Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - THREE
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Here’s what happened
years.
Guest Editorial
By Ed Glenn, Mayor of Boardman
We are so familiar with un-kept political promises
that many o f us have simply become “disconnected” from
our government. But once in a while the people should
have an opportunity to hold our government’s feet to the
fire to turn promises into action.
That’s the way it is with the initiative to share the
Findley Buttes License Fees in Morrow County (com
monly called “tippage” fees) with its five communities.
Here’s what happened:
2. The ability to design community
distribution processes unique to the needs o f
the community. The five communities are so
different in population, community needs and
resources that a one-size-fits-all process does
not meet the needs o f any community.
3. The flexibility to fund multi-com
munity projects on a benefits basis. Many proj
ects benefit different communities in different
ways and each should be able to determine
funding shares based on the community sense
o f benefit and priority.
The Unkept Political Promise
In 1987, Tidewater Barge Lines proposed a Re
gional Landfill in Morrow County. The County adopted
an enabling ordinance permitting licensing of a Regional
Landfill and granted a license to Tidewater to build what
has become known as Findley Buttes Landfill.
But some citizens were fearful that Morrow County
would be known as a metropolitan garbage dump and that
would hinder future economic growth. They proposed an
ordinance by initiative that would require any Regional
Landfill license to be approved by the voters, only at a
general election and only if a majority o f all registered
voters (not just a majority o f those voting) approved.
That initiative was seen as a virtual veto o f any
licensing agreement the County Court would negotiate
and both Tidewater and members o f the County Court
actively campaigned against the initiative. County officials
extolled the benefits o f increased employment, increased
tax revenues, and made assurances that the license fees
would be used for the benefit o f the five Morrow County
communities. Based certainly in part on those assurances,
the voters soundly defeated the initiative.
By 1992, construction at Findley Buttes was com
plete and the first full year o f operation resulted in license
fees paid to Morrow County o f about $137,000. In early
1993, the Morrow County Court made good on its prom
ise and adopted a resolution providing for allocation of
nearly all o f the license fees to special projects in its five
communities.
But just five months later, before any funds could
be distributed, the County Court suspended that allocation
resolution and instead allocated all o f the license fees to
“back-fill” the County’s General Fund. That suspension
has never been changed nor has the original allocation
resolution been put into operation.
Findley Buttes Landfill has become one of Morrow
County’s more successful businesses and over the years the
license fee revenues have grown to a little more than $1
million per year. While some of that growth in revenue has
been used to continue back-filling the General Fund, the
County has been reluctant to share the increased revenue
with its communities but rather has simply allowed it to
accumulate in a form o f “savings account” which now
amounts to just o v e r$ l million.
Morrow County Mayors and Managers
The Defective Present Process
It is true that the County has sponsored a com
munity grant program since 1997 and it claims about
$£50,000 has been awarded to community projects ir. the
past 10 years. However, there’s a big difference between
“awards” and actual funding. For example, $135,000 was
“awarded” in FY 2007, but only $81,686 was actually
dispersed. Some awards are carried over to the following
year. For example at least $33,950 o f the FY 2007 awards
have been funded in FY 2008.
But here’s the catch. The FY 2008 budget does not
make provision for FY 2007 awards carried over, and if
those awards are paid out of the FY 2008 budget (which
has been the practice in the past), some of the FY 2008
awards cannot be funded.
There has been no reliability in the amount o f
funding made available for community grant awards. The
budgets from 1998 through 2008 have ranged from a low
o f $46,450 to $235,000 in 2008.
W hat’s worse, the process for grant awards ex
cludes many applications that the mayors and mangers
would like to see considered. The number o f deficiencies
in the single county-wide program is too long to enumer
ate here except to say that it is a county w ide committee
that sets priorities o f projects from throughout the county.
That means that each grant application not only competes
with every other grant from the same community but every
application from every other community as well.
That process has led to some strange results. Some
examples: In 1998 and 1999 no projects identified with
Lexington were awarded out of more than $200,000 al
located for the two years. In 2000 and 2005 no projects
identified with Irrigon (the most populous community in
the County) were funded. It is true that over the years, com
munity grants have be awarded on a generally fair basis, but
the lack o f reliability from year to year makes each annual
advisory committee meeting a literal free-for-all.
The Mayors and Managers Initiative
Faced with the lack o f any indication that the
County Court would even negotiate toward the M ayor’s
and M anager’s goals, the present initiative was filed with
sufficient voter signatures to put the issue on the ballot
for a special election in March. In summary, the initiative
proposes enactment o f a County ordinance that would
require the County to distribute 25% o f the license fees
to the cities in 2009, 50% in 2010 and 75% in 2011 and
years thereafter. The amount to be distributed would be
divided in half; with one-half distributed equally among
the five cities and the other half divided among the cities
proportional to the number o f registered voters in their
respective precincts.
The Mayors and Managers intend that this dis
tribution replace the present process o f distribution to
community organizations and they are committed to de
velopment o f their own process based on their respective
communities’ unique needs and sense o f priorities. Those
plans will have to await City Council action and cannot
now be reported with any accuracy. The City o f Heppner
has a draft plan, the City o f Boardman has not considered
the issue. Who knows, maybe the Boardman Council will
simply give their share right back to the County in order
to “keep it whole.”
A year ago, the mayors and managers o f the five
Morrow County Cities (acting as individuals without
any formal organization nor specific authority from their
respective cities) began meeting on a monthly schedule
to discuss common problems and potential concerted ac
tion toward solutions. While several subjects have been
discussed, Findley Buttes license fee distribution has been
a major and repeated topic.
