From the Oregon Department of Revenue: How Property Taxes Work in Oregon.
From the Oregon Department of Revenue: How Property Taxes Work in Oregon.
Hank Grum has nearly half the signatures he needs to put his initiative petition on the ballot but, with the deadline for the May election behind him, he’s now aiming for the November general election.
Oregon House Bill 2997 was introduced by Representatives Garrard and Richardson to substantially modify the structure of Oregon's Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC). The bill would create a set of five regional commissions, elected by the county commissioners/judges from within those regions and replace the state LCDC commissioners (currently appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate) with the chairs of those five new regional commissioners. Regional commissioners could be replaced at any time by vote of the county heads in the regions.
The intended effect is to maximize rural decision-making power over statewide landuse issues, favoring geography over demographics.
Counties heads would be electing their own oversight bodies at both the regional and state level, diminishing the independence of the oversight, especially as they could also replace them at will.
Furthermore, it isn't clear how the multiple counties "negotiate" and elect the regional commissioners since there is no existing regional bodies to do that.
What began as a small initiative some six years back in a non-descript [Indian] village in Khamam district ... eventually blazed a trail. In the next four years, more than 318,000 farmers in 21 out of the 23 districts of Andhra Pradesh have discarded the intensive chemical farming systems, and shifted to a more sustainable, economically viable and ecologically friendly agriculture. A silent revolution is in the offing. In Kharif 2009 (the monsoon season), some 1.4 million acres was covered with what is now known as Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA).
As I write this in the first week of January 2010, the area had expanded to 2 million acres of 21 districts. More than 0.6 million acres increase in a farming system that does not use chemical pesticides, and is also phasing out chemical fertiliser, that too in matter of few months, is a record of sorts. And all this has happened without any push from the government agencies and the private sector. I see no reason why this environmentally safe, and a farmer-friendly system of sustainable agriculture, cannot cover 200 million acres across the country in another ten years or so if the government gets serious.
Our economy is funded in part by long-term credit, which in part depends on the long-term stability of natural resources, such as water and energy that are critical to any business plan. Municipal bonds are a classic long-term investment vehicle: unlike stocks, most investors hold them for long durations and assume they will be safe investments over the life of the bond. The bonds themselves are issued to fund major infrastructure projects, such as water storage, sewage treatment and electric power production, which support economic activity. Any hidden risks in municipal bonds are a threat both to their direct investors, but also the broader U.S. economy...
[A] report shows that [many] utilities face moderate to severe water shortfalls in the coming years due to growing water scarcity, legal conflicts and other supply risks. Yet, these water risks do not appear to be reflected in the bonds and bond ratings that public utilities rely on to finance their infrastructure projects...
More broadly, hidden risk is not just confined to the municipal bond market, and sustainability risks are not limited to water availability. Deutsche and Ceres both want to emphasize the growing importance of assessing these and other long-term sustainability trends and risks across all investment platforms – whether they are stocks or fixed income assets.
Our global economy is changing and it will require its participants to be more open and rigorous about understanding the connections between long-term economic prosperity and pressing sustainability threats such as climate change, population growth and resource scarcity.
The Yamhill Soil & Water Conservation District is rolling out it's Habitat Conservation Plan for the Fender's Blue Butterfly, led by Amie Loo-Frison, HCP project manager, as she describes in a recent News-Register article:
Yamhill County residents have a huge advantage over most private landowners in Oregon because they can receive free planning assistance and obtain an incidental take permit from a local entity, YSWCD [(Yamhill Soil & Water Conservation District)]. No lawyers, no fees, no trips to Portland, no sitting through lengthy meetings — everything is free and local.
As part of the grant, YSWCD will provide free, no-obligation surveys on private land during the spring and early summer of 2011 and 2012 to check for the presence of Kincaid’s lupine and Fender’s blue butterfly. The district will learn more about biological requirements and distributions of these species in the county, seek to understand how agricultural and other land use practices may benefit them and promote effective conservation. Survey data could lead to downlisting or delisting of both species. Surveys also are a means for landowners to learn more about the habitats and species their property supports.
Landowners can register for a survey online at www.yamhillswcd.org, after which they will be contacted to set a date. Results of the survey will be reported to the landowner but will not be shared with federal agencies unless the landowner chooses to participate in the HCP. This level of confidentiality is highly unusual and reflects the respect that USFWS has for private property rights here in Yamhill County.
YSWCD will host its first public meeting on the butterfly issue at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16, in the McMinnville Community Center. The meeting will include a short presentation and a chance to ask questions. We also will host a tour of prairie sites in May. Check our website for updates.
To help guide the completion of the HCP, we plan to form a Stakeholder Advisory Committee made up of local citizens. For more information, please contact me at amie.loop-frison@or.nacdnet.net or 503-472-1474, ext.113.
In a somewhat complicated analysis, the Oregon Court of Appeals yesterday upheld the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) rejection (LUBA No. 2010-002) of the proposed Riverbend Landfill expansion in Yamhill County, OR.
... the county did not expressly take an exception to allow a landfill on high-value farmland... It may very well be that Riverbend's intended use, expansion of a landfill on agricultural land, is a use precluded by Goal 3. The goal inhibits nonfarm uses on agricultural land that are not "defined by commission rule." OAR 660-033-0120 disallows landfill expansions on "high-value farmland" unless the expansion is of an "[e]xisting facilit[y] wholly within a farm use zone." The existing landfill is not within a farm use zone. The county, however, did not take an exception to allow a landfill on high-value farmland; the exception findings do not even identify the soil characteristics of the three exception tracts. LUBA's remand to the county will allow a more careful focus on the plan designation and nature of any exception to be taken for the expansion area, as well as the implementing zoning for that plan designation.
