Lane County Board Approves $15 Minimum Wage klcc.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from klcc.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Lane County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday voted on a tentative denial for an application to dig a long-planned, controversial gravel quarry on an Oakridge-area butte.
Commissioners voted 3-2 against amending the Lane County Rural Comprehensive Plan to add a quarry to the inventory of significant mineral and aggregate sites and authorize mining there. Oakridge-area residents have fought to protect the site, commonly known as TV Butte, from mining operations since it was proposed in 2015.
The tentative denial instructs county staff to draft language for another vote in October that would outline specifically why commissioners are denying the application, as the law requires. The commissioners decision was based on findings from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife concerning conflicts with an elk herd living in the area.
Several union representatives are standing near Lane County Commission Chair Joe Berney. They’re at the July 14 tour of Lane Transit District with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Congressman Peter DeFazio, promoting a trillion dollar infrastructure bill being debated in Congress. It’s the first time that many of the union reps have seen one another since the start of COVID-19.
While I’m introducing myself to them, one of the reps tells me that unions love Berney.
That statement of adoration comes weeks after the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 420, which lays a framework for state and local government agencies to adopt a community benefits bidding protocol. That’s an agreement that a public agency will accept bids only from contractors and businesses that meet a certain criteria such as offering year-round family health benefits and apprenticeship programs for historically excluded populations.
With House bills 2379 and 2598, Rep. Paul Holvey is proposing to make housing more expensive by adding taxes to the wood products industry that already pays 50% more in state and local tax burden than other businesses.
It is important to first state that taxes on business are paid for in the price of the products and services they sell. A recent front-page article from The Register-Guard focused on the difficulty of rebuilding from the devastating wildfires as lumber prices are reaching new highs.
A study by Big Four accounting firm Ernst and Young for Oregon Business and Industry released in October shows Oregon is moving from a low-tax state for business to a high-tax state. The study shows the taxes added on business in the 2019 legislative session moved Oregon from No. 40 in business tax burden to No. 19, ahead of most western states.