AUGUST 2008: FROM THE EDITOR
The rural stomp
THE LOSS OF TIMBER MONEY. The loss of rural programs. The loss
of the Office of Rural Policy. Even air service to rural
communities is getting sliced.
The roll call of losses, recent or historic, could easily
discourage the hardiest of souls. But that wouldn’t be
the nature of Oregon’s rural leaders.
Weary of watching rural resources notably dwindle in the past
year, they’ve decided, as retired Gilliam County Judge
Laura Pryor puts it, that “maybe we just have to do it
ourselves. There isn’t any money, the dollar is in
trouble, there’s a war. We just have to face
facts.”
So rural leaders are doing just that and are launching the
first Oregon Rural Congress, which will be held Aug. 21-22 at
the port facilities in Cascade Locks. The event’s
organizers are focusing on discussing solutions to the daunting
number of issues facing the state’s rural economies: the
dwindling and volatile natural resource-based industries; the
inadequacy of rural infrastructure, especially county roads and
telecommunications; the challenges of delivering health care to
residents; the shrinking financial support for rural
initiatives and communities.
“We are behind the eight ball going into the next
century in rural Oregon,” says Hood River County
commissioner Maui Meyer. “We have no infrastructure and
no ability to recover and lead the way. It’s going to be
a difficult and troublesome road if we don’t come up with
some solutions.”
Meyer sees rural Oregon as ill-prepared to meet and best the
many issues facing it right now. “As our state becomes
more and more dependent upon our resources, we want to stop
first and have a baseline conversation about our end of the
bargain,” he says.
Pryor sees the congress as the first step in a long journey.
Solving rural problems “isn’t something you do
overnight,” she says. “You don’t have
foundations in rural Oregon, You don’t have big business
groups, like the Portland Business Alliance. We hope to come up
with some directives for ourselves, the Legislature, the Oregon
Business Plan, the state agencies.”
The always direct Pryor, who helped get the Office of Rural
Policy started and also watched as the Legislature pulled its
funding this year, says she hopes “ground-level people in
the region show up. I don’t care about the
electeds.”
Whatever the turnout, the congress is an impressive show of
spirit, smarts and strategy. Whatever the outcome, it’s a
gathering that’s unlikely to remain silent, or to accept
defeat.
