Oregon Humanities Spring 2008

Cover of Oregon Humanities Spring 2008
Kathleen Holt
EDITOR
Jennifer Viviano
GRAPHIC DESIGN
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COPY EDITOR
Editorial Advisory Board
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Julia Heydon
Marianne Keddington-Lang
Guy Maynard
Win McCormack
Camela Raymond
Kate Sage
Rich Wandschneider
Curt Yehnert

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Envisioning a Better Oregon

Oregonians from all walks of life convene to discuss what they value about the state and their hopes for the future

By Greg Holmes

On an October evening in 2006, about 130 Oregonians came together in Medford to take part in an important conversation. Farmers, environmental activists, business leaders, and people who work to make their neighborhoods better places to live, sat ten to a table with only two questions before them: What do you most value about living in Oregon today? What is your vision for Oregon thirty years from now?

This gathering was one of eighteen Envision Oregon town hall forums that took place in communities around the state in 2006 and 2007. One of the main goals of the two-year program was to get Oregonians talking to each other about what our state will look like three decades from now. The hope was that if the project could bring a diverse group of people together and get them talking in small groups, they would discover that they have more in common than they might otherwise think. The challenge was that, before it was over, this conversation about the future would turn to the divisive topic of Oregon's land use program. Where I live, that conversation can turn ugly in a heartbeat.

I work with the public on land use issues in southwestern Oregon. Over the years, I've been accused of some pretty horrible things--everything from conspiring to separate families from their farms, to trying to force people to live in high-rise apartments, to ruining the economy. When it comes to the laws that guide how our communities develop, people here have strong opinions. Unfortunately, both in our thinking and in public debate these important issues are often reduced to being about "us" versus "them."

I know southern Oregon is not unique in this. In 2004, Oregon voters approved Measure 37, resulting in the lifting of land use restrictions for some longtime property owners. In 2007 we passed Measure 49, eliminating what many voters saw as the unintended consequences of Measure 37. The public debate around these initiatives made land use one of the most contentious issues in Oregon politics today. Stories of neighbor pitted against neighbor, the ideological rhetoric coming from Salem, and the media sound-bites that pass for public discourse all suggest that Oregonians are deeply divided when it comes to questions of fundamental values. But the results of Envision Oregon suggest that this is not the case at all.

As with a lot of policy debate in this country today, most of what we heard about Measures 37 and 49 was based on mistrust, fear, and ill-informed preconceptions. One side whipped up concern among property owners that their land was about to be taken by the government, while the other side rallied around visions of unregulated and poorly planned development sprawling across farm- and forestland. The problem is that there was very little actual conversation between the two groups, and the discussions that did take place tended to focus on who did, or was about to do, what to whom. This is neither helpful nor the way that Oregon has traditionally approached land use issues.

The genesis of today's land use system was adopted by the 1973 legislature in the form of Senate Bill 100. The bill's champion was Republican Governor Tom McCall. It passed in the legislature because of a coalition that spanned party lines and brought together legislators from both rural and urban areas. Senate Bill 100 did not arbitrarily create land use laws and policy. Instead, it created the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC), whose first task was to ask Oregonians what they wanted.

During 1974 nearly ten thousand Oregonians participated in workshops and hearings held around the state. People from all over gathered together to talk to each other about their most important priorities. They came from every corner of the state, from all walks of life, and represented every part of the political spectrum. Their input led to the creation of the nineteen statewide land use planning goals that still guide the program today.

Oregon has changed dramatically in the thirty-plus years since that statewide conversation took place. Our population has nearly doubled, from about 1.8 million to over 3.5 million. Some estimate that fewer than one-third of the people living here today were here in 1973. That makes for a lot of people who don't share a common history.

Most projections suggest that thirty years from now, Oregon will have undergone change of a similar magnitude. The population will increase by an estimated 1.7 million, or the equivalent of twenty-two new cities the size of Bend. These new people will need about 700,000 new homes and 800,000 new jobs. Meanwhile, we will face challenges from expanded international trade, exploding transportation costs, and a carbon-constrained economy.

So what does all this change mean? We could sit back and let our future happen to us. Or we can proactively address the challenges head-on, and control--at least to some extent--where we end up. I think most Oregonians agree that the latter option is preferable. But to do this successfully, we need to talk to each other again.

Late in 2005, representatives from 1000 Friends of Oregon, the Bus Project, and SOLV started discussing how to help Oregonians begin this conversation. The League of Women Voters of Oregon and the Oregon Business Association joined the effort early on. Envision Oregon emerged from these discussions and was launched at the first town hall forum on April 29, 2006. Round One consisted of this and five more forums held during 2006. Twelve more forums were held in 2007 during Round Two.

Ultimately, more than seventy business associations, corporations, and social justice, agricultural trade, and environmental organizations signed on as project partners. These organizations helped get the word out by inviting their own members to the town hall forums. As a result, more than 2,200 participants of varying backgrounds, ages, and party affiliations gathered at forums held in sixteen cities around the state. They came from more than 140 different Oregon communities, ranging from the very rural to the very urban. Included among them were true believers in the land use system, as well as those who were openly hostile to Oregon's current land use program. There were people who had filed Measure 37 claims, as well as people who had worked hard on the campaign to defeat the same measure. There were people who had participated in the statewide workshops in 1974, and others who had not yet been born at that time.

Project organizers knew they would not get past the prevailing rhetorical stalemate by simply asking people what they thought about Oregon's land use system or how to (re)design it--when you invite people to talk about land use in Oregon, most arrive already having taken sides. Instead, the Round One forums were organized around simply asking participants what they valued about Oregon and what they envisioned for the future.

