Tax revolt
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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.
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