, says Esther Loy, chairer of the League of Women Voters’ state tax committee. Without the added funds from local property taxes, schools all over the state would be faced with the choice of levying a local in come tax in addition to the state income tax, or be forced to close their doors, says. But these and other “horror stories” about what could happen if the tax limitation measure pas ses in November don’t frighten Phillips or his supporters at all. "No, I do not believe them,” Phillips says. "And I think Mr. Goldschmidt (Portland's mayor, who predicted a major loss of civic services if the tax limitation went into effect) overreacted just a bit. But we’ve got some answers for’ people like that.” Those answers, Phillips says, will come in the form of an over whelming victory for the tax limita tion measure on the November ballot. Phillips, who toured California with tax limitation guru Howard Jarvis a few weeks ago, says one special answer will go to city offi cials who grant special tax privileges to large corporations or urban renewal projects that are now under construction in Port land. Support numbers balloon When Oregon's tax revolt began just six weeks ago, there was one leader and several fol lowers. Nearly two months and 200,000 petition signatures later, there are four separate commit tees leading the fight against high property taxes. At the beginning, Jim Whitten burg, a Portland lobbyist, filed the first initiative petition for the tax limitation and fired the first shot in the state s tax revolt. That first pet ition filed with the Secretary of State’s office was nothing more than a Xeroxed copy of the infam ous proposition 13 overwhelm ingly approved by California vot ers last month. Since that original filing, support for the tax revolt has grown to such proportions that it now takes at least four committees to handle the petitions. From Portland to Pendleton, and Salem to Klamath Falls, the committees are spread ing the petitions as far and as wide as their members will allow. As if part of some tax revolt score card, the committees range r in name from the United Organiza tion for Taxpayers and Do Care Committee to The Lobby for Social Concerns and the Demands Tax Limitation Committee. Whittenburg, who has had his share of trouble with the law since starting the tax limitation drive be cause of two bad checks he pas sed in Lane County, quit the orig inal petition drive one day after it had reached the goal of 65,000 signatures needed to put the measure on the November ballot. Seven days after he quit, Whit tenburg returned with another committee of his own to push the petitions over the 200,000 signa ture mark. While it may seem confusing to most people, the unusual number of committees supporting the measure are just part of the whole fight for tax limitation, says Ed Sparks of Roseburg who heads the Do Care Committee. “It’s just a lot of roots," Sparks says. “There are roots all over the state that are connected to the original purpose." The only thing that seems to be standing in the way of the petitions right now is the state’s newspap ers, Sparks charges. They haven’t got the message to the people," he says. "But, the more the people hear about the petitions, the more they call the office and want to do something to help.” Oregon’s taxpayers may have just a bit mote anger than their California counterparts, Sparks says. According to two unscien tific opinion surveys conducted by a Portland newspaper and radio station, about 80 percent of the voters would approve the tax limi tation measure if it were on the ballot tomorrow. ‘‘Comparatively speaking, we’ve done just fine gathering the signatures,” Sparks says. “California had several tnonths to get theirs, but. we’ve just had about five weeks.” So far, he says, only one person out of 500 has refused to sign the tax limitation petitions. I ^German AUTO SERVICE reliable service for your foreign car Volkswagen • Mercedes • BMW’® Toyota • Datsun 2025 Franklin Blvd. 746-1207
