The July 31 Board of Josephine County Commissioners’ weekly business session was held at Anne G. Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass. Newly appointed Commissioner Andreas Blech received a warm welcome from several of the citizens who showed up at the meeting to testify.
Multiple individuals testified about their concerns regarding the state government’s new proposed fire risk assessment map, which is allegedly already leading to insurance rate increases for property owners in high risk areas.
Grants Pass resident Michael Vice called the map “an existential threat to all of our community here in Southern Oregon.” He also decried what he felt was inadequate media coverage and public outcry.
“The proposed fire map can hamstring us and cause Southwest Oregon to almost cease to exist,” Vice opined. “The tax base and the residents can decrease by 30% within the first two years and I’ll give you an example: The state of California has put in hard fire restrictions and insurance laws that has caused fire insurance to jump in California from $2,000 to in some cases $7,000 or insurance companies completely pull out of the market.”
Vice concluded, “This is worse than the first map. They’re just going to whistle Dixie and pass it in the middle of the night. And then we’re not going to know what hit us.”
All three commissioners weighed in on the fire map issue, starting with Blech, who took time to respond to all citizens who addressed the board, even though he said it felt like he was “drinking from a fire hose” given the recency of his appointment.
“Lots to learn, lots of procedure, and lots of things to read,” Blech said. “I appreciate all the comments that have been brought forward today.”
“The fire map is a big deal,” Blech stated. “It’s a very big deal. I think that it’s a make or break rural Oregon issue and I’d like to give it as much attention as I can.”
“The fire map is probably the single, largest threat to rural Oregon,” Commissioner Herman Baertschiger added.
He went on to criticize Oregon Governor Tina Kotek: “I know the governor very well. I served with her eight years in the Legislature and I can tell you, I can hear her right now: ‘I don’t care what they think of the map. Go and do the public comments, bring it back to the Legislature and we’ll pass it.’ That’s how she flies. I’ve seen her do that many times.
“If this passes, this will significantly affect the pocketbooks of everybody living in rural Oregon, not just Josephine County. Everywhere in rural Oregon; that’s what they want because the next shoe to drop is everybody that lives in the extreme areas are going to pay a new assessment fee because the Legislature wants to get the general fund out of large fire costs… If they can pull that out and replace it with our money, then they have millions and millions and millions of dollars to spend on their pet projects.”
Baertschiger reiterated his stance that the state government is intentionally making it as difficult as possible for people to live in rural areas. Chair John West seconded this claim.
After calling the fire map “a train wreck,” West said the state “had their own focus of things that is pushing their agenda because they want all of us to ride the bus in town and not own a car and all that.”
Another major topic of the meeting was Pipe Fork and the ongoing push by Williams community members to have the county sell the beloved nature area to The Conservation Fund, which would then transfer ownership to the Bureau of Land Management.
The commissioners maintain that they will only make the sale if BLM signs a deed restriction preventing the property from being logged or closed to public assess
“This property is public property now,” West said. “It is open to the public now and as long as I have any vote in it, it will always be open to the public. Do I trust the government? No, I don’t. If you trust the government, that’s okay with you. But I do not trust the BLM or Forest Service to not close off property to the people. They do it all over our county now and so I do not want to put more land in their hands and then they have the ability to close it off to every single citizen here. So until they want to sign a deed restriction, that is the only thing in my understanding that’s holding this up. Sign a deed restriction and it moves forward. If you don’t, it moves nowhere.”