Small-town America gets economic boost from data centers

Photo by İsmail Enes Ayhan, Unsplash

Umatilla, Oregon, was once a place “known for a former chemical-weapons depot nearby, a state prison on the city’s outskirts and the strip clubs once dotting its main drag,” David Uberti reported for The Wall Street Journal.

Now its economy is being revived by Amazon, which has poured millions of dollars into the area to build its data centers – and the same thing is happening in various rural counties across the United States.

“The need for technicians, electricians and more has helped mint new members of the middle class in a job market previously geared toward manual labor in fields and warehouses and factory work turning the region’s bountiful potato harvests into french fries,” Uberti wrote.

Thousands of construction workers are populating these towns and boosting revenues through taxes and their expenditures in the community. But this sudden economic boom also raises questions about what will happen to the small-town economies when the data centers are finished.

“Sometimes I do worry: What’s going to happen once they stop building?” Leon-Tejeda, a resident and real estate agent in Umatilla, said in an interview with Uberti. “Not everyone is going to stay here for good.”

Oregon implements different minimum wages for urban, suburban and rural areas

Oregon now has a minimum wage that divides the state into urban, standard, and rural areas, with different minimum wages for each area. The wage increased July 1 for the second year in a row, part of a multi-year plan to gradually bring up the minimum wage to account for cost-of-living increases, Anna Marum reports for Oregon Live.

In the Portland metropolitan area, where living expenses are higher, the wage increased to $11.25. In small city and suburban areas, called "Standard," the wage increased to $10.25. And in rural areas, the wage went up to $10.

Credit: Oregon Live 

Farmers are concerned about the wage increase, saying that they can't raise prices since their crops are part of a slumping global commodities market. Jenny Dresler, director of state public policy for the Oregon Farm Bureau, told Marum in an interview that many farmers have been trying to cut costs since the first minimum wage increase under the tiered system in 2016.

"Some are scaling back employee hours and turning to family to pitch in, or doing more of the work themselves. Others have given up on crops that need to be hand-picked, such as tree fruits and berries, in favor of those that are less labor intensive," Dresler told Marum. "As the cost of production increases and the cost of commodities stays flat, they're going to have to automate more, or they're not going to make it."

Oregon may end ban of self-serve gas in rural areas

Oregon and New Jersey are the only two states in the U.S. that do not allow self-serve gas stations, but Oregon may begin to allow them—but only in rural areas where only a few stations are open late, Sheila V Kumar writes for the Associate Press.

Travelers can get stranded in areas of the state where few gas stations are open late, and those unfamiliar with the area could also get stuck because in some cases, gas stations are hundreds of miles apart, said Rep. Cliff Bentz, "sponsor of a bill that would let gas stations offer self-service fuel when there isn't an owner, operator or employee around," Kumar reports. These rural business owners can't afford to pay someone to watch the pumps 24 hours per day, Bentz said.

The measure would only apply in counties with fewer than 40,000 residents, but that includes half of Oregon's counties. Oregonians have opposed previous attempts to remove the self-serve gas ban so strongly that legislators haven't attempted to overturn it since 2003. Oregon's current law banning self-serve cites 17 reasons for its existence. Among them are concerns about elderly people and those with disabilities being unable to pump gas and potential dangers of unattended children.

"In Oregon, the first reason the law gives to ban self-service gas in effect is, 'You will set yourself on fire,'" said Steve Buckstein, co-founder of the Cascade Policy Institute, a libertarian think tank. Today, the reasons for banning self-service usually relate to job creation and convenience for drivers.

"Numerous times, I've been woken in the middle of the night by the sheriff's dispatch because we have folks who follow their phones and aren't very smart and don't fill up till their gas lights are on," said Tom Downs, who owns a gas station in southeastern Oregon. "Out of the goodness of our hearts we get up in the middle of the night and fuel them so they can get on their way." (Read more)

Oregon county lets 39 jail inmates go free when timber revenue and subsequent subsidies run out

The sheriff's office of Josephine County, Ore., released 39 of its jail inmates this week because the county just couldn't pay for their upkeep anymore. The "funding predicament" reported by Undersheriff  Don Fasching was due to a sharp drop in the county's share of federal timber revenue due to logging cutbacks in national forests to protect northern spotted owl and salmon and because voters turned down a $12 million levy to fill the gap left by the government-provided subsidy's expiration of that revenue which ran out last year.

