Two candidates are running for the Republican nomination for House District 17.
Running is two-term incumbent Jeff Kropf of Lebanon and Doug Denson of Sublimity. Both share nearly identical viewpoints. The Democratic nomination is uncontested.
“I’m running for re-election because I have a lot of unfinished constituent work,” Rep. Kropf said. Oregon is at a crossroads right now, and the state needs strong leadership. “I have a clear vision for where this state needs to be.”
Rep. Kropf’s top priority is public safety.
“Especially in this age of terrorism, nothing is more important than ensuring an orderly and peaceful society,” Rep. Kropf said. He is concerned about the dwindling number of state troopers on Oregon roads.
Also on Rep. Kropf’s list of priorities is the economy.
Oregon has the worst economy in the nation and the highest unemployment, he said. “And we’re not doing anything substantive about it.”
Rep. Kropf proposes re-allocating lottery dollars to economically distressed rural communities.
He also recommends cutting the Oregon capital gains tax from 9 percent to 5 percent.
Rep. Kropf also would like to expand economic incentives available to businesses that expand in or move to Oregon, establishing more enterprise zones in distressed rural communities and expanding the super enterprise zone designation, which not only defers property taxes but income taxes as well for businesses that provide family wage jobs.
Reforming school reform is third among Rep. Kropf’s priorities. Most of the 21st Century school reforms should be abandoned, with control being returned to local school boards and districts. He believes that statewide performance standards should remain in place.
His fourth priority is to establish long-term forward thinking policies for the senior population, which will double in Oregon by 2030, particularly how the state will pay for twice as many people receiving benefits. The state is barely able to fund them now, and the governor’s budget veto earlier this year will close seven senior care homes unless the legislative emergency board acts. Nineteen more are in jeopardy because they are not profitable.
The state also needs to offer incentives for prescription drug companies to offer medication at affordable prices for seniors who are destitute, meaning the state needs to encourage more competition and generics in pharmaceuticals.
Other issues facing the state include the Public Employees Retirement System’s liability.
“The liability is so massive that I don’t believe we could raise taxes (which Rep. Kropf would vote against) high enough to cover the problem,” Rep. Kropf said. He is still forming ideas on how to approach the issue.
Rep. Kropf operates a mint farm in the Halsey area.
Denson is in his second two-year term as mayor of Sublimity. He served four years on the Sublimity City Council prior to that.
Denson is a semi-retired teacher and real estate broker.
He grew up in Southern California, earning his bachelor’s degree in education from Los Angeles State. He taught for a year there before moving to Oregon in 1965 for the hunting, fishing and smaller population.
He taught in St. Paul then was superintendent-principal at West Stayton then Sublimity.
He completed a master’s of science in geography at Western Oregon University in 1976.
Denson’s main priority is the 1991 21st Century Schools Act. He believes that the entire reform effort should be scrapped, including statewide standards.
When the districts were merged, teachers began spending too much time dealing with paperwork and teaching to tests to improve test scores every year.
With elementary school districts, persons could go to the local board with an issue, Denson said. They could look at and have input in budgets. Now the state tells districts what it can do. Budgets are basically set by the state.
Left alone, the individual school districts “ran quite well,” Denson said.
Financing education is a big problem as well, Denson said. “I’d like to see a rainy day fund … for education.”
He supports Measure 13, which would take a state endowment for education and change it to a rainy day fund, using some money this year to backfill a budget shortfall.
In addition, Denson is concerned about land use.
The City of Sublimity is arguing with the Department of Land Conservation and Development about how much land should be set aside for multi-family zoning. DLCD requires the city to set aside 90 acres.
Since the argument started, the two sides have been negotiating and getting closer to a settlement.
DLCD “is self-regulated and nobody has any oversight” on it, Denson said. Sublimity has a large single-family lot size requirement, 10,000 square feet, but that is not acceptable to DLCD either.
After visiting Detroit and Klamath Falls last year, Denson also is concerned about environmentalism.
“People aren’t as important as animals and trees anymore,” he said. Detroit Lake was never filled last year, devastating the local economy. At Klamath Falls, where irrigation water was withheld from farmers, he decided that if there were a time for civil disobedience, that was it, especially considering that the water was not necessary for the fish. Food was “withering on the vine.”
To cope with budget issues, Denson said, there are “some programs that you just don’t fund like they are.
“Jeff (Kropf) and I agree, it’s not necessarily a funding problem. It’s an efficiency in government problem.”
During good years, the government just spends away money, he said. Now, the North Santiam School District is looking at cutting $3 million from a $20 million budget.
“The fact is times are tough,” Denson said. “Even in government, we need to … bite the bullet.”
Denson and Kropf share nearly identical viewpoints, both said.
“My opponent has not had the experience of working in the legislature to be fully aware of the really different issues we’re facing as of right now,” Rep. Kropf said. Other than that and how far to go in reforming education, the two are in agreement on most issues.
“I say that education is our number one priority” instead of public safety, Denson said, but “I don’t think you could make a bad vote in the Republican primary. I really don’t think you could make a bad choice.
“A vote for me is a vote for a conservative approach in finances and philosophy.”