Scio, snd all of Oregon used to be great, 50 years ago. I was born in Oregon in the late 60’s graduated from Scio High Scool in the 1980’s. The state has over tripled in population since I was born here, and most of that has been in just the last 15 to 20 years. But, almost all the roads are exactly the same. There are more homeless then we know what to do with. Portland is st least 69,000 homes short of demand so houses sell the day they go in the market, and Portland is half the population of the state so it spirals to communities 2 or 3 hours away. And Scio is only is only 70 minutes form PDX. So the pressure is unrelenting. Then the state is trying to accommodate that — but only the thin strip of the Willamette Valley is liberal: and 3/4 if the population. But the majority of Oregon’s 3 million sq miles is Republican. Services using, but “don’t tax me” republicans. So the thin strip of the valley ends up paying for everything everywhere. The tricky republicans called for the state to equally split property taxes to all schools. Problem is the majority of Oregon’s population is in the valley, and not equally distributed. And those funds were given out as matching grants-if citizens tax themselves the state would match those school bonds. But in Eastern snd Southern Oregon most school districts have never passed a school bond measure. When logging was king here, the Feds kicked down millions from logging operations. But that has slowed down, but even worse the Feds decided to keep that money so they could cut taxes. Oregon’s senators did manage a patch—but people who never had to pay for their kids education flatly refused. So now the valley, and Scio, gets hit even harder. Paying for services the the state then hands to someone on the other side of the mountains. Scio is an hour from the coast but that’s pointless to even try in the summer, the traffic is so bad it takes hours to get there now, and when you do make there in no where to park, the restaurants all have hours long lines, and if you didn’t think to book your room A YEAR IN ADVANCE forget about staying the night. All the swimming holes are packed, because the millions of people who moved here, just love it so much and want explore, they find the Little North Fork, but it’s so crowded, they end up in Thomas Creek (runs through town). I don’t wanna dig on Scio, but really the whole state has had just about too much growth. We never planned for this, and can’t pay for it. Salem need another bridge over the Willamette, Portland needs more bridges for the tax dodging Washingtonians to come over and take our jobs— but the state refuses to help pay the 200 billion or whatever it’s going to cost—so good old liberal Oregon is going roll up its sleeves and make the valley pay for Washington’s commuters and eastern Oregon’s new schools and whatever eles and the good Californians living in rural Scio will have to pay for that too
John | Salem, OR | Report Abuse