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Area leaders list critical issues for 2007

Dec. 27, 28, 29, 30, 2006

The Herald and News invited a variety of community and regional leaders to share with our readers their top community priorities for the coming year. They were asked to keep responses to about 150 words.

 

Greg Walden, U.S. representative,     Oregon’s 2nd District    

County payments. Klamath County receives nearly $20 million annually under its 100-year-old agreement with the federal government to replace lost timber harvest revenues. My strong bipartisan commitment with the Oregon delegation to renew and fund the county payments program will remain a top priority of mine. 

Rural health care. Our rural health care system is under stress from many fronts. As co-chair of the bipartisan House Rural Health Care Coalition, I will team with Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) to reintroduce comprehensive bipartisan legislation that helps rural health care providers address the unique challenges associated with delivering quality health care close to home. 

Water delivery. I will continue to pursue legislation to ensure that federal policies use sound, peer-reviewed science when making water decisions under the Endangered Species Act. I don’t want anyone to ever again suffer what Basin residents did when the water was unjustly shut off in 2001.

 

Doug Whitsett, state senator, Dist. 28

Our first priority must be to provide for our seniors, disabled, and veterans. They are the folks that worked to build, and fought to preserve, the infrastructure and lifestyle that we enjoy. They are the unfortunate whose disabilities prevent self support. It is unacceptable that they are collectively losing the budget battle for adequate care. 

Safety in our homes and our communities is vital. Local judges agree that the root cause of more than 90 percent of the personal and property crimes in our community are drug and alcohol related. We must attack alcohol and drug abuse through both law enforcement and intervention and treatment. 

Preservation of our agricultural and municipal water resources is vital to our small town culture, economy, and lifestyle. We have witnessed the financial and ecological disaster created by the 2001 water shut off to Project farms. Our community must unite in opposition to those who continue their efforts to decimate our community by denying our use of our water resource.

 

Dan Keppen, Family Farm Alliance executive director, Klamath County Chamber of Commerce 2nd vice-president, Klamath County Natural Resources Advisory Council chair

The top three critical issues we face in the coming year relate to schools, loss of federal timber payments, and agricultural sustainability.

Our schools are crumbling, and the longer we wait to fix them, the more we will pay. Looking back at the voters' rejection of the two school bonds, the consolidation issue was bigger than many of us thought. The message sent by voters should catalyze the two districts to get together and seriously address consolidation, overlap and long-term facilities maintenance.

 

We should support our local leaders who have developed a plan to sell public timber lands to replace millions of dollars in timber money used to pay for education and Klamath County roads.

 

Finally, for farmers to survive, for food to be produced in America, there must be a stable water supply for agriculture. It is time for our leaders -- locally and nationally - to seriously address how to meet urban and environmental water needs while providing for a healthy agricultural sector.