County eyes road project panel

Will the Lane County Board of Commissioners reach consensus Wednesday on whether to create a local forum charged with gaining consensus on major area transportation projects?

“That’s an open question,” said traffic consultant Rob Zako, hired last year as the county’s project manager to look at forming an Area Commission on Transportation. “We’ll see what the commissioners do.”

The board is expected to vote Wednesday, following a public hearing on the matter, at its regularly scheduled meeting at Harris Hall on whether to accept proposed bylaws for what would be the Lane Area Commission on Transportation. A panel of about two dozen participants has met several times this year to establish the bylaws, which were finalized at the end of May.

In 1996, the Oregon Transportation Commission, which oversees the state Department of Transportation, authorized the creation of ACTs, regional advisory panels consisting of local government representatives and citizens charged with building consensus on major road, bridge and other projects. Oregon has 10 ACTs and all consist of areas covering at least two counties. The only areas in the state that do not have ACTs are Lane County and the Portland metropolitan area that includes all of Multnomah and Clackamas counties and most of Washington County.

The Lane County Board of Commissioners has always been the local lead on state funding transportation issues for the county, taking comment from communities and making recommendations to the state.

A majority of commissioners in the past has been resistant to establishing an ACT, board Chairman Bill Fleenor said in April. The feeling among some commissioners has been that if the Portland area didn’t have to have one, why should Lane County?

But the state Legislature didn’t agree.

Last year, lawmakers passed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Floyd Prozanski and state Rep. Paul Holvey, both of Eugene, requiring the county, in consultation with local transportation stakeholders and elected local officials, to create a proposal for the formation of an ACT by Sept. 30.

At an April 27 meeting, some commissioners expressed concerns about a county ACT.

“Most have to do with membership,” Zako said. “They’re wondering how the ACT will work and if it will have the same sort of representation (as the Board of Commissioners).

“On some level, I think they feel it’s a good idea, but some of them aren’t liking losing power,” Zako said.

Two of the Oregon Transportation Commission’s five commissioners, chairwoman Gail Achterman and Alan Brown of Newport, will attend Wednesday’s hearing. If the board votes in favor of the proposed bylaws, the OTC is expected to approve the Lane ACT when it meets in Portland on July 21, Zako said.

The state is looking for consensus from Lane County when it comes to funding transportation projects, Commissioner Rob Handy, the board’s representative on the Lane ACT panel, said in April.

The proposed bylaws for the Lane ACT say its “purpose” would be as an advisory body to provide a forum for stakeholders to collaborate on transportation issues, and that its “mission” would include providing a local forum for sharing information, understanding, coordinating and gaining consensus on transportation plans, policies, projects and funding.

It would be comprised of up to 27 voting members consisting of a Lane County representative and representatives from all 12 of the county’s incorporated cities, as well as representatives from the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, the Port of Siuslaw, Lane Transit District, the Central Lane Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Lane County Roads Advisory Committee and a representative of the Highway 126 area east of Springfield, among others.

Up to six citizens would also be appointed to the Lane ACT, and non-voting members would be invited to join, including ODOT area managers, the OTC commissioners, state legislators who represent parts of Lane County, and the county’s representative in Congress.