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Wednesday, October 30, 2019
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Oregon’s
tax
exemption
laws
can
hurt
HAPPENINGS
Small-business & Ag
Voting begins for 2019
Farm Service Agency county
committee elections
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. De-
partment of Agriculture will begin mailing
ballots on Nov. 4 to eligible farmers and
ranchers across the country for the Farm
Service Agency county committee elections.
County committee members play a key role
at FSA. More than 7,000 members nation-
wide provide their valuable knowledge and
judgment on decisions made about FSA
services, including disaster and emergency
programs. To be counted, ballots must be
returned to the local FSA county offi ce or
postmarked by Dec. 2.
Producers can fi nd out if their local
administrative area is up for election and if
they are eligible to vote by contacting their
local FSA county offi ce. Eligible voters who
did not receive a ballot in the mail can pick
one up at their local FSA county offi ce. Visit
fsa.usda.gov/elections for more information.
Northeast Oregon FSA offi ces:
• Union County — 1901 Adams Ave.,
Suite 5, La Grande, 541-963-4178
• Wallowa County — 401 NE First St.,
Suite E, Enterprise, 541-426-4521
• Baker County — 3990 Midway Drive,
Baker City, 541-523-7121, ext. 106
Video contest promotes
workplace safety for young
workers
SALEM — High school students across
Oregon are invited to let their video skills
shine for a good cause: increasing aware-
ness about workplace safety for young
workers. The annual video contest —
“Speak up. Work safe.” — is now open for
submissions. The top three entries will
take home cash prizes ranging from $300
to $500, and students will earn a matching
amount for their school.
Students must create a 90-second or less
video that inspires young workers to do at
least one thing differently to stay safe on
the job. The video must include the theme:
“Speak up. Work safe.” The video must
educate young workers about the impor-
tance of speaking up in the workplace.
Whether they sing, dance, use humor, or go
documentary-style serious, participants are
encouraged to tap their imaginations while
emphasizing ways to protect themselves
and their co-workers from getting hurt on
the job.
The deadline for submissions is Feb. 7,
2020. Videos can be submitted online or
mailed. Contest winners will be unveiled at
a screening event in spring 2020, and win-
ning entries will be posted on YouTube.
For contest details, rules, tips, entry
forms, resources and a playlist of past fi nal-
ist videos, go to www.youngemployeesafety.
org/contest.
Roundtable, discussion explores
racial privilege
ENTERPRISE — Northeast Oregon
Economic Development District will con-
tinue its public programs and roundtable
discussions in November for volunteers,
boards and staff members to learn, share
and discuss diversity, equity, and inclusion
(DEI) methods and strategies.
Emily Drew, an associate professor of
sociology and ethnic studies at Willa-
mette University, will facilitate a public
conversation entitled “Racism, Power,
and Privilege in Oregon” on Nov. 5, at two
locations: 3 p.m. at the Cook Memorial
Library, 2006 Fourth St. in La Grande,
and 7 p.m. at The Place, 301 S. Lake
St. in Joseph. Many Oregonians value
racial diversity and the dimension and
depth it adds to our lives, yet the vision
of a racially integrated society remains
unrealized. The discussion will seek to
answer questions such as: What systems
are in place to prevent the racial integra-
tion and equity many of us strive for?
Knowing what we do, how do we act — as
individuals, organizations and businesses
— to embrace the opportunity presented
by a more diverse Oregon? This conversa-
tion is free and open to the public. Regis-
tration is not required.
On Nov. 6 at The Place in Joseph, Drew
will lead a roundtable workshop, “Wrestling
with Whiteness: White Privilege in Every-
day Life.” Through an exercise and discus-
sion, participants will consider the ways in
which structured privileges afforded on the
basis of race are everyday, unearned and
usually invisible to those who receive them.
Participants will also examine the central
role of white privilege (and blindness to it)
See Happenings / Page 3B
By Mike Rogoway
The Oregonian
As bustling metropolises have
grown increasingly skeptical of
big tech companies demanding
tax breaks, Oregon’s rural com-
munities keep doling them out.
The Hermiston City Council
and Umatilla County commis-
sioners voted unanimously this
month to grant Amazon broad
property tax breaks for massive
data centers planned in Eastern
Oregon.
