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About The Baker County press. (Baker City, Ore.) 2014-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 8, 2017)
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2017 4 — THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS Opinion / Politics — Editorial — Transportation Bill worth it? Ever since the Transportation Bill, co- authored in part by Reps. Greg Smith and Cliff Bentz, passed, we’ve heard nothing from other politicians left of the aisle but glowing endorsements. Not so much praise from the most conservative faction in our legislature, however. We get the allure. In Ontario, for ex- ample, a $26 million rail project is now in the works—a huge economic deal for that area. For Baker County, some funds will be added to our wonderful yet financially needful County Roads Department. But was this pork-filled bill the way to go about it though? With its passage comes yet another withholding tax from employee paychecks—it also imposes new fees on bicycle riders, a new tax on car sales and an increased gas tax ... And let’s face it—most of the revenue is going to be spent far away from Eastern Oregon. Couldn’t we have passed a temporary levy to add funding to our Road Depart- ment, in a locally managed budget? We’re posting the full project list lined out for the Transportation Bill’s spending. Make up your own minds. —The Baker County Press Editorial Board — Guest Opinion — Please help us repeal bad legislation By Suzan Ellis Jones Special to The Baker County Press Do you want to help repeal some of the crazy stuff the legislature did in this last session? There are five petitions, which could put a variety of issues on the ballot in November of 2018. Petition ID number 302 is the last in the great petition race, which is virtually over for all petitions September 30th. #302 is the referendum to repeal Senate Bill 719, the gun confiscation law that Governor Brown just signed a couple of weeks ago. She deliberately dawdled in signing so the time would run out of time to do a petition to get this issue on the ballot. We need to col- lect at least 60,000 valid signatures in just a few short weeks. (58,789). Petition ID number 301, another ref- erendum will repeal Governor Brown’s healthcare sales and service tax. If not removed it will also become a payroll tax. This will require at least 60,000 valid signatures to make the ballot. Petition ID number 1, which is an Or- egon Constitutional based petition drive will prohibit spending public funds either directly or indirectly for abortions in Oregon. This petition will require over 117,578 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot in November of 2018. Petition ID number 5, if passed will require ALL voters to provide proof of Submitted Photo Suzan Ellis Jones is Chair of the Baker County Republicans, shown here with Jesse Watters from Fox. She is also Alt. Chair, Congressio- nal District 2 Republicans and Chair, ORP State Natural Resource Committee. citizenship before the can vote. This petition as a state initiative will require 88,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot. Petition ID number 22, another state initiative will overturn Oregon’s Sanctu- ary status. This will require over 88,000 valid signatures to make the November ballot. The Baker County Republican party is actively circulating petitions all over the county. Any registered voter of any party in Oregon can sign these petitions. If you want to help circulate, please call me at 541-519-5035 and we will get you petitions. We will have a petition drive this Saturday, September 9th at the corner of Campbell and Grove starting at 1:00 p.m., and on Saturday, September 16 at the same times. We will have all five petitions ready to be signed. ‘Kid Governor’ launches ODOT fuels tax audit report released An audit released by the Oregon Secretary of State found that the Oregon Department of Transporta- tion’s (ODOT) new fuels tax system accurately assesses and collects fuels taxes for Oregon and other local jurisdictions. In 2013, ODOT con- tracted with Avalara to implement a new fuels tax system for $2.8 million. The previous system was outdated and relied heavily on paper returns and man- ual inputs by department staff. The new Oregon Fuels Tax System (OFTS) allows for fuels tax licens- ees to electronically submit returns and pay fuels tax owed to the state and other local jurisdictions through an online web portal. Dur- ing 2016, OFTS processed approximately 14,000 fuels tax returns and collected over $565 million in fuels taxes. Auditors examined fuels tax returns submitted dur- ing 2016 and determined the system’s calculations to be correct for 99.5% of all returns. The remaining 0.5% of records differed due to rounding errors or manual overrides of calcu- lations by department staff. However, ODOT needs to address several weaknesses