Oregon lawmakers reluctantly make $17 million downpayment on wildfire preparedness
Updated Jan 09, 2021;
Posted Jan 09, 2021
The Riverside fire burns in the Mount Hood National Forest, seen from La Dee Flats near the Clackamas River.Mount Hood National Forest
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If anything illustrated the need for Oregon to invest more in wildfire preparedness, it was last year’s cluster of Labor Day infernos that chewed through a million acres of forestland, destroyed thousands of homes and structures and killed nine people.
Despite scores of recommendations that the governor’s Council on Wildfire Response said were urgent back in 2019, the Oregon Legislature made no headway on the issue last year after two Republican walkouts over climate change legislation. Gov. Kate Brown’s hope of addressing some of those proposals in one of the Legislature’s special sessions didn’t happen either, taking a backseat to more pressing pandemic-related funding and policing reforms.
Hello Friends,
I was writing my weekly newsletter Wednesday afternoon when disturbing news erupted. An angry mob had descended on our nation’s capital.
They disrespected our laws and our police. They disrespected our institutions. They disrespected the legitimate results of the Electoral College and our popular vote. They disgraced our sense of American values and dignity.
Last week I spoke about the challenge in these difficult times to know who to trust and what to believe. Seldom do we all always agree. I cherish our traditions of free speech and peaceful protest. But when protest devolves into threats, violence, and property destruction, whether in our urban centers, our state capitols, or in the halls of Congress, we are all lessened.
Oregon Capitol remains closed as lawmakers start 2021 session
Pandemic, protest threats prompt leaders to opt for hybrid model tested last year.
When Oregon lawmakers come to Salem on Monday, Jan. 11, to open their 81st legislative cycle since statehood, some things will be familiar.
Newly elected senators and representatives will take their oaths, choose the presiding officers who control the flow of legislation, receive assignments to the committees that shape the legislation, and start the process for almost 3,000 bills and resolutions filed beforehand. (That total is about average for an odd-numbered-year session.)
But because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and more recently the anti-lockdown protesters who invaded the Capitol during a Dec. 21 special session the 160 days scheduled for the 2021 session will be like no other in a century, since the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Sept. 8, 2020.
Marcelino Rocha, 66, was picking cucumbers at Fry Family Farm, where heâs employed.
His son, Hector Rocha, 24, was delivering the farmâs produce to customers when he heard the news. A fire that started that morning in Ashland was tearing north toward his familyâs home in Talent.
Hector rushed home. He grabbed his phone charger, thinking heâd be able to go back. Hectorâs mom, Dora Negrete, saved their dog.
But when the family returned, their mobile home was char.
âIt was just â traumatizing,â said Hector Rocha.
His father, Marcelino, described how he felt standing in the rubble: