Murdock gets a seat at the COVID-19 fund table
By Terry Murry on Monday, January 17th, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
SALEM – Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has appointed a new task force to oversee the statewide distribution of the next infusion of federal COVID-19 funding. Last time around, Umatilla County officials were up in arms due to the state reserving most of the funds for businesses in metropolitan areas, even though Umatilla County establishments had been close down for far longer.
Now, Umatilla County will have a seat at the table. Brown named the president of the Association of Oregon Counties to the task force. The new president of AOC is Umatilla County Commissioner George Murdock.
“Hopefully, the fact that I just also happen to conveniently live in Eastern Oregon and am pretty prejudiced in terms of Eastern Oregon, I hope that contributes to a more equitable distribution and the fact that we’ll see a lot more things coming our way,” he said.
Murdock said that during his tenure he wants AOC to bring forward the counties’ unique viewpoints on a number of issues. He said it is essential that the state’s 36 counties stand united on state and national policy. Murdock said that the task force has not yet met, so he doesn’t know what the next steps will actually be.
