Wilsonville, OR – Today, Republican nominee for Oregon Governor Christine Drazan unveiled her “Roadmap for Oregon’s Future,” a comprehensive agenda to tackle the issues facing our state.
Drazan was joined by business and community leaders from around the region to discuss the Roadmap and her plans for leading Oregon in a new direction.
“This roadmap is the product of countless conversations we’ve had with Oregonians from all walks of life,” said Drazan.“For years under one-party rule, they’ve faced rising crime, failing schools, skyrocketing homelessness, and a growing affordability crisis. They know that we need a new direction and that’s what we are ready to provide on day one of my administration.”
Roadmap For Oregon’s Future
ADDRESS THE CRISIS IN OUR STREETS
There are more people living on the street today in Oregon than at any point in our state’s history. Even worse, Oregon ranks dead last in the U.S. with the highest number of homeless children. This is a crisis worsened every day by addiction, with our state recording the second highest addiction rates in the nation, without access to adequate mental and behavioral health supports. We can and must respond to this crisis comprehensively with all federal, state, local, nonprofit and community partners coordinating and communicating to offer both accountability and compassionate support.
The Drazan Plan:
●Address the humanitarian crisis on our streets with all tools available to ensure homelessness is rare and temporary.
●Declare a homelessness state of emergency to prioritize public health and ensure community safety, by coordinating services, enforcing local ordinances and marshaling resources to respond to needs on the ground.
●Work to repeal Measure 110, which decriminalized hard drugs like methamphetamine and heroin.
●Maintain and expand investments in addiction and mental health supports and services, including providing reimbursement rates that protect and expand access.
●Expand housing provider incentives and pause regulations that drive costs, to ensure additional housing developments are built in Oregon, rather than being lost to more affordable, less restrictive, neighboring jurisdictions.
RESTORE COMMUNITY SAFETY & THE RULE OF LAW
Homicides in the City of Portland are up 207%. Meanwhile, local leaders have undermined law enforcement at every turn by defunding the police and allowing political agendas to weaken community safety. At the state level, there are just eight state troopers per 100,000 residents. In the 1970’s, the number was 30 per 100,000. To make matters worse, Governor Brown’s administration has released nearly 1,000 convicted criminals from prison early, while failing to prevent drug cartels from taking root in Southern Oregon.
The Drazan Plan:
●Restore safe communities.
●Regain the trust and confidence of law enforcement, fully fund state police and increase the number of law enforcement officers with competitive salaries and hiring bonuses.
●End Governor Kate Brown’s mass prisoner release program, which has led to the early release of convicted cold-blooded killers.
●Work with local, state, and federal authorities to crack down on cartel activity in Southern Oregon and reduce the supply of deadly drugs, like fentanyl, on our streets.
FIGHT FOR WORKING FAMILIES & SUPPORT ECONOMIC GROWTH
Our state has some of the highest personal income taxes in the country, leaving Oregonians with less money in their wallets. At the same time, the cost of living in Oregon has skyrocketed in recent years. Our state now ranks as the 5th most expensive state in the nation, with Oregonians regularly paying among the highest gas prices in the country. Under the leadership of Governor Kate Brown, Oregon has earned a reputation as one of the most anti-business states in the U.S., with companies like Intel choosing to take billions of dollars’ worth of investments and good-paying jobs to states who have fought for job growth.
The Drazan Plan:
●Fight for job growth in Oregon.
●Protect family budgets.
●Work to cut taxes on families and small businesses to help Oregonians keep more of what they earn, and encourage businesses to grow and thrive as they create more jobs.
●Tear up Governor Kate Brown’s cap-and-trade executive order that would drive up already record high gas prices.
●Put a moratorium on unnecessary new regulations and repeal or roll back unnecessary existing regulations.
●Support more lanes to ease congestion and oppose highway taxes that pick winners and losers.
IMPROVE OUR SCHOOLS
Even with record funding for our public education system, Oregon’s high school graduation rate remains one of the worst in the nation. Student achievement rates, too, continually lag behind the national average. Our kids deserve so much better, but the current system puts the interests of bureaucrats and their misguided priorities ahead of student learning. They’re too focused on teaching kindergartners progressive political agendas rather than how to read, write, and do math. It has to end.
The Drazan Plan:
●Focus on academic accountability and individual student success.
●Keep politics out of the classroom and teach our students how to think, not what to think.
●Expand access to school choice, including restoring open enrollment and supporting charter schools and magnet schools.
●Restore basic graduation requirements that Governor Brown and the legislature eliminated.
●Increase classroom time and enrichment opportunities to strengthen learning and improve graduation rates.
●Require curriculum transparency so that anyone who wants access to this information can easily review it.
RESTORE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY
A decade of one-party rule has destroyed public trust in state government. Just 18% of Oregonians today think our state is headed in the ‘right direction,’ a historic low. It’s no secret why. Governor Kate Brown’s decision to lead Oregon with top-down-mandates and a one-size-fits-all approach has left our state more divided than ever. When renters were promised relief, the state wrote bad checks. When Governor Kate Brown shut down our state’s economy and sent thousands to the unemployment line overnight, some Oregonians waited nearly a year to receive benefits they had rightfully earned and desperately needed. Our state continues to earn national headlines for bureaucratic incompetence and a lack of government accountability.
The Drazan Plan:
●Commit to serve Oregonians through government agencies that are effective, streamlined, accountable and efficient.
●Fire Governor Kate Brown’s agency heads and appoint leadership that will be competent, transparent and responsive to the needs of the people of Oregon.
●Appoint judges based on merit, who will follow the Constitution and uphold the rule of law.
●Fix longstanding government mismanagement of projects, focus on improving agency performance, customer service and core mission.
SUSTAINABLY MANAGE OUR NATURAL RESOURCES
Oregon is blessed with conservation that has preserved our quality of life, a traditional strong, growing natural resource-based economy. From our forests to our fields, and our cattle to our fish, we manufacture, harvest, raise and ship high quality, sustainable products worldwide. But too often, political agendas and bureaucratic hurdles get in the way of what is best for Oregon families in these communities.
The Drazan Plan:
●Manage our working lands effectively while preserving our commitment to our environment.
●Actively manage forests to mitigate the likelihood of megafires, which reduces carbon emissions, protects water quality and strengthens the economy.
●Support local communities’ water needs and advance efforts to manage water, including investing in storage and conservation.
●Veto attacks on the agricultural community to protect responsible farming and ranching practices and preserve family-owned farms, nurseries and ranches.
●Support thriving fisheries and resource stewardship, including the modernization of hatcheries, to the benefit of all stakeholders.
Original source can be found here.
