Governor Kate Brown holds up the signed executive order at a signing ceremony held today.
(Photo from Oregon Legislative Information System livestream.)

Fed up with repeated walk-outs by Republican lawmakers over their objections to climate change legislation, today Oregon Governor Kate Brown took the matter into her own hands. Brown signed Executive Order 20-04 (PDF below) at her desk in Salem this morning surrounded by young students from around the state.

At the signing, Brown said, “I think this Executive Order is extremely bold and aggressive.” The order itself justifies the action by stating, “Given the urgency and severity of the risks from climate change and ocean acidification and the failure of the Legislature to address these immediate harms, the executive branch has a responsibility to the electorate, and a scientific, economic, and moral imperative to reduce GHG emissions and to reduce the worst risks of climate change and ocean acidification for future generations, to the greatest extent possible with an existing laws.”

The order specifically calls out 19 state agencies and governor-appointed commissions. Among them are the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC).[Read more…]

Governor Brown and moderator Colin Jones at the City Club event today.

Governor Kate Brown spent about an hour with members of the City Club of Portland today. At the event, a preview of the 2020 legislative session, Brown fielded two questions about the controversial I-5 Rose Quarter project.

As we reported Thursday, the Oregon Department of Transportation and their bosses at the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) are facing an intense barrage of questions and concerns from elected officials and community groups over their plans to expand I-5 between I-84 and I-405.[Read more…]

What is Kate Brown’s transportation vision?
(Photo: ODOT)

This post comes from BikePortland subscriber and contributor Kiel Johnson. He previously wrote about his grassroots effort to garner neighborhood support for the Lloyd to Woodlawn Neighborhood Greenway project.

In the latest Oregon Governor’s race poll Kate Brown is ahead by 4% with a margin of error of 5%. There have been alarms going off that Governor Brown is in trouble and many commentators are pointing to a lack of a compelling vision. Last year she helped push through HB 2017, one of the largest transportation budgets in Oregon’s history. Yet this additional money is not doing her many favors for saving her job. She has hardly mentioned her victory on the campaign trail. As people who spend time reading about the importance of transportation, it is crucial for us to figure out why transportation is not a topic of interest in this race.

I encourage you to leave your ideas in the comments below. Here are a few of my thoughts:

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Finn on his bike in 2008 and at Commissioner Saltzman’s side in 2010.
(Photos: J. Maus)

Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s chief of staff has been hired by Oregon Governor Kate Brown. Brendan Finn, who’s worked with Saltzman since 1999, will be Brown’s new transportation policy advisor.
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We did it!

You raised your voices. Oregon Governor Kate Brown heard them. And she has changed her mind.

The Governor just announced she will not go through with her threatened veto of over $2 million in funding for the SW Capitol Highway project. The project will build a crucial biking and walking connection between Multnomah Village and Taylors Ferry Road that the neighborhood has worked for since 1991.

Here’s the official word via a letter from the Governor’s office (full PDF of the letter here):
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Pressure on Oregon Governor Kate Brown to reverse a threatened veto on the SW Capitol Highway Project has increased significantly over the past week.

As we await word on her final decision, here’s a recap of what’s happened since we first reported the story six days ago:

➤ Stats from an email we sent to BikePortland supporters (paid subscribers and donors) show that over 60 people have clicked over to Governor Brown’s feedback page so far. That’s in addition to many people who’ve told us — via Facebook, Twitter, and on the BP blog — that they took action and made their voice heard. Thank you for all your support!

➤ Respected nonprofit organizations like Oregon Walks, The Street Trust, and the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association have all boosted our campaign by linking to our action alert and stories.
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Pressure is building on Oregon Governor Brown to reverse her threat to veto a long-awaited infrastructure project in southwest Portland. In the past two days readers of BikePortland have helped spur dozens of phone calls and emails to her office. Our community’s voices are helping buoy efforts by legislators who are urging the Governor to reconsider.

Here’s where things stand…[Read more…]

Don’t do it Governor!

A threat by Governor Kate Brown to veto a highly anticipated project in southwest Portland has been met with shock and bewilderment by advocates and legislators. Now with little time to spare before Brown acts on her stated intentions, an effort has begun to persuade her to change her mind.

Neighborhood advocates have been urging the City of Portland to make Southwest Capitol Highway safer 26 years. The City of Portland has raised about $10 million for a project that would finally build sidewalks, bikeways and make other updates to the street between Multnomah Village and Taylors Ferry Road. Thanks to the passage of House Bill 5006 last month, everyone expected an additional $2 million for a final, key segment of the project. Governor Brown’s inexplicable veto threat puts that funding in jeopardy.

Asked for comment this afternoon, Brown’s Communications Director Chris Pair offered no additional rationale for the threat beyond what was shared in a statement yesterday — that they felt the project should go through more vetting and evaluation and that it should have been included in the larger transportation package.

But that explanation doesn’t sit well with Senator Ginny Burdick, whose district is directly adjacent to the project. [Read more…]

The state funding would have helped connect an existing PBOT project on Capitol Highway between Huber and Taylors Ferry Road through a complicated set of intersections known as “West Portland Crossroads.”

With one swipe of her pen, Oregon Governor Kate Brown can take away the final piece of funding for a southwest Portland transportation project that’s been a dream for neighborhood advocates for over 20 years.
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Matt Garrett has led ODOT since 2005.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

A few weeks after left-leaning former Metro president David Bragdon all but called for the firing of Oregon’s top transportation official, legislative Republicans are calling for it explicitly.

Oregon Department of Transportation Director Matt Garrett is facing criticism from both sides over the incident, earlier this year, when his office and Gov. Kate Brown’s temporarily claimed that tens of millions of dollars in freeway investments would be part of reducing long-run carbon emissions in Oregon by more than 2 million metric tons.

[Read more…]