Because the first round of forums began with these two open-ended questions, there wasn't much room for rhetoric, which made it difficult for participants to break into the easy divisions of "conservative" versus "liberal," "rural" versus "urban," or any other form of "us" versus "them." In this kind of arrangement, it's much easier to listen and to thereby find common ground. Even so, the outcomes were far from certain.

In preparing for the Medford event, I was a little concerned about the process--whenever this many people come together, there is always the chance that outbursts or conflict will occur. However, I was not surprised by the results of the Round One forums. Taken as a whole, these conversations confirmed that Oregonians have a remarkably consistent set of values and visions for our future. We value the natural beauty and open spaces that make Oregon a special place; good government and planning informed by citizen participation; diverse jobs and a strong economy; healthy towns and neighborhoods; and preservation of family farms and forests. Participants in La Grande valued good government and planning for the future as strongly as those at the Portland forum. Participants in Medford hoped for continued preservation and strengthening of the farm economy as much as those at the Corvallis forum.

In articulating their values, people from every corner of the state used two terms over and over again: "quality of life" and "community." They used "quality of life" when referring to many, if not all, of their personal values and visions of the future. Good jobs, affordable housing, nearby farms providing locally grown food, and clean air and water all contribute to a "quality of life" we value today. Having responsive and receptive government, well-designed towns and neighborhoods, working forests, and affordable health care will contribute to quality of life in the future. They used the term "community" not only to describe the physical places--the towns and neighborhoods--where they live, but also to indicate a sense of belonging to a group of people with similar goals and aspirations. Their visions of the future included making our towns and neighborhoods safer and healthier, as well as continuing Oregon's tradition of civic involvement and participation in government decision-making.

I often hear, both in personal conversations and in television and newspaper stories, how little we who live in southern Oregon have in common with those "up north" in the Willamette Valley. The same sentiments are expressed in Eastern Oregon. The results of the Envision Oregon forums go a long way toward dispelling the media-fueled myth that Oregon's population is made up of disparate groups of people that have little in common. They remind us that, at a fundamental level, what unites us as Oregonians is far greater than what divides us.

This idea is by no means a historical anomaly. The statewide conversations held in 1974 produced a similar result. There are examples of similar consensus being reached in the environmental arena, where issues are also regularly portrayed in the media in terms of conflict.

Oregon's experience with the spotted owl crisis in the early 1990s is a case in point. That debate was oversimplified into "jobs vs. owls." Mill workers in small communities blamed environmentalists for taking their jobs. Environmentalists saw the workers as part of faceless corporate entities bent on destroying the forests. While the divisiveness was useful for diverting attention away from the real issues and for selling newspapers, it was not useful for the people whose lives were directly affected.

Even at the height of the controversy there was at least one community here in southern Oregon where people refused to buy into the hype. Members of the Sierra Club and the International Wood-workers of America literally sat down at a table and started talking with each other. Others soon joined in the conversation.

Many of the people involved in these conversations seldom crossed paths in the normal course of their lives. When the "environmentalists" and the "loggers" got to know each other, the fear and paranoia about "them" started receding. Everyone realized that at a basic level they all valued the same things: good jobs, healthy communities in which to raise their families, and the abundant natural places that make Oregon what it is. They realized they were not getting any of these things from the situation that existed, and they took steps to change things in their communities.

By the time the Envision Oregon Round Two forums began in 2007, Measure 37 had been in place for more than two years. The general public was becoming increasingly aware of the law's ramifications, and the legislature's proposed remedy, in the form of Measure 49, had been placed on the ballot. The election was held a mere eleven days after the final forum, held in Baker City. During this period, in stark contrast to the bitter hyperbole coming from Salem and some county seats, Oregonians were coming together in a pattern reminiscent of 1974, as Republicans and Democrats, businesses and environmental groups, and rural farm bureaus and urban developers joined together to support the Measure 49 campaign.

The most visible impact of this political evolution was that it made prominent the question of how to ensure that land use laws were both effective and fair to everyone. This became a topic of conversation at every workshop.

Not everyone at the Round Two forums supported Measure 49. However, armed with the results of the 2006 forums, which emphasized commonalities over differences, participants proposed and discussed policy options around a number of topics. The outcome was a series of specific policy proposals that fell into three broad categories: preservation of family farms, forests, and special natural places; creation of healthy, integrated communities; and development of a balanced transportation system that provides people with real options to having to drive their cars every time they want to go somewhere.

Perhaps equally important was the affirmation that, even around contentious issues, we can still have useful, civil political discourse in Oregon.

I don't mean to suggest that there was anything like full consensus among Envision Oregon participants on their values or visions, let alone on the policies generated about how to make those visions reality. There were more than 2,200 people involved. Of course there were dissenting opinions.

Frankly, I would have considered total agreement a failure. It would have meant that we had not done a good job recruiting participants from outside of our own circles. We would not have reached out to anyone who considered "us" to be "them." Besides, if everyone agreed on everything, the world would be pretty boring.

Envision Oregon was not the end but the beginning of the conversation we need to have among ourselves. It is hard to really understand someone who appears to be different if you don't take the time to talk to them. It is even harder, though, to demonize them once you have had that conversation and have found out that you value the same basic things and want to go more or less the same place. This is true even if, in the end, you find you don't agree on all the details about the best way to get there.


Greg Holmes lives in Grants Pass, where he works as the Southern Oregon Planning Advocate and editor of the quarterly journal Landmark for 1000 Friends of Oregon. He has worked for the Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Association, helping run their twice-annual trade shows, since 1989.

Published in the Spring 2008 issue of Oregon Humanities.

© 2008 Oregon Council for the Humanities