Incumbent Al King and Phil Barnhart are running for the Democratic nomination for House District 11.
District 11 includes the rural areas southeast of Sweet Home and south of Lebanon through Coburg, Creswell and South Eugene.
“The big issue clearly is funding education,” Rep. King said. That’s the biggest thing most Democrats are concerned about. In the Linn County portions of his district and rural Oregon, people are concerned about getting jobs or keeping jobs.
“I feel that the people in Linn County are kind of mixed on taxes,” Rep. King said. A number of people want to help fund schools and even pay more, but a large percentage don’t want to pay more taxes while the economy is in such bad shape.
“I think that we do need to fund education with a more stable funding base than we have,” Rep. King said. “It will take some more revenue to do that.”
Many want to raise cigarette taxes to do that, but most don’t smoke, Rep. King said, and it is not fair to make the minority pay for something that is the responsibility of all.
Education needs about $1 billion more than it’s getting. To begin reaching that, corporate taxes could be raised to match individuals and the corporate kicker could be eliminated, with everyone chipping in a little.
Control over education should also be returned to the local level, Rep. King said. Measure Five took that away in 1990.
One the state of the economy, “it would be really nice if we were able to manage our forests well and have sustainable forestry happening instead of closed-down forests,” Rep. King said. Now, the state is heavily dependent on high-tech industries. Policies in Oregon should be set up to retain and attract high-tech work. That is critical to the economy.
“I’ve been doing that effectively since I’ve been in the legislature,” Rep. King said. To help address the economy, Rep. King serves on the Taskforce for Knowledge and Economic Development, created to find ways to stimulate the economy looking ahead to 2010 and 2020. The taskforce includes members of high-tech companies.
Oregon needs to take full advantage of its research, Rep. King said. For that, the group taskforce was a large part of the effort behind Measure 10, which would allow universities to own stock in companies that develop their research.
High-tech industry is a pervasive part of Oregon’s economy, Rep. King said. Oregon is among the top five in the importance of high-tech jobs to the state.
Oregon needs to keep itself attractive to high-tech companies, so they will expand here or move here, he said. “These are trophy employers.”
Facing serious budget shortfalls, Rep. King is concerned about funding senior services. He also thinks the state needs to look at what it did with Measure Five in 1990, which placed control of school districts and funding into the state’s hands.
The 21st Century Schools Act reforms, the certificate of initial mastery and the certificate of advanced mastery, come with a large price tag and are poor policy that probably should be eliminated, Rep. King said. “It’s not good to have the state legislature be Oregon’s super school board.”
Local boards can decide what students need much better, he said. Rural school districts are going through a lot of pain in budgeting, and superintendents who must cut programs and teachers must “have a very unhappy job right now.”
King is an investment broker in Eugene. He lives in the Marcola area.
Barnhart is a practicing psychologist from Eugene.
Education is the biggest problem facing Oregon, Barnhart said. “We need to replace the billion dollars lost to Measure Five. We need to stabilize and increase K-12 funding, reduce class size to ensure children learn the skills they need to succeed. Every child should be able to read by the end of the third grade.”
The state needs a “real” rainy day fund for education, he said, not Measure 13.
For kindergarten through the 12th grade, the state needs to replace the money lost to Measure Five and increase support for colleges and job training programs so Oregonians can succeed in family wage jobs, Barnhart said. By investing in programs, such as early childhood education, substance abuse prevention and adequate health services, the state can save money in the future by paying less for prisons, treatment of preventable diseases, emergency room visits and addiction treatment programs.
“I am passionate about improving Oregon’s education system so that our children can live their dreams and we can have strong families, healthy communities and a growing, vibrant economy in the future,” Barnhart said. Improving schools and making colleges and job training programs more accessible is part of improving Oregon’s economy.
Oregon also needs to maintain and repair its roads and bridges, Barnhart said. “We also need to encourage the development of high-speed Internet services in all parts of the state. Finally, when we regulate, we need to balance the needs of businesses to thrive with the long-term health and safety of all Oregonians….
“Better schools will be instrumental in producing better workers, better citizens, more stable families and a stronger economy. This one area has a huge impact upon almost every other area of our communities, state and nation.”