Monday Mailing 021819

Monday Mailing

Year 25 • Issue 22 18 February 2019 1.

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The Urban-Rural Divide In Oregon Has Grown And Become More Pronounced The Senate Just Passed The Decade’s Biggest Public Lands Package. Here’s What’s In It. (Alexi McHugh) Report: Economic Benefits Of Cap And Trade Will Outweigh The Costs In Oregon (Michael Hoch) Re-Legalizing Fourplexes Is The Unfinished Business of Tom McCall (Michael Walker) Why Historic Preservation Needs A New Approach (Gabe Leon) Top Leader At Interior Dept. Pushes A Policy Favoring His Former Client (Patrick Lynch) Health Guide: New Online Health Tool Provides Mental Self-Care Resources (Caitlin Seyfried) Cities: Don’t Fall In The Branding Trap (Corum Ketchum) Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate (Michael Hoch) WEBINAR – NPBS: Becoming An Effective Facilitator (Carolina Negron)

1. The Urban-Rural Divide In Oregon Has Grown And Become

More Pronounced

Quote of the Week:

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”

- Booker T. Washington

Oregon Fast Fact #48

Haystack Rock off Cannon Beach is 235 feet high and is the third largest coastal monolith in the world.

In 1966 in Multnomah County, 59 percent of voters were registered Democrats. In the Eastern Oregon region, 56 percent were registered Democrats. Each region of the state was at least 50 percent Democrat. But, Republican Tom McCall handily won the 1966 gubernatorial election with more than 55 percent of the vote, losing only three counties.

More than 50 years later, Oregon’s political landscape has changed dramatically — and the urban-rural divide couldn’t be more apparent. Multnomah County is more liberal than ever with 71 percent of voters registered as Democrats. Eastern Oregon has gone the opposite way, with only 41 percent of voters registered as Democrats. Democrat Kate Brown won re-election by more than 7 percent statewide, but she was chosen by only seven of Oregon’s 36 counties.

To access the full story, click here.

2. The Senate Just Passed The Decade’s Biggest Public Lands

Package. Here’s What’s In It.

The Senate on Tuesday passed the most sweeping conservation legislation in a decade, protecting millions of acres of land and hundreds of miles of wild rivers across the country and establishing four new national monuments honoring heroes including Civil War soldiers and a civil rights icon.

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The 662-page measure, which passed 92 to 8, represented an old-fashioned approach to dealmaking that has largely disappeared on Capitol Hill. Senators from across the ideological spectrum celebrated home-state gains and congratulated each other for bridging the partisan divide.

“It touches every state, features the input of a wide coalition of our colleagues, and has earned the support of a broad, diverse coalition of many advocates for public lands, economic development and conservation," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).for biking be towns that most Americans have never heard of?

To access the full story, click here.

3. Report: Economic Benefits Of Cap And Trade Will Outweigh The Costs In Oregon

A new economic report finds Oregon’s proposed cap-and-trade plan would create thousands of jobs and boost household income while creating only modest increases in energy prices.

Moreover, the report concludes, the more aggressive interim cap on greenhouse gas emissions proposed for 2035 would create even more economic benefits than a more gradual decline in emissions from 2021 and 2050.

An analysis by Berkeley Economic Advising and Research finds capping greenhouse gas emissions as proposed in House Bill 2020 would spur widespread adoption of energy-saving technology by the year 2050.

That, in turn, will create significant economic growth, said the research company’s director, David Roland-Holst.

To access the full story, click here.

4. Re-legalizing Fourplexes Is the Unfinished Business of Tom McCall

In the month since news broke that Oregon’s legislature will consider a bill to strike down 60year-old bans on “middle housing,” some battle lines have emerged.

The Oregonian‘s editorial board is for it; the Bend Bulletin‘s is against. Habitat for Humanity of Oregon is excited; the Oregon Republican Party’s Twitter account is dubious.

But another group of people has been enthusiastically discussing the proposal, House Bill 2001, which would re-legalize duplexes, triplexes, quads and cottage clusters in all neighborhoods of the state’s larger cities, towns and unincorporated suburbs. They’re a loose network of housing advocates who’ve spent 45 years immersed in the successes and failures of one of Oregon’s proudest legislative achievements: its first-in-the-nation statewide land-use planning law.

Championed and signed in 1973 by the liberal Republican Gov. Tom McCall, Senate Bill 100 (as its acolytes still call it, the way basketball fans remember Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s jersey number) is best known today as an anti-sprawl measure. It created the “urban growth boundaries” that Page 2 of 5

prevent endless strip-mall exurbs from hopscotching their way down the Willamette Valley or up the Rogue River.

To access the full story, click here.

5. Why Historic Preservation Needs A New Approach

One of the great surprises of the digital age is that quality of place remains such a key factor in where people choose to live and businesses choose to open their doors. Only 10 or 20 years ago, futurists and technologists promised us that place would become irrelevant: We would all live and work and connect with the world via the internet, free to roam anywhere we chose. But millions of years of evolution are tough to shake; we remain social creatures and continue to seek connection, delight, and fulfillment in real, physical space.

