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
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be published. Word limit is 375 words per letter. Letters
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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.
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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.
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