Lawmakers speak out for Office of Rural Policy
By LARRY MEYER - ARGUS OBSERVER
Sunday, June 10, 2007 12:46 AM PDT
ONTARIO - Oregon’s Office of Rural Policy will be spared the chopping block if the state Joint Ways and Means Committee agrees to keep the office going through February, at which time lawmakers will conduct an assessment of what the office has accomplished, state Rep. Tom Butler, R-Ontario, said Friday.
The Office of Rural Policy was established by executive order signed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski at the request of state Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R- John Day, Butler and other officials from throughout Eastern Oregon. Its purpose is to review proposed and existing laws and regulations and advise on what impact they have or may have on rural Oregon.
Butler said he testified Thursday in support of the Office of Rural Policy before the Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on General Government, which was holding hearings on the budget for the Governor’s Office, which includes the Office of Rural Policy.
“Number one, we need to continue rural outreach,” Butler said he told the panel.
Butler’s other suggestion was that in setting administrative rules and regulations, state officials could write rules for urban areas and separate rules for rural areas, which would be very expensive, he said, or the state could continue to fund a rural advocate.
“You can do it the easy way or the hard way,” Butler said he told the committee.
He was joined by Ferrioli. In a statement released Thursday, Ferroli’s office said the senator focused his remarks on the benefits of the Office of Rural Policy.
“This office gives us a chance to explain unintended consequences, to train leaders and look for new opportunities to bring rural and urban Oregon together,” Ferrioli said, in defense of the office. “Destroying one of the platforms for voicing our needs and perspective reinforces the wall we are trying to tear down.
“Members of the committee will send a message with this vote,” Ferrioli said. “Rural Oregonians are watching and will understand what not funding the Office of Rural Policy means.”
After conferring with Bob Jensen, R-Pendleton, chair of the subcommittee on General Government, Friday, Butler said the Office of Rural Policy was originally put in the governor’s proposed budget as a policy option, and the co-chairs of the full Ways and Means Committee had elected not to exercise that option.
However, Butler said Jensen had said he thought there were enough votes to keep the Office of Rural Policy in the budget through February, at which time lawmakers will review the office and see what has been accomplished.
“That is one problem,” Butler said. “We didn’t give a measuring stick on how it had helped rural Oregon.”
The governor’s office has not been keeping track of the Office of Rural Policy’s accomplishments, he said, but the Ways and Means Committee would do that.
“I think he has done a great job,” Butler said, of Jim Azumano, rural policy advisor.
