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NEWS UPDATE FROM STATE REPRESENTATIVE DAVID GOMBERG: Late March News from HD 10

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By Representative David Gomberg, House District 10

3/25/2024

Dear Neighbors and Friends,

In an effort to keep you informed, we are moving production of my weekly emails out of the legislative office during the 60-day “blackout” period preceding elections. No legislative resources, time, or money were used to create this report. We don’t plan to comment or advocate on elections. We do plan to keep writing about other things.

Essentially, you won’t see any difference aside from a new sending address and minor formatting changes. But to meet legal requirements, we are doing things differently.

With that disclaimer out of the way, onto the newsletter!

Let me begin today with an apology.

Last week I published a photo of our Newport delegation to Washington DC. City Engineer Chris Beatty was in the group but in the caption, I called him Chris Bradley. I know Chris and certainly know his name (I also know a Chris Bradley). The mistake was mine and I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.

The 2024 session has ended, but my work as your legislator continues.

Governor Kotek is reviewing each of the 115 bills that passed out of the Legislature and has begun to sign some of them. Unless the Governor vetoes a bill, it will become law, either immediately, or 91 days after the March 8th Sine Die adjournment, depending on what was written in the bill.

>Various boards, work groups, task forces, and commissions continue to meet. For me, that includes the Governor’s Commission on Senior Services, the Oregon Ocean Science Trust (OOST), the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (OSSPAC), the Oregon Innovation Council (Oregon InC), the Oregon Coast Community College Foundation, and the Oregon Small Business Development Center Network (SBDC) State Advisory Council.

Legislative Committees convene through the interim during quarterly “Legislative Days”. You can find the calendar here. An important interim addition is the Emergency Board which allocates funds to urgent needs when the budgeting Ways and Means Committee cannot. I’m also working with the Legislative Oversight, Accountability & Effectiveness Workgroup. And the House Leadership team meets every other week.

We are also beginning to sort through the many requests our office received for proposals to be considered for the 2025 session. Legislative concepts for next year’s session must be submitted to the Counsel’s office by September 27th.

Election season will soon be upon us. That means important opportunities for voters to question candidates at debates, town halls, and smaller group meetings.

Finally, this is a great time to get out and enjoy all that our district has to offer and meet with neighbors across our community and beyond. For example, I’m a member of five different Chambers of Commerce. I visit schools and senior centers. I attend community events, fundraisers, ribbon cuttings, and openings. Saturday, Susan and I enjoyed a wonderful concert with the Newport Symphony and Sunday we joined friends for a local jazz show.

Being out in our communities makes it easier for people to reach out when they have ideas or concerns.  Please do say hello!

As I mentioned, 2024 is an election year with Primaries held in May and the General in November.

You need to be registered to vote 21 days before election day to receive a ballot. Since election day is on May 21st, that keeps it pretty simple – just remember to register or make necessary changes by the end of April! Oregon’s pioneering vote-by-mail system is safe, secure, and easy. You’ll receive a ballot and voters’ pamphlet with information on the candidates in the mail. All you need to do is vote and then return your ballot either using the included envelope (with prepaid postage!), or drop your ballot in an envelope at a designated drop site.

If you are not yet registered to vote, please do so here. If you’re already registered, be sure to double-check your registration and make sure it’s up to date. You can do this (and more) on the Secretary of State’s My Vote website. The My Vote website allows you to verify or update your voter registration, find contacts for elections staff, and track your ballot once you vote.
The Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB) is seeking input and ideas on how to make prescription drugs more affordable. The board has scheduled community forums throughout the state and online during April and May to hear stories from consumers about the challenges they may be having with the cost of prescription drugs.

One of the five statewide forums will be in our district and there are two online meetings:

The forums will provide an opportunity for anyone who feels their life has been affected by the costs of prescription drug prices and medication costs to share feedback. For more information on how to participate, view the announcement here.
Over the past few months, I have been serving on a  Special Committee on Transportation Planning. Most of the conversation has been about tolling in the Portland area.

