Sean C. Morgan
Members of Sweet Home’s congressional delegation say that their plans will help Sweet Home as it attempts to address various issues, including wastewater improvements, better broadband and better forest management.
Sweet Home Mayor Greg Mahler, Councilors Dave Trask and Susan Coleman and City Manager Ray Towry last week met with staff members and members of the delegation who represent Sweet Home in Washington, D.C., including Sen. Ron Wyden, Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Peter DeFazio. The Sweet Home representatives were in Washington, D.C, to attend the lighting of the Capitol Christmas tree, which came from the Sweet Home Ranger District.
Trask said he thought the delegation seemed receptive.
“They were very open minded to what we had to say,” Mahler said. “I think they were very receptive. Our city manager did an excellent job getting across what we’re trying to get across.”
“I thought it went well,” Towry said. “They were more engaged than I anticipated. I was particularly impressed with Merkley. I was super impressed with Wyden’s staff. I really enjoyed all three meetings.”
“It seemed that the staff and the delegates heard our concerns,” Coleman said. “I am interested to see if there are any connections they can help make for us.”
“We have some issues maybe you could help us out with,” Towry told Merkley. Sweet Home has a Wastewater Treatment Plant that’s been repeatedly under threat of fines by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
The city is currently in the engineering phase of rehabilitating and expanding the capacity of the plant. Estimated at around $40 million last year, the current option is running $20 to $25 million.
Towry said the city is looking for $2 million in loans from the state to help pay for it, Towry said, but noting the level of low-income households in the community, his personal goal is to find $8 million from external sources of funding.
Merkley told city officials one option is the Clean Water Revolving Fund, which is a repayable low-interest loan that is sometimes forgiven. Another program, based on a bill he wrote, is a grant program that carries a $25,000 application fee.
A staff member explained that Merkley’s office can connect the city with a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that provides grants and loans. It was funded at $500 million in 2010.
Merkley also identified and recommended working with the Oregon official who represents the federal programs, whom he worked with while serving in the state legislature.
Merkley said he has pushed for grant funding for situations like this, and he and Wyden can sign off on applications.
DeFazio is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and he told The New Era that he wants to work with the president and pass a comprehensive infrastructure bill.
“This is a huge problem,” Merkley said, noting Sweet Home’s small population but expensive need. “If we do a big federal infrastructure bill, water has to be part of that.”
It has to address old infrastructure, new capacity and new rules, he said. For Sweet Home, “we’ll try to (make) as many connections as possible.”
Towry said he understands that three communication trunk lines run through Sweet Home along Highway 20, and Sweet Home isn’t connected to any of them. He would like to see improvements in broadband performance, while noting a lack of broadband options outside the city limits.
Merkley said he got an 11-fold increase in federal funding for broadband, about $60 million, and “not a penny has gone out the door” because the issue is contentious with the involvement of broadband companies.
His goal is to publicize the fact the president’s administration has not given the money out and embarrass the administration into action, he said. “You can’t drive any economy or attract anybody if you don’t have broadband.”
Sweet Home offers a high quality of life who may want to work remotely, Towry said, but it needs good broadband to do it.
DeFazio told The New Era that he was in the Oval Office for the signing of the Coast Guard Authorization Act last week, and an adviser told the president “DeFazio here is a guy you can make a deal with on infrastructure.”
That seemed to intrigue the president, DeFazio said. The Democrats and President Trump as a Republican want to do something with infrastructure to make the United States more competitive internationally, to put people back to work and to reduce waste, he said.
Congestion, cars and trucks sitting and waiting, led to a waste of $3.1 billion in fuel costs last year, DeFazio said. An infrastructure bill should bring up the existing infrastructure to a good state of repair and expand capacity. He’s looking for an increase in the federal gas tax indexed annually with a maximum increase of 1.5 cents per year to fund infrastructure projects, which would provide $17 billion annually and allow bonding of up to $500 billion for projects.
The nation hasn’t seen a gas tax increase since 1993, he said. Since that time, more than 30 states have increased their gas taxes.
He wants to see an infrastructure bill include rural broadband, DeFazio said. A large infrastructure bill by the Democrats will include partnerships for states for education as well.
He thinks the federal government ought to have a role in helping address wastewater issues like Sweet Home’s as well, he said. While he was serving as Lane County commissioner in the 1980s, the federal government provided 80 percent of wastewater funding.
“Hopefully, that’s going to change,” he said.
In forestry, DeFazio said, “we got some changes in last year’s omnibus bill to allow more active management.” The Forest Service “got rid” of the previous regional forester.
Willamette National Forest “is doing a good job despite problems with the regional forester,” DeFazio said. The new forester, Glenn Casamassa, will provide active and environmentally responsible forest management.
Fuels reduction projects will be easier in the coming year, DeFazio said. Despite the objections of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who has for years rejected taking forest fires off budget, firefighting will no longer eat the Forest Service budget – with funding coming through the Federal Emergency Management System.
That means the Forest Service can spend the money on management, fuels reduction, timber sales and recreation, DeFazio said.
Wyden echoed DeFazio’s comments about forest management, noting that the Forest Service has agreed to speed up the reduction of hazardous fuels.
He thinks it also will make a big difference in getting the science right with respect to prescribed burning, he said.
“The Forest Service has agreed to do this as a result of my proposal,” Wyden said. “We’re going to get back into fire prevention. Now we’ve got to get into that backlog (dead and dying material).”
Regarding infrastructure needs, in 2009, “I got something passed called Build America Bonds,” Wyden said. Oregon used them extensively. The federal government sold about $180 billion in bonds, and he plans to push hard for it again.
Rural broadband is one of the big priorities going forward, Wyden said. “You cannot get the tools for rural Oregon to advance in our challenging global economy without modern communications, modern sewer and water and modern healthcare.”
Wyden discussed controlling health insurance costs, particularly for those who work for small businesses and who buy coverage in the Affordable Care Act exchanges while protecting coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and for more rural health practitioners.
He said he would like to create larger pools among those individuals to help spread costs around the way larger employers can, control the price of pharmaceuticals and promote health savings accounts.
Among his efforts, he has legislation he said will go after pharmaceutical benefit managers, the middlemen who began working a couple of decades ago negotiating “with the drug companies for you,” Wyden said. “We don’t know what they put in their pockets and what they put in the pockets in Sweet Home.”
He wants to rein them in and ensure that any savings from negotiating prices goes to the consumer rather than the benefit managers, he said.
Towry said that Wyden’s staff brought up the issue of homeless students. The New Era did not attend that meeting.
More than 10 percent of Sweet Home’s students are classified as homeless, which may include everything from students sleeping on the streets or in cars or doubled up in homes with extended family members or friends.
Based on School District information, Towry said that 50 percent of homeless students do not graduate.
The state does not provide the same level of funding it does for other groups at-risk for not graduating.
Wyden’s staff was particularly interested in learning more information about the issue and want to introduce a bill to track the impact of student homelessness.
Towry told the members of the congressional delegation and their staff that the city is willing to help, writing letters and supporting various efforts that could help local residents and asked them to let the city know what it can do to help.
The city’s approach was to work with the delegation as partners, Mahler said.