NEWS UPDATE FROM STATE REPRESENTATIVE DAVID GOMBERG: Labor Day Then and Now

By Representative David Gomberg, House District 10

9/2/2025
Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Today is a dire anniversary here in what I describe as the most beautiful place on earth. Five years ago, wildfires raged through our community and several others across Oregon, forever changing the landscape and the people who survived them.
Five years ago, Oregon’s Labor Day Fires burned more than 4,000 homes and more than a million acres of land.

I have often described that morning.

Susie and I had been without power for three days when we received the “go now!” evacuation notice. The only light besides our flashlights was the red glow coming over the hillside. We scrambled to implement our “go plan” – a strategy to gather ourselves, our pets, and a few precious possessions and run away. We’d crafted that plan for the day we’d need it for an earthquake. We never imagined wildfires would threaten us here at the beach.

We filled the car and van and looked around the house one last time. Then I reached into the sideboard and pulled out a good bottle of scotch. I poured two glasses, and we toasted thirty years together in the house that had become our home. Then we closed the door and drove away, not knowing if the house would be there when we returned.

I will always be grateful to the fire crews that saved homes at our end of the road while the flames consumed trees between them. Those less fortunate further up the road or over the hill in Otis have constantly been on my mind these past five years. As a legislator and as a neighbor, I have worked to support recovery, repair, and resilience. I have fought to reduce taxes on survivors, rebuild houses, water systems, and roads, and to hold accountable those responsible.

This is our own hillside in Otis in 2020 and today. Our walking trails served as a firebreak.

What I have learned is that you never really recover from a wildfire. The hillsides are green again. But the people here, and the landscape, have been transformed. A third of the homes on my street were lost, and five years later, half those lots are still bare. We used to live in the woods and couldn’t see the neighbors. Now we close our curtains at night. Forested hillsides are now covered with stumps or dead trees. The road is crumbling under the cumulative weight of logging and construction vehicles after a thousand logs were removed. Without shade, the ground and our wells are drier. Susan sardonically jokes that we finally have a sunset view – out the bathroom window.

Every resident in impacted communities has a story. Susan and I know we were fortunate.

Learn more! OPB environmental reporters Cassandra Profita and April Ehrlich, who both covered the 2020 fires, reported this week about fire recovery, what makes it so hard, how it changes us, the ways we help each other, and what recovery even means. Scroll down to “How do you recover from something like a wildfire?” here.

Listen to my OPB interview about emergency response and efforts to modernize how Oregon prepares for natural disasters here.

Or read about how one Salmon River Mobile Village survivor from Otis now has a new home thanks to Habitat for Humanity.

Experiencing a fire changes you. As I said, you never really recover.

So this anniversary, I recommit myself as a legislator and a neighbor to continue the work of rebuilding lives and homes here. There is still much to be done.

Salmon River Mobile Village in 2020 and today.

Labor Day Weekend is a time to celebrate working people and families as the summer officially winds down and kids return to school.

I spent the weekend in Salem and at a special session of your Oregon legislature. As I often say, there is nothing special about special sessions.

After a slow start, the legislature convened, the committee met, compromises were negotiated, and differences were aired. Two months after a transportation funding package died on the Oregon House floor in the final minutes of this year’s regular session, a revised proposal passed through the House chamber Monday afternoon. Overall, the package is less than one-third the size of the ambitious earlier proposal, and even supporters characterized it as only a temporary fix meant to keep roads plowed, potholes filled, and buses running. It now moves on to a Senate vote.

As presiding officer, I was asked several times to announce delays in the floor session Friday.

Among it’s provisions, HB 3991 would:

Raise the state’s 40-cent-per-gallon gas tax to 46 cents beginning in January. That change is expected to raise around $90 million per year.
Increase vehicle title and registration fees Oregon motorists pay. Registration fees would increase by $42 and titling fees by $139. Electric vehicles, which do not pay gas taxes, would be required to pay an additional $30 on top of existing fees.
Double the payroll tax that currently takes 0.1% out of workers’ paychecks to support public transit. The increase was initially expected to be ongoing, but the change was later limited to two years.
Require drivers of electric vehicles and hybrids to enroll in the state’s OReGo program, which charges drivers for miles driven. Such a shift is considered necessary for funding road projects as EVs continue to gain popularity and gas tax revenue is expected to decline.
Require more frequent auditing of the Oregon Department of Transportation so lawmakers have better insight into the progress and cost of major road projects. Those accountability measures are a response to backlash over huge cost increases of ODOT projects.
Eliminate existing statutory language requiring tolling for some highway projects. That language has caused concerns for some lawmakers, even though Governor Kotek paused tolling plans last year.

