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Hood River News, Saturday, February 7, 2015
Sen. Thomsen, Rep. Johnson share thoughts on Leg. Session
Education a
focus for both
legislators
By BEN MITCHELL
News staff writer
The 2015 Oregon Regular
Legislative Session began on
Monday in Salem and Hood
River Republican legislators
Sen. Chuck Thomsen and Rep.
Mark Johnson are gearing up
to promote their bills while
also facing a Democratic ma-
jority in both the House and
the Senate.
The News talked with both
le gislators to get their
thoughts on the upcoming ses-
sion, what they’re looking for-
ward to, and challenges they
expect to encounter.
Unsurprisingly, both Sen.
Thomsen and Rep. Johnson
mentioned education as one of
their focal points for this
year’s session, as it has been
in past sessions. Improving
literacy for elementary-age
school children, in particular,
was a goal for both legislators,
with Sen. Thomsen remark-
ing that Oregon’s graduation
rates were “terrible” and that
graduation rates are shown to
increase if kids are on track
with their reading bench-
marks by third grade.
Rep. Johnson noted that
Oregon has the lowest gradua-
tion rate in the U.S. and “while
there are many factors (that)
contribute to this statistic,
there is little doubt that rais-
ing third grade literacy can
have a dramatic impact on im-
proving our ranking.” He
added he would be working on
“multiple proposals” to im-
prove literacy, with the goal of
having 95 percent of third-
graders hitting benchmark
within the next five or six
years. Rep. Johnson also said
he would be looking for eco-
nomic development funds to
help with science, technology,
engineering and math
(STEM) education programs
as well as career and technical
education (CTE) programs in
the Gorge.
Sen. Thomsen expected
there would be a “battle” over
education funding as Gov.
John Kitzhaber’s budget
called for more money to be
earmarked directly for early
childhood education as op-
posed to depositing it in the
state’s school fund, where the
money can be diverted to a va-
riety of other education pro-
grams. Thomsen said he
“like(s) the governor’s ideas
on early childhood educa-
tion,” but noted that other ed-
ucational programs needed to
be funded appropriately as
well.
“My opinion is the percent-
age of the state budget that
goes to the education budget
from preschool to college level
has been underfunded from
what it was 10 years ago,” he
said.
Sen. Thomsen advocated
for more money in general for
education funding, but ac-
knowledged that would likely
require cuts in “human ser-
vices” programs such as un-
employment and childcare.
Rep. Johnson felt that Gov.
Kitzhaber “is more generous
to higher ed than K-12” and
that “we’ve kind of allowed
for trickle-down funding for
education.”
Both legislators are also
looking at promoting automo-
tive bills during the session.
Sen. Thomsen said he had
planned to introduce a bill
that would reduce the amount
of emissions testing required
for cars, which he said should
be every 10 years instead of
four years.
“This program has been in
the works for years and years
and years and they’ve never
really changed it,” he ex-
plained. “Our cars are a lot
more efficient these days —
why are we making people
come in with these new cars?
“I’m doing this for con-
sumer folks in my district that
I think are getting charged for
something that they do not
need to be doing anymore,”
Sen. Thomsen added.
Rep. Johnson said he was
planning on introducing a bill
that would create a new li-
cense plate that would be em-
blazoned with a picture of Mt.
Hood and was looking for
local businesses to support it.
“Creating this license plate
not only highlights the mag-
nificent beauty of the moun-
tain, but also the endless
tourism opportunities for na-
tive Oregonians and visitors
alike,” he said. “My bill would
utilize the dollars from pur-
chased license plates to sup-
port bicycle and pedestrian
tourism in the Mt. Hood re-
gion.”
As for challenges, Rep.
Johnson said he would be
“watching carefully for legis-
lation that can interfere with
the right to farm for our ag in-
dustry in the valley.” He said
he was “especially concerned
about legislation dealing with
spray buffers and how that
might impact our local farm-
ers.”
Rep. Johnson added that Re-
publican bills that did not
S TATE S TREET R ESTROOMS
A Crestline Construction crew works on the city of Hood River’s public restrooms at Third and
State, the last major piece of the State Street Urban Renewal project that started in Septem-
ber 2013. The steel supports and roof were added last week. Targeted completion date is Feb.
22. The finished product will be a pair of restrooms and gathering space with public art and
bike racks. The only existing downtown public restroom, and the only one in the city outside
of the parks, is a non-ADA unisex toilet located in the basement of City Hall at Second and
Cascade, accessible from in front of the police station.
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according to Sen. Thomsen.
“Now the votes in the Sen-
ate are 18 to 12 and the ma-
jority party can pass any-
thing they want in the Sen-
ate,” he said. “They would
like to have Republicans
vote on things with them,
but (Democrats) don’t have
to do it.”
Photo by Kirby Neumann-Rea
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would likely prove difficult to
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