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Moving right along: Hannon steps into the fast lane By PETER WONG SALEM -- State Sen. Lenn Hannon, R-Ashland, joined the majority voting last week to boost the speed limit to 75 mph on selected stretches of rural interstate and other highways. "It's nice to believe that speed is behind all highway deaths," Hannon said as he cast his vote for Senate Bill 558. "It is not." Hannon said he felt it was time to end the hypocrisy of having a speed limit that is widely ignored. But what he did not mention during the debate, although he has mentioned it before, was a reminder of his own personal challenge of that limit. Sitting in a plastic holder next to his desk in his private office is a yellow copy of a ticket he received from the Oregon State Police two years ago, and reported in this column, for driving 81 mph near Salem. Gov. John Kitzhaber also erred last week, but his mistake was on paper. The Democratic chief executive called for an increase of $100 million in corporate income taxes as part of his proposal to raise $400 million more for state aid to public schools. His speech text said incorrectly that the rate would go up from 6 to 8 percent. His press release that accompanied the speech said it would go up from 6.6 percent -- the correct rate for the current corporate income tax -- to 8.8 percent. His spokesman, Bob Applegate, said that was correct and most news accounts reported it that way. But such an increase would raise more than double Kitzhaber's target of $100 million, and the actual proposal is for a two-year increase in the tax to 7.6 percent. (Although the proposed increase is 1 percentage point, the actual increase would be 15 percent.) Republican legislative leaders did not get too excited about Kitzhaber's mistake, because they say the ultimate result is going to be zero. Before he began his speech at a Salem elementary school, Kitzhaber said he explained his proposal to Democratic legislators gathered at the Capitol. But he felt like Julius Caesar: "I was reminded that I was surrounded by friends on the Ides of March." Kitzhaber hasn't lost his sense of humor. On the day the Navy finally sank the New Carissa off the Oregon coast, he issued a proclamation for "Two-Thirds of the New Carissa at the Bottom of the Ocean Day." To the accompaniment of music from the movie "Titanic," he gave a dramatic but tongue-in-cheek reading of the proclamation on Oregon Public Broadcasting radio. On a more serious note, Kitzhaber honored Hector Macpherson of Albany, a dairy farmer who as a Republican state senator in 1973 was the co-author of Oregon's land use planning program in Senate Bill 100. Macpherson, who's 80, is this year's recipient of the national citizen planner award from the American Planning Association. He will receive the award in April at a national conference in Seattle. "His tireless crusading for the land use system has helped create a program that has been a model for the nation in terms of its ability to preserve millions of productive acres of farm and forest lands," Kitzhaber said. "His energy and vision captured the imagination of Oregonians at a time when we could easily have taken a different path -- a politically expedient path -- and we would have ended up somewhere else." When Macpherson's turn came, he said jokingly: "What I think they're really honoring is longevity." Macpherson is leaving as one of the seven members of the state Land Conservation and Development Commission, which he has been on since 1990, but the state Senate has not yet confirmed a replacement. While I am noting errors this week, I should mention one of my own from last week's Notebook. Rep. Jason Atkinson, R-Jacksonville, was among the signers of a letter circulated by Rep. Rob Patridge, R-Medford, urging Texas Gov. George W. Bush to seek the Republican nomination for president. Atkinson's signature is on the actual letter, but his name was omitted from the press release accompanying it. Peter Wong may be reached at the Mail Tribune capitol bureau, (503) 588-8826. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA