 I hope this letter finds you well. The Capitol Mall Cherry Blossom festival will herald Spring this Saturday from 11-3. This year’s event coincides with the peak bloom! Find more information about daytime and nighttime viewing here.
I write to you on the heels of our 2024 legislative session. We did so much prior to last week’s adjournment and have closed the books on an historically bipartisan, ambitious, and thoroughly productive short session. In this newsletter I will cover some of our successes and the interim work that my team and I will be focused on in preparation for 2025.
I will be traveling around to city councils to check in this month to deliver updates and hope you will mark your calendars for my next Town Hall event at the Wilsonville Public Library. I will offer a post-session wrap up and look forward to discussion. Please join me!
We delivered on homelessness and housing affordability, improved behavioral health and addiction services, and safer neighborhoods. We passed historic campaign finance reform, made healthcare more affordable, increased access to childcare for working Oregonians, and funded essential projects around the state.
We delivered on homelessness and housing affordability, improved behavioral health and addiction services, and safer neighborhoods. We passed historic campaign finance reform, made healthcare more affordable, increased access to childcare for working Oregonians, and funded essential projects around the state.
The legislature has responded to the crisis unfolding in our streets by passing the Oregon Drug Intervention Plan (HB 4002 and 5204) which gives law enforcement and community treatment providers the tools they need to confiscate hard drugs and connect people to treatment. The Joint Committee On Addiction and Community Safety Response worked tirelessly to create a path forward that both Democrats and Republicans could support. The resulting legislation did just that, receiving bipartisan votes in the Committee, House, and Senate. This carefully considered approach balances the critical supports and criminal justice off ramps with tools for law enforcement to keep our streets safer. We must focus on structures that truly provide help to people experiencing addiction. A number of life-saving investments are coming to our community, including:
- $4 million for Clackamas County’s to construct a crisis stabilization center
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Treatment Courts statewide, including Clackamas, Washington, and Yamhill counties will get $3.9 million for staffing increases; Washington County will get additional dollars to expand Treatment Courts and to fund a coordinator position
In addition, the next section lists housing and homelessness supports, many of which also support our neighbors in accessing lifesaving recovery treatment.
We passed the Emergency Housing Stability and Production Package that removes barriers to housing construction, supports healthy homes, focuses on infrastructure needs, and brings the total housing investments in our 2023 and 2024 sessions to more than $2.3 billion. The package’s policy changes and investments aim to build missing housing and respond to housing needs quickly.
I sponsored HB 4134, which focuses on shovel ready housing infrastructure projects in cities with a population under 50,000. And, while there is a lot to appreciate in SB 1537, the Governor’s priority housing bill, and I am committed to building more housing, I carefully considered the deep concerns of the cities I represent. I voted “no” to represent feedback from my district about how the policy undermines land use laws, subverts design codes that my communities care about, and might not be able to deliver the housing inventory it promises.
I voted to appropriate $379 million to the legislature’s ongoing commitment to get people off the street and into shelter. These dollars serve to prevent and reduce homelessness by keeping people housed, supporting renters, and ramping up housing production which also helps make housing more affordable.
Additionally, SB 1530 directly provided dollars to municipalities to support housing production, addiction and recovery services, and re-entry for justice involved individuals. Shelter and homebuilding projects benefiting our district include:
- $3M for the Tualatin Valley Water District for pump station upgrades on South Cooper Mountain
- $1.4 million for Free on the Outside for the purchase of two re-entry homes with 15 beds in each for justice-involved individuals in Clackamas and Washington Counties
- $260,000 to the Iron Tribe Network to subsidize operational costs of recovery housing with 20 beds in Clackamas County
- $1,370,000 for Transcending Hope Above and Beyond for recovery housing, with 40 beds, in Clackamas County and Washington Counties.
- $3.1M for Bridges to Change for 50 different recovery housing sites in Clackamas and Washington Counties
Of the two safety-focused policies I introduced this session, one passed and the other will require another attempt in a future session.
I’m thrilled that my bill (HB 4147) to allow school buses in Oregon to have stop arm cameras was successful this session. In partnership with the League of Oregon Cities, Oregon School Employees Association, Police and Sheriffs Association, and our constituent Sean Sype who suggested the concept, we advocated for school districts to have the choice to enter into contracts with local law enforcement to use stop arm cameras to hold people accountable when they violate bus stop arms. Sean Sype is a Wilsonville High School student and came to testify at our hearing in the Senate Education Committee in support of our bill to protect students. In a 2023 nationwide survey of bus drivers, over 62,000 vehicles unlawfully overtook school buses within a one-day survey period. Oregon-specific data showed that our bus drivers documented 1,427 stop arm violations in a single day - a staggering number of violations. My team and I got right to work turning Sean’s idea into a bill. Read more about Sean and the history of this bill in Wilsonville Spokesman.
 The team responsible for the passage of HB 4147 - it was a team effort, L-R: Scott Winkels, Sean Sype, Leanne Sype, Rep. Neron, Marcella Martinson, Pablo Nieves-Valenzuela, Sara Kim
Survivors of sexual assault and revenge porn have new rights thanks to HB 4146, a bill introduced by my colleague Rep. Annessa Hartman, and that I chief sponsored. It broadens victims rights by improving access to restraining orders and expanding the scope for prosecution of illegal dissemination of intimate images. It allows petitioners to apply for restraining orders in the county where the abuse took place even if it’s not where the petitioner lives.
Additionally, I chief sponsored HB 4140, introduced by Rep. Jason Kropf, to ensure future support for survivors of child abuse or domestic and sexual violence. It supports Children’s Advocacy Centers, the Survivor Housing Funds grant program and the Oregon Domestic and Sexual Violence Services Fund to better provide desperately needed resources for adults and children escaping dangerous, abusive situations.
While it is meaningful to celebrate good policies and worthy program funding, it is also exciting to see infrastructure investments come to fruition! I helped The City of Sherwood break ground on the new Sherwood Pedestrian Bridge that will cross over Hwy 99W and connect East and West Sherwood. Over the course of multiple legislative sessions, in partnership with the City of Sherwood, I fought for and secured $4 million in state funding for this project and I am thrilled that the bridge is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2025.
 
I was honored to carry one of the last bills of session on March 7, before adjournment. Our education omnibus bill SB1552 is a great example of the robust and impactful work that will be Senator Dembrow’s legacy. This bill is an example of what is possible in a short session and delivers a long list of policies that I mentioned in my bill carry speech to the House. Just some of the major wins for students and teachers within the bill include: studies of the Quality Education Model and financing of public education, implementation of a Youth Advisory Council, and planning for direct admissions for our public institutions of higher education.
As the Chair of the House Committee on Education I focused on structural changes to better serve our most vulnerable students. While we will have to try again in 2025 for a statewide IEP system (HB4078), lifting the cap on Special Education funding, ensuring funding for our homeless youth (HB 4079), fully funding High-Cost Disability Grants (HB 4068), and ensuring that educators have access to reporting incidents and injuries (HB 4077), we had essential conversations that I plan to continue. I maintain focus on stable, equitable, and adequate funding of quality education and hope my work will continue to show the legislative pathways to solutions.
The policies and investments in education that we are celebrating passage of this session include:
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HB 4082 which offers $30M to stabilize and plan for quality summer learning programs. I will continue to advocate for increased and ongoing funding for summer learning because research shows that it makes a huge difference in outcomes and our districts can do the most if we give summer programs funding stability.
- By strategically leveraging a $12.7 million state investment in Summer EBT School Meals programming, we are able to draw down $83 million in federal funding. This critical investment will feed 294,000 more Oregon children at the highest risk of hunger.
- I fought for the $1 million investment in our Willamette Career Academy. Their robust career and technical education training is an asset to workforce development and a model for regional programming.
As Vice-Chair of the Environmental Caucus, I advocated for bills that moved the dial on environmental protections and investments. Of our top priorities, all but two passed. We will try again in 2025 to get funding for the WES rail study and to update our emissions reductions goals.
I worked in partnership with Senator Sollman (pictured below) to reintroduce Right to Repair (SB 1596), a bill I have supported since 2019. I am thrilled that together we were able to get it across the finish line this session with bipartisan and industry support. We delivered the nation’s most comprehensive, consumer friendly Right to Repair legislation yet. This legislation will require manufacturing companies to make diagnostic tools, information, and replacement parts available to consumers and third-party repair shops so Oregonians can more affordably fix their phones, computers, and appliances. By extending the life of products and allowing parts to be reused, Oregon will reduce hazardous e-waste and keep countless devices out of landfills. This bill has been covered by numerous news sources, but I will point you to The Verge podcast and recent article and The New York Times article titled “You Paid $1,000 for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It”, in the event you are looking for more background on why I’m so passionate about this topic.
For the past few years of my service, I have been increasingly vocal about the flawed ODOT plan to place unfair tolls in my region and their lack of response to our testimony. We do need a plan for replacing and repairing aging infrastructure, but their planning was set to disproportionately impact Clackamas County and unfairly ask our towns to shoulder an outsized burden for interstate infrastructure. In my op-ed this winter I expressed my concerns about the tolling plan for I-5 and I-205 and its impacts on our communities. Without proper revenue sharing, mitigation efforts, and alternative transportation options, the toll proposals would divert traffic to our towns and rural roads. I firmly believe that we should not simply transfer where safety issues, congestion and pollution are concentrated and that the Regional Mobility Project (aimed at reducing cars on the road) needs to be studied in partnership with tolling of specific projects (like bridges). It is important to ensure that ODOT works with the impacted communities and listens to the clear feedback they receive. I have advocated for my communities in partnership with other Clackamas County Reps and Senators, but especially in partnership with Rep. Annessa Hartman and Rep. Jules Walters (whose districts would also be deeply impacted). The Governor’s recent announcement to table tolling for the time being is a welcomed evolution. Read our joint statement about her announcement here:
“We’re thankful for the Governor’s decisive action yesterday. We worked hard to ensure that the voices of those in our communities were heard in public meetings, testimony, and advocacy. Our communities did not support shouldering an outsized burden for interstate infrastructure, and this tolling reversal means a lot to those who live and work here. We collaborated with regional elected leaders and staff to amplify our constituent’s concerns. The proposals we saw would have placed an inequitable economic impact on the residents and businesses of Clackamas County and parts of Washington County. Now, we as legislators will work in 2025 to identify equitable solutions for a safe, modern transportation system, and seek community input every step of the way.”
 The Team (L-R): Laurie Skillman, Rep. Courtney Neron, Marcella Martinson
These two remarkable women navigated our first short session together like champs and gave everything they've got to the work at hand.
House District 26 is well-served by our dedicated and unstoppable Chief of Staff, Marcella Martinson, who comes to legislative work after a career in early childhood and elementary education, and community organizing. With a degree in Public Affairs and Economics earned while raising four kids, she hit the ground running in the legislature for the 2023 long session as a legislative assistant in Rep. Gomberg’s office, and I was thrilled to have her join my team last August.
Legislative Assistant Extraordinaire, Laurie Skillman, joined our team for the 2024 short session as a seasoned policy professional. After earning her law degree, she worked as a Legislative Committee Administrator, Administrative Law Judge, and senior policy advisor for the Oregon State Real Estate Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Laurie is a ray of sunshine and research-wiz and will always be welcome to visit our office even though her short session role has concluded.
Thanks, Team HD26 for all you do! My gratitude runs deep for your vision, strength, humor, grace, attentiveness, wisdom, and values.
In closing this newsletter, I want to thank YOU, friends and neighbors, for the honor of representing you in our Oregon House of Representatives. I am humbled to serve you and I treasure the opportunity to advocate for future policies that have a positive impact on all of our lives.
Warmest regards,
 Capitol Phone: 503-986-1426
Capitol Address: 900 Court St NE, H-281, Salem, OR 97301
Email: Rep.CourtneyNeron@oregonlegislature.gov
Website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/neron
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