By Pat Farr, Laurie Trieger, Heather Buch,
Joe Berney, Bill Dwyer, Bobby Green,
Pete Sorenson and Faye Stewart
Current and past Lane County commissioners request voters do not sign the recall petitions against the state representative
State Rep. Paul Holvey has been unfairly targeted for a recall election. His detractors want voters within his House District 8 to force a costly special election. As current and former Lane County commissioners, we celebrate his accomplishments and leadership in Salem and the role he’s played in getting many of our region’s priorities passed over the past two decades.
Holvey was appointed to his House seat in 2004 by the Lane County Board of Commissioners. He has consistently had an open door for local community members and has engaged in numerous policy initiatives to benefit our area. As co-chair of the Capital Construction Committee of Joint Ways and Means he holds sway on key investments for our community. Those dollars translate into fixtures on the environment and jobs in our communities.
Lane County has Holvey to thank for the following projects:
• Territorial Highway improvements, including widening along the stretch where Jane Higdon lost her life while bicycling. Holvey’s committee passed the Jobs and Transportation Act, which provided Lane County with both title to Territorial Highway and $35 million to improve it.
• Hwy 126 improvements from Crow Road to Florence. Long a dangerous stretch of highway, Holvey has been a tireless advocate and ensured the Department of Transportation undertake both planning and subsequent construction to implement a host of safety improvements.
• Holvey leveraged his role in Salem to ensure the region impacted by the Holiday Farm Fire has received a fair share of recovery dollars. Between the 2021 and 2022 sessions, his actions ensured some $50 million of state resources made their way upriver.
In keeping with his decades of support for everyday working people in Lane County and across Oregon, Holvey is the chair of the House Business and Labor Committee, and strongly supported advancing a bill to ensure that projects built with public dollars prioritize local employers hiring local employees and providing them with full family health insurance. He recognizes the unique role the timber economy plays in Lane County and has put forth proposals to ensure the industry pays its fair share for wildfire prevention and response, and has a keen interest in ensuring that county revenues are adequate and fair.
Holvey has always been willing to ask the tough questions and stand up for our community. We urge the voters of HD 8 to decline to sign this recall petition. ν
Submitted jointly by the following current and past Lane County commissioners: Pat Farr, District 4 (current board chair),
Laurie Trieger, District 3 (current board vice chair),
Heather Buch, District 5;
Joe Berney, former commissioner for District 2;
Bill Dwyer, former commissioner District 2;
Bobby Green, former commissioner District 4;
Pete Sorenson, former commissioner District 3;
Faye Stewart, former commissioner District 5.
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