A6
OREGON
East Oregonian
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Constitutional law
expert to help in
redistricting case
By HILLARY BORRUD
The Oregonian
Phil Wright/The Observer
Locals socialize Saturday, March 20, 2021, at the open house of the North Powder Rural Fire Protection District’s new sta-
tion. The former faculty could not house the district’s big equipment. That is no longer a problem.
New fire station fulfills big needs
$1M project
provides ample
space for North
Powder’s fire
department
By PHIL WRIGHT
La Grande Observer
NORTH POWDER —
The North Powder Rural
Fire Protection District
welcomed the first day of
spring, Saturday, March
20, with an open house of
its new fire station. Dozens
of people attended the
event, which included free
hamburgers, sodas and
deserts, and liked what they
saw.
“This is nice” became a
common refrain.
The new two-story build-
ing stands on 2 acres at 710
E St., North Powder, about
600 yards from the previ-
ous station’s site. The most
eye-catching elements inside
are barn wood wainscoting
that adds a rustic touch to the
decor and the large sliding
door between the big appa-
ratus bay and the confer-
ence room, turnout space
and more. There also is a
second-floor overlooking
the bay that provides recre-
ation space.
Fire Chief Colby Thomp-
son and Assistant Chief
Casey Martin were stoked
about the new digs. The proj-
ect to build this fire station
began in 2017, they said, out
of sheer necessity.
“We literally did not have
room in the old structure,”
Martin said.
Holding meetings and
trainings was a challenge,
Martin said, because the
quarters were so cramped
and the vehicles inside the
old building left little room
for firefighters to hustle and
get into protective gear.
The former building also
was too small to house the
department’s big equipment,
including its bulldozer and
5,000-gallon tank water
truck. That and other equip-
ment remained outside. The
crew had to drain the tank
each winter, Martin said, to
protect hoses and pumps,
and having the heavy equip-
ment outside meant they
could have been targets for
vandalism.
While that never mate-
rialized, he said, it was a
constant concern.
But the new building
provides 11,500 square feet
of space, Thompson said,
about four times as much as
the former and has wide bay
doors to accommodate the
big equipment. The dozer
and water truck both were
on display inside the new
station.
“That tank truck right
now is full,” Martin pointed
out. “So there’s 5,000
gallons of water ready to go.”
The all-volunteer depart-
ment consists of 20 locals,
serves an area of 172 square
miles and receives fund-
ing for operations from its
taxing district. The project
for the new building cost a
little more than $1 million.
Federal relief bill provides $4.3B
By HILLARY BORRUD
The Oregonian
SALEM — Oregon cities,
counties and state government
are set to receive a combined
$4.3 billion from the $1.9 tril-
lion aid package Congress
passed earlier this month.
The largest chunk, $2.6
billion, will go to the state to
spend on Oregon’s response
to the pandemic or other uses.
Budget analysts are working
to pin down the level of flex-
ibility the state has to spend
the funds.
Oregon will also receive
$155 million for the state
government to spend on capi-
tal projects, and county, city
and other local governments
are slated to receive a total
of $1.5 billion, according to
information from U.S. Senate
Democrats.
That is on top of the $1.1
billion the federal relief law
will send to Oregon schools.
Spending options
As for how the state
government could spend its
share, a spokesperson for Sen.
Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the
options include paying for
the government’s response
to the pandemic and provid-
ing premium pay to essential
workers.
“Offsetting lost revenues to
provide essential government
services” is another option,
Hank Stern wrote in an email,
as is paying for water, sewer
and broadband infrastructure.
Oregon’s tax revenues have
continued to exceed econo-
mists’ expectations during the
pandemic and ensuing reces-
sion, so much so that they are
on track to trigger the state’s
one-of-a-kind “kicker” tax
rebate, which would send
some of the windfall back to
taxpayers as credits when they
file taxes in 2022.
Economists and state
budget analysts have
predicted a more challenging
fiscal picture for the 2021-23
biennium, which begins July
1.
Lawmakers must pass that
budget by the end of June.
Even before the Oregon
Legislature approved $800
million in additional spending
in a December 2020 special
session, analysts expected
state revenues would be
approximately $800 million
short of what would be needed
to maintain the current level
of services. Staff at the Legis-
lative Fiscal Office expect the
cost of providing a status quo
level of services to rise from
$24 billion in the current
two-year budget, to $25.6
million in 2021-23.
