A3
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019
Divide: Oregon’s robust economic growth has been uneven
Continued from Page A1
Absolutely,” Brown told the
Oregon Capital Bureau. “But
I would really push back and
say it’s a lot of bunk to say
myself as an executive and
legislative leadership don’t
care about rural Oregon.”
Reactions to policies
crafted in Salem among
ruralites are mixed, and non-
urban areas of the state are
not a monolith — politically
or socially.
“If we ask something
about public opinion, like,
‘Should schools have more
funding?’ There’s always
going to be a bigger differ-
ence between Democrats and
Republicans, than between
urban and rural,” said John
Horvick, director of cli-
ent relations and political
research at DHM Research
in Portland. “Yes, one is red
and one is blue, but there are
a lot of Democrats in rural
Oregon, and there are plenty
of Republicans in urban
areas. And partisanship is a
much, much better predictor
on almost every policy issue
than geography.”
Some say there’s a lack of
understanding when it comes
to policymaking for rural
Oregon.
“What they think they’re
doing to help the rural parts
of the state doesn’t help
them,” said Jim Geisinger,
vice president of Associ-
ated Oregon Loggers and an
Estacada resident. “We don’t
need more government pro-
grams. We don’t need more
handouts.”
“It’s just that we don’t like
somebody from outside tell-
ing us what we need to do,
because they think they know
better,” said Steve Uffelman,
the mayor of Prineville. “And
that’s just a slap in the face.
And it’s an insult.”
Brown said she tours the
state talking to local politi-
cians and business leaders
and works to respond to their
needs.
When she was in Ontario,
she was told affordable hous-
ing was the city’s biggest
issue.
In this year’s legislative
session, the Legislature fun-
neled more money toward
affordable housing.
“A disproportionate share,
on a per capita basis, of our
housing dollars goes into
rural Oregon,” Brown said.
She also unsuccessfully
pushed an idea that would
take hundreds of millions of
dollars from the popular tax
rebate known as the “kicker”
and spend it on affordable
housing in rural areas and
for wildfi re prevention work,
bringing forestry jobs to rural
communities.
Brown says she’s baffl ed
by the lack of Republican
support for either proposal.
But some representing
rural communities say Dem-
ocratic leaders are picking
and choosing which rural
issues to focus on, and they
aren’t stopping the bleeding.
State Sen. Cliff Bentz, an
Ontario Republican, agreed
that affordable housing is an
issue.
But he said liberals force
their progressive agenda on
the entire state, rather than lis-
tening to what ruralites want.
He opposed House Bill 2001,
which undid long-stand-
ing laws barring multifamily
housing throughout the bulk
of Oregon’s cities.
Uffelman, the Prineville
mayor, echoed Bentz, saying
the bill was an urban solution
forced on his town of 10,000.
“We’re a classic example
of one size does not fi t all,”
Uffelman said. “When they
try to ram down our throats
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Distance, perception can infl uence the urban-rural divide.
their policy on urban plan-
ning, for example, it might be
fi ne for Portland, but it isn’t
fi ne for us.”
Bentz preferred a bill he
pushed that failed, which
would have rezoned 200
acres on Ontario’s hilltops to
2 -acre lots where nice houses
could be built.
“So-called
affordable
housing. We need it. That’s
true,” he said. “But what we
also need is people coming
in and spending $400,000 or
$500,000 on 2 -acre lots.”
Mary Anne Cooper, vice
president of public policy for
the Oregon Farm Bureau, said
affordable housing is needed,
but it means less after the pas-
sage of a transportation pack-
age, a clean fuel standard and
a gross receipts tax.
felt the state hadn’t fi rmly
fi gured out how much money
rural communities would
need to stand up broadband
infrastructure.
“My biggest fear, or con-
cern, was, it wasn’t supported
with facts,” Findley said.
He encouraged the bill’s
chief sponsor to open the
offi ce, then “establish a
need.”
“Go to all the cities, and
the counties, and say, ‘What
do you need, what is a via-
ble number?’” Findley said .
“And then go secure the
funding for that offi ce, for the
grant portion of the offi ce at
that point in time, not just to
come up with a number that
looks good, but is not defi n-
able or justifi able. That’s why
I voted ‘no.’”
‘... WE DON’T LIKE SOMEBODY
FROM OUTSIDE TELLING US WHAT
WE NEED TO DO, BECAUSE THEY
THINK THEY KNOW BETTER. AND
THAT’S JUST A SLAP IN THE FACE.
AND IT’S AN INSULT.’
Steve Uffelman | mayor of Prineville
“Those things don’t mean
a lot when you’re income has
gone down to a third and you
can hardly afford to feed your
family anymore,” she said.
