PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I wrote earlier about one aspect that bugs me about the Oregon Legislature and, in fact, with all governments. It is impossible to cut a deal with government, especially regarding money, and count on that deal to last for any logical period of time.

Legislators almost always renege on the deal in light of an emergency, either real or imagined.

This blog is about another reality that bugs me – and, in fact, has negative implications for companies and other organizations that want to do business with government or want to deal with legislative actions. The reality in the Oregon Legislature is this: One edition of the legislature in Salem cannot commit the next to a specific action.

Makes sense, you might say. And, on the basis of a neutral, factual analysis, I agree. One group of legislators should not be able to bind the next group to any specific action.

But there is a cost to this requirement. What bugs me about it is that companies or organizations take action based on one legislature’s decision, then watch that commitment go down the drain in the next session, even if those companies or organizations have spent huge sums of money to be ready to compete for the state’s business or to react to new state laws.

In this post, I will limit my purview to the category of doing business with the state. Let me give you two examples from my more than 25 years as a private sector lobbyist in Oregon.

UPGRADING EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS TO PREPARE FOR A NATURAL DISASTER

Shortly after the 911 tragedy in New York, the Oregon Legislature took up the cause to make sure emergency communications problems didn’t occur in Oregon. The problem was this: A variety of first responders in New York from different agencies couldn’t communicate with each other as they worked to respond to the incredible damage of the twin towers coming down due to the actions of terrorists. They used different communications devices that were not “interoperable.”

To avoid that problem in Oregon, legislators in the 2005 session passed House Bill 2101 to create a statewide communications system that would tie all first responders together. It came to be called OWIN – the Oregon Wireless Interoperability Network.

Two major private companies – Motorola and my client, Harris Corporation – decided to submit bids to perform the incredibly tough work in Oregon.

Both spent huge sums of money to respond to the Request-for-Proposal that had been issued by state government.

Well, things changed in the next legislative session when lawmakers made a decision not to go forward with the communications project, despite passage of HB 2101. New legislators even failed to recognize that HB 2101 existed.

Private sector work down the drain.

There was no logical, explainable rationale for the decision not to proceed, though perhaps some would contend that the state could not afford OWIN.

Even one of my friends in the legislature, someone I had known before his legislative service, said he just couldn’t see his way clear to proceed, no matter the solid rationale for doing so and no matter the passage of HB 2101. He didn’t care that private companies had worked hard to compete for the state’s important business.

In the end, the legislature decided to go forward with a far smaller project that came to be called the State Radio Project. Essentially, it was a project to tie together communications infrastructure for several state agencies, which means that local first responders were forgotten, even those who often would be first on the scene of a disaster, either manmade or sparked by Mother Nature.

My client, Harris, lost. So did Motorola. So did Oregonians who deserved an improved emergency interoperable communications system.

If that need actually emerges down the road, you can bet that legislators who turned their backs on the plan for Oregon will be nowhere to be found.

PREPARING FOR AN EARTH QUAKE DISASTER IN OREGON

These paragraphs from a recent Oregonian newspaper editorial caught my attention.

“The New Yorker’s Pulitzer prize-winning piece on the massive destruction expected from a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake understandably struck fear in the hearts of many Oregonians who immediately set to work stocking emergency kits…

“Then came the terrifying video from Multnomah County showing how the Burnside Bridge could rumble, torque and collapse after an 8-plus magnitude quake.”

Anxiety-producing news? Yes.

Just as terrifying was the fact that the gold man on the top of the Capitol Building – the “People’s Building” in Salem – almost came tumbling down in a 2008 earthquake. The drop of the weighty statue would have created huge damage, plus possible loss of life.

That reality prompted the Legislature to create a blue-ribbon committee to propose actions to retrofit the Oregon Capitol. That committee produced a recommendation to undertake a major project to stem the potential damage.

Good.

The Legislature then asked construction companies to consider bidding to do the work. At least two major firms did – Hoffman Construction, and JE Dunn, my client, a privately-held firm with offices in Portland and headquarters in Kansas City.

Both firms submitted strong bids and, in the end, the Legislature chose JE Dunn to do the work, a solid win for the firm which had already done capitol retrofits in several other states.

Still good.

Then, it came time for legislature to meet in 2013. What happened? Legislators could not reach agreement to go forward, thus trashing thousands of dollars of work by two companies with solid Oregon connections.

The House Speaker wanted money to retrofit K-12 schools around the state. No problem. The Senate President, the main advocate of the Capitol retrofit, couldn’t find middle ground with the Speaker to fund both school retrofits and the Capitol project.

The result is that the People’s Building is still subject to an earthquake. In a major one for the region, it may be damaged beyond repair.

Now, I know many observers will advocate the current circumstance that one legislature should not be able to commit the next to action. But the two examples cited above deal with problems when policymakers in Oregon act only in regard to a two-year horizon.

Many public policy problems facing the state require a more long-range commitment.

Interoperable emergency communications is one example. Earthquake retrofits for the Capitol is another.