Undersheriff Fasching said those inmates released were in jail for drug crimes, minor assaults, burglary, identity theft and probation violation. Jail Commander Vicki Smith said, "We did keep the worst of the worst." Fasching added, "We are concerned for public safety." Applications for gun permits have skyrocketed, according to the Associated Press.

The AP also reports sheriff's patrols, the district attorney's office, parole and probation supervision and juvenile justice departments all face similar cuts as budgets need to be balanced countywide. Klamath and Lane counties in Oregon have done likewise.

City folk look for fresh air and cage-free living on rural retirement farms for their backyard chickens

If you own backyard chickens and have ever wondered what to do with them when they stopped producing eggs, other than eating them, Oregon may have an answer. Some Portlanders are sending old chickens to animal sanctuaries in rural areas out of concern the birds need open air and cage-free roaming in their later years. (Photo by Leah Nash, NYT)

The urban chicken retirement movement has led two farm animal sanctuaries and self-described chicken slinger Pete Porath (left) to expand their operations to accommodate the birds. Porath brokers chicks to feed stores and other buyers from his five-acre farm in Estacada. He told New York Times reporter Lee Van Der Voo that he "rehomes" 1,000 to 2,000 birds a year, most from Portland. He said the birds go to farms where they eat pests, turn compost, keep grass down or are used for breeding or as pets.

Wayne Geiger has taken in about 100 city chickens at his Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary in Scio, Ore., but says people have misconceptions about how the birds live when they arrive. "People think they go out to the sanctuary and they go skipping through the meadows and the fields are covered in daisies," he said. In reality, they birds have to be penned to prevent breeding, cockfights and predator attacks. He told Van Der Voo cities should revise chicken-keeping policies to allow backyard flocks grow to include aging birds. (Read more)

Oregon governor champions rural job creation as key to reviving economy

To solve Oregon's economic crisis, the state must help its rural areas as much as it does the Portland metropolitan area, says the state's new governor. Speaking to a summit of business and political leaders in December, Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber, left, "said government officials promoting job creation should remember that 15 new jobs in Coos Bay are similar in their local effect to 500 new positions in the Portland area," Jonathan J. Cooper of The Associated Press reports. (AP photo)

"These goals have got to apply to all Oregonians," Kitzhaber said in a speech to the Oregon Business Council's annual Leadership Summit. In a report released before the summit, the group says "government policy should be focused on job creation because getting Oregonians back to work -- and therefore paying taxes again -- will help the economy while also increasing state government revenue," Cooper writes. (Read more)

Mule deer poaching a problem in Oregon

As the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife surveyed the state's population of mule deer, the researchers discovered a "shocking level of poaching" in Central Oregon. Michelle Dennehy, a Fish and Wildlife spokesperson, told Richard Cockle, of The Oregonian, "If we look at the illegal take, it's basically equal to the legal take -- it's bad." (Photo by Nick Myatt, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Oregon's population of mule deer has fallen to 216,000 from its highest number, 300,000. The survey also revealed that poachers tend to take female deer, which slows building the herd. The mule deer population is not only killed off by poaching, but it is also threatened by black bears, cougars and grey wolves which are predators to the mule deer. Reduced habitat also threatens mule deer in the region.

Poachers are motivated by several factors: eager to get a jump on the season, the cost of licenses, or money made off of the mounted heads of the deer which are sold for thousands of dollars. Poachers are notoriously difficult to catch, said Oregon State Police game officer Chris Hawkins. Poachers often work quickly -- within minutes after killing a deer, they move on, Hawkins said. "They take the backstrap and hindquarters and they're gone," he told Cockle, noting that scavengers strip the rest and scatter the bones within a week or two. As one poacher told Hawkins during a criminal case: "Some people do cocaine. Hunting is my drug." (Read more)

Northwest loggers adadpting to greener economy

Harold Jones, right, has always made his money cutting trees, usually big ones, in the Pacific Northwest. Now, he illustrates changed circumstances, new attitudes and common ground among loggers and environmental interests in the region, reports William Yardley of The New York Times. (Times photo by Leah Nash)

"With the housing market and the economy in crisis, some rural areas have never been more raw. Mills keep closing. People keep leaving. Unemployment in some counties is near 20 percent," Yardley reports from Lowell, Ore. "Yet in parts of the region, the decline is being met by an unlikely optimism. Some people who have long fought to clear-cut the region’s verdant slopes are trying to reposition themselves for a more environmentally friendly economy, motivated by changing political interests, the federal stimulus package and sheer desperation."

