3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2018
Brown’s budget outlines her rural agenda
Housing,
internet and
wildfire plans
By CLAIRE
WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — On the cam-
paign trail, Gov. Kate Brown
was eager to tell voters she
would represent all regions of
the state.
“I’m the only candidate in
this race with a track record
of bringing Republicans and
Democrats together, urban
and rural Oregonians together,
to tackle the problems facing
Oregon,” Brown said during
one debate.
A month after her re-elec-
tion, she is following through
on that claim.
Brown’s proposed budget,
released last week, includes
more than $247 million for
rural infrastructure projects
and other increased spending
to benefit rural residents.
“I also believe that the work
we are doing to continue to
grow the economy by invest-
ing in infrastructure, hous-
ing, broadband, water and, of
course, career and technical
education will benefit commu-
nities large and small across
Oregon,” Brown told report-
ers as she released her budget
proposal.
There’s enthusiasm from
observers about Brown’s
spending plans for rural Ore-
gon, from dams to housing to
high-speed internet.
But some advocates and
lawmakers worry about other
parts of her budget that cut fire
protection on forestland, hold
steady money for community
colleges and increase taxes by
$2 billion.
Rural areas of the state face
unique challenges. Despite the
state’s robust overall economic
growth, rural Oregon has yet
to fully bounce back from the
Great Recession.
Rural unemployment has
been declining since its peak
in 2009, and the state’s rural
economy is less diverse, mak-
ing it more vulnerable to
shocks. And the populace and
workforce in rural areas of
Oregon are aging, according to
a report last year from the state
Employment Department.
Affordable housing
While the income of rural
Oregonians is about equal to
other rural areas of the coun-
try, state economists say, hous-
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Gov. Kate Brown rides with the Oregon Mounted Governor’s Guard during the Westward
Ho! Parade in 2017.
ing is about 30 percent more
expensive.
The governor wants to
offer a carrot to developers to
build more affordable housing
across the state.
She wants to boost fund-
ing for loan programs and for
public-private partnerships to
build housing for people who
can’t find affordable homes in
the communities where they
work. Brown wants the state to
borrow $130 million through
bonds to build up to 2,100
affordable homes for com-
munities of color and in rural
areas.
The governor has also
proposed millions in water
projects.
Brown’s budget allots $16
million to replace the Wallowa
Dam, which is more than a
century old and whose opera-
tors keep less water than it was
built to hold to avoid a failure.
Todd Nash, chair of the
Wallowa County Commission,
said that replacing the dam
could help increase water for
irrigating crops such as timo-
thy hay and alfalfa.
“That would mean addi-
tional water for some of those
areas that have been under-
served by water … to continue
to irrigate and that is a big win
for Wallowa County,” Nash
said.
And Brown wants to divvy
millions for rural community
colleges across the state, with
a focus on career readiness.
Brown’s wish list includes
an agricultural workforce cen-
ter at Blue Mountain Commu-
nity College in Pendleton and
an industrial trades center at
Klamath County Community
College in Klamath Falls.
Oregon’s 17 community
colleges had about 280,000
students in the 2016-17 school
year, according to the Higher
Education Coordinating Com-
mission. They primarily serve
rural areas.
But unless the Legislature
raises nearly $2 billion in new
taxes for her major education
revival plan, Brown’s budget
would reduce money that com-
munity colleges say they need
to continue current operations
for the next two years.
It would also cut funds to
Oregon Promise, which covers
tuition for certain students.
Ron Paradis, head of col-
lege relations for Central Ore-
gon Community College in
Bend, said the college would
get less money under the basic
budget than it currently does.
“It would definitely mean
cuts, or tuition increases,” Par-
adis wrote in an email.
The college operates cam-
puses in Bend, Redmond,
Prineville and Madras with an
enrollment this fall of about
5,000 students.
High-speed internet
The governor wants more
rural Oregonians to have high-
speed internet that could “lit-
erally bridge the urban-rural
divide,” she said in October.
