Rural Oregonians and Republican politicians got a big win this week. ODOT essentially rescinded its planned cutbacks on winter highway maintenance after Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Tina Kotek came up with $19 million.

On the other hand, rural residents and Republican lawmakers seemingly made little progress on a far more complex, controversial front: forcing repeal of Measure 110, which decriminalized some drug possession in the name of substance-abuse treatment.

When I talked with Kotek on Thursday, she said the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Addiction and Community Safety Response was the place to look for solutions: “They’re doing the job, so I’ll be interested to see what they come up with” for the 2024 legislative session.

Across the board, members of the public – limited to two minutes of testimony per person – offered worthwhile suggestions and raised legitimate concerns during Monday’s committee hearing. Yet it often seems Democratic and Republican politicians are talking past each other.

Democratic leaders followed the meeting with a press release headlined, “Committee Hears Proposed Solutions to the Drug Crisis from Experts, Oregonians.”

“The testimony we heard today showed Oregonians have core, shared values that unite us. We all want cleaner streets, safer communities and a drug treatment system that meets people where they are,” Bend Rep. Jason Kropf, a Democrat who co-chairs the committee, said in the release.

Republicans have stuck to the theme, “Republicans offer solutions while Democrats stay silent.”

“There are two stories about Measure 110 on the ground,” Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp of Bend said in his press release. “The one in our communities and filling up legislative inboxes is a demand for repealing and replacing this failed ballot measure. The version presented in committee today was primarily special interest activists defending the measure they funded with the goal of spreading this disaster to every state in the nation.”

The Legislature’s Democratic presiding officers, Senate President Rob Wagner and House Speaker Dan Rayfield, created the joint committee of five Democrats and three Republicans. Democrats decide the agenda, decide experts are invited to testify and ultimately will control what legislation is introduced.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers wanted Kotek to call a special legislative session to repeal Measure 110. That might make a good political tidbit, but it never was going to happen. As a gubernatorial candidate, Kotek emphatically opposed repeal. Since the 2023 Legislature adjourned in June, Kotek consistently has been clear that she sees no need for a special session – on any topic – before the 2024 Legislature convenes in February.

In August, Emerson College Polling found that 56% of Oregonians want the measure repealed, with a larger majority – 64% also supporting a partial repeal. During her One Oregon Listening Tour visit to Clackamas County on Thursday, the governor said she believes most Oregonians want to improve Measure 110, not throw it out:

“I think most Oregonians don’t want the whole thing wholesale repealed. And they want to make sure it’s working for people. They want to make sure that changes can be made so we’re seeing more folks entering into recovery, but also provide those extra dollars for treatment.”

Of course, neither Oregon’s drug epidemic nor winter road maintenance is purely rural-urban, Republican-Democrat. The Portland area is the epicenter of public drug use and associated problems that have intensified since voters approved Measure 110 three years ago. Rural Oregon is the playground of urban residents, making wintertime road safety a prime concern for them as well.

But it’s noteworthy that the winter maintenance funding yielded a collaborative solution. Wagner and Rayfield committed to Kotek that lawmakers in 2024 would fill the Oregon Department of Transportation’s $19 million winter maintenance hole.

As publisher Andrew Cutler wrote in the East Oregonian: “If there is one element that impacts us all in Eastern Oregon it is the weather, and especially during winter months our ability to move about is predicated around the level, severity and volume of snow.”

Kevin Glenn, ODOT’s communications director, told me Thursday in an email, “We believe this infusion of funding will be sufficient to bring winter maintenance service levels roughly to where they were last winter for the rest of this biennium.”

About $4 million will go for replacing 10 trucks mainly used for snow plowing, $7 million will pay for patching roads and repainting edge lines on less-used highways in the spring.

The majority of the $8 million specifically for 2023-25 winter maintenance will be spent on rural roads – Eastern, Central and Southern Oregon. 

Left for the 2025 Legislature was the looming question: As the state gas tax proves insufficient, how to pay for future transportation projects and maintenance.