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Public safety panel in decision mode.


Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

Whether city residents ought to pay for rural law enforcement is at the top of an ambitious agenda tonight for the county's Public Safety Task Force and may determine how, or whether, the panel settles on a plan to reverse years of budget cutting.

Meeting since June, the task force has outlined a multimillion-dollar public safety improvement proposal to target thieves List of Thieves. Famous
  • Danielle Bethel
  • Bruce Reynolds
  • Ronnie Biggs
Mythological
  • Prometheus
  • Tantalus
  • Hermes
  • Autolycus
Historical
  • Soapy Smith
  • Adam Worth
  • François Villon
 and methamphetamine methamphetamine (mĕth'ămfĕt`əmēn): see amphetamine; methedrine.  dealers, reduce family violence, and expand drug treatment and crime prevention.

Tonight they hope to choose from a range of 39 specific spending proposals with a total annual cost ranging from $26.4 million to $38.6 million.

They hope to agree - unanimously, if possible - on a source of revenue. It could be a personal or corporate income tax, a sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. , a new property tax levy, or a new taxing district with its own permanent property tax base.

They hope to give the Lane County Board of Commissioners advice on when to hold an election, or whether to bypass voters and enact new taxes by ordinance A law, statute, or regulation enacted by a Municipal Corporation.

An ordinance is a law passed by a municipal government. A municipality, such as a city, town, village, or borough, is a political subdivision of a state within which a municipal corporation has been
.

At least 10 of 13 voting members must agree for a proposal to survive, but the goal is to have unanimous recommendations whenever possible to produce the strongest signal of support by elected officials to gain voter approval.

But the very first matter of business may indicate whether the task force accomplishes anything at all.

Early on in its discussions, representatives from the county's dozen cities have questioned whether urban taxpayers, who already pay for police protection, ought to pay for rural sheriff's patrols.

Eugene City Councilman David Kelly This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.
You can assist by [ editing it] now.
, for example, told the panel, "It's going to feel like double taxation."

Others, including Florence officials, have voiced the same sentiment.

If urban representatives prevail, then funding for rural patrols may be cut from the proposal and conditioned on formation of a new special taxing district. The idea of a new district failed to generate broad support when county officials aired it earlier in the year as a potential countywide coun·ty·wide  
adv. & adj.
Throughout a whole county: found at locations countywide; a countywide search.

Adj. 1.
 public safety funding solution.

Debate on the issue may be swayed sway  
v. swayed, sway·ing, sways

v.intr.
1. To swing back and forth or to and fro. See Synonyms at swing.

2.
 by a memo to the task force from Deputy Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner Alexander Gardner (April 28, 1861 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada - June 18, 1926) is a former Canadian major league catcher.

He played in his only game on May 10, 1884. He went 0-3 at the plate. External links
  • baseball-reference.com
 which shows rural areas, in effect, currently subsidize sub·si·dize  
tr.v. sub·si·dized, sub·si·diz·ing, sub·si·diz·es
1. To assist or support with a subsidy.

2. To secure the assistance of by granting a subsidy.
 urban residents for public safety services such as the county jail and prosecution.

For example, Gardner found that Eugene residents provide about 46 percent of the county's tax revenue, but they account for 60 percent of jail book-ins and 52 percent of those in drug treatment. Springfield residents, who pay 14 percent of the county's taxes, account for 26 percent of jail book-ins and 24 percent of those in drug treatment, he found.

Unincorporated areas In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality. To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, i.e., a city or town with its own government.  of Lane County pay about 31 percent of total county taxes, but account for 3 percent of jail book-ins and get virtually no drug treatment services, Gardner found.

A lack of rural law enforcement means more than 4,300 reported property crimes go without investigation annually in rural Lane County, Gardner noted.

"We should not design a system that ensures that our criminals are free from scrutiny as soon as they make it beyond city limits," he wrote.

Tonight's meeting runs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Carmichael Room on the Serbu Youth Campus, 2727 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Eugene. It starts with a brief public comment period.
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Title Annotation:Government; Urban and rural disparities threaten agreements
Publication:The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)
Date:Sep 8, 2005
Words:556
Previous Article:CALENDAR.(Government)(Calendar)
Next Article:Mayor, councilors decide not to quit.(General News)(Some in Oakland say they'll move to remove the three from office)
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