Gordon Clay here. The voters of Curry County have spoken. Our Law Levy failed 56 to 44, Josephine's failed 51 to 49 and Lane County passed 57 to 43. Apparently, many Curry and Josephine voters think Salem can do a better job running our Countys than our own county and local governments.

Unfortunately, with so much misleading information coming out of Brookings' City Hall, our chance for a brighter future has dimmed. We missed a great opportunity to show Congress, in support of Senator Wyden's O&C lands bill, that we want to take responsible to see our county move forward. Once again, we came up short showing, instead, little interested in becoming a stable county on our own which is a sure indicator to Congress and to Salem that we will continue to rely heavily on federal and state support and not accept any more responsibility for our own Public Safety than we already have done. My hope is that Congress and Salem will stop being our enabler. It seems that we've got to hit rock bottom, similar to Josephine County, before we wake up. If we don't wake up, we deserve what ever we get.

For those who voted against Measure 8-71 because they thought HB 3453 had been amended to have the state pick up 50% of the costs of a Salem take over, it's just not true. None, that's right, none of the amendments, drafted by the League of Oregon Cities, stated in City Manager Gary Milliman's May 13 Council Agenda Report, have been accepted for inclusion into the bill. Quoting Chris Fick of the League of Oregon Cities "They have not been adopted by the Rules Committee, where the bill currently resides. The committee hasn't held a hearing on HB 3453 yet."

Click on the red floating banner on the TheCitizensWhoCare.org home page for more on Gary Milliman's hand in misleading the public on Measure 8-71.

Source: Fall-out from failed Measure 8-71