Eastern Oregon Pushing for Increased Fairground Funding and Land Use Changes
By Garrett Christensen on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
UNION COUNTY – Union County Commissioner Paul Anders recently gave an update on several ongoing projects related to Union County and other Eastern Oregon counties. Among the current legislative efforts are House Bills 2487 and 2510.
In brief, Housebill-2487 will allow for farm and ranch owners within Eastern Oregon to host weddings on their property without the need of a conditional use permit or fear of protest by third parties. According to Commissioner Anders, some farm and ranch owners that have attempted to go through the conditional use process within Eastern Oregon have experienced some difficulty by land conservation groups, noting, “What this does is give them a path forward. It is a permitted use rather than a conditional use.”
The actual definition of the bill given by the Oregon Legislature states, “Allows lands zoned for exclusive farm use to be used for weddings or events east of the summit of the Cascade Range.”
Another ongoing project concerns the future support and development of county fairgrounds within Oregon. In a previous article, fellow Union County Commissioner Mathew Scarfo described house bill 2635, which would provide a million dollars in funding to complete the wastewater extension from the City of La Grande to the Union County Fairgrounds.
However, Union County Commissioners, as well as representatives from the Eastern Oregon Counties Association, are also pushing to lift the cap on funding provided to county fairgrounds from the Oregon Lottery via House Bill 2510. Currently, the state funding account for the county fair’s receives one percent of the net proceeds generated by the Oregon Lottery but has funding capped at $1.53 million dollars. If passed 2510 would remove this cap.
In addition, 2510, as stated by the Staff Measure Summary for the February 7 Oregon legislative meeting, “requires Oregon Business Development Department (OBDD) to work with county fair boards, the board of directors for each fair association, and the board of each fair district to develop a five-year and a ten-year capital construction master plan for each county fairground and make findings or recommendations on county fairground capital construction.”This would, in effect, provide consolidation for the planning of fairground projects and mean that, in the words of Commissioner Anders, “there’s less counties having to go to the state for one-off projects…We wouldn’t necessarily have to do a standalone bill like 2635”