Mills are making energy from bark and brush, jobless loggers are looking for stimulus-funded jobs thinning national forests to make them less fire-prone, and small-scale timber owners like Jones are "going green" by getting certification that their tracts are professionally managed. "The certification process, supervised by the American Tree Farm System, requires Mr. Jones to manage and replant his land under the supervision of a professional forester," Yardley explains. "It is intended in part to give small tree farmers some credibility within the sustainable forestry movement." (Read more)

Kentucky special: Memo to journalists on primary

Last night’s results in North Carolina and Indiana leave Kentucky as the largest state yet to vote in the presidential primaries, with the Democratic nomination still undecided. Our state has never played such a role before, but it’s possible that the closest primary on our May 20 ballot will be for U.S. senator, not president.

Kentucky’s presidential primary already has an anticlimactic air about it. Nationally, more superdelegates remain at stake than regular delegates, and the candidates’ focus is shifting to them. Sen. Barack Obama may trot out some to endorse him today; Sen. Hillary Clinton has already started talking more about full seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, which currently have none because they held primaries too early.

Clinton’s end-game strategy has called for her to gain the edge in total popular vote by racking up big margins in Kentucky, West Virginia (which votes next Tuesday) and Puerto Rico (which votes June 1). But Obama’s big margin in North Carolina makes that strategy less likely to succeed, and now Clinton supporters are pointing to the other state that votes May 20: Oregon. “She needs to shake something up. . . . She has to win Oregon,” Clinton supporter James Carville, who has some experience in Kentucky, said on CNN this morning.

For the rest of this memo, click here.

Small-town officials are resigning in Oregon rather than disclose financial info under new ethics rules

In 2007, Oregon passed new ethics rules that required all public officials — from local to the state level — to disclose financial and other information. The new forms, called statements of economic interest, have some small-town officials asking whether their positions are worth the hassle, reports Karen Hutchinson-Talaski of The Hermiston Herald. As a result, officials have resigned in towns such as in Irrigon (pop. 1,800), which lost two planning commissioners and a city councilor because of the new rules. Since the planning commission had already been short two commissioners, the additional resignations mean there is no quorum and thus no business being done.

Officials have resigned because they say the rules are "an unwarranted invasion of privacy," Hutchinson-Talaski writes. "The rules require information on such things as sources of income, directorships or business offices a person might hold, real property (other than a primary residence), names of any relative over the age of 18, office-related expenses not reimbursed by the public entity, any business conducted with a lobbyist, debts, and business investments, or service fees over $1,000 not related to a financial institution."

In nearby Umatilla (pop. 5,000), Ramona Anderson resigned from the Umatilla City Planning Commission after the new rules went into effect and said she did not like that the information would be available online in 2010. "Big Brother has taken over the farm," she told Hutchinson-Talaski. (Read more) (Hat tip to Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute.)

Indiana looking more pivotal in primaries, perhaps latest signal of increasing rural influence

We reported last week that Hillary and Bill Clinton were turning Indiana into a presidential battleground with Barack Obama, and today Anne Kornblut of The Washington Post takes note. We think that is the latest signal that the role of rural voters in deciding the Democratic nominee will increase. But one major commentator thinks it's all but over.

"Wedged between Illinois, which is Sen. Barack Obama's home state, and Ohio, which Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton dominated on March 4, Indiana may be the one state remaining on the primary calendar where both candidates begin with a roughly equal chance of coming out ahead," Kornblut writes. "Obama has a home-field advantage, while Clinton has the backing of the popular Sen. Evan Bayh and may have an edge on the kind of economic issues that are likely to dominate the discussion before the state's Democrats vote on May 6."

Here's evidence that Indiana may be a pivotal state: "While both campaigns grudgingly admit that the race here is competitive, each is seeking to portray the other as starting with a lead in pursuit of Indiana's 72 pledged delegates," Kornblut writes. Then she make a tentative call: "But demographics and some of the state's similarities to Ohio, where Clinton won big on March 4, suggest that the senator from New York has a leg up. ... Clinton's alliance with Bayh, son of Indiana legend Birch Bayh, is already paying off." See our item from last week.