Joseph Franell, CEO of
Eastern Oregon Telecom, who
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Brown wants to establish,
through the executive order, a
council on wildfire response to
evaluate Oregon’s system for
responding to large fires.
The council’s job would be
to figure out whether Oregon’s
current mode of fighting fires
is “sustainable” and recom-
mend changes.
State Senate Republi-
can Leader Jackie Winters, of
Salem, said that while the gov-
ernor’s efforts to address fire
issues were “long overdue,”
she didn’t think decreases
in the fire protection budget
would help.
The governor’s budget
attributed the dip is due to one-
time costs for recent large fires.
Jonathan Sandau, govern-
ment affairs specialist at the
Oregon Farm Bureau, pointed
to a number of proposals in the
governor’s proposed budget
that could be a boon for rural
communities.
He was encouraged by her
support of economic develop-
ment projects in rural Oregon
through the Regional Solu-
tions program and efforts to
expand broadband service. She
also wants to extend tax cred-
its for farmers who house agri-
cultural workers and donate
crops to food banks or other
charities.
Those credits are set to
expire in the next budget.
But Sandau worried that the
governor’s push for education
funding — if new taxes don’t
pass — could sideline fund-
ing for natural resource agen-
cies like agriculture and fish
and wildlife Department and
the state’s watershed enhance-
ment board.
Those agencies do every-
thing from regulating the pes-
ticides that farmers use to
managing wolves that prey on
livestock.
“Oregon is a natural
resources economy, and a lot
of lives, and jobs and commu-
nities depend on that,” Sandau
said.
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration of EO Media
Group, Pamplin Media Group
and Salem Reporter.
A smattering of other pro-
posals could improve life in
rural communities. The gover-
nor wants to phase in hundreds
of new state troopers over the
next 10 years, which would
improve emergency response
times in rural areas of the state.
And she wants to put $10
million toward cleaning up
contaminated rural Oregon
lands.
A front-and-center environ-
mental concern in many rural
areas, though, is smoke. Come
summer, gray skies and ash
afflict rural parts of the state
where wildland fires are more
common, and local residents
and lawmakers have clamored
for a change to forest man-
agement policies to address
smoke issues.
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The
chairs the state Broadband
Advisory Council, said that he
was “thrilled” about the gov-
ernor’s proposal to create a
Broadband Office and allo-
cate $5 million to a broadband
infrastructure fund.
The Broadband Office
would develop partnerships
between government and pri-
vate companies to expand
high-speed internet to rural
Oregon, pursue federal fund-
ing and support local efforts to
develop faster internet.
There’s a technical advan-
tage in having a dedicated
broadband office. It could help
the state qualify for more fed-
eral funding, Franell said.
As the economy and daily
life depends more on the inter-
net, reliable and fast internet
service can connect rural Ore-
gonians to services like health
care and education, Franell
said.
“If the Colt .45 revolver
was the great equalizer of the
1800s, broadband is the great
equalizer of our era,” Franell
said, “And when I say that,
there’s no one thing other than
broadband that has such poten-
tial for positive impact on peo-
ple’s lives.”
For example, instead of
traveling for hours to see a
specialist, more rural resi-
dents could use medical video
conferencing, often called
telehealth.
“If you have good, reli-
able, fast access to broadband,
regardless of location, you can
get educated, literally all the
way up to a Ph.D.,” Franell
said. “Regardless of where you
live, you can get health, you
can connect with government
in ways you couldn’t before.”
Rural communities have
had problems enticing private
companies to build high-speed
internet infrastructure.
John Day City Manager
Nick Green said that there is
not much incentive for com-
panies to invest in high-speed
internet in rural or frontier
communities. There’s a lot of
space and not many people
per square mile to pay for the
service.
And getting federal money
is tough. Green found out last
week that the city hadn’t been
awarded a federal grant to help
bring broadband to the area. It
had spent about $100,000 to
prepare the grant application.
Internet is so sluggish at
John Day City Hall that he
couldn’t directly upload that
application.
He hopes that more support
from the state would help com-
munities like his get federal
dollars to close the broadband
service gap, which impacts
schools, libraries and other
government functions.
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