The growing importance of quality places has been a boon for many older commercial districts in U.S. cities, many of which have suffered from a legacy of disinvestment. At the National Main Street Center, an independent subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation where I serve as president and CEO, we’ve seen a surge in interest in revitalizing historic downtowns, thanks to the market’s new enthusiasm for flexible and character-rich space, as well as social and demographic forces that favor these types of districts. Younger Americans prefer urban living and have been migrating downtown in pursuit of walkable neighborhoods and city amenities, including older and historic buildings. On paper, these new young urbanites should be fans of historic preservation. Indeed, research from the National Trust for Historic Preservation shows that over 90 percent of Millennials express support for preservation.

To access the full story, click here.

6. Top Leader At Interior Dept. Pushes A Policy Favoring His Former Client

WASHINGTON — As a lobbyist and lawyer, David Bernhardt fought for years on behalf of a group of California farmers to weaken Endangered Species Act protections for a finger-size fish, the delta smelt, to gain access to irrigation water.

As a top official since 2017 at the Interior Department, Mr. Bernhardt has been finishing the job: He is working to strip away the rules the farmers had hired him to oppose.

Last week President Trump said he would nominate Mr. Bernhardt to lead the Interior Department, making him the latest in a line of officials now regulating industries that once paid them to work as lobbyists. Others include Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who now heads the Environmental Protection Agency after the resignation of Scott Pruitt amid ethics scandals. William Wehrum, the nation’s top clean-air regulator, is a lawyer whose former clients included coal-burning power plants and oil giants.

To access the full story, click here.

7. Health Guide: New Online Health Tool Provides Mental Self-Care Resources

The digital revolution has allowed people with physical ailments to learn more about their conditions by visiting websites, such as WebMD, for the past 10 years.

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As more people seek health care information and options online, the developers of myStrength saw an opportunity to bring self-care resources to the behavioral health community.

This online platform invites users to set up an account and begin navigating topics and tools of self-care immediately.

A personal myStrength account is a private and secure way to access hundreds of guided activities and tools to manage stress, boost your mood and feel inspired to take on the day.

Tools include mood trackers, guided programs targeting anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, stress and substance use, articles and expertly created videos. Thanks to the efforts of Eastern Oregon’s own Greater Oregon Behavioral Health and their provider network, this online service is offered to Eastern Oregon Coordinated Care Organization members and the greater Grant County community.

To access the full story, click here.

8. Cities: Don’t Fall In The Branding Trap

It’s curious that while every company tries its hardest to convince you of how much different and better it is than every other company in its industry, every city tries its hardest to convince you it’s exactly the same as every other city that’s conventionally considered cool.

Look at any piece of city marketing material, from promo videos to airline magazine ad inserts.

It’s amazing how so many of them rely on the same basic ingredients: hipster coffee shops, microbreweries, bike lanes, creative-class members, startups, intimations of a fashion scene, farm-to-table restaurants, new downtown streetcars, etc.

These are all good things, mind you: things cities should be happy to have. Some of them may even be modern necessities. But you can’t help but notice how few unique things about these cities manage to come through. A video from the Greater Houston Partnership, for example, shows outdoor art, bicyclists, a live music performance, and a light-rail train going by—but nothing about oil or energy. Except for some references to the space program, little else about the incredible uniqueness of Houston comes through.

To access the full story, click here.

9. Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

Oregon's bottle deposit system is recycling more containers than ever before despite major disruptions in global recycling markets.

Last year, Oregon recycled 90 percent of the beverage containers covered by its bottle deposit system. The rate has jumped from 64 percent just two years ago, and the total number of bottles recycled reached an all-time high of 2 billion in 2018.

"That's a really interesting thing given how much change is happening in recycling markets right now," said Joel Schoening with the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, which runs the state's bottle deposit system.

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Schoening said the program isn't suffering from the same problems as curbside recycling.

"Because we deal only in glass, plastic and aluminum with very few exceptions, we have a very clean recycling product," he said, "which makes it easier to sell and recycle domestically."

To access view the resource, click here.

10. WEBINAR – NPBC: Becoming An Effective Facilitator (March 11, 18, 25 from 12pm PDT to 1pm PDT)

Facilitation is an essential skill for a food systems leader. Being an effective facilitator requires a person to be objective, practice active listening, be respectful of differences, and establish a group process that ensures a neutral stance. The skilled facilitator can move a group process to engaging discussions, get the best from all members, and lead the members to a successful conclusion. In this course, participants will review the principles of effective facilitation as a process of and for change, learn the characteristics and competencies that are critical to success, and understand the anatomy of the entire facilitation process.

This is a three-part course; this description will be updated with lesson titles shortly.

Webinars are 30 minutes and are immediately followed by 30 minutes of Office Hours on the Zoom platform (link will be sent during the webinars).

This webinar series will be delivered by Veronica Flores, the Chief Executive Officer of Community Health Councils. Veronica also services as the Co-Chair for the Los Angeles County Community Prevention & Population Health Task Force and on the Charles Drew Medical University-President’s Advisory Council. She has 25+ years of experience in both private and nonprofit sector work.

To learn more about the challenge, click here.

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