From Representative Lew Frederick:

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

June’s Second Saturday Chat is this Saturday. The Session should be over by the time of the July gathering, but as I write this there is much still under way. Hope to see you at Reflections Coffee Shop, 446 NE Killingsworth, on Saturday, June 11 at 9:00 AM. As always, THANKS to Gloria for letting us, and other community groups, use this space. Please show her some love by buying coffee and goodies while you’re there.

As the session winds down…

I am focused on achieving a few more goals, and thinking ahead to the task of telling the story of this session and planning for the next. One of the bills I introduced has passed both houses and awaits the Governor’s signature. That story alone is more convoluted than you’d expect: I started out with two bills to address the issue of brownfields, those relatively small properties that are too polluted by past activities to be available for productive use, such as abandoned gas stations and dry cleaners. In collaboration with the City of Portland, the Port of Portland and the Department of Environmental Quality, we ended up rewriting one of them, and inserting it as an amendment into a bill introduced by Rep. Barker. This law will facilitate “Prospective Purchaser Agreements” between the DEQ and parties willing to purchase polluted properties and take on the task of cleaning them up. These agreements will break down barriers to investment in these properties by providing certainty as to the extent of remediation required. We ended up with a bill that passed unanimously in both houses.

And I believe that story is part of a theme. This session has been difficult. Many, and maybe all, of us will go home disappointed that we couldn’t do more. But we also passed legislation nearly every day that will make the State better off. I look forward to our conversation next Saturday about what we’ve done so far and what we all want to accomplish in the future.

Representative Lew Frederick
House District 43
North and Northeast Portland
rep.lewfrederick@state.or.us