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State seeks comment on projects But gas tax vote in spring may doom ODOT highway plans By Peter Wong of the Mail Tribune People will get their say about which Southern Oregon projects should share in a statewide bond issue of $600 million for highway and bridge improvements in the next six years. Most of those projects will be stillborn, however, if voters next spring reject the higher gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees that would pay off the proposed bond issue. But the first step in ranking the projects will start at a public meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday in the Smullin Center at Rogue Valley Medical Center, 2825 E. Barnett Road, Medford. The meeting is sponsored by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), Rogue Valley Area Commission on Transportation, and the Medford Metropolitan Planning Organization. Four Medford projects totaling $62 million are on the list for what is known as the supplemental state transportation improvement plan. They include major realignments and expansions of the north and south interchanges with Interstate 5 to relieve congestion and improve traffic flow. The ranking process is necessary because a preliminary list of projects that state transportation officials furnished to the Legislature last spring adds up to $725 million, far more than is available from the bond issue. Because of issuance costs, the bond issue might produce only $550 million for projects. Though the agency plans a meeting in Coos Bay and the Rogue Valley panel plans a meeting in White City next month, public comment should be presented in person at Monday's meeting or in writing to ODOT. "This is the meeting when we will take public comments about which projects should be on the list, particularly those in this region, and what their priority should be," said Stuart Foster, of Medford, one of the five members of the Oregon Transportation Commission, which in August set standards for ranking the projects. The commission is scheduled to receive a preliminary report about projects in November and make the list final in December. Foster said that deadline could slip if the commission asks for further investigation of some projects. When the Legislature cleared House Bill 2082 July 23, a day before it closed its 1999 session, the Oregon Transportation Commission was to submit its list of recommended projects to the Legislature's Joint Interim Committee on Transportation. Once the committee reviewed it, the Emergency Board would authorize the state to issue the bonds, backed by the higher taxes and fees. The board, which handles budget matters between legislative sessions, would have done so in February. But opponents, led by the Oregon/Idaho chapter of the American Automobile Association and anti-tax activist Bill Sizemore, submitted at least 71,000 signatures to force a referral of House Bill 2082 to voters in the primary election on May 16, 2000. About 4,500 of the initial batch of signatures came from Jackson County. Friday was the deadline for opponents to submit signatures. The secretary of state will have until Nov. 12 to determine if 44,524 of them are valid. "Obviously, all we are going to be able to do now is identify the projects and advise the Legislature of them by February," Foster said. "We are not going to undertake their design until we know what happens with the referendum. "But we need to be in a position that if our funding is still in place afterward, we are able to move on these projects immediately, because we have a short time in which to implement them." The Legislature set the referendum for the primary, rather than the November 2000 general election, so that a construction season would not be lost. "A lot depends on what happens in the May 2000 election," said Sen. Lenn Hannon, R-Ashland, a member of both the Legislature's joint committee on transportation and the Emergency Board. "If it goes through, we would act on the list, based on what the Transportation Commission has provided us." AAA says it supports increased money for road work but opposes a change in the way trucks are taxed. They now are taxed based on the weight they carry and the miles they travel within Oregon. The bill would substitute higher registration fees and a diesel-fuel tax. "These signatures send the message that Oregonians reject special-interest tax breaks for big out-of-state trucking at the expense of other drivers," said Roger Graybeal, AAA's president and chief executive officer. AAA argues that the change would shift costs onto motorists, but advocates say that voter approval of Measure 76 on the Nov. 2 ballot would require the Legislature to determine the fair shares of motorists and truckers for the cost of road repairs. Sizemore simply opposes the increases, which are 5 cents in the gasoline tax of 24 cents per gallon and $10 in the two-year registration fee of $30. AAA has argued that it is a waste of time and money for state transportation officials and legislators to rank these projects until the referendum occurs. Hannon, who headed the legislative subcommittee that wrote ODOT's 1999-2001 budget, said the Legislature required the agency to show how it would spend the new money. "I also think it would be helpful for the public to understand what projects they would be giving up in exchange for voting down these increases," he said. "At least they would see a cause and effect." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA