From January 10th through the 12th, legislators convened in Salem once again for the final round of Legislative Days before the start of the 2018 Short Session on February 5th. On January 10th, the Speaker of the House appointed me to serve as a member of the Joint Committee on Legislative Counsel which, along with the House Committees on which I also serve—Transportation Policy, Judiciary, and Health Care—convened for the purposes of holding informational hearings on several proposed bills and receiving updates from various state agencies, work groups, and task forces.  Legislative Days also provided members with an opportunity to gather support for the bills they will be introducing in the coming weeks, in the hopes of getting them passed before the session ends on March 11th.

One of the bills that I am introducing this session prohibits the operation of motorboats with wake-enhancing devices and requires that wakeboard boats be operated at slow, no-wake speeds on a portion of the upper Willamette River between the Tualatin River near Oregon City and Hess Creek in Newberg. Significant waves created by wakeboarding have resulted in the erosion of homeowners’ property and damage to docks along this stretch of the river. By limiting these activities in specific areas, we can ensure that everyone is able to enjoy the river we all know and love and which defines our region of the State.

As with last session, the Honorary Page Program will be running this year from February through early March. For more than fifty years, the Oregon House of Representatives has offered students between the ages of 12 and 17 the opportunity to spend a day at the Oregon State Capitol, assisting members in the House Chamber during the daily floor session, observing committee meetings, touring the capitol, and more as they learn firsthand how our state government works. If you know anyone between the ages of 12 and 17 who might be interested in serving as an Honorary Page, you can encourage them to learn more and apply online here.

On December 20th, I visited the Washington County District Attorney’s office in Hillsboro. The current District Attorney, Bob Hermann, has been a pleasure to work with throughout my involvement with county government, and is a dear friend of mine. I appreciated the invitation to meet with him and members of his staff and to discuss some of the challenges that their office is currently facing and is expecting to encounter during the Short Session as well as in the months and years ahead.

On December 28th, I toured the Oregon BottleDrop Redemption Center in Tigard, operated by the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC). In 1971, the Oregon State Legislature passed the Bottle Bill—the first of its kind in the nation—which added a refundable deposit of 5 cents to the price of certain cans and bottles in order to encourage recycling and keeping Oregon clean. In April of last year, that deposit increased to 10 cents and, on January 1st of this year, the program expanded to most beverages sealed in plastic, aluminum and glass containers between 4 ounces and 1.5 liters, including sports drinks, fruit juices, coffees and others. I want to thank OBRC’s Public Relations Director, Joel Schoening, for giving me a tour of the facility, and for everything that he and the rest of the OBRC team do to advance the cause of reducing waste in our communities. 

On December 18th, I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the first phase of the Newberg-Dundee Bypass Project. This new roadway will significantly reduce traffic between Newberg and Dundee, including approximately 65% of freight traffic. In the future, the bypass will be extended further east to OR 99W at Rex Hill and further west to OR 18 in Dayton. The Oregon Department of Transportation completed this phase of the project on time and under budget, and I appreciate all those who came together to make that possible. The success of this project demonstrates the potential for others like it in the Portland metropolitan area. As Vice Chair of the House Committee on Transportation Policy, one of my goals has been to advocate for such investments, as well as for new ways of funding them, and I look forward to continuing this advocacy during future legislative sessions.

As a new member of the House Committee on Health Care, I recently toured the new Knight Cancer Research Building in Portland’s South Waterfront with Sen. Tim Knopp and other legislators. Representatives of the Knight Cancer Institute told us about the kind of research and collaboration that will take place in this innovative facility, which will open in the early fall of this year, and provided us with an update regarding their philanthropy, growth, and recruitment efforts. Later that day, I toured Doernbecher Children's Hospital with Physician-in-chief Dr. Dana Braner. Because Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is a public corporation with a state mandated mission, it works closely with the Oregon State Legislature to ensure that it is providing access to health care for the most vulnerable Oregonians, training the next generation of health care professionals, and moving cures from the lab to the bedside. I want to thank OHSU’s staff for organizing such an informative event and their world-renowned cancer researchers for all that they do to find more cures to more cancers.