Indiana is "uniquely important," Kornblut writes, because it votes the same day as North Carolina, "where Obama is widely considered to have the advantage. If Clinton wins Pennsylvania, as expected, she hopes to ride that momentum into the remaining contests, including those in Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Losses in Indiana and North Carolina would quickly blunt any claim to momentum for her." Kornblut quotes chief Obama strategist David Axelrod, speaking Friday: "Pennsylvania is an uphill battle for us. West Virginia is an uphill battle for us. Kentucky is an uphill battle for us." But he added: "Indiana is going to be a real fight." (Read more) West Virginia votes May 13, Kentucky May 20.

Rural voters are becoming more important. Pennsylvania, which votes April 22, is about as rural as the nation -- 21 percent in the 2000 census. The states that follow are more rural: North Carolina, 40 percent (and the most rural residents of any state, 3.2 million); Indana, 29 percent (1.78 million); West Virginia, 54 percent (975,000); and Kentucky, 44 percent (1.79 million). Oregon, which also votes May 20, had 727,000 ruralites, 21 percent of its total.

It's logical to think the controversy over Obama's former pastor will make it harder for him to connect with rural voters (though we've seen no polling to show that), but David Books notes in The New York Times today that Obama has rebounded to the same slim lead he had over Clinton in national polls before the controversy exploded 10 days ago. Playing on the title of Obama's book, he says Clinton "possesses the audacity of hopelessness," has only a 5 percent chance of winning and should "cruise along at a lower register until North Carolina, then use that as an occasion to withdraw." (Read more) Brooks presumes Obama will maintain his lead in North Carolina; there have been no public polls in that state since his March 18 speech on race; one taken March 17 showed his lead down to 1 percentage point, statistically insignificant.

UPDATE, March 26: Conservative columnist Robert Novak sees hope for Clinton in the remaining schedule. He says Indiana is "leaning Clinton," and "The media presentation of this as a fair-fight, 50-50 state helps Clinton spin this." (Read more)

Cockfighting probe accuses 63 people of taking part in contests in rural Oregon and Washington

A sting operation that involved 500 law enforcement officers has led to 63 people being accused of taking part in a dozen cockfight derbies in rural parts of Oregon and Washington over the past two years, reports Bryan Denson of The Oregonian.

"A mammoth task force of federal, state, county and city police agencies -- more than 500 law enforcement officers and support staffs -- took part in some aspect of the two-year investigation and weekend raids in both states," Denson writes. "The investigation was dubbed 'Operation Red Rooster' in Oregon and 'Operation Tattered Wing' in Washington."

Five of the mean accused of being part of the cockfighting contests also are accused of being involved in drug trafficking. During a raid last weekend in southern Oregon, police "seized more than 700 roosters in Klamath County, at least $100,000 in cash, 50 guns, 2.5 pounds of meth, 1.5 pounds of cocaine, 6 pounds of marijuana and 48 marijuana plants, authorities said," Denson writes. (Read more)

Oregon town gradually accepts immigrant influx

Immigration, legal and otherwise, is transforming the look of America's small- and medium-sized communities. Lise Nelson, a University of Oregon geography professor, found a case study of those changes in Woodburn, Ore., which in the 2000 census had 20,000 people and was the largest city in the state with a majority of Latinos. (Encarta map)

Drawing from archived newspaper articles, public records and personal interviews conducted in English and Spanish, Nelson described a somewhat grudging acceptance of the new neighbors in journal articles for Geographical Review and Cultural Geographies. "Woodburn is a place that represents a microcosm of the broader-scale migration and settlement dynamics that are changing small- and medium-sized towns throughout the United States," Nelson said in a university news release.

"Woodburn's farmworker housing struggle in the 1990s offers a window into the shifting dynamics of belonging and identity," Nelson writes. "The housing struggle reflected a deep resistance on the part of some white residents to the presence of Mexican immigrants, yet today we see, at least on an official level, a more active embracing of Woodburn's multicultural identity. A few years ago Woodburn inaugurated, as its first urban renewal project, a downtown plaza, designed in a Latin American style. For several years now the city has helped organize a community celebration of Mexican Independence Day. This is not to say the picture is all rosy, as racism and discrimination against immigrant residents have not disappeared, but there have been public and visible changes."