identified in the audit report. Specifically, the re- port identified design flaws that may allow for certain Letter to the Editor Policy: The Baker County Press reserves the right not to publish letters containing factu- al falsehoods or incoherent narrative. Letters promoting or detracting from specific for-profit businesses will not be published. Word limit is 375 words per letter. Letters are limited to one every other week per author. Letters should be submitted to Editor@TheBakerCountyPress. com. Advertising and Opinion Page Disclaimer: Opinions submitted as Guest Opinions or Letters to fuels tax refunds to be issued for more than what was owed, and has caused inaccuracies in some key reports. The audit report also identifies security weaknesses which, if left unmitigated, may put the system and its data at risk. The report includes nine recommendations to ODOT management to ad- dress weaknesses identified during the audit, including fixing system design flaws and correcting security weaknesses. View this audit and all recently released audits: http://sos.oregon.gov/au- dits/Pages/recent.aspx the Editor express the opinions of their authors, and have not been authored by and are not necessarily the opinions of The Baker County Press, any of our staff, management, independent contractors or affiliates. Advertisements placed by political groups, candidates, businesses, etc., are printed as a paid service, which does not constitute an endorsement of or fulfillment ob- ligation by this newspaper for the products or services advertised. In conjunction with the first day of school, Secre- tary of State Dennis Rich- ardson announced the start of a new civics program that focuses on Oregon’s 5th graders. Kid Governor is a statewide, in-school civics program designed by the Connecticut Public Affairs Network. The Network has been working with the of- fice of Oregon’s Secretary of State to adapt the pro- gram for Oregon elemen- tary schools. This program is slated to become a nation-wide program in the coming years. Oregon will be the second state to undertake the initiative. “It gives me great plea- sure to announce the Kid Governor program,” said Secretary of State Dennis Richardson. “This initia- tive will help promote in our elementary school chil- dren an interest in how our government functions and will help develop our fu- ture leaders. Every public, private, charter, tribal, and online school is eligible to participate. Homeschoolers are also eligible.” Each nominated student will work with his or her school to make a short, online video speech an- nouncing their candidacy. In the videos, each student will address an important issue he or she would like to work on throughout the next calendar year. A group of experts will choose seven finalists whose videos will be placed on the Secretary of State website. From November 6-14, Oregon 5th grad- ers can vote for which of the seven candidates they want to elect as Oregon’s Kid Governor. The winner will be announced before — Contact Us — Thanksgiving, and an offi- cial inauguration ceremony will be held January 9, 2018 at the State Capitol in Salem. “During the Kid Gov- ernor’s term in office, he or she will meet with Oregon’s governor and our legislators and will work with my office on their special issue of interest,” said Richardson. “We will mentor and help our Kid Governor learn about and prepare to hold a press conference. The Kid Governor will also give an online civics speech to other Oregon 5th graders. I hope everyone is as excited about the program as we are here in Salem.” The details about how the Kid Governor program works can be found online: http://or.kidgovernor.org. YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS The Baker County Press President Donald Trump PO Box 567 Baker City, Ore. 97814 202.456.2461 fax Open Monday-Thursday for calls 9 AM - 4 PM Open 24/7 for emails 202.456.1414 Whitehouse.gov/contact US Sen. Jeff Merkley 503.326.3386 503.326.2900 fax Merkley.Senate.gov Phone: 541.519.0572 TheBakerCountyPress.com US Sen. Ron Wyden 541.962.7691 Wyden.Senate.gov Kerry McQuisten, Publisher Editor@TheBakerCountyPress.com US Rep. Greg Walden Wendee Morrissey, Advertising and Sales Wendee@TheBakerCountyPress.com 541.624.2402 fax David Conn, Advertising and Sales David@TheBakerCountyPress.com Published weekly every Friday. Subscription rates per year are $29.95 all areas, e-mail delivery. $39.95 print issue, home delivery, Baker City city limits only. $49.95 print issue, mail delivery, outside Baker City city limits only. Payment in advance. A division of Black Lyon Publishing, LLC 541.624.2400 Walden.House.gov Oregon Gov. Kate Brown 503.378.3111 Governor.Oregon.gov State Rep. Cliff Bentz 503.986.1460 State Sen. Ted Ferrioli 541.490.6528 Baker County Commissioners Bill Harvey; Mark Bennett; Bruce Nichols 541.523.8200 Copyright © 2014 -2017 541.523.8201