Hillsboro Elections Raise Bigger Questions About Candidates True Intentions

The Herald has strongly endorsed Jake Mead for Hillsboro City Council.  Jake is not connected via any panel or joint campaign efforts.  He is a strong, independent thinker who wants to return the City to a more local focus and open it up to more citizen participation, which is sadly lacking.  The other reasons for the Herald’s endorsement included:

• A wide panel of local groups strongly endorsed him including his own party’s endorsement, which was not extended to his opponent after a long and serious debate.
• A strong record of Community service.
• A campaign promise to create transparency at City Hall and to hold Town Hall listening posts in which citizens can ask questions of their Council and get answers—something that has been denied at City Hall for decades, creating a situation of one-way communication and limited citizen involvement.
• He is an independent thinker and not part of the current cabal in charge of our City—a Cabal that has a panel of four running to keep the City grinding forward as it has been.

The other profoundly troubling fact about the opponents of Mead is that they have participated in taking campaign contributions from land owners and consultants of a massive amount of land outside our city boundaries.  Those landowners stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars and have successfully lobbied politicians like Senator Janeen Sollman, Mayor Steve Callaway, City Council Member Beach Pace (Hillsboro Mayor Candidate), and others like former Mayor Jerry Willey (current Washington County Commissioner) and Washington County Commissioner Pam Treece.  Those efforts have led to the successful passing of Senate Bill 4, which allows for their lands to be included in the growth boundary instantly, and that the Governor, who can bring in these lands, is assured that there can be no citizen legal objections or appeals.  This has never been allowed in Oregon history, and it is telling that the players involved were almost all tied back to those whose campaigns took money from these landowners.  

As citizens of Hillsboro, we work hard to keep going.  We have become the town of Intel and giant industrial users who now dictate politics and policy.  We are the people who unknowingly have sat quietly and perhaps too exhausted to do anything about our water, power, city resources, and transportation systems being taken up by these companies who have proven less than good neighbors and community members.  They have increased our water and power rates and pushed hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2 and Volatile organic compounds into our air.  And all of this has been done while these players pay a fraction of the property and income taxes they owe to our State.

Now, as we watch thousands being laid off and the specter of our power grid being at risk, thanks to the data centers in Hillsboro, we must ask ourselves if it is time for a change.  Wouldn’t now be the time for the people of Hillsboro to do something for the people of Hillsboro?  Shouldn’t we elect people who pose a threat to the cabal and status quo?  People who will actually debate issues and fight for us?

The facts are getting scary:

• Water rates have risen 100% in the last ten years and continue to rise. The industry uses 48% of all water every day and is not paying its fair share.
• Stormwater and sewerage rates are increasing even more- equally stressed by these big industrial users.
• Crime rates have increased to levels that are becoming unsafe, making Hillsboro less safe than the average US City.
• This week, our schools ranked well below the State average – and that is shocking to those of us who spent years building this community into an educational star- 
• Our homeownership rates are dropping below 50%- the national average is 64% and desirable is 69%.  This does not happen in a corporate town like Hillsboro, where Wall Street firms build apartments over as much land as they can to cash in on the high percentage of contract workers from overseas to work and locals who can no longer afford to pay for a home.
• Our Farmlands are being chewed up at an alarming rate for more industry.

This list can go on and on- and sure, we have good food offerings, lovely parks, and a subsidized minor league baseball team. But let me suggest we can do so much better and be so much more.  We deserve better, and that is not going to happen by electing the same people into office.

Therefore, I beseech you to vote for Jake Mead or any candidate in any race who represents change and a different vision for our Hillsboro.  We are under corporate control and the management of bigger forces from Salem who see Hillsboro as a cash cow and do not care for its people.  Please don’t vote for those who stand with these interests who seek to weaken who we are and what made Hillsboro great: a fierce, independent mindset of hard work and community first!

Here are just a few contributions from landowners and consultants to our local politicians and candidates- Land far outside the City limits of Hillsboro.  All data from the Oregon Elections websites where such expenditures can be found.