OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
East Oregonian
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Taxes: Quarterly economic and revenue forecast set for May 20
Continued from Page A1
and communities when we
are already vulnerable,”
said Leachman, who once
worked for the Oregon Cen-
ter for Public Policy.
More than 90% of Ore-
gon’s general fund, which
represents its most flexible
state spending, comes from
just two sources: personal
and corporate income taxes.
The state’s next quarterly
economic and revenue fore-
cast is scheduled May 20.
“We are being impacted
by a loss of revenue because
there are fewer people work-
ing,” Gov. Kate Brown said
last week. “The needs are
great in terms of our public
health capacity and for our
safety net. Of course, unlike
the federal government,
the state has to balance our
budget.”
In addition to almost
300,000 Oregonians filing
unemployment claims in the
past few weeks as a result
of business shutdowns
and curtailments linked to
the COVID-19 pandemic,
demands have increased
for public health, state-sup-
ported health insurance
under the Oregon Health
Plan, and other services
EO Media Group file photo
Estimates of tax losses are still being developed. But Oregon and all other states are likely to
require billions in federal aid that may dwarf the amounts given during the Great Recession
a decade ago — and far more than Congress has approved so far to counter the economic
downturn prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
during the downturn.
Slowdown accelerates
State Economist Mark
McMullen warned in several
recent forecasts that Ore-
gon’s economy was likely
to slow, despite continued
growth in jobs and tax col-
lections, as the national eco-
nomic expansion passed a
record 10-year mark.
The 2019 Legislature set
a total of $23.7 billion for
the current two-year budget
from general taxes and lot-
tery proceeds, with an end-
ing balance of about $600
million. Total state spend-
ing for 2019-21 is $85.8 bil-
lion, but more than 70%
consists of federal grants or
other restricted funds, such
as fuel taxes and vehicle
fees earmarked for highway
and bridge work.
While there are no offi-
cial projections yet of how
much less state tax collec-
tions will fall short, Sen.
Betsy Johnson, D-Scap-
poose, said some of the
early numbers are scary:
Losses between $2 billion
and $3 billion during the
rest of the current two-year
cycle ending in mid-2021,
and between $1 billion and
$5 billion in the next cycle.
“We have been told by
the state economist it is
awful,” said Johnson, a
Senate co-chairwoman of
the Legislature’s joint bud-
get-writing
committee.
“Other than observations at
100,000 feet, I do not know
what to tell you.”
The Legislative Emer-
gency Board, whose mem-
bers make budget decisions
between sessions, was pre-
paring this week to tap the
state emergency fund that
is now down to around $50
million. But only the full
Legislature, not the board,
can spend other funds or
move money from already
approved agency budgets.
Oregon does have two
big reserve funds with a
total of $3 billion, almost
14% of the general-fund
budget, which puts the state
in a better position than
during the last downturn. A
lottery-based reserve can go
to education, and a second
reserve can be tapped for
other purposes. But only the
full Legislature can approve
those transfers — and the
laws creating the funds bar
lawmakers from spending
all of the money in a single
budget cycle.
The governor does have
authority to cut most agency
budgets by 2% without leg-
islative approval. Brown
said she has instituted a par-
tial hiring freeze — there
are exemptions, such as the
Employment Department
adding staff to process a
record number of claims
— and barred nonessential
travel.
Johnson said lawmak-
ers agree with Gov. Brown
that any special session
should await the next eco-
nomic/revenue forecast and
an updated analysis of how
Oregon benefits from the
myriad programs that Con-
gress approved in the $2
trillion CARES Act. Fed-
eral agencies are still writ-
ing rules for how the money
is spent.
“We’re still waiting to
understand what the fed-
eral (CARES) bill means
for Oregon so that we do
not do anything that makes
it harder to use the federal
money,” Johnson said. “That
will give all the certifiably
smart people in Oregon a
chance to digest all the dif-
ferent streams coming from
the federal government.”
Peace: ‘The anger they feel comes from something really deep’
Continued from Page A1
Medical Response, a medi-
cal transportation company.
On a Route 91 survivors
Facebook site, Elaine learned
about a free, weeklong ther-
apeutic workshop bringing
together survivors of mass
shootings, including Col-
umbine, Marjory Stoneman
Douglas, the Aurora movie
theater and the Antioch Waf-
fle House. She suggested to
Kevin that he might want to
look into it. He applied along
with hundreds of others,
doing phone interviews with
representatives of the Onsite
Foundation that was organiz-
ing the gathering at a campus
outside Nashville.
“When they chose me to
attend, I was feeling a little
blessed, but also was think-
ing they must think I’m
really messed up,” he said,
with a laugh.
In March, he traveled to
Nashville where he found a
stately manor surrounded by
cabins on a large estate and
numerous “world-class trau-
ma-informed counselors.”
