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O&C impact stretches back decades BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COQUILLE — Oregon’s timber counties are anxiously watching Washington, D.C., waiting for movement on two proposed O&C bills so they can plan for a shaky financial future. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s Oregon and California Land Grant Act of 2014 is sitting in the Finance Committee. The bill proposes splitting the 2.4 million acres of Oregon’s O&C lands in half, but keeping all under federal control. U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio’s O&C
Trust, Conservation and Jobs Act made it out of the House. It would also split the O&C lands in two, but half would go in a trust for timber production under the Oregon Forest Practices Act. OFPA provides for much more intense logging than federal environmental laws allow. Both bills would ramp up logging on O&C lands, but the Association of O&C Counties has expressed its support for DeFazio’s bill, as have all three Coos County commissioners. Conservation groups, on the other hand, oppose it, saying it would undermine protections for
threatened and endangered species. “Coos County’s interest in this legislation is unique,” Coos County Commissioner John Sweet said this week. “We can’t count on legislation of O&C lands, on the Association of O&C Counties to represent us. The way the pending legislation is written, all other counties in western Oregon would benefit from our losing the (Coos Bay) Wagon Road lands. We alone stand to lose out in that process. I think it’s very important for us to have an ear on the ground ... as the legislative process moves forward.”
Wyden’s refusal to distinguish O&C from Wagon Road lands has discouraged the Coos County commissioners, who say that’s exactly why they need their lobbyist in Washington, D.C. They hired FBB Federal Relations in May to help differentiate O&C from Coos Bay Wagon Road lands in legislation. DeFazio insists that O&C and Wagon Road lands are separate. But his idea for a trust rubbed the feds the wrong way: Last fall, the Office of Management and Budget issued a policy statement recommending the president’s veto. Analysts thought DeFazio’s
bill would incite environmental protection lawsuits. Now, O&C legislation is stalled. At Wyden’s July 5 town hall in Coos Bay, he said the bill would be finalized “in a matter of weeks, because the clock is obviously clicking down.” He introduced his bill by the end of the month, but nothing has happened since. Coos County Commissioner Melissa Cribbins is worried about Wyden’s bill as it stands. “If he does get this bill passed by the end of the year, it’s not a good SEE O&C | A8
Egyptian Theatre updates compact
North Bend crushes North Valley
Urban Renewal Agency and ETPA sign new management agreement ■
BY TIM NOVOTNY The World
By Lou Sennick, The World
Levi Rider gains yards with North Valley's Byron Thatcher in pursuit Friday night during their game at Vic Adam's Field in North Bend. The Bulldogs scored on the next play of the series. For more of the opening season game for the Bulldogs, see sports on Page B1 and an online photo gallery at www.theworldlink.com/gallery
Kitzhaber recommends dissolving Cover Oregon
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ogy come November, when enrollment reopens, that could change next year. While Kitzhaber would like to see Cover Oregon go away, some people have criticized that option, saying that Cover Oregon is more nimble and experienced than existing state agencies. “I fear that if Cover Oregon were to be absorbed into a state agency, it might have to rely on someone who doesn’t understand what consumers and agents need,” Portland health insurance agent Tina Kennedy told the board. An independent Cover Oregon is also better equipped to interact with carriers, offer good customer service, and implement the business portal, Kennedy said. In a possible glimpse of things to come, officials announced this week that the state would roll out a new enrollment website, Oregonhealthcare.gov, rather than using coveroregon.com.
Kathy Kilday, Coos Bay George Faith Sr., Coquille
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call center to answer questions about health insurance and running the plan certification process. If the board chooses to dissolve the organization, then existing state agencies, including the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Insurance Division, could take over some of the remaining functions. The board also has to decide how much control the state will retain over the marketplace,and how much it will relinquish to the federal government. Whether the board will heed Kitzhaber’s recommendation remains unclear. Cover Oregon, which currently employs about 150 people, will be tight on money. Federal grants that are paying Cover Oregon’s bills run dry at the end of this year, and its finances will rest solely on funding from monthly premium fees. Though the government won’t charge the state for using its technol-
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PORTLAND — Although Oregon has decided to scrap its flawed online health insurance exchange and is hooking up to the federal portal, state officials are still trying to decide what to do with the agency that has been running it. But the state’s governor has already made his choice for the quasi-independent public corporation that was set up by the Legislature to run all aspects of the state’s health insurance marketplace. In a statement released late on Thursday, Gov. John Kitzhaber suggested the board should dissolve Cover Oregon to “maximize our resources while minimizing the risks.” “I believe that given past technical and management problems and the ongoing uncertainty and unknowns
of a stand-alone organization, moving the remaining state exchange functions from Cover Oregon to existing state agencies offers the lowest-risk path,” Kitzhaber said in the statement. The exchange’s technology fiasco has been an embarrassment for Oregon and its governor, who is running for re-election. The exchange’s site never fully launched, leading the state to hire hundreds of workers to manually process applications and forcing Oregonians to use a time-consuming hybrid paper-online process. The board has been mulling over the public corporation’s future for weeks. On Thursday it postponed a vote on the issue. Board members said they needed more information and time to make the call. When Oregon switches to the federal health exchange in November, other Cover Oregon duties will remain, such as running a
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DEATHS
BY GOSIA WOZNIACKA
COOS BAY — An agreement, originally agreed to by the Coos Bay Urban Renewal Agency and the Egyptian Theatre Preservation Association in 2007, has been amended in order to keep the theatre’s come-back going strong. Among other things, the new agreement could clear the way for more recent movies to be shown, should the current deed restriction be removed in the future, and it transferred maintenance for the facility over to the city. Jim Hossley, public works and development director for the city of Coos Bay, says the latter part is basically a clarification that future contract bidding will continue to be done in an open and competitive manner. “I think it was to just make it clear that it is still the city’s building, so that when purchases that have to do with the building itself are needed,it will fall under public procurement laws,” he said on Friday. One other addition to the agreement hints at a possible future of self-sustainment for the theater. Language was added automatically terminating the agreement should ownership of the theatre transfer to the ETPA. Overall, the updated agreement, at least according to the city council documents, seems to have been needed after the building reopened its doors to the public. It passed unanimously on Tuesday night. “This agreement,” it reads, “continues the contractual relationship with the ETPA which successfully managed this community treasure since the Agency’s acquisition up to when it was closed for structural deficiencies in 2011, and since it was reopened in July of this year.” The general public, Hossley adds, likely won’t notice much of a difference under the new agreement. But, he says, it does show that the city and the ETPA are
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