At the June 24 Lane County Board of Commissioners meeting, four of us testified about local access roads, and two more attended in support. Since it was a very quiet morning, local access roads were the focus of Public Comment, as we proudly wore our No LAR buttons. While we need much higher turnout and will strive for this next time, the testimony given was very powerful and pulled no punches, on this, our fourth visit to the commissioners.
Watch the first four speakers – a total of about 12 minutes:
Linda Lovick spoke first, explaining the unfairness of the situation, with LARs completely interconnected with County-maintained roads and functioning identically to County-maintained roads and LAR homeowners paying identical taxes. Homeowners are left in the middle as the City and County point fingers at each other. She challenged commissioners to correct this long-standing historical injustice, adding the roads to the County road system and giving them a fair opportunity at maintenance as the budget allows: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way – it’s just a matter of intentionality… It just takes the will to admit an old inherited mistake, an injustice, and old lapse, and to correct the wrong. Voters respect honesty and humility – attention to the gap and the commitment to fill it.”
Laura Shoe spoke next, pointing out to commissioners that Public Works in the work session on LARs gave them excuses to justify inaction, rather than the facts they needed to make the right decision. I then made clear the depth of injustice LAR homeowners face: “Lane County is violating LAR homeowners’ Oregon and U.S. constitutional rights to equal protection under the law. There is no rational basis for this unequal treatment that isn’t unfair and discriminatory. Under the Oregon Constitution, you can’t grant privileges to some citizens that under the same terms shall not equally belong to ALL citizens.” I also pointed out that our roads can’t wait for annexation into the city – only around 17% of LAR homes are annexed at this point, so the roads will crumble first and become impossible for the city to afford to take on.
Ellie Pelinski then spoke, first challenging the County to either prove Public Works’ claim (which we don’t believe is true for most LARs) that developers built substandard roads to save money and this is why the roads are LARs – or to abandon this excuse. She wondered out loud where all the transportation-tax money is that LAR residents have paid for so many decades while not receiving road maintenance, and demanded, “What is the plan for refunding residents this money?” Finally, she expressed disappointment in the Board’s lack of outrage and lack of dedication thus far to fixing this problem and told them honestly that she is not getting her money’s worth for the taxes she pays towards the Board’s salaries.
Finally, Joel Korin spoke, asking the commissioners if they have ever felt like second class citizens, as LAR homeowners do. He pointed out that when we receive the answer, “It’s historical” to our question of why these roads are LARs, this is an excuse, not an explanation. Next he pointed out that most LAR homeowners were not informed by sellers when purchasing, and that he might not have bought his home if he had known. Finally, with his background as an attorney he expressed his largest concern: If someone gets seriously injured due to road conditions on an LAR, homeowners on the block can be sued – and homeowners can’t insure themselves against this possibility. His carrier State Farm confirmed this for him, stating that they don’t cover what’s in the street. This is a big way in which LAR homeowners are second class citizens compared to those on County-maintained roads. “The County has immunity and can’t be sued – why should we [be put in this position of possibly being sued]?”
Commissioner Responses to Public Comment
During the afternoon portion of the Commissioners’ meeting, commissioners have the opportunity to respond to any public comment they heard that morning. Unlike in past visits we have made, the commissioners did not comment on our testimony at all – they didn’t even acknowledge that public comment had taken place.