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NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Ballots
Continued from Page A1
“community-oriented” polic-
ing that they and others value.
Lastly,
according
to
Green, if voters have “buyer’s
remorse” and decide they do
not like contracting, it would
be challenging to reconstitute
a police department because
they would essentially be
building back everything from
scratch.
“All of the communica-
tions, protocols and staffing,”
Green said. “It’s a lot of work
to rebuild a department from
scratch.”
Arguments against the
levy
Why not amend the city’s
budget and keep the police?
People opposed to the levy
have argued the city needs to
prioritize.
Green said that the argu-
ment to reprioritize the city’s
budget ignores 20 to 30 years
of population decline and job
loss in both John Day and
Grant County. This, he said,
puts more “downward pres-
sure” on the budget.
According to Green, if
fewer people are working in
the community and fewer
people are building less, there
is less total contribution to the
tax base.
Additionally, he said the
argument for amending the
budget ignores the rising cost
of law enforcement, which, he
said, every community cur-
rently faces.
He said the city generates
about $300,000 in taxes but
pays about $500,000 a year
to fund the police department,
which has been in the negative
for 20 years.
Green said those costs
include collective bargain-
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Eagle file photo
A sign outside the John Day Police Department.
ing agreements because of
additional regulations from
the state because of train-
ing requirements. It’s costly
to train and equip police offi-
cers, according to Green. He
said it costs about $110,000 a
year per officer to maintain a
department on average.
He said the arguments to
“tighten the belt” miss the
point that the city has lost resi-
dents for over 30 years.
There’s no more “belt-tight-
ening” to do, according to
Green. Instead, he said the city
needs to reinvest in its econ-
omy, housing, and job cre-
ation and provide incentives
for businesses to expand.
Green said many of these
criticisms are from a lack
of understanding of fund
accounting. He said the city is
subsidizing the police depart-
ment with transfers from pub-
lic works and general fund
revenues to pay for police and
that he does not know where
people are recommending the
city make cuts.
For instance, he said peo-
ple complain that the sewer
and water bills are too high,
but some of the money they
are collecting for sewer rates
cover police operations costs.
He said the other argument
he makes against amending
the budget is that the city runs
leaner than any government,
at 7% overhead, and slim-
mer than most nonprofits, he
contends.
‘We want police, not
tomatoes’
During a town hall session,
Green said one of the criticisms
Control
ported benefit to the public, the state
should compensate landowners for
damage their wildlife causes to pri-
vate property,” Robertson said.
Robertson said, although it’s
only one of many tools used by local
government and landowners, preda-
tor control is a significant measure
for helping offset the considerable
expense landowners incur housing
the state’s wildlife and for lower-
ing operational losses that reduce
on-farm economic viability.
Continued from Page A1
Bureau testimony on April 14 and
sent his other testimony from a per-
sonal email address on April 29.
Farm Bureau testimony
In Roberton’s Farm Bureau testi-
mony, he states:
“Please accept this input as testi-
mony on behalf of the Grant County
Farm Bureau, who is supportive of
continued funding for the County
Predator Control Program.”
Robertson said the program had
been beneficial to landowners and
talked about the growing problem of
invasive species management.
However, nowhere in the state-
ment does he bring up the prospect
of the county establishing a taxing
district. Instead, he said rural farm
and ranch landowners take little in
county services despite making up a
lion’s share of the tax revenue.
Personal testimony
In his April 29 email to the court
members, Robertson starts off with
the following:
“This is personal testimony
regarding the County’s contin-
ued support of the predator control
program and not that of the Grant
County Farm Bureau or anyone else
who I represent.”
the city received was that they
spent money on projects like
a city-owned greenhouse and
now cannot afford to maintain
the police department, prompt-
ing someone to say that they
“want police, not tomatoes.”
Green said the greenhouse
was initially funded with rev-
enue from the sewer fund. He
said then it went to income
from the Community Devel-
opment Fund. Both, he said,
are enterprise accounts and not
funded through the city’s gen-
eral fund.
He said, if the city closed
and sold the greenhouse today,
all of the revenue would go
back into the sewer fund, and
it would not change one cent in
the general fund, and it would
not change the conversation
about it police at all.
“It’s not a choice between
police and tomatoes,” Green
said. “It’s a choice between
police and not police.”
‘No harm, no foul’
Eagle file photo
From left, Budget Committee citizen members Rob Stewart, Amy Kreger and Bob Quinton.
He writes that the county can
form a predator or animal control
district with taxing authority. While
people do not like the idea of more
taxes, they might be able to organize
something if they are without ser-
vices, he said.
Robertson informally asked the
court to consider funding the con-
trol program for an additional two
years with the understanding that
the funding would “sunset” after
two years.
After that, a portion would go
to establishing an animal dam-
age control district. Then, another
piece would secure a commitment
for cost-share funding from other
sources to operate the program.
Finally, a combination of tax reve-
nues and cost-share would replace
the county’s general fund contribu-
tion for animal control.
He offered to prepare a “brief
request” for the court to take to the
Budget Committee and court for a
hearing.
Grant County Farm Bureau’s
position on predator control
Robertson said the state owns
wildlife in Oregon, although the
federal government retains partial
ownership of certain species pro-
tected under federal law.
Private landowners, he said, pos-
sess rights reserved under the Ore-
gon and U.S. constitutions to pro-
tect their personal property from
injury caused by wildlife. He
said private lands are some of the
most valuable habitats remain-
ing in nature. Inherently, Robert-
son said, there will be issues created
by the state’s desire to house their
wildlife in those privately owned
habitats.
“The GCFB asserts that land-
owners should first have maximum
flexibility and independence to pre-
vent injury to their property from
the state’s wildlife and, to the extent
that the state limits or impairs land-
owner’s rights to achieve a pur-
Robertson said the county’s bud-
get and fiscal policies have many
“moving parts,” and some of these
funding issues have been ongoing
for many years.
Additionally, he said, private
business owners and local govern-
ment representatives wear “many
hats,” and it’s challenging to keep
them all straight.
He said the Farm Bureau and
he, as a private citizen, had spo-
ken informally to the court in the
past about a taxing district for nui-
sance wildlife control as well as for
other “important local government
service.”
“It would be very easy and com-
pletely understandable to confuse
who was representing what particu-
lar issue in the heat of the moment,”
Robertson said. “Really, though —
no harm, no foul.”
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