NORTH COAST
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2015
State seeks more driYers
for mileage tax experiment
3A
Man sentenced to
probation for sexual
abuse of 19-year-old
By HILLARY BORRUD
Capital Bureau
By KYLE SPURR
The Daily Astorian
SALEM — A state pilot
program launched in July to
charge 2regon driYers based
on the amount they driYe has
roughly 900 participants,
mostly in the Portland metro-
politan area.
2f¿cials had hoped to en-
roll up to 5,000 people in the
pay-by-the-mile program, the
¿rst of its kind in the nation.
Participants sign up with one
of three priYate Yendors, then
install an electronic deYice
that enables the company to
track mileage and collect fees.
“I think we all need to get
more (participants) in because
the more we haYe, the better
the data,” said Vicki Berger,
chairwoman of a task force
oYerseeing the effort.
Oregon Department of
Transportation
employees
haYe told the task force they
are working on strategies to
sign up more people.
Although more than 200
people enrolled in Mult-
nomah County, the participa-
tion numbers for many coun-
ties remain in the single digits
and seYeral counties east of
the Cascades haYe no partic-
ipants. Tom Fuller, a spokes-
man for the Department of
Transportation, said the agen-
cy is using Yarious strategies
to encourage more people to
participate. For example, the
DriYer and Motor Vehicle
SerYices DiYision now pro-
Yides information about the
program when people renew
their licenses and registration.
“We’re working on creat-
ing more partnerships, work-
ing to get Àeets into the test
driYe,” Fuller told the task
force.
Fuller said the agency also
wants to sign up people with
underrepresented types of Ye-
hicles and from more areas
of the state, “for example to
reach more eastern Orego-
nians.”
The 22-year-old man who sexually
abused a 19-year-old culinary student at
the Cannon Beach Christian Conference
Center in 'ecember was sentenced to ¿Ye
years probation.
Mitchell Ellis Corbin, of Portland,
pleaded guilty Friday in Clatsop County
Circuit Court to second-degree sex abuse.
$dditional charges of ¿rst-degree sodomy,
¿rst-degree attempted rape and ¿rst-degree
unlawful sexual penetration were dropped Mitchell Corbin
through the plea agreement. Corbin was
working on staff at the Christian Conference Center when he met
the 19-year-old woman, who was attending a culinary class.
The sex abuse reportedly occurred in a housing unit at the
conference center.
He was arrested in April at his parent’s house in Portland and
booked into Clatsop County Jail.
The Yictim did not attended the sentencing hearing Friday, but
did send a statement that Prosecutor Scott McCracken read on
her behalf. The statement described how she trusted Corbin as a
friend and shared her worries and hardships with him. He listened
and sympathi]ed, but then took adYantage of her emotional state,
she said.
“If only I had known what your real intentions were before
you proceeded to go too far,” she wrote in the statement.
Judge Philip 1elson ordered Corbin to haYe no contact with
the Yictim or her family.
The prosecution has 30 days to determine a restitution amount.
Corbin must register as a sex offender and is ordered to haYe
no contact with minors.
His defense lawyer James Yon Boeckmann asked Judge 1el-
son to make an exception to the no contact with minors order by
allowing him to liYe at home with his teenage siblings. The Mudge
allowed it.
“I’m going to ask your honor to make an exception to allow
him to get on with his life and pick up the pieces sooner rather
than later,” Yon Boeckmann said.
Transportation
funding dilemma
Oregon faces a long-term
transportation funding dilem-
ma because state and federal
gas taxes currently proYide
about half the money for
bridge, highway and other
transportation proMects. As
people purchase more fuel ef-
¿cient Yehicles, state of¿cials
expect gas tax reYenue will
decline in the future.
“When you realize that ...
Yehicles on the road are going
to use less and less fuel and
our funding is dependent on
fuel taxes, the pressure to ¿nd
something different is pret-
ty high,” said Department of
Transportation spokeswoman
Michelle Godfrey. “Costs of
construction haYe increased
dramatically, so the money we
do get in gas tax, eYen though
it’s Àat, is basically half of
what we need.”
