Usually, we don’t keep writing on measures after their passage or defeat. Yet we feel very strongly about the defeat of three important county measures that could have improved public safety. These measures were not about Republicans or Democrats — they were about the public good.
Measure 20-59, which would have built a new intake center with more beds for the county jail; Measure 20-60, which would have upgraded the sheriff’s outdated communication system; and Measure 20-62, which would have built a new building for the county’s public health department, were all defeated.
The Register-Guard posited that they were defeated by voters unwilling to pay a little extra property tax to aid the common good. For those voters, we ask: If paying that extra $28 to $47 in taxes is an unbearable hardship, then what of 4-year-old Kathryn Peters, who died in a fire in Springfield because the nearest station wasn’t funded?
If apathy defeated these measures instead, then we hope these measures are brought before voters again with more focused campaigns. Our guess is that voters will not be apathetic if the county experiences another outbreak of E. coli, or if more violent criminals are “matrixed” out of Lane County jails because there were not enough beds to hold them overnight.
County officials should put these measures on the ballot again and run strong campaigns. And county residents need not wait for another young child to die before voting yes.