With unusual agreement among them (especially
for Morrow County communities) the Mayors and Manag
ers engaged in negotiations with members o f the Morrow
County Court, both private and public, for a new distribu
tion scheme for Findley Buttes license fees. Firm in our
goals, yet flexible in compromise, we found the County
Court unwilling to budge from its position that the license
fees belonged to the County and that the distribution to the
communities, if any, would remain in the absolute control
o f the County.
The Objections
For the benefit o f their respective communities, the
While the advantages of passing the initiative or
M ayor’s and M anager’s goals are:
dinance should be obvious, several objections have been
1.
A relatively reliable revenue stream
from year-to-year. In setting community priori voiced. At a packed County Court meeting on the matter,
ties, it is essential to know if and approximately farmers from the far reaches o f the County worried that the
how much revenue will be available in future County road fund would suffer. What they didn't know, and
the County Court did not mention, is that Morrow County
levies a special road fund tax levy (incorporated in its total
tax levy) that is limited in use for County roads. Moreover,
state law severely restricts transfers from the General Fund
to the Road Fund. Records indicate that only once in the
past five years has such a transfer been made, perhaps in
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County officials cling to the language in the en
Red and pink flowers
abling ordinance that provides for the license fees to be de-
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posited to the General Fund. But that’s not at all what they
do. License fees are deposited to a Findley Buttes License
Fund instead and from there some funds are transferred
to other funds (such as the County Fair Fund) by-passing
the General Fund altogether. Other expenditures are made
directly from the License Fund such as expenditures to
provide office space and support in Heppner for the OSU
extension agent.
Much has been said about the Cities’ “entitlement”
to a share o f the license fees but no one seems concerned
about the “entitlement” o f a share to the County Fair, the
government trapper, the watermaster, the Soil and Water
Conservation service, the extension serv ice office and other
programs repeatedly funded from the License Fee Fund.
Often we have heard that if the license fees are
distributed to the Cities, the County will have to cut ser
vices. We’ve heard that song and dance before and it has
not come to pass. Indeed, the allocation to the communi
ties was increased in 2008 by $100,000 over 2007; in the
words o f one County official “because we had the money
and didn’t need it.” Because the savings account, in the
form o f year-to-year ending fund balance in the License
Fee Fund, has increase nearly $200,000 per year in recent
years, the Mayors and Managers believe that has been the
case for years.
By 2011 when the phase-in proposed in the initia
tive reaches 75%, Morrow County will begin to collect
additional property taxes on industrial properties coming
out o f Free Enterprise Zone exemption. Those boosts in
other resources can be immense from just the develop
ments now on the ground or under construction: PGE’s
Coyote Springs II, Pacific Ethanol, RDO/Calbee Foods,
the Collins Co. sawmill and dry kiln/planner mill, ReKlaim
and others. On the drawing board, PGE plans extensive
new pollution control equipment and the speedway is due
for some construction this spring. All except one o f these
multi-million dollar industrial developments are outside
any City limits and will not contribute to municipal tax
revenues.
Some folks have complained that the distribution
formula favors South County cities and that voter regis
tration numbers are not an accurate count of population.
On both counts they may have a point. But the formula is
very nearly the same as the County adopted back in 1993,
except the top bracket share is 75% o f the revenue rather
than 90% as provided in that 1993 Resolution.
Others have worried that rural residents will not get
a fair shake from city governments. (It seems strange that
knowledgeable people claim Morrow County population is
60% rural while only 40% live in one of Morrow County’s
cities - quite the opposite is true.) Such worries are not
well founded, since 100% of Morrow County residents
identify with one community or another, if for no reason
other than post office addresses. Rural residents share in
much of the social and political fabric of their nearest com
munity. They travel City streets to shop in City shops, they
join community based organizations and attend community
churches all o f which will benefit from community based
distributions o f license fee revenues.
The Simple Bottom Line
While the debate may rage on until ballots are re
turned on March 11, the bottom line is simply this: Which
system can best serve all the people o f Morrow County
best: the present system o f uncertainty in amount, the luck
of the draw before a county-wide priority committee, an
ever increasing savings account and continued General
Fund back-fill at a time o f increasing other resources;
or local community programs providing locally deter
mined priorities with some certainty over future funding
sources?
[Ed Glenn is Mayor of the City of Boardman and
has served as the spokesman for the Morrow County May
ors and Managers. He can be reached at flyfisherman@
windwave.org. Glenn, Mayor Val Doherty o f Lexington
and County Judge Terry Tallman will discuss the initia
tive ordinance at the Boardman Chamber of Commerce
monthly luncheon at noon, February 20, and again at a
town-hall meeting sponsored by the Irrigon Chamber of
Commerce at 7:00 p.m. on February 22, at Stokes Landing
Senior Center.]
Morrow County Parks
meeting to be held
The Morrow County Parks meeting will be held
Thursday, February 21, at 7 p.m. at the Columbia Basin
Electric Co-Op conference room at 171 Linden Way in
Heppner. The public is invited.
F or m ore in fo rm a tio n c all B etty G ray at
989-9500.
Senior Center Menu
Hope/Valby/All Saints Church members will be
serving lunch on Wednesday, February 20. The menu will
meatloaf, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, spinach, fruit
juice, hot rolls, and strawberries with ice cream.
Correction
In the story Proposed wind farm to he located in
Morrow and Gilliam Counties, in the February 6 edition
o f the Heppner Gazette-Times, the story should have
read: “The proposed facility would consist o f approxi
mately 303 wind turbines and would have a combined
peak generating capacity o f up to 909 megaw atts. The
Heppner Gazette-Times regrets the error.