It’s the latest in a string of
similar agreements with Amazon
that shave nearly $50 million an-
nually off the company’s Oregon
tax bills. Facebook, Apple and
Google save tens of millions of
dollars more each year thanks to
similar agreements for data cen-
ters in Prineville and The Dalles.
Amazon didn’t respond for a
request for comment on its plans
for Hermiston. Its total savings
in the new deal will depend on
how much the company spends
on its data centers, but the as-
sistant city manager in Herm-
iston overseeing the new tax
deal estimates it will run in the
“hundreds of millions” of dollars
over the next 15 years.
In exchange, Amazon need pay
only $40 million in compensatory
payments in that timespan and
create just 10 jobs.
Oregon law gives small com-
munities the sole responsibility
to grant such local property tax
breaks, even for mammoth proj-
ects like this one. The state has
no authority to reject Amazon’s
incentives, no matter how large,
so long as the company complies
with the technical requirements
of Oregon’s “enterprise zone”
program for tax exemptions.
That autonomy may not be a
blessing. Since Oregon sets no
limits on how big the tax breaks
can be and exercises no oversight
over how communities negotiate
them, these cash-strapped small
towns end up competing with
one another to offer the biggest
tax savings to the companies that
arguably need it the least.
Hermiston, population 17,400,
is a largely agricultural commu-
nity that sits south of the Colum-
bia River. Offi cials there and in
Umatilla County say they can’t
afford to risk losing whatever
Amazon offers.
Amazon’s $40 million will be
divided up by councilors and
commissioners in Hermiston and
the county seat in Pendleton.
They need the money, they say,
to balance the budgets, pave the
roads and hire sheriff’s deputies.
“Maybe if I was in Seattle or
New York I could look at it differ-
ently but I’m not,” said George
Murdock, chairman of the Uma-
tilla County Commission. “We’re
kind of out in the sagebrush and
we have to make decisions in a
different way.”
A needed boost
Amazon reported $233 billion
in revenue last year. When it
EO Media Group fi le photo
A new Facebook data center was constructed in 2016 in Bend.
comes to taxes, though, the com-
pany counts every penny and has
repeatedly demonstrated it will
play hardball.
The online retailer walked
away from plans for a second
“headquarters” in New York this
year after residents balked at
$3 billion in incentives Amazon
had negotiated. Seattle dropped
plans for a “head tax” on large
employers when Amazon vocifer-
ously objected; despite winning
the fi ght, Amazon began shifting
new operations across Lake
Washington to Bellevue.
Seattle and New York are
thriving cities that can take the
economic hit. Lots of other busi-
nesses want to move in. Oregon’s
rural communities maintain
their calculus is different.
Six years ago, Murdock said,
Umatilla County was cutting
staff and programs. Since Ama-
zon began opening data centers
in the county, he said the revenue
from the tax agreements — even
after millions of dollars in exemp-
tions — has helped balance the
budget and enable the county to
expand its number of deputies
from seven to 17.
“We aren’t Portland. That’s
a pretty big deal out here,”
Murdock said. “It hasn’t been our
sense that the state of Oregon
has been willing to sustain us
without this kind of thing.”
The benefi ts are real. Tax
watchdogs don’t dispute that but
maintain that Oregon’s system
for awarding incentives has the
effect of pitting communities
against one another to the ben-
efi t of the big companies seeking
tax breaks.
“This is a situation where
the tax policy isn’t adjusted for
the business basics,” said Greg
LeRoy, executive director of
Good Jobs First, a Washington,
D.C., think tank that critiques
state tax policy and corporate
tax breaks. He says Oregon’s tax
system is fl awed because it pro-
motes competition among com-
munities and fails to capitalize on
the state’s inherent advantages.
“The state’s not letting the
‘GrantReady’
workshops held
for nonprofits
NEOEDD
ENTERPRISE — North-
east Oregon Economic
Development District’s
“GrantReady” workshop
series will be offered in
Wallowa County next
month. The series provides
a supportive learning
environment for volunteers,
board and staff members
of nonprofi t organizations
to acquire the tools and
skills needed to help them
become more competitive
for grant funding and bet-
ter prepared to operate and
evaluate their programs
and projects. The four-
session series will be held
on Thursdays from Nov. 7
to Dec. 5 (no session the
week of Thanksgiving) at
Wallowa Resources, 401 NE
First St., in Enterprise.