Woodburn is not truly rural, but Nelson's work looks at the population changes occurring throughout the adjoining farming areas of the Willamette Valley, including the small towns of Gervais and Canby, thanks to expansion in the nursery industry and increase in agricultural processing plants. (Read more) To read Nelson's Geographical Review article, go here. To read her article from Cultural Geographies, go here. To view a slide show on the subject, narrated by Nelson, go here.

Rural homeless people face unique challenges

While homelessness is considered an urban concern, it also occurs in rural areas. The story of Barbara Trivitt and her children Eric, 13, and Jennifer, 15, (at left) highlights the issue of rural homeless, writes Emma Brown (who also took the photo) of High Country News, a magazine focusing on the American West.

"Federal homeless aid is hard to come by all over the rural West; needy people are dispersed, and it’s impractical to provide a full range of services in every tiny town," Brown writes. "Meanwhile, federal funding structures favor cities and leave rural organizations wanting."

Philip Mangano, head of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, coordinates the federal response to homelessness. He told Brown: “Rural folks need to get beyond the idea that someone’s going to come from Washington to solve their problem. They have to be strategic and creative in fashioning a solution.”

Brown follows Trivitt over the course of Thanksgiving week, as she and her kids live out of her Jeep Grand Cherokee at an RV park in Coos Bay, Ore. By week's end, Trivitt has lost her Jeep to repossession despite saving up $200 from her minimum-wage job. A local politician puts them up in a local motel for a week, but after that, their prospects are slim. In the West, rising housing costs and dwindling federal housing programs make finding an affordable home difficult — especially on minimum wage, Brown explains. (Read more)

To get this story, Brown obviously had to find to Trivitt and gain her trust, but there was more to the reporting than that. Here are some helpful links for researching the issue:

• The Department of Agriculture Rural Development Web site has information on lending and other financing related to rural housing.
  
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development has a Web site devoted to homelessness that includes information for those who are homeless plus national facts and figures. It includes plenty of links to other great sites, too.
  

Community newspapers still strong, especially if they have interactive Web sites, Calif. editor says

"The death of newspapers has been greatly exaggerated," and that's especially true when it comes to community papers, writes Jeff Pelline, right, editor of The Union in Grass Valley, Calif., population 11,000. That's in Nevada County, pop. 92,000, where Interstate 80 enters the state and cuts through the Sierra Nevada.

"At profitable community papers such as The Union, circulation is strong and Web traffic is growing sharply, because we provide unique local information that is now the "sweet spot" of journalism. Bigger papers are following suit in some cases, focusing on so-called hyperlocal journalism," writes Pelline, a former editor at CNET, a technology news outlet. "Though paid print circulation has been sliding (for decades, in fact), readership -- as measured by combined print and online audiences - in most cases is growing. In this sense, the Web has been a boon for newspapers (at least ones with interactive Web sites). . . . Newspapers have to work harder to make their Web sites more profitable. But a growing, interactive readership is a big plus, compared with most radio and TV stations. "

The Union is owned by Reno-based Swift Communications, which publishes newspapers in California, Oregon, Nevada and Colorado, and farmer-rancher publications in Nebraska and South Dakota. Pelline is among a group of California editors and journalism professors who recently made recommendations for changes in journalism education to match "the changing media landscape," as he put it. "As a group, we conceded that too many journalists and journalism professors resist change, even though they teach and write about change almost daily." To read the recommendations and the rest of his column, click here.

Oregon paper doing big series on invasive species

For an excellent example of environmental reporting, check out the work being done by The Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore. In September, the state-capital newspaper began a 10-month series investigating the impact of invasive species on the state.

This month's focus is on aquatic plants (at left in Statesman Journal photo by Diane Stevenson) that take over lakes and streams after being discarded from aquariums. Henry Miller reports on the spread of the plants and the state's fight against them.

In the first two installments of the series, the 50,000-circulation newspaper offered an overview of this "biological pollution" and then coverage of invasive mammals. The series has a great presence online, and its site includes searchable databases, photo and video galleries, as well as educational materials.