Anderson and the 39 other
survivors from seven differ-
ent mass shootings turned in
their phones and got to work.
“There was no outside
contact allowed,” he said.
“The purpose was to get
immersed into therapy.”
They split into small
groups and told their stories.
They mastered breathing and
mindfulness techniques and
talked about what trauma
does to the brain. Anderson
learned that trauma accu-
mulates. He had seen plenty
in his EMS career. His high
school sweetheart died in
his arms in 2011 of pancre-
atic cancer at age 49. Then
came the shooting. It was a
lot. Anderson learned that
all this trauma amassed in
his brain’s fear center, the
amygdala.
“You learn to move
trauma to the (prefrontal cor-
tex) where you can digest it,”
said Crystal Miller, a mem-
ber of the foundation’s sur-
vivor advisory council and
a survivor of the shooting at
Columbine High School 21
years ago. One morning at
the conference, Miller told
Anderson her story over cof-
fee. Miller has shared the
story many times, she said,
and it never feels rote.
Miller, then 16, was
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Kevin Anderson holds his wristband from the Route 91 Har-
vest country music festival at his home in Pendleton on Mon-
day afternoon. The wristband, stained with blood, hangs
from a poster from the concert on the wall of his music room.
studying in the library with
two friends when she heard a
popping noise. As the sound
got louder, they dove under
the table. Gunmen and fel-
low students Eric Harris and
Dylan Klebold entered the
library and started killing.
“They ended up by our
table,” Miller said. “Their
boots were inches away.”
When the boys left to
reload, she and her friends
escaped the library, where
10 students died that day.
The speaker and author now
lives in Morrison, Colorado,
with her husband and three
children.
Both Anderson and
Miller said being around oth-
ers with similar experiences
helps.
“We offload pain and help
share each other’s burdens,”
Miller said. “There is magic
that happens when we are
together. We hold those scars
so tenderly.”
“They call it ‘brutiful,’”
Anderson said. “It was bru-
tal and beautiful at the same
time.”
In the weeks after the
conference, he said he feels
calmer. Elaine has noticed
too.
“It was good for him,”
she said. “He is happier and
more at peace.”
The conference was the
brainchild of Laura Hutfless,
who organized the confer-
ence to honor her boyfriend
and Columbine survivor
Austin Eubanks. His death
in 2019 came after a lengthy
addiction to opioids sparked
by the trauma of the shooting.
“My goal is to give peo-
ple hope and tools for heal-
ing,” said Hutfless, who lives
in Nashville and works in the
music industry.
Planning happened on the
advice of Miller and other
survivors on the advisory
council that was assembled
to plan the inaugural event.
Hutfless knew from her
experience with Austin that
survivors trust survivors and
they need different therapies
as time goes on. Much later,
after the initial aftermath,
feelings surface unbidden.
“The anger they feel
comes from something
really deep,” she said. “It’s
an emotion that needs to be
unpacked.”
Anderson said he did a
fair amount of unpacking at
the workshop. Now at home,
he is a work in progress.
Music continues to be a
balm. In a basement room
adorned with concert post-
ers, he loves to pluck a gui-
tar from his collection, set-
tle into a chair and play. On
the wall is a Route 91 poster
featuring Jason Aldean look-
ing out with clear blue eyes.
Hanging nearby is a photo of
him and Elaine at the concert
and Anderson’s wrist band
from the weekend, one he
thought he’d lost, but hadn’t.
These reminders of that trau-
matic day are part of his
story now, a story Anderson
will continue to process.
In October, he, Elaine,
and his sister and brother-
in-law plan to go to Vegas
to see Luke Combs. He will
periodically video chat with
other survivors he met at the
conference.
“I hadn’t realized how
important it is to be con-
nected to a group,” he said.
“You don’t recover alone.”
Beers: Not anti-government, anti-corrupt government
Continued from Page A1
EO Media Group Photo/Ellen Morris Bishop
The bottom of Hells Canyon along the Snake River is steep
and rocky, without a lot of vegetation.
Canyon: Natural barometer
Continued from Page A1
ter to keep them warm, and in
the summer they don’t toler-
ate warm temperatures very
well.”
She said that if the habitat
can’t keep the pikas happy,
they move elsewhere. Aken-
son said she’d like to do a
study of the animal’s current
habitat, compared to decades
prior.
Jim Akenson, who is con-
servation director for the
Oregon Hunters Association,
thinks that ungulate migra-
tion in the canyon has also
been modified by climate
change.
“There’s a distribution
of seasonal range use, espe-
cially with elk, that is differ-
ent than 20 or 30 years ago,”
he said. “They’re spend-
ing more time at high ele-
vation and less time at low
— the nature of the warmer
winters.”
