Lawmakers are considering passing House Bill 3991, a transportation package that would raise $4.3 billion over the next 10 years by raising the gas tax by 6 cents, increasing vehicle title and registration fees and temporarily raising a statewide payroll tax for transit from 0.1% to 0.2%.
The House narrowly passed the 10-year transportation package; with a key Democratic senator recovering from surgery, the Oregon Senate will delay their planned vote on the transportation tax package for two weeks. The vote is scheduled Sept. 17 when Sen. Chris Gorsek will be available.
A bill to stave off hundreds of layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation, pay for road infrastructure projects and temporarily boost funding to public transit agencies moved forward Sunday after a rocky start. The House was expected to vote on the package Monday, with what would be a final Senate vote anticipated Wednesday.
Speakers shared testimony during a public hearing on Gov. Tina Kotek’s transportation funding proposal meant to prevent layoffs, preserve highway funds with counties and cities and modernize transportation funding.
The Rogue Valley Transportation District will begin major service reductions starting Tuesday, Sept. 2, due to financial strain caused by delayed federal funding. The cuts to service include the Medford-Ashland Express (Route 1X), shortened weekday hours and a complete suspension of Saturday service.
State Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland recapped the 2025 legislative for constituents during a Sunday, Aug. 3 town hall and ice cream social in Talent.
The Rogue Valley Transportation District Board of Directors approved a plan that will cut two bus routes in Ashland.
Gov. Tina Kotek’s plan to prevent layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation and local governments around the state relies on a 6-cent gas tax increase, hikes to title and registration fees and doubling the payroll tax that funds transit.
Gov. Tina Kotek announced Tuesday that she called lawmakers back to the Capital to for a special session at the end of August to address the $350 million shortfall in the Department of Transportation budget.
Expect steep declines in bus service in the Rogue Valley come Sept. 2. That’s what the city of Ashland’s Transportation Advisory Committee was told at its monthly meeting Thursday where they received updates from Rogue Valley Transportation District Associate Planner Edem Gomez about the funding situation at RVTD and what it will mean for changes to bus routes in Ashland and the Rogue Valley.
After a successful production of “The Vagina Monologues” and raising more than $2,000 for Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon, Ashland actor and director Lia Dugal intends for “The Climate Monologues” to premiere in Oregon in late 2025 or early 2026 at the Bellview Grange in Ashland.
It’s complicated.
Herbert Rothschild: Whether visualization and intention by themselves can effect broad social change is impossible to determine, but the question merits sustained consideration.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz said he is willing to return to in-person town halls if decorum and safety can be guaranteed. He specifically called out the group ORD2 Invisible, which Bentz said has orchestrated disruptions at meetings. The group pushed back, and said Bentz is scapegoating the organization to avoid accountability.
KS Wild will celebrate their annual dinner event Saturday, Sept. 27, at the historic Ashland Armory, 208 Oak St.
Rabbi Jackie Brodsky: As many seem to have forgotten or denied, the current war in Gaza was started by Hamas terrorists breaking a ceasefire on Oct.7, 2023, when the worst attack on the Jews since the Holocaust took place.
(It’s free)
