NEWS UPDATE FROM STATE REPRESENTATIVE DAVID GOMBERG: An Update on Housing, Wildfire, Waves, Schools and Bees

By Representative David Gomberg, House District 10

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Susan and I spent Saturday in the Valley enjoying art, music, wine, and the vibrancy of Coast Range Communities.

Our stops included Art & Wine in the Garden, the Philomath Chamber Sip and Stroll, and finally Piano in the Vineyard at Lumos Wine.

I recently wrote about a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside. That ruling will have a limited effect across Oregon because of a state law, HB 3115 from 2021, that says cities need to have a plan other than just punishing people experiencing homelessness.

I was one of four Democrats in the legislature to vote “no”. In the most simple terms, I thought allowing people to camp on public property was not the answer.

In 2022, more Oregonians lost their housing because of wildfires, floods in the coastal areas, and heavy snowstorms. Twenty percent of the kids in our schools are still designated as homeless. Oregon also has one of the highest percentages of veterans experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

I support shelters and assistance for people experiencing homelessness. As I said at a recent town hall, whether we have shelters or not, we are going to have homeless people here. The question is whether they receive help, oversight, and support, or whether they simply camp in our parks and woods, or trespass on private property. People with signs on street corners or sleeping in business doorways at night affect public safety, livability, and our recreational economy.

I want us to take care of families with children. I want more foster care for kids. I want addiction services and mental health treatment for those who will accept it. I want to provide a transition to stable housing for those who want it. And of course, we need to continue the work to build more of that affordable housing. And finally, I want to punish those who break the law.

I’m bringing all of this up again because the situation is evolving.

Recently, I signed on to a letter, asking Legislative Leadership to review HB 3115. It is within our purview as legislators to review policy we have passed.

This is a unique moment following the Supreme Court decision and I am hopeful we can explore more effective ways to support and aid our homeless population and our local rural communities.

Just off the central Oregon coast, the nation’s first wave-energy testing facility is nearing completion (please note that wave energy is very different from offshore wind energy).

Now, engineers, researchers, and ocean-wave specialists, aided by three vessels working up to 24 hours a day, are tackling the final phase of installing undersea cables needed to link the in-ocean testing site with a highly secure monitoring facility at Driftwood Beach State Park north of Waldport.

The work is expected to take six to seven weeks and involves installing four power and data cables ranging in length from 10 to 13 miles from a vault under the parking lot at Driftwood Beach to the test site offshore. While work on the terrestrial end of the project will be limited to daytime hours, crews on the vessels will be going round-the-clock. Lights from the respective crafts will be easily visible from shore.

When completed late this year, the $100 million PacWave South project will be the first pre-permitted, utility-scale, grid-connected wave energy test site in the United States.

The project, intended to accommodate testing by as many as four wave-energy companies at any given time, is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Oregon, and other public and private utilities. Four U.S.-based companies have already signed on to see how much electricity their prototypes can generate.

Oregon needs to ensure we provide education funding at the level necessary for all our students to succeed. We also need to appropriately compensate the good people providing that education.

But across the state, pandemic relief funds are running dry, and many districts face an additional drop in funding due to declining student enrollment, despite record funding from the state.

Oregon’s largest and second-largest school districts both went through contentious negotiations with their teacher unions in the 2023-2024 school year and now the third-largest district is beginning the process.

The way Oregon funds its schools could be adjusted next year. Governor Tina Kotek is proposing changes to how the state calculates the billions of dollars that go to Oregon schools every year. The changes would affect a key financial calculation called the “current service level” — a funding baseline that takes into account both the costs of operating similar education programs, as well as what revenues are anticipated. Lawmakers use the current service level to set the education budget in two-year increments, called a biennium.

The proposal affects the timing of fund distribution, the compensation model used to assume staff salaries, and “fluctuations” in local property tax revenue. Read more details here. These changes could benefit the State School Fund by an estimated $515 million. That’s a relatively small but meaningful piece of the school funding pie considering we allocated $10.2 billion to schools in the last budget.

School funding decisions do not exist in a vacuum. Proposals for more school dollars will compete with needs for housing, health care, public safety, wildfire response, and possibly transportation. The discussion also needs to consider outcomes. The state’s most recent graduation rate was 81.3% for the Class of 2023.

The bottom line is that the Governor and Legislators are looking at all opportunities available to improve our school funding system and ensure we allocate the money needed for all of our schools across the state. I look forward to continued conversations on this proposal and the work ahead in the 2025 Legislative Session.

I woke Saturday night to the sound of thunder rumbling up the coastline. My first thought was concern for lightning strikes and wildfires.