 

What I have discovered is that, if you want to hear strong opinions from Oregonians, ask them about tolling for the use of highways. I also learned that we’ve come a long way from the days of tossing coins in a basket as you drive by or handing cash to a toll gate attendant. Take two minutes and learn more here.
Regular readers have heard me opine that we will need to find new ways to pay for needed improvements to our roads and bridges as more people drive electric vehicles and gasoline taxes continue to decline. Tolling is one of the options being considered. Others include a pay-by-the-mile assessment and increased annual registration fees. The tolling plan was focused in Portland and designed to reduce congestion and raise funds for area-specific improvements. My sense was that tolling there would have minimal effect here, meaning that our taxes would not go for Portland construction and that out-of-state drivers would pay their fair share for using our roads.

But I also heard backlash from citizens and looming questions about what tolling would look like. And I thought it made little sense to make early decisions about tolling now when the big picture of how we pay for roads would be a focus of the next legislation session.

Here is the big news: Last week, Governor Kotek killed the effort that would have set tolls on Interstates 5 and 205. Those projects, the governor suggested in a letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission, had become a money suck without clear benefits.

Plans to pay for a new Interstate Bridge partly with tolls appear largely unaffected in light of Kotek’s announcement — with one change: Transportation leaders in Washington, not Oregon, are now expected to administer tolls required to pay for the massive bridge.

The decision marks a major setback for tolling plans the state has spent seven years and $61 million building. But tolls will still be on the table next year when lawmakers are expected to reshape Oregon’s system for funding road maintenance and other transportation projects. Any funding tools we consider must be stable, sufficient, diversified, and able to create a fair and equitable system for road users to pay for road costs.

Any payment strategy – including gas taxes, tolling, or other proposals will face skepticism if not outright opposition. Political pressure against tolling has been mounting for years in the Portland metro region — particularly Clackamas County, where residents feared what I-205 tolls would mean for their pocketbooks and the amount of traffic surging to surface roads to avoid paying fees. A February poll by the firm DHM Research found 91% of Clackamas County residents surveyed were opposed to tolls.

Meanwhile, road repairs, aging bridges, and highway safety continue to be a major part of the mail I receive each week. We need to find a way to pay for them – and to make sure funds reach our part of Oregon where all Oregonians eventually come and drive. A short-term band-aid was applied this year when, for the first time, we used $19 million of general funds (essentially income tax dollars) for winter road maintenance.
And as long as we’re talking about electric vehicles, if you’re interested in snagging a rebate for purchasing a new car, start thinking now about auto shopping. The state will offer EV rebates for only two months this spring.

The Department of Environmental Quality announced Wednesday it will reopen the Oregon Clean Vehicle Rebate Program between April 3 through June 3. The department expects it won’t have enough money to offer rebates longer than that. Last year, for the first time since the rebate program started in 2018, state officials suspended the program – in early May – because it didn’t have enough money to meet the demand. Its total budget ended up being more than $18 million, which went towards nearly 3,500 rebates or rebate packages.

This year the department expects to have up to $8.5 million for rebates – enough to be able to pay for 2,700 rebates for 2,500 households.

 

The program offers two types, ranging from $2,500 to $7,500. To qualify, residents have to buy or lease an electric vehicle during the two-month window. That means a car purchased on April 2 or June 4, for example, won’t qualify. Oregonians have six months from the date of purchase or lease to apply for a rebate. Consumers who miss the purchase or lease window this year can still apply for a federal income tax credit up to $7,500 for the purchase of a new plug-in EV or fuel-cell electric vehicle.
That’s enough news for this week. As you can see, even in the absence of a legislative session, there is plenty going on.

The world is changing more rapidly than ever, and with the flood of information coming from news sites and sources and social media, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Staying informed is essential to being a good citizen in this digital world.

I continue to be gratified at the many compliments these Monday reports receive. Thank you!

I look forward to seeing you out and about in the district soon.

Representative David Gomberg | PO Box 113, Neotsu, OR 97364

Sent by david@gombergnews.com