Cougars and meteorites
Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin at 11/30/2023 10:27 AM PST
Hello friends and neighbors,
I hope you all had a relaxing Thanksgiving with friends and family. I completely unplugged for a couple of days–walked the dogs, ate too much food, and, at my partner’s insistence, put up a Christmas tree.
Here’s an update from the last few weeks–thank you for reading!
Affordable Housing for Seniors
A couple of weeks ago, I was honored to attend Northwest Housing Alternatives’ grand opening of Alongside Senior Housing in Tigard. The project received $6,270,000 in Metro affordable housing bond funds toward total development costs of $25,586,313. It is one of over 50 bond-funded projects in some phase of production across the greater Portland area. This is exactly the kind of project where these dollars should be used–and it truly felt like a celebration. It would not have been possible without the generosity and support of voters–so thank you.
The new apartment community will have 57 units, all of which are reserved for people aged 62 and older. 23 apartments are for very low-income households, meaning people who earn less than 30% of the area median income ($33,840 for a household of four). These apartments come with project-based vouchers, which means residents pay 30% of their income for rent. Five of these are specifically for veterans of the armed forces, through the federal Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program. The remaining apartments are for households whose income is at or below 60% AMI ($67,680 for a household of four) but above 30% AMI. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming them to the community.
The apartments are located near Fanno Creek Park, City Hall, and the Public Library. They are also within easy walking distance to public transit. Universal Plaza, approximately half a mile from the site, hosts the Tigard Area Farmers Market, food carts and cultural events.
As you’ll see from the photo below, it took many layers of government and the private and non-profit sectors working together to pull this off.
The official ribbon-cutting.
Oregon Historical Society Tour
During the interim, I hold a constituent event every month or so (and welcome 1-on-1 meetings throughout–just shoot us an email). In September, I hosted a memorable tour of the Oregon Jewish Museum followed by an impactful discussion. This month, I hosted a tour of one of my favorite spots in Oregon: the Oregon Historical Society (OHS). A huge thanks to the legendary Kerry Tymchuk, Director of OHS, for being so generous with his time and knowledge on our private tour. We got to see the coin that was flipped to determine what city would be named: Portland or Boston. We saw artifacts from Native American Tribal communities, relics from the Oregon Trail, sports memorabilia–and we got to hold a piece of the Willamette Meteorite, which has a truly wild backstory.
A huge thanks to everyone who came on the tour. If you weren’t able to join, I encourage you to consider visiting. Please reach out if you have any recommendations for future tours, or preferences for a future constituent event.
Kerry Tymchuk of OHS giving our group a tour of their collection.
Silicon Valley
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Silicon Valley with a bipartisan delegation of colleagues to focus on technology policy. Government is often criticized (and often correctly) for lagging behind in both regulation of technology and adoption of new technology. On this trip, we focused on a few key themes: “right to repair” (ensuring consumers have the ability to repair their devices), artificial intelligence and how to build an appropriate regulatory framework, and sustainability practices.
Technology policy is a big interest. In 2023, I was proud to strengthen Oregon’s cybersecurity policy framework by banning TikTok and other dangerous applications from state devices–and empowering the state’s Chief Technology Officer to nimbly adapt moving forward. To me, this is both a security issue and a privacy issue. That bill is an excellent example of how quickly technology can outpace existing regulatory frameworks. TikTok wasn’t even around when most of our existing laws were passed–and now it has a user base of over 1 billion people.
So what are the lessons and questions? A quick summary:
- Oregon needs to pass a “right to repair” law to ensure consumers can fix their phones, computers, and tablets when they break. And we need to make sure that third-party repair agencies are held to a high standard that doesn’t jeopardize the performance or longevity of the devices–both to protect consumers, but also to mitigate the environmental impact.
- Artificial intelligence is already here–and it’s impact on our society is only going to grow. Across all sectors, we need to develop plans and policies for how to incorporate and regulate the use of AI. A couple of example questions to think about:
- Should students be able to use AI to build outlines for essays?
- Should political campaigns be able to use “deepfakes” or “digitally manipulated media that replaces one person's likeness convincingly with that of another.”
- Should government incorporate AI in either customer service or service delivery functions?
- How proactively should we regulate the development of AI? This seems to me more of a national issue than state issue–but it’s a tremendously consequential question. And as we were reminded on the tour–restrictions or regulations on the development of generative AI in the United States will not necessarily be adhered to by foreign-based companies.
- The good news: Gov. Tina Kotek just created an “Oregon State Government AI Advisory Council” to help develop a plan for Oregon. They’ll meet over the next year to develop the plan.
Representative Hai Pham and I at the Google Campus.
NAYA Gala
The Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) had its annual gala last weekend and I was honored to attend at the invitation of my friend and colleague Rep. Annessa Hartman.
NAYA is an incredible organization that provides services to Oregon’s native communities, including college and career assistance, elder care, housing, and critical wrap-around services so that community members have a place to go for support. Additional services include emergency energy assistance, a clothing closet, a food pantry, homeless services, and domestic violence interventions. They have built trust and confidence by being in the community for almost 50 years.
The gala was to celebrate the fact that NAYA impacts the lives of more than 10,000 people annually and at this event they raised more than $670,000 for NAYA programs. It was a wonderful event and I was honored to attend.
NAYA Gala with Rep Annessa Hartman, Me, and NAYA leader Will Miller
Laugh of the Week: Cougars in Cook Park?
Many of you probably saw the news articles about the cougar sighting in Cook Park last week. My partner and I live very close to Cook Park and we have two smaller dogs (Oso and Ruby), so we were on high alert!
The sighting was even covered in national news like People Magazine and USA Today because…it turned out that the “cougar” was actually just an orange house cat. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says: “This happens more than you think.” The video is pretty funny–it looks like one of those grainy Sasquatch videos.
The funniest part of the saga happened later. Former State Representative Margaret Doherty (my former boss!) represented Tigard in the legislature for over a decade. She and some friends from the neighborhood visited Cook Park and took a photo with a caption that I’ll let speak for itself. It has over 200 likes on Facebook. Enjoy!
Good Cake Bakery
Welcome to the third edition of the Small Business Spotlight! If you have a business you wish to be featured in the newsletter (or would like to nominate a business), please email me at rep.benbowman@oregonlegislature.gov.
This week’s Business Spotlight is the Good Cake Bakery in Tigard. It is a woman-owned, minority business. They make a variety of traditional Mexican cakes and breads, including tres leches, milhojas, and chocoflanes. They also make croissants, popovers, turnovers, Danish pastries, and custom birthday cakes–check out their website for more information.
You can read more about them here or call (503) 810-9369 to place an order!
Thanks for reading,
Ben Bowman
Oregon State Representative
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