Oregon has a new draft map illustrating which areas are most susceptible to wildfires. Read more here.

Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Forestry released the proposed wildfire hazard map Thursday morning. Oregonians can look up specific tax lots to see how susceptible they are to wildfires.

The wildfire hazard map’s purposes are to:

Educate Oregon residents and property owners about the level of hazard where they live.
Assist in prioritizing fire adaptation and mitigation resources for the most vulnerable locations.
Identify where defensible space standards and home hardening codes will apply.

This is Oregon’s second attempt at creating a wildfire map. State fire officials and OSU first released a map in 2022 under a tight one-year deadline set by Senate Bill 762. That first map received intense public backlash, particularly from property owners concerned it would affect their homeowners insurance. The state ultimately rescinded it.

State law prohibits insurance providers from using these maps to determine premiums or coverage. Most insurers already have their own maps and databases to make those determinations.

This time, officials spent more time on public outreach, meeting with hundreds of Oregonians in cities and towns around the state. The public has until August 18 to comment on the new map. The best way to comment is by emailing hazardmap@odf.oregon.gov. Find more information on ODF’s wildfire hazard web page.

Once the map is finalized in October, the state’s Building Codes Division will begin its administrative process for creating new building codes, and the Oregon State Fire Marshal will begin creating rules for defensible space. Both processes will have opportunities for public comment.

Here is a big shout-out to all the volunteers working to keep our beaches clean.

Almost as soon as the glare of July 4 fireworks on the central Oregon coast began to fade, a small army of volunteers went to work cleaning up as much of the resulting debris as they could find. The results, according to the Surfrider Foundation, which organized the effort, were impressive.

During 13 beach cleanups held July 5 and July 7, a group of 275 volunteers collected a total of 912 pounds of trash from central coast beaches.

In addition, Surfrider Newport collected another 640 pounds of trash left in 55-gallon waste barrels at beach accesses placed from Yachats to Lincoln City between July 1-8 as part of the multi-organizational Freedom from Marine Debris Project.

Barrels placed on the beach by the Surfrider Foundation to collect July 4 fireworks are quickly filled to overflowing each year. Read more in Yachats News.

Are you over age 70? Do you have an IRA? Do you make large charitable contributions? If so, here is some helpful news I received this week from a newsletter reader.

When you take disbursements from your IRA, you get taxed on them. However, distributions become tax-free as long as they’re paid directly from the IRA to an eligible charitable organization. Did I say tax-free??

These transfers, known as qualified charitable distributions or QCDs, offer eligible older Americans a great way to easily give to charity before the end of the year. And, for those who are at least 73 years old, QCDs count toward the IRA owner’s required minimum distribution (RMD) for the year.

Read more here or watch this two-minute video.

Affordable housing continues to be top-of-mind across our district. And across our district, we’re making progress.

I was pleased this week to celebrate the Habitat for Humanity opening of the Ambriz-Sanches home. The family will benefit, the neighborhood will benefit from a beautiful new family and a beautiful new home, and the community will benefit as well. This was the 17^th home in Lincoln County completed by Habitat and the kind of affordable family housing we sorely need.

I also toured “Lincoln 25” with more than 100 one, two, and three-bedroom apartments. Just down the street is the 44-unit Wecoma Place which will serve people displaced because of the Otis fire, seniors, and families in Lincoln City. Both are in a prime location on Highway 101 with easy walkability to jobs, food, and shopping. Affordable housing projects are making significant strides in addressing the community’s housing needs.

And finally, Friday I helped celebrate the Highway 101 Pollinator Project with new signage near Northwest Coast Road.

Planting native plants for native pollinators along Highway 101 is a cooperative project between Lincoln County and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), which has designated 19 sites along 25 miles of Highway 101, extending from the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport to the Lane County line.

This 25-mile section of highway has been maintained without herbicides for the past 17 years with the help of volunteers who manually remove invasive weeds and do plantings. To my knowledge, this is the only spray-free, pollinator project in Oregon.

Native plants used for this project include riverbank lupine, red-flowering currant, evergreen huckleberry, yarrow, and Douglas aster. Pollinators that are attracted to these plants can include hummingbirds, bumble bees, sweat bees, flower flies, and butterflies.

This Tuesday, I will speak to the Lincoln City Chamber about IP 17, a proposed tax increase for businesses that will be used to send every Oregonian $750. Signatures were collected to place this proposal on your November ballot.

I’m meeting with Oregon Housing and Community Services today, AARP on Wednesday, the Oregon Coast Community College Foundation on Thursday, and may attend the Fisherman’s Wives Homeport Dinner over the weekend.

Enjoy your summer and bee well! (That’s a pollinator joke…)