Keep Our Water Safe Committee

Laurel Hines, chairperson • 10371 Lake Drive SE • Salem, Oregon 97306

Phone: (503) 371-8892 • Email:

“No” on SB 833—

Oregon doesn’t need subdivisions sprouting on farmland while a

Measure 37 fix is being found

We represent a group of south Salem neighbors who have spent $18,000 and many hours fighting to protect our groundwater from a proposed 217 acre Measure 37 subdivision.

SB 833 does nothing for us. Nor for the wide margin of Oregonians ((48 percent “no” to only 29 percent “yes”) who would now reject Measure 37, according to a poll.

This bill gives bureaucrats more time to process claims. The Land Use Fairness Committee already has heard plenty of testimony about the negative effects those claims are producing in Oregon.

It doesn’t make any sense to merely briefly delay the onset of additional problems. You should reject this bill and focus on finding a fix for Measure 37.

This might include expediting claims for a single home. But any Measure 37 fix also should put a stop to the large scale subdivisions, commercial, and industrial development that SB 833 would allow to go forward, albeit a bit more slowly.

We endorse SB 505. If this committee needs most of the session to come up with fixes to Measure 37, then all claims other than those for single-family homes should be suspended.

Measure 37 often is spoke of an environmental, economic, and societal “train wreck.” SB 833 would allow the carnage to continue while legislators ponder how to prevent the very problems that are being allowed.

That doesn’t make sense. Extending deadlines for processing claims doesn’t even rise to the level of a band-aid on the wounds that Measure 37 is causing. SB 833 is more like a license to let the ambulance arrive later after 911 has been called.

This bill offers help to Measure 37 claimants who want to build a single-family home. It offers help to county and state employees who are under pressure to process a flood of claims filed late last year.

It offers no help at all to us and our neighbors. We’re on the front line of dealing with the subdivisions that are poised to sprout on irreplaceable Oregon farmland. SB 833 gives us no relief.

Laurel Hines

Brian Hines