Broadband
Brown also pointed to
a rural broadband bill that
failed and didn’t get Repub-
lican support.
“I am totally and com-
pletely at a loss,” Brown
said. “Why they would spe-
cifi cally kill a proposal that
invested in rural Oregon, and
rural Oregon broadband?”
Brown said only Republi-
cans could explain the move,
but it could be politically
calculated.
“Certainly it adds fuel to
the fi re for them to say we’re
not investing in rural Ore-
gon,” she said.
Bentz and Cooper liked
the policy, though Bentz said
he wouldn’t have supported
it, had it gotten consideration
in the Senate.
Rep.
Lynn
Findley,
R-Vale, sponsored a some-
what similar bill increasing
a tax on telephone use to pay
for 911 systems upgrades.
Bentz said there wasn’t
appetite to pass both. He
liked the broadband bill bet-
ter, but went with his party in
supporting Findley’s bill.
Findley, for his part, said
in an interview that he dis-
liked the broadband bill
because the state still hasn’t
established how much broad-
band infrastructure the state
needs.
Findley said he voted
against the bill because he
Brown said the way to
improve rural economies is to
invest in elements like broad-
band to ensure those commu-
nities thrive, rather than go
back to peak logging days.
“Are we going to har-
vest at the levels that we did
in the ‘70s? No, I just don’t
think that’s going to happen,”
Brown said.
If the state’s timber har-
vests increase, employment
in timber could increase as
well, Josh Lehner, the state
economist, said.
However, employment
in timber likely will not
reach 1970s levels, because
of federal restrictions and
mechanization.
Rural Oregon has never
fully recovered from two
national recessions in the
early 1980s, which hit the
state’s timber industry partic-
ularly hard, Lehner said.
The recessions, which
reduced demand for Ore-
gon’s timber and wood prod-
ucts, were then exacerbated
by new federal regulations in
the 1990s that signifi cantly
reduced the timber that could
be logged on federal land.
The fallout from those
major shifts and regulatory
changes could explain the
bitter reaction to the cap-and-
trade effort. While the decline
of timber certainly impacted
Portland and the state’s metro
areas, rural economies suf-
fered especially.
Robust economy
Today, Oregon’s overall
economy is robust, having
grown into the 21st century
with a booming high-tech
industry. But that growth has
been uneven.
About 80% of the state’s
high-tech jobs are in Portland
metro area. Rural Orego-
nians’ jobs tend to differ from
the reliable, family-wage mill
jobs of yesteryear. Median
per capita income in Ore-
gon’s rural areas lags behind
urban areas.
That fact may widen the
rural and urban experiences
in the state — no longer do
urban areas rely on rural ones
for natural resources, and the
public revenue that employ-
ment in the natural resource
industry generates.
“That time frame where
urban Oregon was dependent
on rural Oregon was a while
ago,” Brown said. “I would
say probably more than four
decades ago. So I don’t think
we can go back to those
times.”
It’s that legacy that forms
the backdrop to how environ-
mental issues continue to be
divisive.
A key permit for the Jor-
dan Cove liquefi ed natu-
ral gas pipeline was denied
by the Oregon Department
of Environmental Quality in
May, stopping the project.
The project could be seen
as emblematic of an urban-ru-
ral divide, but isn’t necessar-
ily partisan. Brown hasn’t
taken a public position on it.
Coastal Democrat lawmakers
Rep. Caddy McKeown and
Sen. Arnie Roblan have sup-
ported the project.
How the policies that
aim to preserve the envi-
ronment are crafted matters,
says Bruce Sorte, an emeritus
community economist and
instructor at Oregon State
University’s College of Agri-
cultural Sciences.
“There was a lack of con-
cern in many of the policies
for letting people to keep
doing the type of work they
wanted to keep doing,” Sorte
said. “And I really think
that’s what sits at the crux
of the urban-rural divide. It’s
not what you’re producing
that we should be concerned
about, it’s how you’re pro-
ducing it.”
Policies that address
how goods are produced in
a “slow, sort of evolution-
ary way,” such as requiring
replanting after cutting down
trees have been more suc-
cessful, Sorte said.
It’s when you tell people
what to produce — or expect
them to implement dramatic
changes quickly — that can
be a shock.
Sorte said one way to pass
a carbon bill in the future
could involve simplifying
the policy, and doing more
research on the potential
impact to share with legisla-
tors and constituents.
“We could have gone
county by county and done
more work on the impacts,”
Sorte said. “And that would
have helped for the people
who were exaggerating the
impacts, and the people who
were dismissing the impacts.