As improving revenue
forecasts erase some of the
state’s anticipated shortfall,
that could leave more of the
federal aid up-for-grabs as
lawmakers draft the next
budget. Interim Legislative
Fiscal Officer Laurie Byerly
said states are still waiting for
guidance from the Depart-
ment of Treasury, so it is
unclear the degree of flexibil-
ity the state will have to spend
the funds.
Oregon governments also
received $1.8 billion for a vari-
ety of specific uses, including
to distribute for rental assis-
tance and $499 million for
schools, through Congress’
December relief bill and $2.45
billion from the CARES Act
earlier in 2020.
Unlike the cash payments
that can land in people’s
bank accounts fairly quickly,
federal aid that flows to
governments can take months
to make its way to specific
programs or recipients.
NIE
Redrawing Oregon’s legis-
lative districts normally falls
to the Oregon Legislature, and
the state constitution requires
the body to finish that work
by July 1. That is usually not
a problem, as federal law
requires the U.S. Census
Bureau to provide states with
the necessary population
data by April 1, and that has
happened decade after decade.
Only if the Legislature fails to
agree on how to redraw state
House and Senate district lines
by the July 1 deadline does
that task fall to the secretary of
state. Under the state constitu-
tion, that officer has until Aug.
15 to complete the task.
But the pandemic and
other factors complicated the
collection of the once-a-decade
tally of the U.S. population in
2020. As a result, the Census
Bureau has said it cannot get
the required population data to
Oregon until Sept. 30.
The secretary of state’s role
is among the key issues at stake
in the Legislature and secre-
tary’s dispute over how Oregon
should handle the conflict
between the state’s constitu-
tional redistricting deadlines
and pandemic-delayed time-
line to receive census data. So
are the questions of how well
the districts will reflect the
state’s current population and
potential disruption to 2022
elections.
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The department paid a
good chunk of that with its
own building fund, Thomp-
son said, which it added to
for a number of years. Grants
from local and regional
organizations also helped
cover the tab, as did dona-
tions from numerous busi-
nesses and locals. Martin
stressed this was key to the
money end of the project.
“That was a big part of
the process with trying not
to increase the tax rate for
the district,” he said.
A general contractor
oversaw the construction of
the building, and the depart-
ment’s own members shoul-
dered their share of work,
including installing interior
walls. Martin said the chil-
dren of firefighters chipped
in, often with clean up.
“They’ve really been a
big part of this also,” he said,
adding that getting youth
involved has the benefit of
piquing interest in the next
generation of firefighters for
the North Powder Rural Fire
Protection District.
SALEM — Oregon Secre-
tary of State Shemia Fagan
has taken the unusual step of
hiring an experienced lawyer
with constitutional law exper-
tise to help her win a court
battle with legislative leaders
over deadlines, data sets and
powers to redraw legislative
districts.
P.K. Runkles-Pearson was
a partner at long-established
Portland firm Miller Nash
Graham & Dunn before she
was hired as the secretary
of state’s in-house general
counsel in February, accord-
ing to her LinkedIn profile.
Runkles-Pearson has exper-
tise in state and federal consti-
tutional law, according to her
former employer’s website.
None of the prior three
secretaries of state had a
general counsel. Instead, they
relied on the Oregon attor-
ney general to represent them
and could get input from other
staffers who were lawyers.
The attorney general super-
vises Runkles-Pearson’s work
and Runkles-Pearson has been
appointed as a special assistant
attorney general for work on
the redistricting case, a spokes-
person for Attorney General
Ellen Rosenblum noted.
Runkles-Pearson’s annual
salary is $165,936, according to
the secretary of state’s Public
Information Officer Aaron
Fiedler. He did not directly
answer a question about why
Fagan chose to hire an in-house
attorney to work on redistrict-
ing, rather than paying the
Department of Justice to do
the work, as is the norm.
Now that Runkles-Pearson
has been hired, Fagan’s admin-
istration is working on figuring
out what legal issues in addi-
tion to redistricting the general
counsel might tackle.
“P.K. Runkles-Pearson was
hired as the general counsel for
the entire agency and has been
working with all seven agency
divisions to assess and serve
their general counsel needs,”
Fiedler wrote in an email.
“Included in agency needs are
redistricting issues, in consul-
tation with the Oregon Depart-
ment of Justice.”
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