The raccoon bill has apparently died in the legislature. This is Senate Bill 474, which would add raccoons to those wild animals — bears, cougars, coyotes and wolves — it is illegal to feed lest they become habituated to humans. The worry behind the bill is that feeding raccoons attracts them and concentrates their number, […]
Oregon’s property tax system is so complicated that most citizens have no idea how it works. Many public officials don’t either. The complications are such that sometimes, voters approve taxes for police and fire protection and some of the money is legally siphoned off and given or loaned to private developers. Hard to believe, but […]
Just as I expected a few weeks ago, the cougar hunting bill has died in the legislature even after the House had approved it by a strong vote of 40-19 on April 23. When the bill got to the Senate, it was assigned to the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, headed by Portland Democrat […]
Nobody likes more taxes, but as someone who often rides a bicycle on public roads, I would not mind as modest bike tax that goes into the state highway fund. This idea has been kicking around for years, and Colorado is said to have just such a tax. Now, according to a report in the […]
Albany got into the national news over the Memorial Day weekend. Let us hope we never have this kind of dubious distinction again. A friend back east told me she heard the news of the arrest of an Albany high school student for planning to attack his school. Her own town, in Maryland, had been in the […]
The Oregon House today (May 28) is scheduled to vote on a sensible bill to correct an injustice dealing with property taxes and urban renewal, but it won’t do any good in Albany, at least not yet. The bill is HB 2632-A. It would remove local option levies approved by voters after January 1, 2013, […]
Ask about dead eagles
Pacific Power is sending representatives into Oregon neighborhoods to answer questions about renewable energy and its Blue Sky marketing program. The company is sending people postcards announcing the time periods for these visits. On the postcards, a young woman looks very happy while in the background, there’s a wind turbine of the kind providing some […]
Tags: eagles, Pacific Power, wind power, windmills