By Eric Fruits, Ph.D.
It’s the day after Election Day and the votes are still being tallied. One thing we know for sure: Oregon will have a new governor. Our new governor can make substantial changes on Day One by shaking up the agencies that have overseen our state’s decades-long decline.
We need a new PERS board who understands Oregon’s public employee retirement system is an anchor that is dragging down both the state and local governments. We can’t afford a business-as-usual PERS Board. We need a board that is willing to overhaul the system from within.
Believe it or not, the governor appoints the TriMet board. Public transit ridership is plummeting, and costs are skyrocketing. Nevertheless, the current board continues a light-rail-at-any-cost agenda. We need a new board to face the new reality that public transit is never coming back to where it was pre-pandemic.
We need a new director of the Oregon Health Authority. We need a director who will quickly approve new health care facilities—especially those for mental health, substance abuse, and skilled nursing. We need a new director who will replace the Measure 110 committee with new members who will focus on drug treatment, rather than so-called harm reduction.
We also need a new Superintendent of Public Instruction who will abandon identity politics and focus on improving academic achievement and graduation rates for all students.
Oregon’s governor has enormous power and—as the saying goes—with great power comes great responsibility.
Eric Fruits, Ph.D. is Vice President of Research at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.
Ben Klevit
The article states “We need a new director who will replace the Measure 110 committee with new members who will focus on drug treatment, rather than so-called harm reduction.” That’s all well and good, but how about the state actually starts providing actual and mandatory DRUG PREVENTION EDUCATION for our youth to help them stay away from drugs in the first place?
http://www.drugfreeworld.org already created the curriculum for teachers and it just needs to be USED.
Andy B
Yes, we need a Governor who will make changes, ones that meets the real needs and not just idelogy wants of the Left; I doubt that your last stated need, a new Superintendent of Public Instruction will be meet, but only kept and intensified.
Bill MacKenzie
Eric,
I am 100% with you on this:
“We also need a new Superintendent of Public Instruction who will abandon identity politics and focus on improving academic achievement and graduation rates for all students.”
BUT, don’t count on it happening. Tina is part of the identitarian/pronoun crowd.
Donna Bleiler
Not likely, but you should keep a score card on all she said she opposed Kate on and call her to task when she follows down the same path, and we all know she will.