Akenson said that on jet
boat trips up the Snake River
in February a decade ago,
he would see plenty of elk at
lower elevations. Recently,
flying to check elk distribu-
tion for the OHA, Akenson
noted that elk were much
higher in February than
years before.
“They couldn’t get to
mid-high elevation (in the
past) in the canyon because
of snow depth, but now they
bounce around with a three-
or four-thousand-foot eleva-
tion change,” he said. “I don’t
know if that affects their
survival, but it could affect
range utilization and hit
those higher elevation range-
lands a bit harder than before.
It could be a factor if you’ve
got 4,000 head of elk.”
Evidence of climate
change can be hard to find in
this rugged and remote land-
scape. But Akenson noted
the canyon could serve as a
harbinger of things to come.
“If there’s a piece of land-
scape in our region that’s
going to be a barometer for
change it would be Hells
Canyon,” he said.
National Wildlife Refuge.
The Southern Poverty
Law Center has labeled the
group as “anti-government
extremists,” a label Beers
strongly disagrees with.
“We are not anti-gov-
ernment, we’re anti-cor-
rupt government,” she said.
“That’s been a common
liberal description of our
movement. When people
around here look at me, they
don’t see that.”
As for the 2016 refuge
occupation, Beers said at
least locally her and her
group supported Bundy’s
concept of resisting the gov-
ernment but didn’t support
the means they took to do
so.
Recently, Beers uti-
lized the statewide network
of the Oregon Three Per-
centers and helped orga-
nize its local members to
deliver donations and con-
nect resources to people in
need after floods devastated
the region earlier this year.
While proud of these con-
tributions to the commu-
nity and her previous vol-
unteering, Beers hasn’t had
the easiest campaign debut
with the coronavirus pan-
demic also stifling tradi-
tional methods of meeting
voters.
“It’s been difficult for my
first campaign really,” she
said. “I ran for city coun-
cil for Pilot Rock but I was
unopposed so there wasn’t
really any
campaign-
ing to do,
and so this
has been a
new expe-
rience for
me.”
Beers
B u t
when she has been able to
speak with voters, Beers
said most people are seek-
ing stronger representation
on the other side of the state.
“They want Eastern Ore-
gon’s voice heard,” she says.
“We know it’s a fact that the
other side of the state does
not really pay attention to
the needs of Eastern Ore-
gon as they should.”
To be heard in Salem
is exactly what Beers has
been fighting urgently for
over the last half decade by
traveling around the state,
attending rallies and orga-
nizing local ones of her
own.
“I want to come back
here to Umatilla County
and institute the things that
I have learned and the ways
that we can deal with some
of the laws coming out of
Salem,” she says.
As a county commis-
sioner, she said that would
involve extending the lever-
age of eastern counties
through the Eastern Oregon
Counties Association and
enacting local protections
from statewide legislation.
“We need to make it
known that we’re an entity
unto ourselves,” she said.
HOLLYJO BEERS
Age: 66
Residence: Milton-Freewater
Birthplace: Pendleton
Years in Umatilla County: 66
Education: Eastern Oregon University, bachelor’s degree
in liberal arts with minors in criminal justice and history
Occupation: Retired
Quote: “When you’re elected you swear an oath to the
United States Constitution, and I will uphold that oath
every day that I’m in office.”
Locally, Beers says her
top objectives are eco-
nomic development, home-
lessness and government
accessibility.
Though in favor of some
tax incentives to attract
businesses to the county,
Beers is also wary of exces-
sive taxes she believes are
hindering the growth of
local businesses. She also
identified an intersection
between development and
the rise of homelessness
in the area, which she says
she’d prioritize as commis-
sioner to an extent.
“We do have a certain
responsibility to assist those
people, but I think it needs
to be restricted to those who
want to work,” she said.
As the lone commis-
sioner candidate outside of
Hermiston, Beers said she’s
noticed a lapse in coverage
from the sheriff’s office on
the east side of the county.
“One of the problems I
know we’re having in the
very east end of the county
is we don’t have enough
deputies,” she said. “There
aren’t not enough people to
answer the calls.”
The county has priori-
tized increasing its patrol
deputy numbers and has
more than doubled them
in recent years, but Beers
hopes to work with Uma-
tilla County Sheriff Terry
Rowan to continue that
effort.
While some may be
coming, Beers currently
doesn’t have any endorse-
ments of her candidacy. At
moments during the race
already, she admits she’s
felt like “an infant among
the big dogs.”
But Beers says she isn’t
an underdog or an outsider.
Because in her heart, she
believes she’s the best per-
son vying for the two spots
in the November general
election.
“I think I bring a fresh
voice, a different perspec-
tive, and a new look at
things,” she says.