Sen. Jeff Golden (D, SD3) will be having a Town Hall on Thurs., Jan 16 at the Medford Library, Adams Room from 5:15 – 6:30 pm.
Sen. Golden is one of the chief legislators who gave us the firemaps that is causing havoc on property owners. These have been finalized and notices are arriving in mail boxes. Be sure to attend his town hall and ask him why these still have most of our properties in high risk zones when they are not.
Also be sure to ask him about these upcoming proposed bills and how he plans to vote on them…
- Gas tax increase, and not just a little. Discussions range from 35 cents/gallon and up higher.
- New Delivery tax on all goods delivered to your home from companies like Amazon, FedEx, UPS, DoorDash, etc.
- New Wildfire tax on utility companies, which will then be passed on to you.
- Increase Healthcare Provider tax, which will be passed on to you.
- Increase Beer & Wine taxes.
- Increase Timber & Harvest taxes.
- New $1.00/thousand Statewide Property Tax.
- Tolling on Highways.
Check our calendar for other events where you can speak up to make a difference.
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What was the outcome of this meeting in Medford with Sen. Jeff Golden? How can we push back on all those new taxes. Are we too late?
Are there any grants to help property owners with 40+ acres having a significant amount of brush and trees within high fire risk areas?
This is from a report found on Facebook:
The first room could not contain all the folks who showed up, many with their Fire Map letters in their hands so the meeting had to be moved to a much bigger room. The anger and frustration in the room was palpable and it was evident that Sen. Golden was woefully unprepared for the questions that he took. Some takeaways from the meeting- Per Sen. Golden, hiring an attorney to appeal your fire map designation would be a “waste of money”. Mr. Golden does not want this bill repealed, period, and stated that he feels it has many benefits however he did not detail these wonderful benefits to the room. Senator Golden has a wonderful solution for funding the bureaucracy, administrative lawfare and uh hmm, fire suppression and grant funding for us lowly peasants by keeping next years kicker refund which if I heard him correctly, will be about 300 million. Our illustrious state government with a vaunted history of outstanding fiscal management, will put the kicker $$ in a “special” fund, and use the interest earned for the effects of this map and wildfires. But, but…”It would be a one time deal only”! The room fairly erupted over this stupid idea. Senator Golden did not appear to believe the land serfs telling him they’ve either had their insurance dropped OR tripled and quadrupled. One couple had lost their insurance after 35 years with the same company. He seemed similarly unsympathetic when one of his constituents painted the rosy picture of trying to sell a home in the future if said home is in a high risk area of the map. How will a new buyer get a mortgage if he can’t obtain fire insurance? See where property values are headed? Apparently you can get a grant to harden your property, do everything they say you need to do, have ODF come out and agree you’ve made your property fire resistant and still not be able to be removed from the high risk category, as one peasant in the room explained. Senator Golden didn’t seem to believe that a large majority of fires are started by arson (unhoused population) and there wasn’t time to elaborate. He more or less ended the meeting by telling the room to be prepared to have a similar situation as the Palisades in the next 5-15 years right here in Medford. Yay!!!
I do have a solution and a suggestion for Senator Golden. Instead of asking the already overburdened tax slaves to pay more and suffer more, why not let us write off our homeowners insurance as well as other expenses related to mitigating our fire risk on our Oregon State income taxes? Things like generators to keep the sprinklers going during a fire when the power inevitably gets cut? Auxiliary water tanks? Roof sprinklers, etc?
The best us folks can hope for is a ballot initiative to repeal this ill conceived bill and that enough folks would get off the couch and vote for it. Sen. Golden seems almost giddy over this Fire Map and the opportunities it affords for more peasant control, taxation and government theft.
Unfortunately, we cannot repeal it via petition/vote because it was passed under the emergency clause. When the emergency clause is added to a bill, it cannot be undone by the voters. The legislature needs to repeal it themselves.