With floor sessions delayed Friday, I spent the day in my office answering frequent phone calls generated by an organized “no new taxes” campaign. After listening a moment, I’d ask about electric vehicles. They don’t use gas so don’t pay gas taxes. Should we tax them in other ways? Consistently, the callers said ”yes!”. Ok, I replied, so no new taxes – except on EVs…

Payroll taxes were another frequent topic. Much has been made of plans to “double” the tax. What that really meant was an increase from .01 to .02 percent or about a dollar per thousand of income to support mass transit. “I’m retired”, one caller said. “So I don’t want to pay for someone else’s bus ride.” I explained that people not working would not pay a tax on wages. And late agreements only increased the tax for two years.

Finally people asked me about the gas tax increase. An average driver is expected to pay about $2 more per month. One dollar would go to ODOT and one to local government. So your elected city council or county commissioners would be deciding which potholes got filled.

What I found was that, with a bit of thoughtful conversation, an angry no-tax voicemail transitioned into a better understanding of the complexity of road funding in Oregon. People didn’t always agree with the proposal. But they saw both sides and I hope they felt heard.

It’s important that we put the numbers into perspective. Oregonians currently pay the least in vehicle-related taxes and fees among the western states at $293 per year on average. Montana is a close second at $300, and the next closest is Idaho at $515. Oregon doesn’t impose a sales tax on vehicles, which provides a substantial amount of highway money in states that do. Our current State Highway Fund revenues are simply unsustainable relative to inflationary increases in labor, materials, and services needed to maintain our highways.

Cars have become 21% more fuel efficient than they were 15 years ago. Construction costs have increased by around 80% since 2017. If we’re losing revenue because people are driving more fuel-efficient cars, and the costs for labor and materials are increasing, then we have an unsustainable revenue source. It’s really that simple.

The House met on Friday, Sunday, and Monday to consider transportation funding. I presided on two days and joined the debate on the third.

During the debate on Monday, I heard a lot of concerns about accountability. ODOT, some said, is overspending, wasteful, and poorly managed.

I personally led the successful effort to trim the ODOT budget by 100 positions and nearly $50 million in other savings over the next two years.

And as we move forward, the current transportation funding proposal includes increased accountability at ODOT by not only giving the Governor the authority to fire the ODOT Director (an authority that currently lies with the Oregon Transportation Commission), but also regular performance audits by the Secretary of State’s Audits Division, a new highway cost allocation study, and greater oversight of mega-projects and of the Transportation Commission by the legislature. In my floor speech, I said that if members had other ideas for improved accountability, I was “all in!”

I also said on Monday that there was plenty in the bill that I was not happy with. I don’t like payroll taxes. I well understand that rural drivers need to go further to get to work, school, shopping, or health care. So charging by the gallon or mile hurts us disproportionately. And finally, the Highway Trust Fund is shared with counties based on population. This past weekend, there were more cars in Lincoln County from outside the county than drivers who lived here. High tourism counties need some help to cover the cost of visitors.

When Ronald Reagan raised the federal gas tax by 5 cents in 1982, he did so not because it was politically expedient, but because he understood that there is no such thing as a free lunch. People who use the roads need to pay for the roads. We need safe and effective highways, and simply deferring maintenance and leaving this problem for a future legislature to solve is going to make the costs even higher for Oregonians when the bill comes due again.

No one likes higher taxes. I certainly don’t. But we don’t like lousy, unsafe roads either. And I’m deeply troubled by the increase in accidents and the number of fatalities we have seen here. On Highway 20 alone, ODOT has reported more than 20 deaths since 2017.

The proposal voted on in the House today was not perfect, but it was a step in the right direction. It passed by a vote of 36-12, the minimum number of yes votes required to approve tax increases in Oregon. One Democrat voted “no” and one Republican (Tillamook’s representative Cyrus Javadi) voted “yes”. Sadly, a dozen members stayed home and did not engage in the debate or vote.

You can watch my floor speech here.

Meeting with the Lincoln City Chamber early last week with a Special Session preview.

One thing I really enjoy about legislative service is the chance to get up in front of a group, answer questions, and hear what people think. No script. No teleprompter or cue cards. No PowerPoint presentation. Just me and you, a lot of candor, and often a few surprises.

The Lincoln City Chamber turned out this week for a Special Session preview. Last week, I met with folks in Florence, and the week before at a Town Hall in Benton County.

Tuesday I have a full two hours with the Oregon Coast Learning Institute. Wednesday, I have a radio podcast with Kiera Morgan. And Saturday, I’ll drop in on the Alsea Annual Blackberry Blast on my way to Corvallis to watch the Beavers beat Fresno State.

Coming up, September 11 will prove a busy day. I’m planning the Lofts 38 Apartments ribbon cutting at 10, groundbreaking for the Oregon Coast Advanced Technology & Trades (OCATT) Center at the Community College in South Beach at 11, and then I’ll speak at the Hear Here program at the PAC center in Newport at noon. Wish me luck! Later in the day, I’m invited to join the Oregon Tourism Commission in Yachats.

That’s the legislative lifestyle! See you out there somewhere.