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Political gimmick

Kicker refunds are imprudent as state slashes its budget

Look about at your surroundings for a moment and then answer this question: Has the state tax refund known as the "kicker" made any big difference in your life? Has it made any difference at all? Do you even remember getting the check?

For nearly everyone, the answer to all of those questions will be "no." The kicker money isn’t even a blip on most folks’ financial radars.

And that’s cruelly ironic at the present, as the Oregon Legislature now finds itself forced to trim and cut and yes, even slash the budgets of everything from the state police to higher education.

For that irony, you can thank our legislators, past and present. In the 1990s, a time of great expansion and financial good times, they (and "they" were mostly Republicans) voted to institutionalize what was intended to be only a temporary tax rebate.

The kicker law is an illogical document that says when revenue exceeds forecasts by 2 percent or more, the entire amount above the estimate must be refunded. If revenue is 1.99999 percent above the estimate, the state keeps it. If it’s 2 percent, the entire amount is returned. We would have no problem with the kicker if it said anything above 2 percent — or even 1 percent — must be returned. But it doesn’t.

The result is that while state government cannot afford to maintain current level of services for the coming 2001-2003 biennium, taxpayers will receive $336 million in refunds later this year for the 1999-2001 biennium.

We agree with Sen. Lenn Hannon, one of the few Republicans who saw the kicker for what it was and labeled it "a gimmick" in the 1999 session when the Legislature referred the kicker issue to voters. We also agree with Hannon that the cuts the state is facing this year probably won’t be catastrophic to most people.

Life will go on and, for most of us, with very little awareness of the effects of the budget cuts. But there will be seniors cut off from proven programs like Project Independence, health care denied to more children and low-income families, fewer police officers patrolling our highways, and programs cut and tuition increased at our state universities and community colleges.

Our local legislators who have supported the kicker return covered their backsides by putting a measure up to a vote of the people in November, when it passed easily. Just by putting it on the ballot, the Legislature signaled it was money the state could do without. That made the result a foregone conclusion.

The real point here is that any good financial planner puts away money during the good times in anticipation of the bad times. In 1999, the state could afford it and the taxpayers could afford it. Now comes 2001, and the bank account has run dangerously low.

Fiscally conservative politicians are fond of saying government should be run more like a business. Well, no businessperson with any common sense would risk his livelihood and that of his employees by failing to plan for the future.

Supporting the kicker may have been politically expedient, but it was an act of politicians and not of leaders.

Remove racist words

That references to "white inhabitants" and slavery still exist in Oregon’s Constitution is just short of astounding. To a move afoot in the Legislature this session to wipe them out forever, we ask: What’s taken you so long?

Senate Bill 189 attacks wording left over from the original 1857 Constitution that asks settlers whether they favor slavery or "free Negros" in Oregon and determined the number of Supreme Court judges based on the number of "white inhabitants" of the state.

While federal protections have invalidated both provisions in the years since then, the words have remained. Like stories about the Ku Klux Klan marches and publicly sanctioned bigotry of Oregon’s early days, they are an uncomfortable remnant of a racist past. Leaving them in the Constitution is not just demeaning to people of color — it is a disgrace to all of us.

Like all constitutional changes, removing the words will require a public vote. Unlike many, however, this change is way overdue. Legislators should work swiftly to give voters the chance to remove these ugly phrases from our Constitution once and for all.

Readers tell us news, depth are important

Ask 10 people what kinds of stories should be in the newspaper and you’ll get 10 different answers, right? Well, that’s what I’ve always thought, but an unscientific survey suggests there’s a greater agreement than I believed.

The Mail Tribune’s Readers Advisory Panel met earlier this month and reached some conclusions that, if not showing absolute unanimity, at least showed that there are indeed newspaper topics that draw collective interest.

There is no magic formula to follow in pulling together the pieces that complete the whole of a newspaper. Every paper is different — and by that I mean not only is the Mail Tribune different from the Grants Pass Daily Courier or The Oregonian, but each day of the Mail Tribune is different from the day before and the day following. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be news. If it weren’t, it would be boring.