This means it goes back to the county and Riverbend Landfill, to either
Riverbend Landfill in Yamhill County, OR, run by Waste Management, has asked the county to rezone adjacent farmland in order to expand the landfill. The expansion is opposed by a number of groups, led by Waste Not of Yamhill County, as not representing good use of farmland, harms tourism and local quality of life and water, and does not represent a sustainable long-term vision for waste disposal in the county.
The Yamhill County Board of Commissioners in November, 2009 approved the landfill expansion application, which was appealed in January, 2010 to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) who rejected the county's approval in July, 2010, which was appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals which sustained the LUBA rejection, a victory for opponents of the landfill expansion.
The county and Riverbend can either pursue further attempts to change Yamhill County's Comprehensive Plan or pursue alternatives to expansion.
Next step in the bypass: Newberg, OR is holding hearings to make Comprehensive Plan amendments related to implementing the selected "locally preferred alternative alignment" for the Newberg-Dundee Bypass.
The Newberg Planning Commission will hold a public hearing, on February 10, 2011, at 7 p.m. at the Newberg Public Safety Building, 401 E. Third Street, Newberg, OR, to evaluate the proposed [Bypass Plan] amendments.
...All written comments must be turned in by 5:00 p.m. onFebruary 3, 2011.
Following controversy on a bill for expanded wine activities on farmland earlier in 2010, at a hearing of the Oregon Senate's Environment and Natural Resources Committee this week, the committee took testimony from several groups.
The Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) testified and developed a Legislative Concept (as LC 1907) defining their proposal.
The Oregon Winegrower's Association (OWA) testified and developed a Legislative Concept (as LC 2573) defining their proposal.
The Oregon Board of Agriculture said two years worked had resulted in a policy:
The Oregon Farm Bureau said:
Following controversy on a bill for expanded wine activities on farmland in 2010, the Oregon Winegrower's Association (OWA) reviewed activities on farmland across Oregon.
At a hearing of the Oregon Senate's Environment and Natural Resources Committee this week, the OWA said it has completed its review of wine activities on farmland. The OWA surveyed its member wineries and developed a Legislative Concept (as LC 2573) defining their proposal, which was released this week.
Highlights from the testimony of December 15, 2010 included
Membership background:
Findings from their member survey:
Guiding principles used:
Recommendations for the legislative concept:
Following controversy on a bill for expanded wine activities on farmland in 2010, the Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) reviewed activities on farmland across Oregon.
At a hearing of the Oregon Senate's Environment and Natural Resources Committee this week, the AOC said it has completed its report on activities on farmland, and it was approved by the AOC Monday. Led by Yamhill County Commissioner Mary Stern, the AOC's Farm Land Activities Task Force developed a "report and recommendations" and developed a Legislative Concept (as LC 1907) defining their proposal, which was released this week.
Highlights from the testimony of December 15, 2010 included:
After the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners turned down federal money to pay for a Yamhill County Habitat Conservation Plan (that would have created "safe harbors" for the county and landowners) and subsequently receiving an intent to sue by third parties for the county's "takings" of Fender's Blue Butterfly and/or Kincaid's Lupine and lack of a plan to address it, I fully expect Yamhill County to make life as unpleasant as possible for Yamhill County residents.
Word is, that instead of addressing the issue, they will stop road maintenance in certain areas and post notices of "rough road". This will make residents (whose gravel roads in particular need regular maintenance) very mad so as to shift blame from the county's refusal to follow the law to "tree huggers".
Oregon's state land use laws require each city and county in Oregon to adopt comprehensive land use plans consistent with statewide planning goals administered by the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (LCDC)
Here is Yamhill County's Comprehensive Land Use Plan, adopted in 1996 with subsequent amendments, and is subject to "periodic review".
Though rare in the US, biogas digesters have become pretty common in Europe as a way of producing local power from local waste while reducing fossil fuel consumption:
Over the last five years, many European countries have increased their reliance on renewable energy, from wind farms to hydroelectric dams, because fossil fuels are expensive on the Continent and their overuse is, effectively, taxed by the European Union’s emissions trading system.
But for many agricultural regions, a crucial component of the renewable energy mix has become gas extracted from biomass like farm and food waste. In Germany alone, about 5,000 biogas systems generate power, in many cases on individual farms....
In the United States, biogas systems are rare. There are now 151 biomass digesters in the country, most of them small and using only manure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The E.P.A. estimated that installing such plants would be feasible at about 8,000 farms.
So far in the United States, such projects have been limited by high initial costs, scant government financing and the lack of a business model. There is no supply network for moving manure to a centralized plant and no outlet to sell the biogas generated.
via www.nytimes.com
When Yamhill County won a three-year, $391,000 federal grant to develop a protection program, then reversed course and turned it down by 2-1 vote of the commissioners, the Yamhill Soil & Water Conservation District stepped in...
[Yamhill Soil & Water Conservation District Director, Tim] Stieber said he and his colleagues are working to help property owners identify and preserve pieces of prairie on their land. He said 20 to 30 have already agreed.
He said the grant covers the cost of acquiring conservation easements on private property, ensuring the owners will be compensated. However, he said some local landowners so relish their butterfly habitat, they’ve already begun voluntarily investing some of their own money.
Stieber said the ultimate goal is to remove the Fender’s blue from the Endangered Species List. He said Kincaid’s lupine is actually fairly robust under the right management, so saving the butterfly isn’t nearly as complicating as saving the spotted owl or native salmon.
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