Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Bill Tacy says he wants to represent the people of Linn County, giving them a voice and standing up for them with county government.
Tacy faces Lebanon incumbent John Lindsey in the Republican primary for the Position 1 seat on the Linn County Board of Commissioners. The winner will face Democratic challenger Glenda Fleming of Albany in the fall. She is a research chemist.
Tacy, 46, of Lebanon owns and operates Tacy Trucking, two log trucks and dump truck. He has been a Linn County resident all his life and graduated from Lebanon High School in 1978.
This is his third attempt to win a commissioner’s seat. He has run twice as a Democrat, “but people often accused me of talking like a Republican. I was a fairly conservative Democrat anyway.”
His family has always been Democratic, but they always voted for the individual, he said. “I don’t care if you’re a communist or whatever, I want to represent you. I don’t want someone that’s been employed by government in there. I want someone from the working class. I want to be able to represent the man on the street.”
His doors will always be open to the public, Tacy said, and he will help resolve issues.
The county’s planning system is its biggest problem, Tacy said. He believes the county’s planning department is not user-friendly and gets in the way of economic development and frustrates land owners.
“Right now, it’s the planning and Measure 37,” Tacy said. The county has ruled in favor of a number of Measure 37 claims, but it’s denied others on the basis that although it was in the family, the land had not been transferred to the property owner until after a regulation was in effect.
Measure 37 requires that jurisdictions compensate property owners for regulations that limit their development, or waive the requirement. Property is eligible for a Measure 37 claim for regulations imposed after the property was purchased by a family or individual.
The attorney general has interpreted it to mean the owner must have been the legal owner before the regulation in question went into effect, he said. “Even though the family owned it, they didn’t take possession until after the rule went into effect.”
The problem with planning in Oregon is that counties are permitted to be more restrictive than the state’s regulations, Tacy said. He would like all counties to follow state law, “then every county’s on the same page.”
Right now, Polk County, for example, is less restrictive than Linn County, he said.
“I hate to hammer on that planning issue, but the business climate in Linn County could be improved (by changes in planning),” he said. The first official people planning to build in Linn County will run into is someone from the Planning Department, and what happens there will affect the decision whether to build in Linn County.
“Economics is tied to planning,” Tacy said. “Planning is screwed up in Linn County.”
If planning worked right, Linn County would attract business without effort, he said.
“I just think it’s part of living in God’s country. It’s going to happen.”
“I think (the commissioners) could be more involved,” he said. “They gave authority for the planning director to make certain decisions.”
The planning director can get in the way, saying an application is incomplete, and “you can never get into the process,” he said. That happened to him, and he knows it happens to others.
He wants a user-friendly planning system where officials are not naysayers but problem solvers, Tacy said. “You want somebody to tell you how to go through the procedure to get it done.”
Beyond planning, “I think we could push the state to start logging more of that timber,” Tacy said. He thinks the Tillamook State Forest could be sustainably harvested.
His own experience leads to his only criticism of Lindsey, whom Tacy calls a “nice guy.”
During Tacy’s own planning difficulties, Lindsey was sympathetic, Tacy said, stating that Lindsey “was the only one that tried, but he didn’t go far enough.”
“You want to vote for me because when you have a problem, I will be there for you,” Tacy said. “It’s going to get done. The first time I’m shut down, there’ll be 300 people there. I have a temper. I’ll go to the mat for you. It’s not my issue. It’s your issue.”
If the Planning Department is giving a developer a hard time and getting in the way, the director is responsible for those employees and changing their behavior, he said. If he doesn’t, the county commissioners are responsible, and if the department director can’t get it done, they can get someone that will.
Linn County will have problems when timber safety net dollars end this year, he said. “What are we going to do? I don’t want to see taxes raised.”
That means, if the county must cut back, that’s what it will do, Tacy said. “Why should they get a 5-percent increase just because they are government? Businesses don’t do that.”
He is not schooled in technical areas, but he can make good decisions, he said, and he wants to see law enforcement adequately funded.
“One of the biggest problems in Linn County is the meth problem. I don’t know throwing money at rehab is the way to go,” Tacy said. “I’d just as soon spend more on law enforcement.”
Rehab and treatment is where churches and nonprofits come in, he said. It’s up to the addicts to step up and take some responsibility.
He would like to see the county “start locking up the people that are making it, the peopole that are selling it,” Tacy said. As a commissioner, he can petition the state, and the state can petition the federal government to regulate the key ingredients.