That would have helped
address both of those folks,
who were both wrong.”
Oregon became known
as a leader in environmental
policy in the 1960s under a
Republican governor.
“Look at our preeminent
governor, Tom McCall, who,
somewhat like this carbon
Consult a
PROFESSIONAL
Q: What does it mean
that Windows 7
support ends in
2020?
LEO FINZI
You are familiar with receiving
A: updates
(to Windows or Mac or
Clatsop Post 12
STUFFED
CABBAGE ROLLS
with Rice, Veggies, Salad & Bread
Friday
Aug 9 th
4 pm until gone
$
8.00
legislation, went out and did
things the rest of the country
wasn’t doing,” Sorte said.
McCall — who still looms
over Oregon’s political his-
tory, his offi cial portrait hang-
ing in the lobby of the House
chamber — led the charge on
Oregon’s bottle deposit bill,
which aimed to cut down on
litter, and a law making all of
Oregon’s beaches public.
Legislators from differ-
ent areas of the state have
achieved compromise in
recent years as well. Two
years ago, rural and urban
legislators came together
to raise about $5 billion for
transportation projects.
When asked if taking
on industrial emission lev-
els through executive order
would further alienate her
from rural Oregonians who
feel she is already abus-
ing authority, Brown did not
directly answer the question.
Rather, she pointed to
rural projects she champi-
oned, like the Wallowa Lake
dam, and said she remains
committed to listening to
rural communities.
More decision-makers —
particularly in the wake of the
2016 election, which brought
the notion of a national
urban-rural divide to dinner
tables across the country —
recognize the gap.
Findley said he thinks
urban legislators understand
that.
“I’ve found most of the
colleagues that I deal with
realize that, and recognize
that, and you can talk to ’em
about that. Now, does that
mean they’re going to change
their policies appropriately?
No. Does that mean they
will help you carve out rural
stuff? No.” Findley said. “But
I don’t think the urban-ru-
ral divide is as bad as it’s
portrayed.”
The Oregon Capital
Bureau is a collaboration
between EO Media Group,
Pamplin Media Group and
Salem Reporter.
Android.) This is a way for the
publisher of your operating system to
provide you withe latest security, feature
We match all
online prices! and benefit updates to your device.
After a number of years the author of
Support for Windows 7 and your software will no longer continue to
Server 2008 ends Jan. 2020. provide you with these updates (think
Get your upgrade now.
warranty service.) At that point you
need to decide whether to upgrade to
Mon-Fri 10-6, Sat 11-4
new equipment or simple upgrade the
77 11th Street, Suite H
Astoria, OR
software. We can help.
503-325-2300
Q: Why don’t my
6PM
“Karaoke Dave”
dentures fit anymore?
ASTORIA
AMERICAN LEGION
teeth are lost the gum and
A: Once
bone have a tendency to shrink and
Clatsop Post 12
1132 Exchange Street
325-5771
JEFFREY M. LEINASSAR
DMD, FAGD
L E I NA S S A R
DENTAL EXCELLENCE
503/325-0310
1414 MARINE DRIVE,
ASTORIA
www.smileastoria.com
recede. Just like a leg in a cast for several
months getting no stimulation, then
removing the cast and seeing a withered
leg, the dental jaw bone is stimulated by
the function of the teeth and the forces of
chewing. When teeth are removed this
stimulation is lost and for many denture
wearers the bone will shrink resulting
in a change of bone volume and a stable
denture fit. If your situation does require
loss of teeth or you now have dentures
ask about dental implants which can help
support dentures and minimize loss of
bone volume. Please contact our office at
503-325-0310 for an evaluation.
Q: How do I get a story
about my event in
Coast Weekend?
Thur. - Aug 15
12:00-4:00
Fri. - Aug 16
10:00-4:00
Aug
Sat. - Aug 17
th
10:00-12:00
10
Weekend plans feature stories
A: Coast
usually a month to two weeks ahead of
Jonathan
Williams
Coast Weekend Editor
(most Items FREE 1:00-2:00)
FURNITURE... BOOKS...
HOUSEHOLD ITEMS...
503-325-3211
www.dailyastorian.com
949 Exchange St., Astoria, OR
time, so let us know early if you have
something going on you think would make a
good feature.
For smaller stories, the deadline for getting
press releases and photos to us is 5 p.m.
Tuesday, one week and two days prior to
publication of that week’s Coast Weekend.
Email your information to jwilliams@
dailyastorian.com or call 971-704-1720. Be sure
to include a contact name, email and phone
number.
If you want to post an event in the calendar,
click on the “Send Us Your News” button on
Coast Weekend’s website, coastweekend.com,
or email Jonathan.