State faces big challenges; we need to step up locally

This isn’t your father’s Oregon anymore. And that isn’t a good thing, not by any stretch.

During the last 25 years of the 20th century, plentiful stores of land and energy, a superior educational system, a highly educated workforce and well-protected scenic and recreational values were drawing California employers north and Eastern employers west.

Meanwhile, home-grown innovators like tire king Les Schwab, Tektronix founder Howard Vollum and Nike visionary Phil Knight were busy creating tens of thousands of new jobs on their own. The combination drew an infusion of willing new workers, helping fill tax coffers and cash registers, particularly on the state’s more populous and industrialized west side.

During the first quarter of the new century, however, self-inflicted wounds and forces beyond local control began to darken Oregon’s prospects. The outlook has become so bleak, according to leading economic forecaster John Tapogna, that “the future has never looked less like the past than it does right now.”

In an interview with the Oregon Journalism Project, published in the Sept. 10 News-Register, Tapogna warned: “For me, the overarching story here is that the Tom McCall era is over. We are used to population flowing into Oregon in large numbers. That’s finished…”

He identified five key challenges faced by officials hoping to foster a turnaround: 1) a severe shortage of affordable houses and apartments; 2) plummeting educational performance despite steadily increasing investment; 3) emergence of a potentially catastrophic level of wildfire risk; 3) dangerous over-reliance on the income tax; 4) attitudes and regulations hindering development of new housing and employment opportunities.

Tapogna’s concerns were recently repeated in two other quarters.

Last month, Oregon’s latest economic forecast was even more discouraging than its May predecessor. The Legislature recently approved a $37.3 billion general fund budget, but the August forecast is projecting only $34.9 billion in revenue, because of a steep decline in federal aid.

That was followed in Monday’s News-Register with a report detailing a potentially catastrophic disconnect between household income and the cost of housing in McMinnville. Since 2012, it indicated, household income has risen 51% here, but rent has risen 68% and housing prices a staggering 173%, pushing the median selling point for a single-family residence to almost $475,000.

Median household income stands at just over $65,000 here, according to the city’s community development director, Heather Richards. That not only falls well below the county median, of more than $80,000, but also the state median, of more than $76,500. That is simply not sustainable.

The antidote is two-fold — an infusion of family-wage jobs coupled with an infusion of affordable homes and apartments. But some of the nation’s more costly, stringent and time-consuming land-use regulations make that especially challenging in Oregon.

As Tapogna put it, “Many of Oregon’s systems — our schools, regulations, land-use rules and permitting processes — were built for a different time, to solve yesterday’s problems.”

Sadly, we’re not optimistic about prospects for Oregon to aggressively address growing wildfire danger or inject greater rigor into our educational system — not if it can’t even muster the nerve to address a PERS deficit now approaching $30 billion and PERS burden now topping 30% of payroll for public employers.

And reducing reliance on the income tax by introducing some form of sales tax? That’s a non-starter for virtually every state officeholder in Oregon, regardless of party persuasion.

But when it comes to employment and housing, we do harbor at least a modicum of hope, particularly true on the city and county levels.

The city has opportunities with the McMinnville Landing and RB Rubber sites to foster development of new affordable housing. Both also offer opportunities for job-generating commercial and industrial development, particularly the vastly larger McMinnville Landing site.

It worries us to see a major portion of the RB Rubber site devoted to a 60-unit hotel. It worries us even more to hear apartment units are being sacrificed in negotiations with the prospective developer, in order to meet parking requirements, while the hotel element remains intact. It seems to us the priority here needs to remain affordable housing, period.

The county has a much smaller role to play.

However, purchase of two former Oregon Mutual Insurance buildings allows it to reverse a longstanding incursion into one of McMinnville’s oldest, closest in and most affordable established neighborhoods. As it begins to divest itself of former residential properties no longer needed for office space, we hope it will try its best to return them to McMinnville’s residential inventory.

The county mantra going in seems to be, “Show me the money. Top dollar talks.”

We get that. After all, public tax dollars are at stake.

However, the future of our community is also at stake. We urge the county to do whatever it can to leave the neighborhoods near the courthouse better than they found them.

If we can get everyone pulling in the same direction, we can make a difference.