Scott Swanson
Kelly Lovelace believes that turning around the economy and creating more jobs will turn around Oregon.
Lovelace, 63, of Creswell, is the Republican candidate for state House District 11 seat occupied by Phil Barnhart. The district includes rural areas southwest of the Sweet Home city limits, west along Highway 228 to Harrisburg and Halsey and south to Coburg and Eugene.
“I’m running because we’ve actually kind of got a mess,” Lovelace said. “We’ve got way more regulations than we need, and we’re spending way more on government than we need for the economy we have right now.”
State Budgeting
To deal with its revenue problems, the state needs to find a way to improve the job situation, he said, and more taxes are not the solution.
The role of government is to provide a civil society, in which to raise families and make things work, Lovelace said. “So the first thing we should be thinking about is public safety. Next should be education.”
Both should be funded adequately, he said. “From there, you decide what you can afford and how you’re going to fund it.”
With the income tax, property tax and fees, the people should expect that society is protected by an adequate police force and court system, Lovelace said, and that support needs to go to the local level.
One of the things driving increasing expenses is the Public Employees Retirement System, he said. “I’m not against a retirement system for our public employees. I guess my question is, at what level? Because of unions and other drivers and the the unwillingness of public officials to address it, we have a system in place right now that’s out of control.”
To solve the problem, “what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to have an economy that will support it.”
Timber and Land Use
From Springfield to Sweet Home, timber was a driving force in the economy, and a limited group of people have been allowed to lock out the resource, especially west of the Cascades, Lovelace said. Oregon could join other states in the west and begin to take back what should have belonged to the state in the first place.
The issue goes back to the introduction of each state into the union, he said. They should have been treated equally, but vast tracts of land remained federal property, something he contests is unconstitutional.
“All the federal land should at least belong to the state, and a much bigger part of it should be private land,” Lovelace said. “They’ve locked up our economy in many ways.”
In lieu of it, the federal government has supplemented lost tax revenue, he said. “We haven’t fought it – not as a state.”
The Land Conservation and Development Commission and land use planning have locked up private property, he said. “We’re the only state in the union that has anything like it.”
It’s great to have planning, but the Tom McCall planning system is not the one Oregon has today, Lovelace said. Property owners cannot divide their land or do much of anything beyond farm and forest uses. That’s driven up the cost of housing and land, and it’s something that needs to be addressed.
Economy
A healthy economy is critical to a variety of problems, including the state’s revenue problem, Lovelace said. He opposes raising taxes, but the state does need to raise revenues.
The answer is jobs, he said, but the state is standing in the way with regulations, such as Measures 66 and 67, which, among its effects, implemented a gross revenues tax on businesses. Even businesses that lose money have to pay taxes and increased taxes on wealthier households.
“You could have to borrow money to pay taxes,” he said.
Oregon is a great place to live, Lovelace said, but someone wanting to start a business might think about going somewhere else.
“The answer to our problems is more jobs, more revenues and more people paying taxes,” Lovelace said. The problem is hidden too, like in the state’s “over-the-road” tax, which is the highest in the west. Those costs are passed on to customers purchasing goods.
“What we want to do is we want to figure out a way to grow our economy and have people want to be here,” Lovelace said, because right now, Oregon is trying to pay for more services than it can. As a group, the Republican Party has some very good plans that it can implement if it gains control of the legislature.
Education
Like the PERS liabilities, education is another driving costs higher, Lovelace said. “We continually hear everyone needs a college education,” he said. “Kids start being told that in the first grade. It’s really not true.”
Students are finishing college, and they can’t find jobs while owing $60,000 to $100,000, he said. It isn’t necessary. His son-in-law is an electrician earning $70,000 to $80,000 per year, and he has a high school diploma.
There is a lot out there for young adults to do that doesn’t require college, Lovelace said. “I think colleges are marketing themselves as the end-all, and I’m not sure it’s entirely correct.”
Tradesmen are critical to economic growth, he said, and it is important to offer them opportunities and the education and training they need.
Just as important is putting more emphasis on kindergarten through fourth grade, he said. The more he learns about how children learn, he believes they need the basic math and reading skills by the end of that period to be successful at higher levels of education.
“It’s one of our biggest failings right now,” Lovelace said. “Those students who don’t do well enough will never catch up to the rest of their classmates. “We’ve failed them.”
Cougars
On cougars, Lovelace said that if a cougar will take on a dog, it will take on a child.
“We need to do something,” he said. “We need to be hunting with dogs.”
The state also needs to do something with bears and coyotes, he said. In another 10 to 15 years, wolves may be a tremendous problem.
“It’s not that I’m against cougars, but there’s a place for them,” Lovelace said. “There are really good ways to manage them if it’s allowed to happen.”
Personal
Lovelace is married to Vicki. They have a daughter and son in their 30s and two grandchildren. Lovelace has farmed for most of his life and worked as general manager of a large ranch east of Lakeview in the 1980s.
He has owned a couple of manufacturing companies, including one that made lift trucks.