Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra
Tammy's views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy's neighbors, Earl Fisher, Betsy Johnson, Joe Corsiglia, President Obama, Tony Hyde, Pat Robertson, Debi Corsiglia's dog, or Claudia Eagle's Cats. This Tammy's Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she won't take crap off of anyone.

I would like to let everyone know that I do not support the recent decision the county commissioners made concerning the theft of the county parks funds. I believe that the commissioners wanted to take a lot more from the parks but the ORS verbiage would not allow them to take all that they wanted. So the commissioners had the county attorney figure out a way to get part of the funds. Indeed they did find a way to get approximately $140,000-170,000 a year from the parks in way of taking all of the park fees that are collected. Unfortunately the ORS did not cover collected park fees.

I support the parks, the parks board, and Glen from the road department who has done an outstanding job with the parks and the budget. Correct me if I am incorrect but I believe the parks have to plan ahead for ten years because of the funding they received from timber sales. These people have worked hard to become self- supporting and to ensure the county parks are kept nice for the people in the county and those who visit our parks from other places. (Note No Property Tax Money, no General fund money is used by County Parks. They are completely self sufficient)

In my opinion the county parks board is being punished for being self-sufficient and hard working. In my opinion the county commissioners should not take away the parks funds and give it to the fair. The commissioners have made the parks responsible for the upkeep of the fairgrounds adding more cost to the parks department, while stripping away their funds in the process. But in all fairness we do have a new fair board which has been doing a wonderful job with the fairgrounds. And there have been some positive changes in the last year which brings in more community volunteers which is what a community fair is all about.

I understand that all counties across Oregon are short of funds because of the terrible economy that we are in but the county commissioners knew almost a decade ago that timber money was going away. Instead of planning ahead for the crisis they did nothing but spend as usual. Now the commissioners attempt to rob certain divisions of the county to try and come up with funds to transfer elsewhere is a feeble effort to try and stay afloat.

Instead of giving away $33 million dollars in tax abatements for the next fifteen years to PGE, they should have denied the request and shown their loyalty to the people in Columbia County and should have either said no completely or reduced the amount of the tax abatement each year for the fifteen years. Two million dollars a year into the county coffer would have allowed the county to run as usual and with careful spending the county could have put a portion of the funds into a rainy day account for the future.

PGE had plans for the last several years to go ahead and build the generating facility at Port Westward and would have done so in my opinion with or without the tax abatement. They needed to replace the power output from the coal fire plant in Boardman which is shutting down soon

If you are wondering who sat on the committee and who made the deal look up SIP of Oregon and that will give you an idea of what conspired. There were Portland commissioners, along with our county commissioner Tony Hyde and our state senator Betsy Johnson.