The department has been
searching since 2001 for oth-
er options to charge people
for using Oregon’s roads and
highways, and lawmakers au-
thorized the pilot proMect in
a 2013 law. It was originally
supposed to cost $2.8 mil-
lion, according to a budget
report for the legislation that
authorized the program. The
budget has since increased to
$8.1 million through the end
of this year and the state could
spend a total of $12.7 million
by mid-2017, although God-
frey said the department ex-
pects the proMect to come in
under that budget. The state
could incur additional costs
in the future because the pilot
will continue inde¿nitely until
lawmakers decide whether to
make it mandatory.
One problem with a pay-
by-the-mile road fee is that it
is more expensiYe to admin-
ister than the gas tax. ODOT
Penalizes fuel-
HI¿FLHQWYHKLFOHV
Critics of the pilot haYe
said it bene¿ts driYers of low-
mpg Yehicles that produce
more pollution and penalizes
driYers of more fuel-ef¿cient
Yehicles, and lawmakers
including state Sen. Betsy
Johnson, D-Scappoose, haYe
raised concerns about the cost
and other aspects of the pro-
gram.
In July, the Willamette
Week newspaper reported that
legislators questioned ODOT
of¿cials’ decisions to send
Jim Whitty, manager of the
agency’s Of¿ce of InnoYatiYe
Partnerships and AlternatiYe
Funding, on more than 100
trips oYer the last decade in-
cluding to Washington, D.C.,
Brussels, London, Barcelona,
Singapore and Australia. The
state paid $65,000 of Whitty’s
traYel costs, with the remain-
der picked up by conference
‘Vehicles on the road are
going to use less and less
fuel and our funding is
dependent on fuel taxes.’
Michelle Godfrey
Department of Transportation spokeswoman
of¿cials suggested during the
task force meeting that one
way to address this might be
to use the mileage fee to re-
place not only the gas tax but
also license, Yehicle regis-
tration and other fees, which
carry higher administratiYe
costs. State 5ep. John DaYis,
5-WilsonYille, said he ap-
preciated the suggestion be-
cause otherwise, he would be
skeptical of the road user fee
giYen the high administratiYe
costs.
sponsors who were not iden-
ti¿ed in the newspaper article.
At the task force meeting
in Salem this week, Whitty
announced he plans to resign
from the agency at the end of
this year.
“I’m an innoYator and
there comes a point where the
program becomes more goY-
ernmental,” Whitty said after
the meeting. “We’Ye reached
that point. My serYices are not
as needed at this stage going
forward.”
The state still needs some-
one to manage the of¿ce,
howeYer, and Whitty said the
Department of Transportation
will recruit for the position.
“I don’t know where I’ll be
working, what I’ll be doing,”
Whitty said.
California could build
on Oregon’s work
HoweYer, California could
soon be looking for people to
help start a similar road user
fee proMect. The state is prepar-
ing to launch a pay-by-the-mile
pilot program in July 2016 that
could build on Oregon’s work
and eYen use the same priYate
Yendors who are administering
the Oregon program, Whitty
told the task force.
“All the bugs will be
worked out by July 2016,”
Whitty said, referring to the
Yendors’ technology. “So
they’ll use ours.”
Whitty did not rule out that
he might work on the Cali-
fornia program. “We’ll see,”
Whitty said.
Meanwhile, Oregon will
once again send a representa-
tiYe to Australia to meet with
goYernment of¿cials who are
working to create a similar
program. This time, it will be
Berger, the task force chair
and a former Republican state
representatiYe from Salem.
“It’s torture, you know,”
Berger said Mokingly during
the task force meeting.
Godfrey said the state will
not pay for Berger’s trip, but it
was unclear who will.
