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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 2018)
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian The fireworks display in Astoria drew hundreds of people to the Astoria Riverwalk and the East Mooring Basin. See more photos on Page 4A. 146TH YEAR, NO. 4 ONE DOLLAR DailyAstorian.com // Oregon most reliant on income tax GEARHART’S FOURTH OF JULY PARADE Collections can fluctuate dramatically By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Several participants in the parade dressed in elaborate costumes. A WHALE OF A TIME City celebrates 100th anniversary in parade By JACK HEFFERNAN The Daily Astorian G EARHART — As scores of peo- ple lined Marion Avenue in Gear- hart for a Fourth of July parade Wednesday, Liam Goodwin, 6, sat on a rocker atop an American flag-themed trolley. Coincidentally, the rocker was designed to look like a whale — an ani- mal that also adorns the beach city’s centennial anniversary logo. “We didn’t even realize the whale was on the logo also,” said Michelle Monroe, Goodwin’s mother. “It was all just a happy coincidence.” Monroe could be forgiven for not spotting the parallel. The small parade subtly recog- nized Gearhart’s 100-year anniversary. But, sticking with a sentiment kept by residents since its founding, the parade was not much different than in years past. “It’s everybody being on the same page of being carefree and frivolous and showing off for each other,” said Jamey Hampton, a Portland resident who owns a home in Gearhart and has visited since he can remember. “It’s like a little place frozen in the 1950s despite the change that’s taken place.” Members of the Gearhart 100 Year Committee — wearing centennial shirts, sweatshirts and pins — walked toward the front and held a sign commemo- rating the anniversary. Flanked on the front and back ends of the parade were SALEM — Out of all states, Oregon gets the greatest share of revenues from its state income tax, a new analysis finds. About 41.6 percent of Oregon’s state and local taxes came from the state income tax in 2015, according to the analysis from the Wash- ington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation. The findings affirm what many acknowl- edge about Oregon’s revenues — that they rely in large part on state income taxes, which fluctu- ate so dramatically that one state lawmaker com- pares year-over-year tax collections to the peaks and valleys of the Swiss Alps. When it comes just to state revenues, the Oregon Center for Public Policy estimates that roughly 4 out of 5 general fund and lottery fund dollars comes from the state income tax. In the upcoming legislative session in January, lawmakers must write a two-year state budget in the face of a shortfall in the state’s Medicaid program and rising public pension costs. Revenue reform could be on the table as well. Forty-three states have an income tax of some kind. Two of those states — Tennessee and New Hampshire — tax only dividend and investment income, not wages. Nationally, 23.5 percent of state and local tax revenues are attributable to state income tax collections, according to the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation finds that Oregon’s lack of a statewide sales tax contributes in part to its outsize reliance on income taxes. Certain goods, such as beer and gas, are subject to excise taxes. State limits on property taxes were passed into law via ballot measure in the 1990s. See PARADE, Page 4A See INCOME TAX, Page 7A Columbia River talks center on keystone of region’s economy All eyes on treaty negotiators By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press As they meet this summer to update the Columbia River Treaty, U.S. and Canadian negotiators hold Northwest farmers’ futures in their hands. The treaty was adopted in 1964 for the cooperative development and management of the Columbia River, the 1,243-mile-long river that winds through British Colum- bia, Canada, and Washington state and Oregon. Some provisions of the treaty are set to expire in 2024, and the negotiators met in Washington D.C., in May to begin talks on how to update them. The next round of negotiations will take place in August in British Columbia. “The Columbia River Treaty is a huge deal for farmers,” said Clark Kagele, a farmer in Odessa, Washington, and secretary of the Columbia Basin Development League. “It’s basically going to have control of all future water supplies.” For farmers such as Kagele, who depend on the Odessa aqui- fer, having access to Columbia River water is crucial. He esti- mates he has less than 15 years of water left in the five wells that he uses to irrigate his wheat, alfalfa, timothy hay, potatoes, sunflowers and canola. He hopes to receive Columbia River water to replace his wells within the next 10 years. If not, his choices are limited. He could switch to dryland farm- ing, but that would mean a wheat yield of 30 to 32 bushels per acre compared to the 100 bushels per acre he averages under irrigation. The stakes are enormous. The Columbia Basin includes 15.4 million acres of farmland in Ore- gon and Washington state that pro- duce crops worth $7.8 billion a year. The highest-producing farm- land, nearly 1.7 million acres, is irrigated, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cen- sus of Agriculture. COLUMBIA RIVER FACTS • Average annual flow at Astoria: 198 million acre-feet (the fourth largest river in North Amer- ica by volume). • Length: 1,243 miles long (12th longest in U.S.). • Source: Columbia Lake, British Columbia. • Number of tributaries: More than 60. • Total water taken out for municipal use: 433,418 acre-feet per year in Washington state. • Total water take out for agriculture: 10.1 million acre-feet per year. • Amount of power produced: Combined, all of the dams on the river and its tributaries generated 29 gigawatts, about 44 percent of the total hydroelectric generation in U.S. in 2012. • Total number of known fish and wildlife species: 609. • Number of endangered fish species: 13. See TREATY, Page 7A