But editors never give up the quest for that perfect combination, a newspaper Nirvana that satisfies every reader. Alas, we’ll probably never get there.

But we can get closer if we look and listen for clues — such as the clues provided by the Readers Advisory Panel.

Before I get to those clues, a few notes on the readers panel: The panel, which first met in September of last year, is intended to be a reality check for us, providing feedback not only on what we’re doing, but also on what we’re not doing.

We meet once a month with the five men and five women on the panel to review recent news coverage and to discuss specific sections within the paper or areas of concern about overall coverage.

Last month, we asked the panel members to choose their favorites from among a selection of six categories: general news, environment, education, business, sports and features. Some of the results were a bit surprising to us, but even more surprising was the obvious consensus in several areas.

(I should note here that this "vote" was far from scientific. Panelists could choose only their top two stories in each category, so some strong contenders could be left out, regardless of their merit.) Nevertheless, the results were:

- The selection of environmental stories included several features about local people or groups working to improve the environment. But the consensus winners were a story about U.S. Rep. Greg Walden’s thoughts on a federal forest road ban and a report on a Rogue Valley livability survey.

- In the education category, the top choice was an in-depth look at the numbers of students who didn’t participate in tests used by the state in grading schools. A report on a school-union tussle over health insurance benefits was next among the preferences, well ahead of some softer features on classroom activities.

- The top news story — and probably the story that drew the most comment — reported that the Medford City Council is looking at options for moving Interstate 5 or possibly putting it in a tunnel as it passes through the city. Surprisingly, a story on the families of the local men held hostage in Ecuador drew little interest. Panel members said the hostage situation made them feel a bit helpless, while the I-5 issue had more potential impact on the community.

- In business, the top vote-getters were a story about a plan to reopen a restaurant in the former Medford train depot and a feature on a new grocery store in Ashland. A big package on personal finance received scant notice, with voters saying that topic is available from many other sources.

- In sports, the North-South boys basketball game and the Ashland-Crater girls game finished second and third respectively, trailing a longer feature package on the decline of the once-powerful Phoenix football program.

- The features category drew mixed results, but the winner was a story about county employees going "under cover" as coffee testers to determine which brew would be served in the new library.

So what clues do we pick up from this unscientific survey? Three seem most obvious:

- Readers — or at least these readers — prefer hard news over features. That doesn’t mean they necessarily want a steady diet of "just the facts, ma’am," but if they have to choose, they choose news.

- They want local, and local impact, in their local paper. That was evident more through their comments than their votes, since all the stories were local, but they made it clear they get the Mail Tribune first and foremost for local coverage.

- They want in-depth reporting. The detailed look at the school report cards and the report on the rise and fall of Phoenix football were examples. Too often, some said, the Mail Tribune doesn’t dig deeply enough into the issues to give them all the information they need.

None of those conclusions is especially surprising, but the clear consensus was. More than anything, it confirms for us what we knew, or should have known, all along.

Feedback of the sort we get from the readers panel doesn’t necessarily lead to instant changes in the way we do our business. But it certainly gives us some better directions as we keep pushing toward that elusive perfect paper.

Making cash compensation a one-way street

By Russell Sadler

Marion County Circuit Judge Paul Lipscomb’s decision that Measure 7, the property compensation initiative, was improperly on the ballot should surprise no one. It is another decision in a series of decisions by Oregon courts to curb abuse of the initiative process.

Judge Lipscomb’s opinion holds that Measure 7 does more than assure "just compensation" for property owners whose land values are affected when government takes title, grants public access or deprives the owner of substantial beneficial use of property. This principle is already in the Oregon Constitution. Lipscomb said Measure 7 just restates it. But Measure 7 also says any reduction in value for nearly any reason is grounds for compensation. This is a new concept, Lipscomb suggests, that voters should vote on separately. Measure 7 also exempts liquor stores, casinos and adult bookstores from its compensation requirements. Lipscomb says voters may or may not agree with each of those exemptions and are entitled to vote on them separately.

The Oregon Constitution also requires the "full text" of any amendment printed on the ballot. Lipscomb ruled that Measure 7 changes several existing provisions of the Constitution without revealing that fact to voters.

