It’s my hope — forlorn though it may be — that some day a little floating bridge across the Calapooia River might once again link Albany’s Bryant and Monteith River parks. If you were around the mid-valley in the 1990s, you might remember that bridge, put in by Dave Clark, then the parks director in Albany. […]
Until the other day I had not ridden my bike on the dirt path along the Willamette River from Simpson to Bowman Park in Albany since last year. When I did on July 10, I got my first look at the plantings that have replaced a large area of reed canary grass, an invasive species. So here’s a quick […]
The city of Albany faces a potential dog dilemma, but it’s nothing like the uproar about Blue. You may recall that Blue was facing euthanasia in 2011 after biting a toddler, while his owner and supporters fought to keep him alive. The battle ended when Blue was broken out of an Albany kennel and disappeared. […]
There are at least three things that are surprising about the Hewlett-Packard property tax case. You may be aware that in the Oregon Tax Court in May, HP won an appeal of its property tax assessment for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010. The first surprise was how far off the state Revenue Department had […]
To read the papers and watch the news, you would think that the American West has been getting hotter lately. But as luck would have it, news consumers who want to know the facts can look them up. Just the other day, the Associated Press moved a story from Los Angeles blaming what it called […]
We can breathe a little easier now. The legislature has adjourned, and the damage has been relatively minor. Lawmakers convened in January, started work in February and called it quits on Monday, just five days before the constitutional deadline. During all that time they allocated more money to schools and various other programs, but they […]
Road user tax: Another dud
Once again, the 2013 legislature has failed to resolve the issue of how to get road tax revenue from motor vehicles that don’t use motor fuels, or use very little of it. House Bill 2453 called for a road user tax to be paid by the owners of very high-mileage vehicles, which by and large […]
Tags: Oregon road tax, Road User fee, very high-mileage vehicles