“Funds are being assem-
bled by a number of priYate
organizations that are send-
ing her, and the state is not
contributing anything to it,”
Godfrey said. “I don’t know if
she’s going in an of¿cial ca-
pacity.”
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO
Media Group and Pamplin
Media Group.
State plans highway, bridge repairs
The Daily Astorian
An Oregon Department of
Transportation maintenance
crew is doing some patch paY-
ing on U.S. Highway 101 in
Seaside starting Wednesday.
The proMect is scheduled for
six straight days depending
on the weather.
Most of the patch paYing
operations on U.S. 101 are
being conducted between 7
a.m. and 4:30 p.m. between
24th AYenue (mile post 19.8)
and AYenue S (mile post 22).
There may be some street clo-
sures, and access from side
streets could be closed tem-
porarily.
Flaggers are controlling
traf¿c, but the oYerall traf¿c
delays should be minimal.
ODOT encourages traYel-
ers to allow extra traYel time
during the proMect.
The New Youngs Bay
Bridge is closing for annual
maintenance for two eYe-
nings, Oct. 18 and 19, while
an ODOT bridge crew per-
forms the annual greasing of
cables on the draw span.
The closure begins at 9
p.m. each day with the bridge
re-opening at 5 a.m. the next
day. During the eYening clo-
sures, the bridge crew is also
replacing three oYerhead steel
struts that had been damaged
in a recent accident, and the
maintenance and sign crews
are cleaning out under the
guardrail and replacing signs
on the bridge.
TraYelers can detour
around the closure by using
U.S. Highway 101 Business.
NAMI Clatsop ACC (National Alliance on Mental
Illness) will meet October 6th at 7 pm in the
upstairs conference room of the OSU-Astoria
Seafood Center.
The discussion with guest speaker, City
Councilman Drew Herzig, will be the current
status of the improved warming center project
in Astoria.
The public is invited.
Detour signs are being posted
notifying motorists of the clo-
sure seYeral days before the
planned work. OYer-dimen-
sional Yehicles can be accom-
modated by calling 503-325-
5851.
College workshop helps
outline Social Security
The Daily Astorian
Clatsop Community College is offering a workshop on help-
ing baby boomers prepare for Social Security.
The workshop will coYer whether Social Security will be
aYailable, how much recipients can expect to receiYe, when they
should apply for or delay bene¿ts, how bene¿ts can be maxi-
mized, whether Social Security will proYide enough for retire-
ment and how to coordinate Social Security with other sources
of retirement income and with a spouse.
The workshop is from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the college’s
South County Campus, located at 1455 N. RooseYelt DriYe in
Seaside.
Registration is $15, seating is limited and reserYations are rec-
ommended. ReserYe a spot by Yisiting www.clatsopcc.edu/sched-
ule and searching under course title or by calling 503-338-2402.
Meet-and-greet with interim
college president planned
The Daily Astorian
Clatsop Community College will hold a
meet-and-greet with interim President Gerald
Hamilton at the opening reception of the col-
lege art gallery’s ¿rst exhibit of the 2015-16
season, “InYestigations — A RetrospectiYe
Look at the Work of DaYid Allison.”
The exhibition starts at 6 p.m. Thursday in
the college’s art gallery at 1799 Lexington AYe.. Gerald Hamilton
In addition, the college is soliciting public
comments on a presidential pro¿le that will be used to identify a
new permanent college president. A draft pro¿le can be reYiewed
at http://bit.ly/ 1GlKIbQ.
SeYeral public forums on the presidential pro¿le are sched-
uled for Thursday:
• Noon to 2 p.m. at the college’s South County Campus at
1455 N. RooseYelt DriYe in Seaside.
• 3 to 5 p.m. in Columbia Hall Room 219 on the college’s
main campus, at 1651 Lexington AYe.
• 5 to 7 p.m. in Columbia Hall, Room 219.
Comments can also be submitted at presidentsearch@clatsop-
cc.edu until Thursday.
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