2005-03-14 Alert

Annexation Day Report

Today the Senate Environment & Land Use Committee held hearings on several annexation bills, the two most important being SB 380 (ORS-195 "double majority" reform) and SB 887 to repeal ORS 222.750 (island annexation language).

Speaker after speaker, all from the public sector, asserted that these bills are bad ideas. Some predicted dire consequences. Some examples:

1. We need to annex to preserve natural resources and farm land. (The chair asked for an example. The speaker - a Lake Oswego City Councilor - cited an example where someone fearing he'd be annexed cut down some trees on his property. The city apparently has a tree code.) One committee member didn't think much of that argument and called the city tree code "offensive."
2. City residents are subsidizing UGB folks. Nearly all the speakers fronted this time-worn argument. Chairman Ringo sees little merit in it and several times asked for facts and data to back it up. Nothing very convincing came forth.
3. Citizens have plenty of input already. I think we presented effective rebuttal against this fallacy.
4. We wouldn't be able to do health hazard annexations. I countered that we're dealing with discretionary an- nexation here and have never intended the reform to prohibit legitimate health hazard annexations under ORS 222.
5. Only cities can provide the necessary level of urban services. That's nonsense, as all of you know - and we told the committee we "outsiders" definitely pay for the services we receive...and we're happy with them.
6. It's not "forcible annexation." Like Hell it's not - and I think the committee members know it.
7. Protect Nike if you must, but let us continue to annex without further restriction. (This one came from Salem's mayor, who also testified that she "absolutely" wants to enclave and island outlying areas and bring them into the city. When asked by the chair if she was con- cerned about the potential annexees having no say in that decision, she replied, "absolutely not." I found her testimony an "absolutely" convincing reason why so many people hold government in such contempt!)

Numerous other similar arguments were heard from the largest group of public "servants" I've ever seen assembled at one hearing against the public having more input in the public process. While most of the other committee members had little or no reaction, Chairman Ringo often rebutted their arguments.

The chairman implemented an unusual format for the testimony in that all 7 bills were open at the same time. Unfortunately, some of the signup lists got mixed up and several of our folks didn't get to testify. So the testimony ended up lopsided against meaningful reform with 10 opposition speakers against 3 in support of 380 and 887. There was minimal testimony on SB 699. Our position is that we'd like to see it amended to extend protection against forced annexation to everyone, not just to a few businesses.

No action was taken on any of the bills today. Chairman Ringo said that the task force/2 year moratorium that's been an on again - off again proposal is under "very serious consideration." He also hinted that there is talk of combining all the annexation issues into one bill.

The public sector is very much against any meaningful change to allow more public input and control. Only the Metro rep stated that his organization "would live with" a moratorium. The League of Oregon Cities simply wants the Legislature to refrain from adopting reform in this session and (presumably) delay action until 2007. Such action would almost certainly touch off a wave of forced annexations the likes of which the state has never seen.

Senator Westlund presented excellent testimony in our support. Senator Deckert - our nemesis in the 2001 session (HB 3389) - spoke in favor of using mediation.

So - what's next? The public "servants" are clearly worried that some kind of meaningful reform might occur in this session and they will pull out all the stops to prevent that.

I believe that right now, the Senate Environment & Land Use Committee needs to continue to hear from as many people as we can possibly muster...NUMBERS... that we support SB 380 and SB 887. Focus especially on Senators Atkinson, Burdick, Beyer and Shields. Senator Ringo appears to be on our side. We've already provided you with contact information. Lest there be any doubt, your contacts are definitely having an effect. All this would have been swept under the rug long ago without your efforts. We need to continue and expand those efforts. Now is NOT the time to sit back and think we're done!

Thanks to the folks from "our side" who showed up. For right now, the focus is on these two Senate bills. We'll update you on HB 2484 as soon as we have additional information.

Jerry Ritter
Secretary, OCVA

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This page last modified on 2005-11-16 08:29.