• The GrantReady train-
ing sessions will cover:
See NEOEDD / Page 3B
local governments play a smart
hand,” LeRoy said, “even though
you’ve got great cards.”
Something for nothing
Oregon’s enterprise zone pro-
gram of property tax breaks dates
to 1985, a time when large capital
projects usually meant large facto-
ries with lots of workers.
Data centers were inconceiv-
able back then. They’re big,
dark, chilly warehouses, almost
completely devoid of people.
Instead, they’re packed with
rows and rows of computers,
whirring and blinking as they
process hordes of digital informa-
tion — everything from Netfl ix
videos to corporate secrets.
Shoppers know Amazon for
its everything store and rapid
delivery. But its data hosting
business is at least as important
to the company. Amazon leases
its server farms out to every kind
of company, from major enter-
prise to tiny startup, storing their
data and promising it will be
kept secure yet readily available
— anytime, anywhere.
A single data center can cost
hundreds of millions of dollars
because of the high-end comput-
ers inside. A complex of them,
like the one Amazon plans in
Hermiston, can run in the bil-
lions.
All those computers are
subject to sales tax in most states
— or, in Oregon’s case, property
taxes. So tech companies demand
that communities exempt their
computers from local taxes.
Communities comply because
the tech companies bring a big
brand name, excitement and tax
dollars — albeit greatly reduced
by those incentives.
Listen to how local offi cials
described Amazon’s deal:
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity before you this eve-
ning,” Hermiston Assistant City
Manager Mark Morgan told the
city council this month.
John Kirwan, the Hermiston
city councilman who chaired that
meeting, told the council that
Amazon would replace recently
lost railroad jobs with “techno-
logical jobs that are going to be
the wave of the future.”
“Some people would say what
are we giving away? Well, the an-
swer to that is we’re giving away
zero,” Kirwan declared. “Because
if we don’t do this Amazon will go
someplace else. And some other
city will embrace this substan-
tial amount of no less than $40
million and they’ll take it and
run with it and they’ll have the
opportunities Hermiston could
have tonight.”
In truth, data centers rarely
bring an infusion of high-tech
work. Nearly half the people
working at Facebook’s Prineville
data center, for example, are
security guards.
And geographically, Amazon’s
alternatives are limited.
Data centers can’t go just any-
where. Even electrons take time
to travel from place to place.
Tech companies must distrib-
ute them regionally so it doesn’t
take too long for a corporate ana-
lyst to pull up a database stored
in an off-site server farm, and
so people at home can stream
their favorite songs and movies
without a lag.
Moreover, the Northwest
enjoys some of the nation’s lowest
power rates thanks to the hydro-
electric projects on the Columbia
River. And Hermiston is a special
bargain: The local utility, Uma-
tilla Electric, sits right on the
river and charges 17% below the
regional average.
That’s a big deal when you’re
powering a billion dollars’ worth
of computers.
The Columbia’s clean
hydropower is also attractive
to Amazon and other tech
companies that have come un-
der fi re for their data centers’
carbon footprints. Amazon, like
other tech companies, says it
wants to shift its power load to
renewable energy.
When crafting Amazon’s latest
tax breaks, though, local offi cials
say they don’t believe they had
any leverage at all.
See Exemption / Page 3B
Oregon OSHA to
present first Spanish-
language workplace
safety conference
OSHA
SALEM — Oregon OSHA will
present its fi rst Spanish-language
conference addressing workers
and their needs Nov. 19. Topics will
include asserting their rights to
a safe workplace, protecting their
health and safety at work and at
home and protecting against wage
theft.
This conference refl ects our on-
going mission to improve outreach
to the most vulnerable workers by
offering an event entirely in the
language of many such workers,”
said Oregon OSHA Administrator
Michael Wood.”
Presenters at the free confer-
ence — to be held from 8:30 a.m.
See OSHA / Page 3B