Use of the initiative is regulated by Oregon’s Constitution. The legislative power of the state is reserved to the people by initiative. Constitutional initiatives are limited to amendments, not revisions of the constitution. Amendments can contain only one subject and each amendment must be voted on separately.

For the past 20 years, well-financed interest groups have bought their way onto the ballot, often with large contributions from a single donor, and amended the Constitution with unconscionable ease. Their success has emboldened other interest groups to push the limits of the initiative process. Constitutional "amendments" got longer and more sweeping in their scope.

Oregon courts began a closer look at what constitutes a "single subject" in 1996 when Marion County Circuit Judge Pamela L. Abernethy declared that portions of Measure 40, the so-called "victims rights" initiative, were on the ballot improperly.

In the case of Armatta v. Kitzhaber, the Oregon Supreme Court said Measure 40 contained so many changes in the Constitution that it forced voters to approve changes that they did not find acceptable in order to enact changes they wanted. The Legislature subsequently divided Measure 40 into seven separate measures and put them back on the ballot. Voters approved four and rejected three, vindicating the court’s reasoning.

Since the Armatta ruling, no one is quite sure what constitutes a "single subject" when amending the Oregon Constitution. It will take a number of appellate cases before the definitions become clear again. Unlike legislatures, which can simply rewrite the law, courts are limited to crafting new definitions from the cases that come before them. Measure 7 is one of those cases.

Measure 7 will be appealed because it is rich opportunity for the state’s highest court to clarify standards for constitutional initiatives. Lipscomb did not rule on the merits of Measure 7. His ruling is limited to the process that put Measure 7 on the ballot.

Bill Sizemore and Oregonians in Action, a developers rights group, say they will put a revision of Measure 7 back on the ballot. That would be welcome. Then Oregonians can have a serious public debate over the real question at issue:

If the taxpayers must pay cash when they impose reasonable land-use restrictions on their neighbors’ property that reduces its market value, should property owners pay cash for the increased value of property caused by publicly financed improvements like schools, parks, playgrounds, sewage treatment, water and fire protection? Measure 7 makes cash compensation a one-way street — right into developers’ pockets.

This is not a new argument. It came up when the Legislature approved Senate Bill 100 in 1973 and created the present land-use system. Senate Bill 849 was introduced in 1973 to compensate landowners whose property values might be reduced by land-use regulations. The bill died in committee when real estate and development interests demanded cash compensation for lost property value, but refused any mechanism of cash recovery for some portion of the increased property value created by public improvements. Lawmakers decided to compensate property owners for the lost market value caused by land-use restrictions by reducing assessed value instead.

This method of compensation had an important precedent. When the Legislature passed the Beach Bill in 1967, codifying an Oregon Supreme Court ruling that the public had a long-standing "prescriptive" right to use the dry sand portion of Oregon’s beaches, it required assessors to reduce the value of beachfront property by the portion of dry sand area property owners shared with the public. Assessed values were reduced on virtually every beachfront lot from Astoria to Brookings.

Today, Oregon property owners are compensated by reduced assessments for lost market value caused by land-use restrictions. When land is zoned for exclusive farm use, assessed values are reduced to the production value of the land, not development value. Lower assessments mean that piece of property pays a smaller share of the local government tax bill.

Property taxes pay for the operating costs of government — schools, police and fire protection. Property taxes pay back the money borrowed to build public works projects — water and sewage treatment systems, school buildings, parks and playgrounds. Property taxes do not pay back taxpayers for any portion of the increased value property owners enjoy from the taxpayers’ investment in public works that give modern property its market value. It becomes the property owners’ asset, a kind gift from some fairy godmother.

If property owners want cash when land-use restrictions reduce the value of their property, then it is only fair that property owners cough up some cash from the increased market value created by public improvements. That is the only practical way to raise the cash to pay the cash compensation required by Measure 7.

We invite readers to respond to this or other editorial opinions via e-vent. Send comments of 75 words or less to e-vent@mailtribune.com to be considered for immediate publication.

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